The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (92 page)

“You get used to it,” Phaestus said from under the large metal gun housing. “You know I like volcanos.”

Sekhmekt shook her head. “Yes, I know, I get it. Vulcan, volcano, you’ve been making the same joke for thousands of years now. However, I am not talking about Mount Doom. I’m talking about the Abyss, about being cut off from the pools!”

Phaestus chuckled under the gun. “So you’re feeling naked reduced to only the mana you can store on your person?”

Sekhmekt nodded. “This is about the only place in the multiverse where I can’t touch my god pool or the pantheon pools. I don’t see how you do it.”

“You do realize that the vast majority of individuals in the multiverse don’t have access to super-high-powered mana pools and anima jars? That the overwhelming majority of life in the multiverse has nothing more than their own reserves to work with?” Phaestus asked.

“Yes, but I am not one of the vast unwashed masses. I’m a goddess, for my sake!” Sekhmekt complained.

“Uh huh, and as such, naked as you might now be, you still have more reserves than the other 99.99 percent of life in the multiverse,” Phaestus pointed out.

“I don’t seem to recall too many objections on your part when we all signed up for this latest venture to try and get us back on our feet, to boost ourselves back up from the 0.01 percent to the 0.001 percent of life in the multiverse!” Sekhmekt retorted.

“That’s because sometimes agreeing with all of you is easier than arguing with you!” Phaestus groused. “Now, I need to concentrate on this cannon. In case you have not noticed, I am literally ‘under the gun’ to get this done.”

“Very well, ptooey on you, pêTah!” She gave him a friendly snarl that he could not see under the gun.

“This weather really sucks!” Lesteroth yelled to his nearest companion, Bellyachus.

“You think?” Bellyachus yelled back. “I’m kind of glad to have weather for a change. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had any.”

“Yes, but it’s getting very hard to fly with these winds! They keep getting worse,” Lesteroth complained.

“You in a hurry to get chopped to pieces?” Bellyachus yelled back.

“No, but I’m not sure about working my ass off to fly into battle as cannon fodder for the Knights of Chaos!” Lesteroth complained.

“Better that than relaxing your way to Lilith’s dungeon!” Bellyachus shouted.

Lesteroth cursed, using an extremely unprintable epithet. “Now it’s also getting hard to see through this rain! It has really picked up in the last several deminutes,” Lesteroth complained.

“Why are you doing all the complaining? I’m the one called Bellyachus —I should be doing the belly aching!” Bellyachus said.

“You weren’t doing your job!” Lesteroth grinned over to his buddy.

CRACK!

A bolt of lightning came down just to their left about a hundred feet away.

“Unholy bat dung!” Bellyachus screamed. “That was fragging close! Are we under attack?”

“No idea!” Lesteroth yelled back.

They flew on for a bit as the winds continued to grow stronger.

Finally, Bellyachus spoke up again. “You know how soldiers going into battle are always saying ‘Today is a good day to die?’ or something like that?” Bellyachus shouted.

“Yes,” Lesteroth returned. “My favorite is ‘Tonight we dine in hell!’ ” They both laughed at that one.

“We’ve had a lot of meals down here!” Bellyachus yelled back.

“We have!” Lesteroth shouted back.

“Well, so, I know I’m supposed to say stuff like that, and yeah, I’m like forty-two hundred plus years old, but today is
not
a good day to die!” Bellyachus shouted.

“Don’t worry!” Lesteroth said, grinning. “You’ll get over it!”

“Ours is but to do or die!” the two shouted together while laughing ruefully.

~

“Radar shows that the army has slowed and appears to be on the ground,” Horken reported from the TCC. “I would have to guess this is due to the wind speed. We are measuring sustained wind speeds of nearly 30 leagues per hour.”

Tom, standing at the 3D map board in the Command Center, replied, “Excellent! Those are hurricane-class winds, and I haven’t even started venting the volcano!”

“Affirmative,” Horken agreed. “We have them on the ground. We are also recording significant lightning strikes in the area. No direct hits so far, but there are plenty of close calls. At least for the demons. Really hard to see through the Maelstrom.”

“So, they continue on foot,” Arg-nargoloth stated. Since they were now on the rune network of the complex, the board could map their progress. “The Maelstrom has slowed as well; however, I am not sure if that’s due to the weather or simply keeping pace with the grounded demons.”

“Either way, for the demons, that’s somewhat impressive,” Darg-Krallnom said.

“Or stupid.” Vargg Agnoth chuckled.

