The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (72 page)

“Marc’s told me so much about you,” Alicia lied. Marc’s
small smile became a bit fixed at the look Alicia gave him as soon as Janice
looked away.

“Janice,” Marc said, turning her to look at him, “we have to
go out into the city. We’re going to my company where we should be safe.”

Janice’s trembling turned into a full-body shudder, and her
eyes widened in terror.

“Marc,” Alicia said thoughtfully, gauging the other woman’s
reaction, “you’re not thinking this through.”

He turned to look at her.

Alicia looked pointedly at Janice, then back at her brother.
“If we go to the Barrier, we’ll be in the heat of the fight, and Shadow Company
will undoubtedly be fighting, probably where the battle is at its worst. We
won’t be any safer there than anywhere else, and probably less so. Let me take
Janice back to
Faldergash’s
place. The gnome can look
after us with more surety than you could, given the circumstances. That’s
probably the safest place in the city right now.”

Marc considered for only a moment before realizing she was
right. Privately, he was also thinking that the presence of women on the
battlefield would only distract his men, who would fight to protect them
instead of holding to their duties. Marc certainly knew
he
would be
distracted.

Wrapped in his arms, Janice calmed down and nodded
enthusiastically at Alicia’s suggestion. Clearly she had no desire to be
anywhere near the Barrier.

“Can the two of you make it safely on your own?” he asked.

“I’ll go with them to see she’s safe,” Maki offered.

“No,” Marc said flatly, intending to head off
that
particular problem as quickly as possible. “If anyone, I want one of the
veterans to accompany them.” He turned to Alicia. “Danner’s father and Moreen
were planning on going to
Faldergash’s
place and
should already be there by now, so you should be well-protected in case of
emergency.”

One of the paladins rescued by the Prismatic Council, a Blue
paladin, volunteered to escort them, which Alicia and Janice willingly
accepted. Hoil and Moreen had been staying there when not busy helping near the
Barrier, so Marc wasn’t worried too much about their safety, once they made it
there. He knew Hoil was a competent swordsman, and Faldergash had a number of
tricks up his sleeve, should the need arise. He would much rather surround the
gnome’s house with a platoon of paladins, but given the need for holy warriors
on the Barrier, sparing one to protect them would have to suffice.

Marc stopped long enough to kiss Janice gently, something
he’d done all too rarely, and never outside Aunt Delia’s. He’d never felt
comfortable enough to do so, but he cast all doubts aside now.

“I’ll find you when this is all over,” Marc promised.

Janice nodded, and then she was gone. The three of them left
with all the stealth and speed they could manage.

“Let’s go,” Marc said.

- 2 -

Danner woke again to the din of battle. The clash of steel
against flesh and stone reached him even in the dark confines of the store
room, and he knew he could no longer afford to lie in convalescence while the
war went on around him. He fought a wave of dizziness and sat up.

“Danner?” Jon said worriedly.

“I’m fine,” Danner lied, holding up a hand to keep the Green
paladin away. “I’ve got to get out of here. Something big is happening, I can
sense it.”

“I don’t think you’re recovered yet,” Jon began.

“I’m recovered enough,” Danner replied grimly.

Danner stood and leaned heavily against a nearby stack of
boxes. Once more, Jon started toward him, but Danner kept him at bay. Danner
closed his eyes as the room shifted and his legs threatened to betray him. In a
moment, Danner had allowed his wings to sprout into being, and they filled the
dark room with a blue luminescence that soothed Danner’s spinning mind. Or
maybe it was just having the wings asolved that acted like a balm. With the
azure light came a renewed vitality and strength that flooded Danner’s being
with a surging power. His body pulsed in time with his beating heart.

“Are you planning on going out there dressed like that?”

Danner glanced at his attire and saw he was still wearing
his leather armor. He looked up in confusion, then realized Jon was referring
to his wings. Until then, he hadn’t considered it, but Danner shrugged. His
eyes danced with blue flames.

