Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (76 page)

“Captain,” Rhywder whispered low. He started his horse forward, slowly, cautious. But before he left the shadow of the woods, he drew up sharp. It was the dark one—the Named.

Azazel passed close enough to take Rhywder's breath. If the angel saw him or sensed him, he did not seem to care. The Watcher was riveted solely on his prey. And once again this day, Rhywder found himself stunned beyond words. Azazel had taken on flesh! The angel had clothed himself in a human's body, as an Uttuku would have done. Rhywder was fascinated and racked his brain for a possible reason why. How it could possibly have made sense? As he passed Rhywder saw it was a powerful body, heavily muscled, young, handsome, a body in its prime. Uttuku could not take a Nephilim, and he guessed the same applied even to an angel. This was a human, perhaps once a king or a warrior of great renown. He was bearded, with long, dark hair that fell over his muscled shoulders, twenty and seven at most. Rhywder had not seen the eyes, but they would have been as those of an Uttuku, a damp mesh of dark with an inner glow, and since this was an angel, looking into his eyes would have been like looking into the night sky.

And then it made sense. Of course—Enoch's curse had taken hold. The angel of death had turned, had himself begun to die, and the very revulsion of watching his own skin wither was too much for him to bear. Rhywder had to actually suppress an impulse to laugh. It was the finest of jokes. Of course, he was terrified—because, after all, they were about to die—so it was a simple thing to suppress, but that is what he wanted to do, laugh and laugh. Azazel, the lord of the holy choir of the Auphanim, had traded an immortal body of divine light for a human's course. Death itself, it turned out, was terrifying to the very one whose word had spellbound it into existence. The mighty Reaper was horrified of his own creation. In the end, how Elyon truly mocked them all, those who had mocked Him by throwing away their most precious gift, the pearl, the covenant of everlasting, all for the mere pleasure of a woman.

Of course, the body would have been spellbound as no other. It was likely far more powerful and stronger than even the hardened wood of a minion.

Satrina pulled up beside Rhywder, and he waited until she was close, until her leg touched his.

“Ride for Ishmia!” he whispered.

He glanced at her. His face was in shadow, but through the cowl he could still see her eyes. Slowly, defiantly, she shook her head.

Azazel rode across the plain of bodies slowly, his horse high-stepping as though it were moving through deep snow. He finally reached the small circle of ground about Eryian and Cassium. His horse danced, spirited, and gossamer-mesh eyes studied Eryian from beneath the helmet. He had taken a human body—not even Unchurian or Daathan, a pure-blooded human. He would have made the flesh almost invincible, and if it weakened, he could always find others. He had chosen to live as a wraith. Enoch's curse had taken him; it was taking them all now. The eye of Daath was opened; the angels would begin to age, like men. This was flesh, except for the eyes. The eyes were hollowed out, coated in a mesh, and it was only through the mesh that Eryian recognized him, Azazel—the second of the three.

The angel's gaze then shifted to Cassium, a mixture of recognition and mild surprise. The rider urged the horse forward slowly, and circled about to the left. Eryian turned, following. The sword sparked, leaving trails of light that played out along the ground. If the demon noticed the sunblade, he didn't seem to care. He turned the horse slowly, facing them. The horse shook out its mane.

“If it isn't the two lovers,” he said, his voice two voices, twain, one the voice of the angel, and a second that echoed beneath it, the voice of the human he had taken. “How moving. You have come here, to the Vale of Tears, to bleed once more? I am admittedly stunned. I knew your sons were mighty beyond measure, but I never guessed it was you they were hiding in their center.”

Cassium snarled and dropped forward, crouched, and crossed her wrists. “By the Boundless and Limitless Light I speak, by the Son of Women I speak, by the mirrored shadow of the Creator I name you, fallen one: Amen-Omen-Diaman, behold the
Light Whose Name Is Splendor!”
From her palms streamed a wind of light.

The horse reared, screaming, and then seemed to dissolve, vaporized. Azazel landed on his feet and crouched. It seemed a hard wind tore at him, and he forced to turn to the side. For a moment it looked as if he were going to fall. He had been driven to one knee, face to the ground, crossing an arm to block the light, but then the wind stilled and the light faded. Cassium drew back. A moment the rider remained crouched, stunned, but slowly he regained his strength. He lifted his head. The meshed eyes were empty of light, black as if he were blinded, but still intact, they slowly turned on Cassium.

Cassium gasped, glancing to Eryian. She had paled, frightened. “That was everything!” she whispered to Eryian. “Everything I have—all I know. He wears the flesh of a man—it shielded him, Righel. It shielded him!”

A moment later Eryian caught her eyes, and he saw panic—that and a quick, whispered good-bye.

Eryian started to move, but Azazel moved his left hand, extending three fingers, and the warlord was thrown aside. It was as though the air itself had come against him, and he was slammed into the earth on his back. The sword was knocked from his hand. It lay just beyond his fingers; still simmering, snaking bolts of light from the blade, but Eryian could not move to reach it. The pressure folding in against him continued to increase, as if the angel were gaining strength, recovering. Eryian felt a rib snap with sudden, sharp pain, threatening to pierce his heart. Eryian hissed. He was being crushed by air.