“I would go with desperate,” Antefalken said.

Tom looked at him. “What do you mean, ‘desperate’?”

“I mean Lilith.” Antefalken shook his head. “Given the relatively short notice, the logistics of getting here, and most important, the very serious risk of using Knights of Chaos, I suspect she is feeling a bit desperate.”

Arg-nargoloth nodded in agreement. “She has never used Knights of Chaos against us here; not since the defeat, and never before.”

“We think she used them in Etterdam against Orcus. That is the most likely explanation for all the permanent casualties we had,” Vargg said. Tom looked at him curiously.

Vargg shrugged. “Knights of Chaos can kill demons permanently if they get a good strike in. At least against lesser demons.”

“So, as planned, we keep the D’Orcs focused on the demon army. Tommus, myself, Talarius, the sphinxes and Morok’s regiment will focus on the Knights of Chaos,” Sekhmekt said.

“Targeting them inside the Maelstrom will be difficult,” Zog Dethelm said.

Sekhmekt grimaced. “We will need to work to separate the knights, break up the Maelstrom.”

Zog nodded. “I think that is critical. The Maelstrom also acts as a shield to deflect attacks. As best as we can measure, it acts as some sort of dimensionally phased shield.”

“So back to Lilith,” Tom said, changing the topic. “You said she’s desperate?” He looked to Antefalken.

“She doesn’t normally strike first. For some reason, she’s not trying to negotiate with you or trying to trick you. She is coming at you with as much as she can muster on short notice. This isn’t her style.”

“If she doesn’t take Lord Tommus now, she may have to wait another twenty thousand plus years,” Darg-Krallnom suddenly spoke up. Antefalken looked at him curiously. “After a few failed attempts early on once she discovered Doom, she never attacked the fortress again. She realized quickly that when fully powered and with someone who knows how to use the wand—sorry, rod—Mount Doom is essentially impenetrable by a force of any size.”

“That is why she waited until almost all of our forces were in Etterdam. Even so, we still do not completely understand how she managed all of what she did. Even with Sentir Fallon, it had to have required a lot of luck,” Arg-nargoloth said.

“So she needs to take out Mount Doom before Lord Tommus can fully control it,” Sekhmekt commented. “It makes sense, but it is risky; if she is once again working with those treacherous Etonians, they could be pushing her.”

Tom said nothing, thinking about what was being said. He suddenly remembered something Antefalken said. “What did you mean about the serious risks of using Knights of Chaos?”

Sekhmekt snorted. “You are right, bard!” She shook her head. “I really hadn’t thought on that.”

Antefalken nodded. “Knights of Chaos are agents of change, insurrection, anarchy and destabilization. Typically one would unleash them to overthrow the forces of law and order, to destabilize a situation.”

“Using them to preserve the status quo is actually a very perverse use for them,” Sekhmekt agreed.

“Hmm. Therefore, if Lilith sees me as a threat to her and the current status quo that she established after Etterdam, then technically, I am the source of change. The knights should be on my side!” Tom exclaimed.

“One would think; but they are mercurial by definition. It depends perhaps on a larger scale than what we can currently see. They may have other reasons to agree to help her that create more chaos elsewhere in the multiverse,” Sekhmekt said.

“Or she could be bluffing. Playing a game to bring them into play. When she last used them she was trying to destroy the status quo. She was trying to establish a new paradigm without Lord Orcus,” Darg-Krallnom said.

“So perhaps they don’t know that the landscape has changed.” Antefalken nodded his head in agreement.

Tom suddenly stared upward for a moment and then looked around the map table, grinning. “Good news! My kettle is finally at boiling point!” Tom raised his arms with the Rod of Tommus in his right hand. “Doom is at hand!”

Suddenly the ground shook with deafening thunder. The heat level in the room seemed to go up by an amount easily noticeable even to demons. Red spots suddenly appeared on the 3D map as the vents of Doom began erupting. Huge roiling clouds of greyish ash and smoke with highlights of both lightning and fiery magma could be seen sweeping down towards the invading army.

“Now, we bury them!” Tom shouted in glee.

“This is just too old school,” Bellyachus complained to Lesteroth as they marched through the wind, rain and steam. Steam. Steam was the worst visibility problem on the ground. The ground was still hot enough that a fair amount of steam was being generated as the rain hit it. It made the landscape seem foggy. Or maybe it
was
fog; Lesteroth had no idea. He had not seen either since becoming a demon.

“This is hell!” Lesteroth yelled in reply.

