Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (69 page)

Eryian watched as the giants, the sons of Righel, laid out camp. Tents quickly lined the water's edge. He noticed they had captains among them who rode tall, white horses. One pulled alongside him, and when Eryian turned, he realized this was Amathon.

“Captain,” Eryian said with a nod.

“This valley is cold with the south wind,” Amathon said.

“Yes. I know I should be the one with answers, but tell me, Amathon, do you know their numbers? The armies of Du'ldu? What is your guess?”

“Numbers will not be what matters. My mother tells me we have not come seeking this army. They may number as the sand of the shores, but as someone once told me, someone whose word I have ever held close, when outnumbered, seek the head, not the body. If one severs the head, the rest shall fold.”

“And who told you that, Amathon?”

“My father.”

Amathon then pushed his mount forward, circling his fist to direct a disembarking column of spearmen. The shadow of the mountain was once again filled with Nephilim, high-blood firstborn who had not touched these shores since the time of Dawnshroud.

Eryian stared at the far ice spire of Hericlon against the dark horizon. Dusk had fallen and stars scattered, but the mountain itself snagged a dark cloud that obscured the sky. He knew it was not a storm cloud, that it held no rain or moisture. They were the whirlers, the thousand eyes of the angel. It was darkness boiling. Eryian wondered a moment of the Little Fox. If Hericlon had fallen, it could hardly be possible the Walker of the Lake still lived. He would not have turned from the gate, but then, in the gathering wars, Rhywder had surprised him more than once.

“Godspeed, brother,” he said to the night, just in case Rhywder was out there somewhere.

He felt a whisper beside him and turned, finding Cassium. Her platinum hair brushed his bared shoulder, leaving a tingle.

“Seven centuries,” she said. “One thousand prime of Righel's sons return to the killing ground. It will be as it was when the old ones fought here before the gate was ever built. It is war, but then it is almost poetry, the timing of it, the way the stars have turned and this movement has come to pass. Surely even the angel must know the shadow of Aeon's abyss closes on the Earth as we speak. Has living here so clouded his thoughts that he somehow believes he can escape it?”

She glanced at Eryian, but smiled as she realized he may or may not understand her. Yet, what he did understand were the dimples, there again, they left him a feeling of warmth and care. “But then,” she said, “all that is just scripture, not something you have bothered with. There is one here called Enoch. Do you know of him?” “Of course.”

“He is called the Scribe by them, by the angels. They sent him, you know, to plead their cause. A mortal—they sent a mortal to stand before the face of Elyon and plead the cause of the sons of heaven. Such pitiful irony in that. When I learned of it, I did not know whether to laugh or weep.”

Eryian noticed that the ships were pulling away, their keels slowly easing off the shore. “You are sending the ships back?” he asked.

She nodded. “I doubt once we find Azazel we will have further need of them.”

They did not navigate the waters, nor was there any attempt made to hide their true nature. Their silvery bulwarks curled upward, like great wings, until they sealed the ships into sleek, narrow spears and the bulwarks smoothed until there was not a mark or a scratch. In one moment they were hovering above the waters and in the next, with a sudden brilliant flash, they were gone. They had moved with such speed, he had not been able to track their path.

She was watching for him to look to her for an explanation, but she offered none at all; she merely smiled.

“You are their queen,” he said, “and they face certain death on the plains they so aptly name the killing fields. Yet it is your choice to stay, Cassium? Should you not have returned with the ships? Should a guardian's first duty not always be to ensure his queen be protected?”

She narrowed one brow over the icy eyes, almost in a gesture of anger. She stared at him a moment, and Eryian saw something spill from her eyes, as though in chastisement. They had scattered crystallized starlight against him, like ice drops. He suddenly felt foolish having said what he did.

“He may think he comes for the slaughter, Eryian. But he is wrong. You have, without choice, clothed yourself in flesh, but I have always been flesh. Now that you have taken me from the home you left me so very, very many years ago, the cold, almost lifeless ice moon I shall never miss, behold: I began to age. I would in time now grow old and die. You taught me that; you also taught me that it was a great and precious gift.”

