Chapter 1: Chapter 1A: The Mission

Author's Note: Chapter 1 was originally kind of long so I've broken it in half. Future chapters tend to be 8-16 pages. Currently I plan to release this story at a chapter a week for the next three months or so, but if people like it, I might keep going - that's just the first of many places I could end the story at. Please let me know how you like Angel Fall and thank you so much for reading!

 

Falling from heaven was always a terrible loss, Laurus thought, as he stood at the pinnacle of creation. The great celestial city was built so that its every detail - from the largest spires to the most delicate filigree captured the reflected light of the glory most high in a display of impossible splendor. Then stepped off the edge of the marble walkway, and dove through the sea of clouds beneath those golden towers. He fell on wings of feather and fire, and moment by moment that perfect light faded behind him until that light was gone, and he was alone in the misty void. 

Experience did nothing to lessen the pain, but if a cherub came to you with a mission for the divine plan, it would be blasphemy to refuse. When the messenger of light came to him and told him the Abbey was under assault by dark forces and that he must intercede at once, he stopped only to don his breastplate and buckle on his silvered greatsword before diving into those dark skies that separated Heaven from the fallen world below. 

He was an angel of the second choir, and had risen high in the angelic host. It had been centuries since he was a wispy messenger of light like the one that had visited him today, and the role of a throne or principate remained far in his future. Today he was a warrior, falling to earth to smote the wicked. Even in free fall though, the first hints of light beneath him were only just starting to glow dully beneath him. Falling was the easy part. Only an angel could fly high enough to reach heaven, but anyone could fall from it. The flight home was exhausting, but it was worth it to feel the creator’s light once more.

Laurus fell through the gloom guided only by gravity’s unyielding grip and the dim light of his halo. Slowly the light bloomed beneath him like his own personal sunrise until rays of sunlight penetrated the layers. When he finally broke though those final clouds and spread his wings for the first time, he took in the lay of the land from the world beneath him that lay unfurled like a map. Then he oriented himself along the familiar Carpangian range, and adjusted both sets of his wings and aimed for Mount Theodosius. The sun would set in several hours, but he should get to the Abbey of Saint Erianne before dark. His main wings each stretched almost nine feet as he set them against the wind. This allowed him to soar even in this thin air while his much smaller secondary wings beat hard to speed him up. 

If not for his urgent mission, Laurus would have happily spent the day soaring along the range’s updrafts. Though not as glorious as God's light, the cool winds of her creation were a close second. Angels couldn’t enjoy most earthly delights that mortals enjoyed. Food and wine were forbidden, but flying through icy winds while appreciating the timeless march of glaciers was definitely allowed. He reveled in the sensation of that arctic breeze playing through his long golden hair and raking across his pinions without letting it slow him down. The soothing sensations passed the time while his wings brought him ever closer to the Abbey. Though they looked small from this height, the Carpangian’s were the backbone of the continent. Except for a few passes,like the one next to the Abbey of Saint Erianne, they were an impassable wall of rock and ice, save for a few passes. The prayers had mentioned a growing darkness and the stink of corruption, but they weren’t specific and they were almost two days old. There was no telling how they had metastasized and corrupted the flock. 

Did that mean there was a plot by the forces of darkness to seize the pass and make further inroads into the soft underbelly of the faith, Laurus wondered as he gazed dispassionately at the hills beneath him. It could be something that sinister and planned, or it could be something as simple as a sister that had been seduced one market day by a merchant or miscreant. The former meant that the dark cults across the border in Litheron were regaining their strength, but the later indicated something much less menacing. Trying to guess with so little information was a fool's errand though. Instead he cleared his head and sought solace and guidance in the tapestry of the world that unrolled for mile after beautiful mile beneath him. From this height tilled farmsteads were only spots of brown along the river that were almost lost in the green yellows of the plains and the dark greens of the forest. The angel took comfort in that man was only a small part of a much larger design until the leagues that passed finally revealed the Abbey and the town it overlooked.

A century ago, Laurus first visited Treadebren as a new angel of the first choir when he had been part of a host of three score angels. They had come to the defense of the faithful when the armies of Litheron had sought to conquer their neighbor. Things had certainly changed. The old city had been little more than an armed camp. Now it was a hive of urban life that stretched along both banks of the river at five times its former size. The people were faithful, and so they doubled and then doubled again with the bounty of their god’s blessings. From this height he could see the lower walls and buttresses of the great cathedral they were raising in her name. It was still decades from completion, but one day it would be a striking monument of their faith. 