“No, it’s the Abyss!” Bellyachus laughed at the old joke.

“Seriously, does Darflow even know where we are? If we are on track? I can’t see a thing!” Lesteroth yelled.

“Well, he is a greater demon; they get paid to know that sort of thing!” Bellyachus shouted back.

“Wait! He’s getting paid?” Lesteroth returned with another of their favorite jokes.

“This is a miserable way to go into battle!” Talgorf yelled, coming up between them.

“The good thing is…” Lesteroth paused to make sure the other two could both hear him yelling. “They won’t be trying to oppose us on open ground!”

“That had been my fear with the new management! I was afraid we’d never make the tunnels!” Talgorf yelled. “Once we are in the tunnels, though, it should be much more like the old days!”

“Yeah, no way they would come out to fight in this weather!” Bellyachus yelled back. His voice suddenly sounded quite loud as the blowing wind died very quickly. The rain intensity also let up considerably. It was still very windy, and it was still raining, which was simply unnatural in the Abyss.

“What happened?” Lesteroth asked and then the world lurched.

“What the Abyss?” Bellyachus exclaimed as another rumble occurred, shaking them where they stood.

“An Abyssquake?” Talgorf asked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

Suddenly their conversation was washed out by a large explosion, followed by a roar that didn’t seem to end. Lesteroth was pointing forward and to their left, where a giant, greyish black plume of smoke and ash was skyrocketing upward. Bellyachus grabbed Lesteroth’s arm and dragged him to the right, where another large plume was roaring upward as if in stereo. The ground began to shake even worse as the wind returned to a ferocious speed.

Bellyachus could see Lesteroth mouthing something like “What the hell?” even as he stared over the demon’s head at the rapidly onrushing greyish black cloud thousands of feet high with streaks of red fire and flashes of lightning rushing towards them like a tidal wave.

Bellyachus’s last thought before being engulfed was that it looked like a giant wall of doom. The irony was not lost on him.

~

“Whoa!” Zelda exclaimed, looking at the empty grey plain where the invading demons had just been buried by the eruption.

“Such mastery!” Tamarin exclaimed from her vantage point up near the ceiling, where she was floating cross-legged. She clapped her hands enthusiastically. The djinn had wandered up to the command center a short while ago and was trying to stay out from underfoot. However, the explosive use of para-elemental forces was something she obviously enjoyed.

“That is going to take them some time to dig out of!” Arg-nargoloth laughed and high-fived Darg-Krallnom.

“We need to get troops out there to chop them to pieces as they come out!” Vargg said.

“Give the order!” Tom told Vargg. “What about the knights?”

“There!” Sekhmekt pointed to the area where the knights had been, which was now also covered by the eruption avalanche. An eruption which continued to drop ash, dirt and magma on the ground, albeit at a slightly slower pace. As they watched on the map, a distortion appeared in the region where the knights had been. The blackish distortion seemed to be growing, like a bubble forming on the surface of a liquid.

“It looks like they are floating to the top,” Arg-nargoloth said.

“Are you two ready?” Tom asked Sekhmekt and Talarius.

“Yes,” Talarius said, patting the hilt of Ruiden, once more a sword and on his back.

“Yes. The sphinxes are in position at the exit,” Sekhmekt said. “Grab my hands and I’ll teleport us there.”

Tom nodded. He looked at Vargg, Zelda and Zog and said, “You three have the conn.” He turned to Darg-Krallnom and Arg-nargoloth. “As planned, you come with us and join your troops from there.” The two D’Orc commanders nodded.

Talarius, Tom, Darg-Krallnom and Arg-nargoloth all joined hands with Sekhmekt, as did Antefalken, who had his scrying ball ready.

“To victory!” Sekhmekt shouted; the others, including all the D’Orcs in the command centers, repeated the cheer. The leaders vanished and flashes of light suddenly appeared on the map table, indicating their presence at the two exits from Mount Doom on the map.

~

Tom flew towards the Maelstrom with Talarius flying to his left and Sekhmekt to his right. The sphinxes fanned out in an array behind them. Behind the sphinxes came the twelfth regiment led by Morok Deathstealer, two hundred D’Orcs strong in heavy mech suits, and a wide assortment of fully charged high-tech weapons of various types.

In person the Maelstrom, which by now had almost finished emerging from the newest layer of ash and magma, appeared to be an amorphous blob of shiny blackness. One could see movement inside the blob, barely, but it was hard to decide how many Knights of Chaos were in there, and how much of the space consumed by the giant blob was space between the knights.