“I am afraid I no longer am keeping up, Cassium.”

“It does not matter. What matters, you see, is that I have my soul. I am not undead. You, as well—we have our souls, Eryian! We should dance; we should scream to the night, throw off our shoes and run into the waters, singing. Great sacrifices you made to give us these simple gifts—the gift that we both may die.”

The confusion in his eyes only made her smile that much more. “You may not understand, but you saved me, at great cost, from Winternight.”

“Winternight, yes, the curse of the Sky Walker Queens.”

“They grow terrible from their knowledge; they take the blood of the innocent and the youth to keep their beauty. You spared me that, Eryian. I have not the imagination to understand how much I owe you, but remember my words—days from now, years from now, whatever may be, remember that I look in your eyes this moment and I offer you my thanks. Wait, here, look!” She grabbed his hand and laid hers over it. “The skin of this hand, though we do not see it, begins to grow old, even as we speak. In twenty, thirty years, it would grow wrinkles and age spots. If I were to live long enough, I would become an old woman, bent over and wrinkled. All my beauty would fade, my ice-eyes as you always called them, would fog with coming blindness, the cream color of my skin would wither to a gray mold, the white-gold hair would be left only white. And all thanks alone to you.”

“It does not sound like something you should thank me for, Cassium.”

“But it is! Oh, how it is. More than you are able to understand—given your veil.” She set her hand upon his cheek, though he was left utterly confused. “Thank you, my love,” she whispered. “You know what I thought so long ago when first they came, when I saw their streaks through the heavens. I was young, ten and two years, so young, so long ago. I saw them as they were when they stepped from the heavens and my father explained what was happening. I remember feeling such excitement that I leapt; I literally danced about. ‘The
angels are coming!'
I cried out.”

She smiled, remembering, but then her eyes swiftly changed, growing dark and serious. “Mark this, Eryian, warlord of Daath; it is not Azazel who comes for the slaughter of these boys, the sons of Righel. My ships depart without me because it is I who have come for him! And if I accomplish nothing else with tomorrow's dawn, I will remind him of what he was before the Oath of Ammon was ever uttered. They have forgotten, all of them. In a different way than you—it is not a veil that blinds their memories; it is ego. But with just as much guilt on their souls as you or I, they have let Earth become their world, their entire domain. He comes from the south where he fled the Light Bearer over a woman. A woman, Eryian! Oh, if I could somehow make you understand how absurd that war! The Light Bringer, the most beautiful being ever created in all the universe, one of the very firstborn of our Lord and Father, Elyon; and Azazel, the second to fall, he was the reigning king of the celestial choirs. And what do they do within years of stepping from their oaths and their covenants with Elyon? They squabble like two children over the daughter of a man.” She turned away, shaking her head with the absurdity of it. “He holds the mighty gate of Hericlon, does he?” she said, mockingly. “He comes now leading his
unnumbered armies,
his terrible warrior sons, in a battle that borders the very ending of time. And you, Eryian, you see the ships leave and you worry that these warriors of Righel should protect their queen by stealing her away back to the stars?” She half-chuckled at the thought and the sound of her laughter; he remembered that; it trickled down him as if her fingers were playing over the skin of his back. She grew serious and turned to touch a finger to his cheek. “Forgive me, of course. Forgive that I do not fully understand how different it is for you.”

“I will, my lady.”

“And do not call me that any longer! Love of Elyon, my name is Cassium. To you, from now on I am Cassium! Do you understand me? You can remain
Eryian, the warlord of the Daath,
but me, my name is Cassium.”

Eryian nodded, tingling. Her words, her inflections, she was making it impossible to hide from her and she knew it. She knew her every word, every movement of her face, was cracking the façade he had erected to protect himself against the
real
Cassium.

“Tell me,” she said, “did you know that it was my father who named the city of the Daath so many years ago?”

