Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (74 page)

“Elyon's Light, Elyon's grace,” screamed Amathon. “Hold against them, my brothers!”

As many as they were, as mighty as the warriors of the Unchurians had been, the wall of white shields locked and for a time held. Between the shields, swords flickered like the tongues of serpents, taking flesh, dropping Unchurians on all sides in a slaughter.

Cassium touched Eryian's arm—a furious scream of dying from all sides now, screams of terror, screams of fury, the blows and thundering crash of swords, hammers, and steel. From where they were, in the center, they could see nothing.

“It is coming hard against them,” Cassium said, listening. “Azazel has filled them with such fury, their hatred so raw it is like a living thing, as if their rage might rise up as a beast to fill the sky.”

Eryian shifted. His hand curled about the hilt of Righel's sword, but her fingers touched his wrist.

“Not yet. Keep it sheathed.”

“I feel I should move forward, engage, Cassium.”

“I know, you are a warlord. It is your blood and your training, but for this once resist. What damage you would do would matter little. It is better we wait, Righel, hidden here in the center.” She had stopped calling him Eryian. “He searches, I can feel his mind probing, but he does not find us. You trained me well to hide. All that you taught me in the days of Dawnshroud, I have remembered it all. You call your elite Shadow Walkers, well, I am, as well, a Shadow Walker, Righel,” she said with a smile. “For you, in this world of yours, I suppose this is unlike any battle you have known. You wait. He smells the aganon of the sunblade and yet he cannot sense who bears it. It must be driving him mad.”

“Can it slay him? Righel's sword?”

“If Righel wielded it, as he was when first he came, against the weakened being that is Azazel, yes, it would slay him, or at least it would destroy all but his soul. But you are human; I cannot predict what it will do. He is much stronger than you, warlord. Our greatest weapon will be surprise, but I doubt you can destroy him. Nor do I know what my magick will do against him. You taught me to hone one skill above all others, and I have done so, but this is Azazel, the Reaper, the lord of death. We can only wait and hope.” “And what is the most we can hope for?”

“To turn him, to destroy whatever flesh he walks and fling his spirit into the void. It would take him many counts of the moon to find his way back. If Gabriel were near, he could be bound, but we face him alone; I would feel the sword of Gabriel if it were close.

“He comes for your Angelslayers, for all of them, every drop of their blood, their scion, their sons and daughters, all of them. For if they are no more, how can the prophecies of Enoch be fulfilled? Elyon sent the Daath, and all these years the angels did not realize why they walked the Earth. But now, the eye of Daath has been opened, and they know that the Arsayalalyur is here, on the Earth, that Elyon's wrath has already crossed the heavens. They have owned this world long enough to deceive themselves. They may believe they can defy even Elyon, destroy His Arsayalalyur. They are as fooled of this illusion as mankind. Even if somehow they were able to destroy the Arsayalalyur, do they not understand that the wave of Aeon's End would swallow the Earth into time as if the whole of this universe never was? I would think they would know that, but the Light Bearer has blinded them all by now. I only know because you taught me in a time when you knew all things.”

Eryian tried to ignore the sounds of battle, to ignore that these were his own sons falling, but the feelings in him continued to build. They threatened to turn to tears of rage that Azazel was slaying them as if it were a feast.

“I can stand no more,” he said, gripping the hilt of Righel's sword. It burned, stinging, tasting his blood. Cassium seized his shoulder and pulled him his hand from the hilt. He was surprised to see a stream of blood briefly cross from his palm to the hilt. There was a time in memory he had used this sword, but never had it taken his blood to do so.

“Your anger, Righel!” she said. “It is your weakness. Strike not in anger. If he is able to defeat you, all that you have done, laying down the mantle of your knowledge, returning in flesh to find your way back to heaven—if Azazel realizes that is what Righel has chosen, he will know the one weapon to use against you: that you strike in anger, that you let rage become what drives your blood. You could lose all if that happened. He would collect your soul like he has so many before you. You must remember. If you die, die valiantly. Do not strike in anger. Remember that, Eryian, Righel, remember it, keep my words close, for that is how he will try to destroy you.”

“They are being slaughtered, Cassium. How can I stand here and not let my blade join with them?”

“See your son,” she said, motioning toward Braemacht. Braemacht watched back, met Eryian's eyes hearing his mother's words. “He waits. You must do the same.”

“She is right, Father. He will come to us; we will answer him when that happens. Until then, though blood boils, we wait.”

