Chapter 56: Hard Words

Abdiel spoke to me over the comms while we descended.

"Pandemonium changes things around it, and its burrows are left with a cold not of this world. If there is air inside its wake, it's not air you can breathe, so stay on your saddle till we've breached the fortress's hull."

We were plummeting as swiftly as our mounts could carry us, but it felt like we were a pair of plumes cast from an argentavis's wing. When we came close to where we were to have landed, my stomach roiled. Sundance swooped down from above us, somehow riding the currents unseen, and Qatar made a gesture of silence before banking south and west. We followed her, and I worried over the plumes of smoke I'd glimpsed before our captain had appeared.

We flew for what seemed like hours. It was, at least, a long enough stretch of time for me to believe that Turk had died, and that we were in a desperate retreat. I was relieved to learn that he was still alive, though Goth was too, and that our detour had only caused a severe inconvenience and not a tragic defeat.

"He'll be furious," Qatar said when we were a safe distance from the Devils' redoubt. "Don't think for one second there won't be consequences."

I wanted to reply, to offer my apologies for having strayed from my orders, and to explain that it had not been done deliberately, but I sensed that not only was there no point in doing anything but my best to not repeat my mistake, but also that she was speaking more to Abdiel than to me. Her next words confirmed that.

"Why do you think he sent you with us, if not to ensure our success if the rainbow failed?"

"Would have made little difference," was Abdiel's reply. "Too many Devils, more than Turk thought. Need backup and better intelligence."

"I'm glad you got your gofo back, Abdiel. But Turk's not going to let your mistake slide because of his. You're going to answer for your part of this fugazi once we've cleaned it up."

"I created this situation," I said, wanting to do the right thing.

"Fortunately for you, you only answer to me. But don't expect Turk to put as much trust in you moving forward."

That hit harder than a blow, and I was quiet after we landed, staying close by and listening intently for even the smallest order, ready to hop to the instant it was given.

Turk had spied rhyno tracks and took our squad on a different approach, then ordered us to break off so we could attack from the north in a pincer move. When only Qatar arrived, they were overwhelmed by the devil patrol and captured. The kaphar we were flying to had most likely been overrun, so once we freed Turk and the others, we would have to hope that the other squads had been successful in learning from Turk's other contacts where Pandemonium was at currently. I had been told very little beyond where to place my next step, and often only when my foot was at the peak of its stride. Now I saw there was to be a hunt before the chase.

We landed in a wide and empty desert. There were mountains in the distance on all sides, and the rim of a crater, but where we stood there was nothing but flat ground. The sand we stood on must have had a high concentration of silica, as the muddy light of the Sun refracted in a way that gave off as much light as if we'd stood in a ring of bonfires. In that saffron glow, I saw the sand around us churn, and a sound like a dynamo grew until I feared I would be shaken to pieces by it. The sandeaters burst upward like breaching whales, their boring rods aglow, and the foremost leveled its ballista at us with no discrimination.

I remembered the heaps of plasticized dead in the ruin of Haven's Board Room, and my hate then mingled with ecstacy. When the largest of the sandeaters rolled to a stop, its treads steaming from the jets of cold water sprayed out of armored spigots lining its fuselage, I wondered why the Chalcedony Angels had not been part of our plan from the very beginning.

The beasts that strode down the sandeaters' lowered jaws were not only the gilded defenders of the old Board, but others in armor similar, but differently hued and bearing strange banners and devices. I had a revelation then, that there were many such contingents, though most had gone to ground when the continent fell, but were once the guardians of the surface world, who came to us from none knew where and they were loth to tell, to use ascendant means to defend the victims above ground from the creeping souls who long ago fled the dark and of old sought our end. Their fabled wars were much too grandiose to be believed when read on my off time at the Bibliotheca, but I thought that those records must have been conservatively written when I stood before the soldiers who survived them.

An Angel is as much like a devil as a wrestler is a brawler. Both are strong and capable of terrible violence, but one awaits the bell, and when not inside the turnbuckles might be seen in front of a mirror with a comb and a tin of wax, or on a settle with a daughter on his knee and a wife to sit beside. The other roves about the less lit streets and seedy brothels, bellowing and blustering and looking for a victim, though if his pride be on the line, might choose a fight with one as strong as he. Whenever I fought against the Devils, there were never more than three, and we only overcame them with grievous loss and a vastly superior force, often coupled with desperately underhanded tactics. The thought of besieging their fortress was terrifying, until now.