“I did not.”

“He was a master mason; his teacher was a Star Walker. My father learned everything taught him, and I do mean everything. He learned so eagerly that he literally thirsted for knowledge, and in time, before his death in the days of Yered, there was no mortal on Earth who could match his talent. My father was named Terith. The final act of finishing the city was the erection of the spires, and he was fascinated by them. Just before their final erection, he would spend nights standing over them, running his hands along their smooth, unblemished surface. My mother pleaded with him, trying to explain that if he did not sleep, he might err in his construction, but he firmly put her in her place and told her than in erecting the spires, he would make not the slightest error—this his work would be perfect, unparalleled; even in Etlantis there would found nothing to rival it. He marveled over them constantly, how they were so immaculate and yet appeared so fragile, how they could reflect light like the most delicate glass and yet they were almost immortal. He begged and begged the angel who was his mentor to teach him how to craft them before they were erected high above the city where he could no longer study them. But laughing, his mentor told him he would require a substance not found on this planet and that the miles he would be forced to travel to obtain it were far beyond his lifetime and ten more. So my father named the city Terith-Aire, because the substance of its magnificent spires could be found only among the distant stars—that it could only be dreamed of. Not to mention, of course, his own boundless ego in including his first name, as well.”

Eryian chuckled, realized how rarely he ever did so, that if Rhywder were here, surely it would be mentioned, the chuckle of Eryian.

She turned. One of the warriors had brought a horse and waited as Cassium took its reins. The warrior left. “Perhaps,” she said, “this angel of death who allows the people of Earth to call him
Reaper
cannot be truly destroyed. Perhaps, like the spires of Terith-Aire, he is incapable of destruction, but I know one thing he may not suspect. I know that he can be turned.”

“I am not certain I understand.”

“His flesh, since he has lived here on this planet, so far distanced from Elyon and the hallowed palaces of heaven, no longer receives an essential nutrient required of a being of light, which once he was. He most surely has weakened—in fact, he weakens each day. It has been seven hundred years now, and it is just possible we can destroy this coil he shields himself in.

Whatever state in which he now exists, certainly he has weakened. We can only imagine the extent. But if weakened, he can be destroyed. Still, it does not mean that much. Even if we managed it, to bring down this coil he houses his spirit in, we cannot hope to destroy the soul of a member of Elyon's choir. Yet, think—if we can disrupt the coil he now inhabits, his soul will be thrown, turned. It would be cast from the body. He is not Uttuku, so he has not the capacity to wander the air and navigate the planet that spawned him. He was spawned of the mothering light of heaven and his soul would spin, out of control. It could cast mere miles, meaning nothing, aiding us little—or … or it could be thrown years into the sky, cast to the stars. It would take him a very long time to return should that happen. Amusing to imagine he would be lost out there, unable to even find his way back. Do you understand then,
Eryian, warlord of Daath,
if we can turn this being, this creature he has become, in essence, we sever the head from its body, and if—”

“If one severs the head, the rest shall fold.”

“Yes. You heard that of Amathon, did you not?”

“I did.”

“Those are the words of his father. He remembers all his father's words, no matter how insignificant.”

“Then if we can turn Azazel, we gain time?”

“Exactly.” Her horse danced a moment as she studied the dark skies over Hericlon. “Do you believe in them? These Angelslayers you have chosen? Do you believe in their hearts?”

“I do not understand what you are asking.”

“Are they valiant?”

“They are. In fact, there are none so valiant on this Earth as the legions of the Daath, of that I have made certain. But why would you ask such a question?”

“I have my reasons. Knowing your answer, the conviction with which you speak it, would that not imply some knowledge of scripture, Eryian?”

“No, it would not. I have selected and trained them of instinct alone.” He looked up, meeting her eyes, and a half smile curled across her beautiful lips, even that leaving the tiniest of a shiver across his skin. Who was she?

“Of course,” she said. “That would suffice.”

He was not sure of the implication, but did not press further.