“They have waited seven hundred years for your summoning; they die for you. It is their honor. They know what is at stake.”

At a roar, Eryian looked up. Wobbly, knitted calfskin sailed overhead, moments before the phosphorus powers ate through to the naphtha. The bags exploded, raining fire. Axemen screamed. Eryian pulled Cassium hard against him, covering them both with his shield as fire pelted in streaks. One axeman staggered past them, swearing, wrapped in curls of flame. The black smoke twisted with a thick smell. A horse was screaming, ablaze. His head was cloven by a blow of Braemacht's axe. Braemacht then turned to crouch near them as a stream of fire spilled from the face of his shield like water.

“Lady, are you hurt?” he asked Cassium.

“Nom Braemacht, I am unharmed.”

Amathon stepped back from slaying, weary. He and a small knot of captains were surrounded by blood and bodies. The front had been lost; only the inner core still held. Knots of survivors were fighting, but they were being sectioned off and hewn down. The circle of death had grown smaller, but Amathon and his captains still held and behind them, Braemacht and the axemen of Righel were the last line. It was a line whose cost would be heavy to breach.

Amathon looked up, noticing that it was snowing—lazy, drifting flakes that seemed almost otherworldly as they floated downward to melt into the blood-darkened earth.

The Unchurians managed to clear the small ring of shields and leapt for him. He was still mounted, still visible, and they had sacrificed heavily to reach him. Amathon turned and slew with quick death thrusts. He warded off their attacks with the spiked face of his buckler while his sword opened flesh and dislodged heads.

The Unchurians were savage and fought well, but none could get past his sword. He and a handful of brothers were slaying all who reached them. And the cost of getting this close, of killing so many of Righel's sons, had left the battlefield piled in bodies and awash in blood.

Finally Amathon sensed one of power coming, not a common warrior, but one of their lords. He turned to see a dark rider making his way through the ranks. The rider was not human. The body was blackened bone, and wings arched from the shoulders, folded back. He cleaved flesh with a spiked morning star in a steady hum, shearing through shield, armor, killing the last of the footmen guarding Amathon's inner core of captains. This was a minion—one of Azazel's dark chosen.

Amathon threw aside his shield and gripped his sword with both hands. He high-stepped forward and broke into a run against the Uttuku with a low growl in his throat.

Beside Eryian, Cassium suddenly turned away, staggered as though she had been struck. Eryian was instantly at her side.

She used his shoulder to steady herself, and took a breath.

“It is Amathon,” she whispered.

Braemacht stepped forward, watching. Cassium glanced at him. “Azazel sent a slayer for him,” she said. “Amathon has fallen.” Braemacht threw his head back and screamed. He shook his axe at the sky. Cassium stepped forward to touch his arm.

“Now,” he pleaded, “let me go out there, my lady. I will find the slayer! Let me avenge my brother!”

“No, Braemacht. Vengeance is not why we are here. We lay down our lives; it is not as other battles. We will not kill in anger. We will stand until the last, but our fight is valiant and cannot be otherwise, or the cause is lost us.”

Braemacht paused, his jaw tight. He gazed skyward a moment, his hand wrapped tight about the axe. “Home had better be worth this day, good lady.”

“It will be, Braemacht.”

The giant looked at her, tears falling into his beard beneath the silver helm. “Home is the heart of heaven,” she added.

The sounds of the battle were growing closer now. The stiff, steady drone of the dying was drawing near. They were boring inward. The day had been long, but slowly the Unchurians were reaching the center. It would be over within another degree of the sun.

Eryian glanced to Cassium. “When he comes, when he finds us—do you have a plan?”

“I can drop him—stun him at the very least. Let him see me first, then light the sword.”

Eryian glanced at the blade. The flange was no longer pulsing, but seemed to be waiting, resting. It was much as he remembered the sword of Uriel in battle with Argolis, a brilliant, white diamond, steeled through the center.

The sounds of battle were suddenly snuffed. It grew oddly quiet, a hush falling, odd, just like the snow that was lazily drifting from the sky.

Cassium drew close to Eryian's side.

“They will soon breach the inner circle,” she said. “The last of us. But it seems they have stopped.”

“These are Unchurians. They will bring in their highborn for the final kill.”

The Unchurians had withdrawn, backing slowly into the trees, retreating to the hills encircling the vale. As the armies receded, the enormity of the death was left bare, and the ground could hardly been seen through the bodies that covered it. It was like a tide going out, leaving a mound of rich, red harvest.