Regis led the Chalcedony angels, Aegis the Tourmaline, Toff the Jade, and Balthazar the Bloodstone. There were many survivors from broken regiments as well; the Jasper, the Malachite, the Ivory, and a few captains whose soldiers had never found the rendezvous after the continent was fled. The smallest of them was a girl to the standards they aged by, though her years nearly tripled mine so far as I'd counted them, and as small and delicate as she was, my whole form was less than the girth of her thigh, and were she to doff her armor, I doubt my eyes would see much higher than her navel.

They all had a human form. I wondered if they came from something like the Batch, given their preternatural size. As they drew around us I could see the mechanisms inside the joints of their armor, hear the clockwork actuators and the hissing of steam, or the crackle of electricity and the hum of their immortal engines. One angel in sabelline armor stood at the back. Two finned serpents were painted on his harness, red and blue and constantly entwined until their heads parted to wrap around his shoulders. Each then coiled about an arm, their mouths opening around his gauntlets. On his helm, above his narrow, glowing visor, was a single cyan star with nine points.

The ground quivered beneath their steps, a sound accompanied by the zip of gears within their joints. Regis spoke to us, spoke to Abdiel, though he nodded to Qatar. "Now you come." His voice was the most frightening sound I'd heard, deep and unearthly, non-localized in its projection. I remember him looking at me, the white glow of his circular visor calming into a soft blue that mimicked my eyes, and telling me not to be afraid. "General," he said, beckoning the black garbed, serpent painted beast who leaned on one of the sandeater's segmented legs.

The General walked heavily toward us, He stood almost as tall as Regis, though he lacked the Angel's bulk. Regis, his armor waves of blue and white, crested with silver wings rising from his shoulders, electro-magnetic feathers molded as if streaming in the wind, gestured for the General to remove his helm. He did, slowly, showing just the lower part of his skinless, mangled jaw before lowering it again.

Abdiel drew his falcata. Its blade shook and sang.

The General laughed, and I thought of Patches.

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"You knew me as Grynd," he said. To my surprise, Abdiel sheathed his sword.

"Turk accepts our terms?" The voice came from an Angel near Regis, with similar armor though plainer.

"We have no choice now," said Qatar.

Regis only nodded, but I felt the collective thought: we never had a choice. Looking at Qatar, I saw her desperation, and Abdiel felt liberated from his embarrassment. He stretched his wings and turned towards Harbinger.

The rhynos were heading to a township that straddled three roads; three of the few. Dirt flew in jets behind them, and the ground was ripped like a rich man's chest after being robbed, or worse. Every corpse in the Board Room drifted across my sight as we strafed the Devils. We drove them apart from each other; there were six rhynos total, with six Devils apiece. One rose from the roof of each vehicle and launched mortars at us. The shells lit like meteors and streaked toward us, and while we dodged them another devil would leap out of their rhyno and fire at us with massive weapons like a gastraphetes, up to match their daunting size. An archer who could shoot down a pegasus has earned his fair. We dodged, strafed and dodged, sprayed the ground with bolts and mines and bombs, and drove the Devils further apart from each other. Abdiel swooped Harbinger almost to the ground and took a devil's head off with his center gun.

I saw a Devil emerge from a rhyno with a long cannon over his shoulder. With my unique vision, I saw a green aura of expanding rings come from a rod protruding from the Devil's backpack, and my weapons failed to respond to my input. Sundance was quick to draw the cannon's fire, and I shot the missile down with a spew of ballista fire. Another devil brought an even larger weapon to bear, but the ground gave way beneath that rhyno and it dipped forward, launching its missile into the ground beneath its tread. The blast immolated the front of the vehicle, and the rest tumbled over the hull of a sandeater as it rose from the ground. The rhyno rolled off the sandeater's side and crumpled under its weight. The sandeater coiled around and rammed another, pulling most of its length above ground and using its segmented body to block another rhyno's path. The Devils all halted their vehicles and came out of them. Two of them belched out our captive fellows along with the Devils inside. They were bound, and thrown on the ground, and the Devils held massive blunderbusses aimed at them.