“Why not?” he said. “Enough people must have witnessed my
little fiasco and my fall, so it’s not like it’s a huge secret anymore. I might
need it.”

“And it might kill you,” Jon said in warning. “If you hadn’t
had your immortal heritage in dominance, the crossbow bolt wouldn’t have had
such a severe effect on you. Yes, it will protect you from mundane blows, but
if anyone takes a bead on you or attacks you with a cursed weapon, your asset
suddenly becomes a liability to your survival. You’re a target like that.”

Danner paused in thought, letting the Green paladin’s
warning sift through his mind. Finally he decided he would take his chances.

“It’s a risk I’ll have to take,” Danner said. “So far that’s
the only cursed weapon we’ve seen, and the damned souls are all using claws,
not swords. If I see anything that looks more dangerous, I’ll change back. But
until then, maybe I can make a difference as I am.”

Jon nodded in understanding and walked to open the door for
Danner. He didn’t say anything, but he was also worried about the toll being
taken upon Danner by his immortal heritage. Jon had heard from Danner’s friends
about the euphoric sense of power Danner experienced whenever he was
transformed, and the recent change to Danner’s eyes when his wings were in
evidence hinted at a disturbing evolution going on within the young paladin.
Almost, Jon spoke his thoughts aloud, but he decided to trust in the fate and
will of God that had first empowered Danner with his heritage. Surely there was
some design in his presence, and God would not allow that design to be thwarted
by an addiction such as this. Jon prayed this was so and told himself he had
faith.

- 3 -

Danner walked past Jon, his incandescent blue wings wafting
behind him as his eyes shone on the path before. His wings brushed against the
stone around the doorway and set a tingling sensation dancing between his
shoulder blades as Danner looked into the courtyard. Night cloaked the Barrier
in a suffocating blackness held at bay only by a profusion of torches and Sin’s
light overhead, which illuminated a scene of chaos. Dawn was not long off, but
the sky had yet to see the first hues of rosy morning light that would precede
the sun.

A monstrous creature was flailing about the walls and
knocking men to their deaths. One massive fist crashed down through the stone
of the Barrier and destroyed the gate. Men were thrown in all directions to
land in bloody heaps on the stone ground. Danner was an instant away from
leaping into the air to assault the demon when he saw two dakkans, an orange
and a yellow, sweep down from the sky. The yellow swept past the enormous
demon, and Danner saw it barrel-roll upside-down just before it disappeared on
the far side of the Barrier. The orange dakkan circled the demon as a swarm of
other dakkans arrived to guard him, then a Blue paladin jumped onto the demon’s
head and almost immediately jumped back onto his dakkan.

A moment later, the demon started to fall apart, shedding
what looked to be human bodies like a
parsher
[30]
shed skin.
Soon nothing could be seen of the demon over the Barrier, and Danner assumed
the monster was dead.

But the damage had already been done, and now a wave of
demons and damned souls poured through the breach the larger demon had created
in the wall of the Barrier. Danner rushed forward with his sword raised and
threw himself into the wave of Hellish bodies with a terrible frenzy. The
damned souls drew back from him in fear, but were forced to attack by the press
of their fellows surging forward from behind them. Their claws tore into his
armor but where they found flesh they were as effective as a kitten attacking
stone. His flesh was like steel for all the damage their tormented claws could
do.

Impervious to their blows, Danner abandoned style and
finesse and settled for sweeping his sword in broad strokes that hewed through
the army of the damned with little to no resistance. Five creatures were cut
down in one sweep of his sword, and four more died on the return stroke. He was
invincible, and as power rushed through him, Danner roared a challenge that
shook the stone walls around him.

Formidable as he was, however, even Danner could not hold
back the implacable tide of creatures that was attacking the Barrier. All too
soon they had swarmed over the battlements and overwhelmed the few men who had
survived the earlier onslaught, and Danner was quickly surrounded by demons and
damned souls. The demons fought him with a noticeable mixture of fear and
hatred as they saw evidence of their eternal foe suddenly present in the battle
before them. Danner was more careful in his attacks when the demons were
involved, lest they succeed in doing him harm, but their fear added to his
supreme sense of confidence and power.