The Unchurian slowly lifted his right hand. “Cassium,” the twain voice whispered. “How well I remember you. How these many years I have missed you.” His wrist turned deftly.

It was as if his hand had seized Cassium, she was lifted from the ground and hung a moment, her back arched, and she gasped in sudden pain. She began to spin, slowly at first, then faster, until her arms were thrown out, her hair whipping.

Eryian struggled with all he had, stretching his fingers. Cassium began to scream. A splatter of blood slapped across Eryian's cuirass. The air continued to crush him back; another rib snapped. His fingers stretched, closer, all his strength to reach the blade.

Blood began to stream from Cassium's pores, spraying outward everywhere, her hands, her arms, her face. She was spinning into a blur.

Eryian drew strength and with a snarl heaved himself to the side. He touched the hilt of Righel's sword and sucked in its power, drinking its light—giving it whatever it wished to take, flesh, blood, it did not matter. The pressure against him shattered. He was instantly on his feet, turning, and for a moment, an instant, it was not Eryian who lifted the sunblade. It was Righel.

Cassium dropped to the ground like a broken doll. Blood pooled about her into the dirt.

Eryian stared through Righel's eyes; he remembered her words, what she had said of anger, of rage, but he could not suppress it.

“Look familiar, star jumper?” Azazel said, amused. “Her blood across your breastplate? Her light was not pure enough. As I, as we, she is unforgiven. But be assured, her heart still beats—if you want to call what she now has inside her a heart. It will take days; it is a craft of death that took some time to perfect. It leaves astonishing pain, unendurable, I imagine, even for a Star Walker Queen.” Azazel then paused, tipped his head to the side. “You are different. I have taken and perfected mortal flesh, like a new set of clothes. But look here, you—you are mortal! What is it you have done, Righel? Wait; let me guess—you think that by laying down your mantle and taking up a mortal's coil that somehow He will forgive you? You have wasted your time. A pity, my brother, but you have wasted centuries. Elyon turned His face; He will not look back, not for any of us. And now look at your pretty Star Walker Queen—she was once so beautiful. What a sad end, Righel. Tell me something—what exactly do you plan to do with that sword? It belongs to an angel, not a mortal.”

Eryian threw all his conscious energy into the sword, feeding it, letting it drink not only his rage, but his soul. And Righel's blade responded, it swiftly drank his lifeblood, and moments before it would have killed him, Eryian brought the sword over his shoulder in an arc and flung it like a dagger, hard into the chest of the Watcher. It was a burning, molten white. It pierced Aza-zel's armor like cutting through lard until the hand guards slammed against the oraculum breastplate where it lodged. Azazel gasped, sucking for air. Apparently, his mortal body sustained pain. It may have been momentary pain, but he was obviously staggered. He dropped to his knees and the blade exploded in a brilliant starburst that pulsed outward, imploding with a deafening roar.

Eryian threw himself down, covering his head. He felt the wave of energy pass over him. Had it caught him, it would have destroyed him instantly, but he was close to Azazel and the wave passed over both him and Cassium's crushed body. It felt like a seething, boiling surge of heat, passing with heavy wind.

It annihilated everything in its path. Men and horse seemed to melt into acid shadows. The earth, laden with bodies, charred and curled upward, blown back. But Azazel's body remained intact, back arched, paralyzed in pain, flesh peeling away. His very body divided the explosion, and it streamed past him to either side, leaving a vee-shaped shadow that expanded from the point where he knelt. But everything to either side was vaporized the instant the light struck it, trees, rock, horses, bodies; all were being obliterated by the fire of a distant star.

Rhywder brought his horse about hard, sucking in a breath. He was far up the hill, but by the luck that always seemed to follow him, both he and Satrina were directly behind the angel. The blast streamed to either side of them, but they, and the Unchurian warriors around them, were left in the shadow, untouched. He saw the trees lying back like feathers, saw huge chunks of Hericlon's rock torn free and thrown into the air like pebbles. It was called Severity, the pure and unbridled light of Elyon, light without forgiveness, light that did not judge but simply destroyed everything in its path. Unchurians were vaporized, flashing into shadows that seemed to hang in the air for a moment before they vanished. Yet he and Satrina were protected by the angel's body. Rhywder had guessed it to be spellbound, and it was. It was nearly as invincible as the divine flesh it had been traded for. Rhywder believed both he and Satrina bore pure hearts, but the light of Elyon did not make judgments; it was light that was absolute. Had they not been protected by the angel's shadow, they would have become shadows of ash as the thousands of warriors to either side of them.

Rhywder threw his cloak aside and sank his heels hard into the ribs of the horse, leaning forward, clutching the reins in one tight fist, lowering his head, shielding his eyes from the blinding white of the heat flash as he raced for the crouched body at full gallop. Satrina, on instinct, followed. Rhywder did not really think he could take the bastard out, but by Elyon's grace, the Watcher's flesh, spellbound or not, had to have been weakened and he was gong to give it a try.