That was why he was here - to see that faith was rewarded. 

As the town got closer, he glided lower, until he could smell it as much as see it.  From on high humanity was a marvel, but seeing them was always better than smelling them. As he soared only a few hundred feet over the thatched roofs Laurus could smell everything from the baking of bread to the chamber pots being dumped. They were normal, healthy smells that, though alien and disgusting to him, were reassuring in that whatever rot had spread had not yet made its way from the cloisters to the city. 

As he looked across the city he could see a thin line of black smoke rising from the Abbey on the hill. It was too dark to be a cookfire, and as the wind shifted direction he caught the barest hint of sulfur, a sure sign of evil. Laurus started to beat both sets of wings now, doing what little he could to speed up his approach without arriving on the scene too exhausted to fight. Things were definitely getting worse. It was one thing for humans to be dirty squalid creatures after all - that’s what it meant to be fallen, but the smells of hell were very different. Even the sickly sweet smells of leprosy and pox were perfume compared to the scent of the damned. Evil had a smell, and right now it was coming from the last place in the world one would have expected: a cloister of the devout. 

Flying as fast as he could, the minutes it took to cross the valley were still painfully slow to Laurus. The closer he got, the more details resolved. An inner courtyard wall had been blown apart by dark magics, and dark smoke boiled out. The motion he saw in the courtyard was more troubling than the fire though. There was a pitched battle taking place between the nuns, and whatever spawn of darkness had boiled up from the seven hells to taint their consecrated grounds. The virgins of Saint Erianne were a martial order that had been founded in the wake of his visit a century earlier, so between their faith and their silvered weapons they had all the tools they needed to fight the darkness. Even with those advantages, he could see that they were taking casualties too. 

Scattered across the courtyard and gardens were bodies of imps, tanglers, and other lesser demon spawn, along with some of the faithful who lay dead or bleeding. Silently, Laurus mouthed a prayer to his god. ‘Blessed Creator, queen of queens, and lord of hosts, the devils of sin and damnation have tainted the sanctity of your world and I shall make them pay a terrible price for it.’ He didn’t seek further aid  from her - it was too soon for that, but should the worst befall him, he’d want whoever came next to have more warning than he had. 

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He wasn’t worried. Laurus had faced few worthy opponents since ascending to the second choir that he relished the opportunity. That pride would have to be shriven and repented after battle, but as he hit the ground amidst the damned like a thunderbolt he decided that right now he would let himself indulge in that lust for battle and glory. The impact crushed a group of tanglers with their gooey tentacles and short claws that were flanking an embattled group of warriors. In that crater, he paused only a moment to take inthe field of battle. 

The central courtyard was lousy with monsters, living and dead, and the sounds of battle were everywhere. Nearly obscured by the smoke, was the wavering heat shimmer of a portal that was a direct conduit to the deepest pits of hell. It widened as he watched, growing ever larger and instead of more imps continuing to boil out of the rift, ever larger and powerful demons forced their way out instead as they sought to escape into the daylit world. It was one thing for a battle nun to take on lesser demon spawn. Even by the score like they faced now were a manageable foe to trained force. Some of the things arriving now were the sort that a mortal could never hope to face though, no matter how much faith they possessed.

Between him and the breech though, there were dozens of lesser spawn and a few overseers herding the nearly mindless beasts against the warrior nuns of Saint Erianne. For their part, the women didn’t let him distract them, and barely looked at him as he pulled his six foot tall greatsword from his back and brandished it; he felt the morale shift, but there were too many enemies for him to save everyone single handed. The women each fought an enemy or two in a cautious fighting style, but for Laurus this was no time for caution. He began to scythe through the growing horde with a fury that would have seemed careless if the enemy didn’t fall like wheat before him. The warrior was headless though because he knew no demons so puny could hope to do more than scratch him before they were cleaved and two and reduced to ash by his righteous blade. 

The imps faced him first, seeking to ambush him in blindspots using speed to strike a blow. That failed utterly. After that, they swirled around him, seeking to strike in twos and threes quickly learned that his reach far exceeded theirs. After a few coordinated attacks that ended in complex arcs of his blade,they gave up, and searched for an easier target, minus the dozen or so he had slain without breaking a sweat. These monsters were less than nothing to the righteous, and even as they tried to flee as their numerical superiority dwindled, he hunted them down until only a handful of the buzzing gnats remained. 