When more than a dozen demons had fallen to Danner’s sword,
they held back and ordered the damned souls to attack him all the more
fervently. Danner’s sword was ripped from his grasp, and he resorted to
swinging his fists and lashing out with his feet. Gerard had made sure Danner
and the other trainees had a significant knowledge of unarmed combat for just
such an occasion. Even now, he was unstoppable.

Danner’s immortal strength put him in good stead as he
lifted damned souls with one hand and hurled them twenty yards or more away. On
several of them, he inflicted deep wounds by tearing into them with his fingers
even as he clutched their flesh. At one point, Danner felt something hard
against his back and he looked up to see the red
Ash’Ailant
. Only then
did he realize that he couldn’t just flee the battle, something he’d been
considering more and more often with the press of demons and damned souls all
around him. If Danner left, there would be no one to defend the Stone, and one
more of the precious keys to the Barrier would be destroyed.

The decision was soon taken out of his hands, however, when
a group of a dozen drolkuls forced their way through the fray and assaulted
Danner and the Stone. While six of them faced Danner to hold his attention, the
other six moved around and approached from behind. By the time Danner had slain
three of the drolkuls before him with his bare hands, the other six had begun
pounding on the red
angelstone
with their four
massive fists. Danner spun and punched one in the side of the head, and one of
the drolkuls behind him grabbed Danner’s shoulder.

Danner grabbed two of the four wrists holding him and bent
at the waist. With the drolkul hunched over and holding fast to him, Danner’s
feet swept up over his shoulders, and he locked his ankles around the demon’s
head and twisted. The demon’s neck snapped, which was not enough to kill it,
but it bellowed in pain and let go of Danner. He dropped to the ground and saw
a sword laying discarded nearby. Danner picked up the weapon and said a hurried
prayer, hoping it would be enough to bless the weapon.

The sword bit into demonic flesh easily as Danner renewed
his attack from the ground, and he cut down two of the demons nearest him so he
could see what was going on with the Stone. What he saw made his heart sink.

The red
Ash’Ailant
was broken in half and lay tumbled
to the ground. Two drolkuls stood over the ruby-colored shards, howling at the
sky in triumph. Danner’s face twisted in hatred and he cut the feet off the
nearest drolkul with one swipe, then severed its head as the demon crashed to the
ground.

With nothing left to defend, Danner cut a clearing around
himself and then leapt into the sky, feeling empty and suddenly worthless in
the wake of his failure to defend the
Ash’Ailant
. His earlier sense of
intoxicating power was replaced by a smoldering hatred for those who had proven
him impotent.

A dakkan swooped by from overhead, and Danner recognized
Garet
jo’Meerkit
and Michael sitting on the yellow
beast’s back.

“To the orange Stone, Danner!” Garet called. “We may be too
late already!”

And then it was a race between them as Danner pumped his
wings to keep up with the larger dakkan. The two winged shapes sped across the
length of the Barrier, crossing three of the courtyards before they reached the
space where the orange
Ash’Ailant
was housed. A mob of demons was being
pushed back by human and demi-human defenders, the foremost of which was
comprised of the elven warriors under Siran. The remaining elves fought with
the fury of three times their number, and it was largely due their efforts that
the courtyard was not teeming with demons. A force of paladins was mixed in
with them to deal with any actual demons that appeared, so the elves were free
to concentrate on the damned souls that pressed against them.

But their efforts were already in vain. The orange Stone lay
shattered and strewn about the small garden that surrounded the rock pillar.
Siran and his elves had arrived too late to prevent its destruction, and had
only been able to drive back the damned souls after the fact.

“We’re too late!” Michael cried in dismay as he, too, saw
the broken pillar of
angelstone
. Garet’s dakkan was
holding a steady hover over the courtyard as they surveyed the damage.

“There’s only three left,” Danner replied as he flew over to
hover right next to the two mounted paladins. “If those fall, we’re finished.”