Two more sandeaters came their way while we circled like buzzards. Far away on the black horizon, they rode close to the surface, then dove, and arose again to crush the Devils who formed a perimeter around the captives. Angels sprang from ports in one sandeater's flank and closed with the Devils that remained, moving too swiftly for them to fire on the captives. Regis lifted one Devil in the air and held his fist to the creature's chest, then blasted it with a blinding ball of golden light. The Devil flew into the remains of a rhyno, then shot white fire from his hands. The battle went this way for a brief and savage span of time. When the Devils proved overly stubborn, more Angels joined the fray and overwhelmed them. They were true professionals; not one of the captives was lost.

A meeting was held at the liberated town. While waiting for our other allies, allies whose help was contingent on the promise of the Angels, we cleansed the hovels underground of the memory of the Devils.

The prime bolstering of our forces came from the megatheres; giants and giantesses of both human and primate shape. The ape-like giants had strange faces; their cheeks forming a hard, fleshy shroud that left the rest of their features lost to shadow. Now and then I'd catch a glint of light reflecting off their trio of eyes, but as to the composition of their other features I still have no idea, beyond having heard them frequently sniff.

When the talks were done I sought out Turk. I felt angry, knowing he was frustrated with me, and for reasons I felt were obtuse. He was in his tent with the Cataphracts for hours, and when I finally found an opportunity to speak with him, I preemptively defended myself, berating him with my own frustrations over a scolding he had not yet given me. When I was done, he looked at me patiently, then put his hand on my shoulder. I instantly felt foolish, seeing the sadness in his bronze eyes, but before I could apologize he raised his other hand to silence me. He was right. I'd spoken enough.

"I spoke with Abdiel and Qatar, Victor. Qatar is a good woman and an honest soldier, but, like so many of the Cataphracts today, she sees only her orders."

"I don't understand."

I remember his sigh. "I went through great expense to acquire Abdiel's loyalty. When he abandoned the Devils, he was more hated by those he betrayed than he was by Blitzkrieg's band. He's even more hated than Patches. But I knew that only a keen sight of truth could compel a man to brave such hatred. He sees things how they are, Victor. And he too was drawn upward by the same power as you; the power that calls to the Batch. What the two of you saw is beautiful, and I needed to be reminded of it as much as you needed to see it."

I was so surprised that I doubted him, and remember inclining my head downward suspiciously. "You're not angry?"

"Oh I am, but not with you."

"Then with who?'

He lowered his head, and it pained me to see Turk so defeated. "With myself, Victor."

"Why?" I could not begin to guess, as I'd been told so little of our strategy. I was, afterall, a mere grunt.

"Because I have fought this war my own way, not the best way, and in prolonging the inevitable, I have amplified my pain."

Pain. It was on his face as he explained to me the cost of the Angels' support; the Cataphracts were to be disbanded.

"Because," he answered when I asked, "our methods differ widely, and I can no longer deny that in stirring up the hornets' nest, I have done more harm than good. But I, like you when in the clutches of Doctor Danders, could not see any other way, so I will surrender to the Angels, but not to guilt."

As these things often are, the tangle of their plans was complex, and so I will summarize it here. Turk had lived the lives of many men in a truer way than I, and in his long embattled years he worked alongside many who sought to pierce the veil above us, including even the Dolomites, having accepted certain advantages from them, and in the early days he observed the effectiveness of their tyfloch, megathere and lucien prototypes. He knew Belial when he was vibrant, and spoke with the first tyfloch of the Batch when he descended from the heights to tell him he had seen the Sun and that it was everything they'd hoped for. They wore armor then that had power to endure such hard climes, and many other devices we could have used in our day. But for generations the Boys of the Batch were unable to pass between, find the exact path, or return swiftly enough from death, and when the Victor strain became mangled by the Dolomites' desperation Turk formed a band of his own, and he took the fight to the danger lurking below, hoping that with the Devils gone, the Angels would be free to take to the skies and do what the Batch could not. And there the rivalry began, and Regis, being an honorable man, did not interfere with Turk, but tried to reason with him, waiting patiently for time to tell which way was true, and I had the displeasure of seeing how mortally Turk's failure had wounded him.

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