In that first minute Laurus was there, scores fell beneath his righteous onslaught. It was only when those tiny flying bastards were dealt with he turned his attention back to the tanglers and flayers, as well as the overseers that goaded them into battle. The first overseer with the head of a goat didn’t even have time to face him before he fell to a whirlwind slash, beheaded. The second, a flayed man that was a mockery of life, saw first hand just how dangerous the angel’s six feet of reach was and managed to parry two blows from opposite sides before his mace split in two along with his torso in a single stroke. The swath that Laurus cut through the forces of darkness bought the women of the order time to complete their own battles, and as they pulled back to the chapel, the angel stood alone in front of the gateway where the real danger was only starting to emerge. 

Greater demons were as different from lesser demons as a throne was from a seraphim or a cherub. The brutes that were striding out of the portal now were just that. They were six to eight feet tall, armed, and though each one might look different than the one that came before, they were all terribly dangerous. The first one that stepped up to the silver storm of death that was the angel looked like ogre with leprosy, and had a chance to growl, “Mmm - the cavalry’s finally here, the boss will want—” before it was forced to block an overhead strike with its weapon, a tree trunk thick bone club. It then kicked out, trying to cave the angel's ribcage with its boot before Laurus used his wings to push himself backwards and just out of reach before countering with a blow too quick for the eye to follow. It was the first match of the day that seemed to end in a draw until the thing stepped forward only to find that its leg had been severed just above its hobnailed boot.

“You’ll pay for that—” the demon snarled as it fell forward suddenly off balance. That would be the last thing the abomination ever uttered as it was decapitated before it could hit the ground. Even that victory was no cause for celebration though. That monstrosity was far from the only one facing the angel, and even as it fell, a pair of pig faced demons, and a four armed sea urchin started to fan out around him, all Laurus could do was step back, and beat a fighting retreat as he confounded their cautious blows with a series of feints and parries. He might be able to take all three, but if he failed, the Abbey and the city would fall. And they were hardly the only ones. As long as that portal remained as a blight on creation, the more darkness would come through to ravage the world. Its presence alone was odd. Not only was it large enough to allow greater demons into the world, but it existed during the day, and on consecrated ground. Normally each of these factors would be rare enough - but to see them all together, was practically impossible. 

It didn’t matter right now. Scholars could argue about why it had happened once it was sealed. Right now he needed to slow these foul beasts and protect the faithful. Fortunately, Laurus had a few tricks of his own up his sleeve. As he backed up into the breach of the chapel, he prayed under his breath before reversing his blade and driving it several feet into the stone floor. He couldn’t stop them from coming into the world, but he could amplify the effect of the holy ground by orders of magnitude by tying the secret names of the divine into the existing wards. As he struck the stone, the stones themselves began glowing with thin traceries of light. Those luminous tendrils spread from one to the other until they coated the walls, floors, and even the trees and trellises in thin webs of fractal holy symbols. Only where darkness stained the earth for a dozen feet  in any direction around the portal did the holy magic fail to find its grip. 

“The world rejects your darkness,” he shouted, even as the greater demons near him started to retreat, “And I shall make sure that not even ashes remain to mark your passing when you are smote from existence!” The demons themselves were too busy trying to stay away from the light that was rapidly spreading across the courtyard, but there was only so much room at the center of the web and it was shrinking every second. 

The imps and tanglers were the first ones to face the full wrath of the creator. They were so weak that they merely had to be touched by the holy circuitry of the wards to vanish in a brief burst of fire and dust. The greater demons were another story though. As they jostled for position around the gateway, one of the pig faced demons was shoved onto a line, and it quickly bloomed across his skin as easily as it had the courtyard. In seconds he was wrapped in smoldering holy barbed wire, and his screams echoed for more than a minute before he finally succumbed to the power of the one true god. 

Laurus staggered, feeling suddenly weak, but determined not to let it show in front of his ancient enemy. “Flee now, back to the pits you came from and you may live another day. Stay, and my brothers and I will cut you down when they arrive,” Laurus said before spinning on his heel and walking into the chapel to see to the devout. Those wards would hold the hellspawn a few hours at least, though they would likely collapse by midnight, when darkness's grip on the world was at its strongest. Behind him, the dwindling legion of demons taunted him with jeers and bellows of impotent rage, but such things meant less than nothing to angels. 

As he walked inside, he silently prayed to the divine once more, informing heaven that he would need a flight of angels to assist him in closing this breach. A full host would be necessary, but he did not think he could do it alone. He wasn’t sure if a flight would arrive before his wards fell though. While it was well and good to hope that the creator came to save them, he needed to get these women back into fighting shape so that even if they didn’t win, they would at least die fighting. 

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