Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (72 page)

Righel came to the black rock from which he had so many years ago watched the magnificence that was Earth, from which he had so many years marveled and stood in awe. But this time, he knelt on both knees. From his shoulders he lifted his mantle and laid it out before him. In the dream, his mantle was the silver-golden wings of his covenants with God, and by lifting them off and laying them before Him, he gave up all that had been promised him. He became a mortal.

In the dark, cold wind of the ice moon, without his mantel, he would soon die. He knew this, and he even expected that to be the result, but he turned his eyes to heaven, or at least what once he remembered as heaven.

“Lord of lords,” his voice echoed in his dreams, the memory of that far, sad day almost too much to bear, even though it was a dream shielding him.

“King of Hosts, Elyon, my Father, I come now before You and beg to be forgiven. My sins are great, for I have given up the pearls of wisdom and the powers and keys of Your Kingdom, precious and priceless gifts, and I have done this in sin. I have done all this for a woman; my sin is as great as any of those who laid hands upon the stone of Ammon. But unlike them, I do not send a human to plead my penance. I kneel before You in the cold and speak my own words. You are my Lord and my Creator, and whatever You answer shall be my answer, but I ask, with broken heart, to be forgiven, my Lord.”

He lowered his head. The chill wind of the ice moon was fast taking hold, for now he was mortal, and soon he would die here. “In all humility I kneel before Thee. I ask forgiveness, Elyon. Forgive me,
Holy-Holy-Holy!
Forgive my trespass. I lay down my mantle before Thee and ask that You allow me to begin my trek once more. Though once I walked as Elohim, I surrender my gifts, my knowledge, and all my power. If ever I should find my way home, then I will do so now as a mortal.

“So ends my prayers for myself. For Cassium, I ask, Elyon, that she be forgiven. I have taught her all Your words, but she was deceived by one who was far too cunning and devious for me to overcome. I testify this night that her heart is pure, and I ask she be forgiven, and so ends my prayer for Cassium.

“As for my children, I have taught them only in the path of light; they believe you are their God, and they know no other. They are innocent but for my sin alone. If You find it in You, forgive them and lay what curse You wish upon me that I have brought them forth, for I knew it was a sin, and yet I wanted children and thus my vows were broken.

“If You wish, let this ice take me and do what You will with my soul, but so ends my words, my King and Lord, Elyon.”

He then lowered his head and waited. It grew colder. The winds about him howled, but no answer came. In moments before death would have taken him, he felt a presence, and looking up, he found his brother, Uriel, kneeling before him. His one true friend.

“He sends me in answer, Righel.”

Tears fell. Uriel had lifted the cold around them and feeling began to return to Righel's fingers and toes.

“If you turn away your anger, if you promise never to rise in rage and fury again, as you did against the angel Azazel, then I intercede on your behalf. Your sin is not forgiven, but it is unlike the others. You do not gather queens; you wait here, on your ice moon; you continue to pray; you raise up sons in the ways of the
Holy-Holy-Holy.
You leave your Creator baffled, for this night you lay down your mantel and surrender your blessings. Judgment, therefore, is mine to give.

“Leave now in your ship. Leave word with your sons and your woman that in a day to come from now they will see a talisman from Earth, and in that hour you will face the judgments of your actions. I pray the Lord of Hosts grants you penance, my brother. Many ask why you should be spared when the others are to be bound in prisons for ten of thousands of years and await the coming judgment of the son of women. Are you truly different from them, my brother?”

Righel had no answer; everything within him was drained.

“As them, did you not break the sacred vows created in the fires of heaven before the eyes of our Creator?”

Uriel stared a long time into the eyes of his brother. He wept, as well. He shook his head. “I always believed I taught you well, my brother. How has this come to be that your mantle lies at our knees?”

Righel had no more answers. He was still shivering from nearly having frozen. Perhaps it would have been fitting to be left on ice in the black night. But Uriel placed his hand on Righel's shoulder. “The covenant of everlasting is taken for you, my brother. You are left mortal, and should you find your way home, it will be a long and far path you must follow. But you will be spared the punishment prepared for the others who broke their vows upon Mount Ammon.” Uriel paused a moment, his hand squeezing tight. “If I had the power, I would forgive you all. I know that all you did, you did out of love. Perhaps that is why you at least have been spared.”

“Cassium?”

“She began mortal and remains mortal. She committed many terrible sins while she was a consort of Azazel, but her heart has listened to you, it has changed, and our Creator has given to all humans the right of penance. I believe she will be forgiven. She is good, she was born with a pure heart, and you have saved her soul. Righel, I bid you farewell, but also I honor you. I know of no greater sacrifice than that which you have shown this night. The feathers of an angel lie here at our knees for the sake of one soul, the soul of this girl. My brother, though I lose you as kindred this day—I will ever remember you, ever love you. Perhaps in eternity I will know you again as a peer. Perhaps one day you will again wear this mantle. Until then, go in Faith's Light, my brother.”

“Thank you for forgiving her, that innocence may be hers once more.”

“Thank not me, but your Creator.”

“My children?”

Uriel hung his head. “They were born in blasphemy and they cannot be redeemed, not in this existence. I have pled for them; I have stood before Elyon and wept that they not be treated as the Nephilim of earth. He has listened. They will not be bound to Earth's dust; they will not be left to plague mankind as the others. But you will never know them. Your children have been taken from you, my brother. I am sorry, I could do no more.”

The last of his dream might not have been a dream because he found himself staring upward in the darkness. It must be the last was not a dream, but memories. By dawn they would fade. He glanced to Cassium and smiled. She would not be his, she would be another's queen, but at least her soul was spared.

A
t dawn the sons of Righel marched from the dark shores of the river Ithen toward Hericlon. The mountain lay distant, its icy spears resting against the dark underbelly of the black whirlers that marked the coming of the armies of Du'ldu. The Nephilim of Righel set out in columns, many on high horses. Eryian rode at the head of the First Century, with Amathon on his right, and to his left, Cassium. The deeper into the vale they came, the more the mountain's presence seemed to envelop them. Its foothills seemed to curl like waiting fingers about them, and the touch bristled against Eryian's skin.

By midday the sky was a slate gray. The clouds were thick, and from a knoll of yellow grass, the sons of Righel descended into a wide plateau. Hericlon's spurs now curled to either side. The battle once fought here, in times men no longer remembered, had left this ground named the Vale of Tears. Beyond, at the far end of the plateau, was an unkempt dirt road that wound a snaking path up through the glade into the passage that led to the gate of Hericlon.

Once the army had reached the plateau's center, the sky rumbled quietly. Amathon lifted the reins, slowing his mount and pointed south. Shadows moved across the sky, driven by more than wind. At first they looked to be plumes of the coming storm, lifting out of the dark clouds above Hericlon, but then they took shape and Eryian watched as they passed overhead. Minions, winged. Their passage spooked many of the horses. Cassium's mount lifted its front hooves, snorting, dancing a moment before she brought it in rein. The minions passed over without turning, as though they had no care of the warriors below, but Eryian noticed they were touching down in a pattern, some to the hillocks surrounding them, others vanishing without sound in the dark foliages that lined Hericlon's spurs. Then the fog came. It rolled across the plateau in waves, like the tide slowly coming in, gathering strength, and thickening. Amathon finally raised his hand and his captains called a halt. The gray fog was blurred only dimly by daylight.

Amathon glanced aside to Eryian. “I believe, my lord, we are being offered an invitation to dance—and this is his chosen field, the Vale of Tears.”

Eryian searched, listening carefully. There were far sounds to the south, toward Hericlon, but soon they were also east, and west, until Eryian realized there was movement all around them; a shifting of sound, a low, steady rumble. There was no wind—the air had stilled, and the fog was carrying sound as though it were prisoner, as though they were in a great chamber.

“They have closed on our rear,” Amathon said. “Their numbers are many. They use the fog to surround us.” Amathon turned in the saddle, searching. “Take up weapons! Prepare your hearts for battle, my brothers!”

In a single motion, the sons of Righel drew weapon. Swords cleared their sheaths, and heavy shields lifted. The horsemen gathered inward, and the infantry began to circle outward to the flanks. Archers and spear throwers took up their positions.

A heavy, breathless silence hung a moment, and then a wind, low and chill, began to fall from Hericlon. It was winter wind, that kind that comes before a chilling frost, only this touched deeper, past armor and flesh, whispering against bone.

The fog was rolled back like skin peeling. Eryian knew they faced an army, but seeing them gathered, he still felt his breath taken.

As far as the eye could see, spanning the passage to Hericlon, lining the forest to either side, melting into trees and crawling dark about the far spurs and valleys, to the rear—in all directions—the land was thick with Unchurians and the dark red glints of their armor and weapons. The fog curling and falling away between them left the illusion they were materializing.

“Elyon's Light grace us,” Amathon whispered, shifting in the saddle. “I suppose to guess their number is useless. It appears they have no number.”

Eryian tightened his jaw. They were high-blood, firstborn of the angel. Between the sons of Righel and the armies of Du'aul were no fodder, no giants or miscreants. Azazel had sent in his finest warriors, and they held themselves as did the legions of the Daath. Eryian curled his forearm through the leather grips of his buckler and lifted it from his back.

“Good lady,” Amathon said, “it would appear this trap has been well baited.”

“Yes. But he has laid no trap. Our coming has not been a secret; he knew when he saw the ships sail up the Ithen to Hericlon's vale. It is not as if the angel has surprised us. We bear the surprise, Amathon. Azazel is out there, somewhere watching, and he senses something, the blade of aganon, perhaps, the sword of the Pleiades—he would smell that. But I have not felt his probe. He does not realize who waits here, who we are. He comes for the Daath, so perhaps he does not care. We are merely a puzzling inconvenience before he can move south for Terith-Aire.”

Amathon circled his horse. “There is still a weakness in their rear,” he said. He glanced at her. “If we broke for the river, I believe we could pierce through, but then I realize we have not come to prevail here; we have come to make the stand—as you have spoken all these years. The time has finally come. I will make the cost of our fall leave a mark upon this ground, my lady. Pray Elyon witnesses our sacrifice.”

Amathon paused a moment, lowering his head, and Eryian wondered if perhaps he were sending his thoughts to the Blue Stars, to the heavens. When he looked up, his face was steeled against what they faced.

“It is more than armies,” Cassium said. “It is time that has closed on us, Amathon. Sometimes a life is only answered in its final moments, in the clutch of last breath. We shall be what we have kept in our hearts. We shall die well, my son, more than that cannot be asked of us.”

The giant slowly pulled his mount closer to her. He raised his hand and spread his fingers in the sign of the word. “Mother,” he whispered.

Cassium met his hand, finger for finger. “Godspeed, my love,” she said. “Through your eyes and those of your brother's, the light of Elyon shines once more in the Vale of Tears.”

Amathon then eased back in the saddle and latched down his cheek guards. His steel-dark eyes turned on Eryian. “My lord, I shall leave strength against the center as long as I am able. The last of us to move will be the horsemen. Braemacht and the queen's guard, of course, will remain until the last with her.”