The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) Read online

  The Devil’s Deuce

  The Barrier War Trilogy

  Book 2

  A Novel of the Pandemonium War

  By

  Brian J. Moses

  Text Copyright © 2013 Brian J. Moses

  All Rights Reserved

  The Pandemonium War

  The Barrier War Trilogy

  Book 1 – Hunting The Three

  Book 2 – The Devil’s Deuce

  Book 3 – Satan’s Gambit

  The Demonic Jihad Trilogy

  Book 1 – Demon’s Wager

  (forthcoming)

  See www.pandemoniumwar.com

  for previews and updates,

  plus chapter-by-chapter

  author’s commentary on each book.

  Other books by Brian J. Moses

  The Karola Stone

  For my wife. The true love of my life.

  For my boys. Teaching me to be a better father, making me a better man.

  For Hoil. I’m sorry she couldn’t be with you longer.

  Special thanks to Chris M.,

  whose thoughts and questions led to

  many improvements in these books.

  and

  Special thanks to the team at

  www.damonza.com

  for the cover art.

  Table of Contents

  Map

  Interlude

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Interlude

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Interlude

  Appendix C

  Map

  Interlude

  From the outset, we mortals never knew what this war was really about, nor the stakes involved.

  - Michael Semnriak,

  “Collected Accounts from the Pandemonium War”

  - 1 -

  There are some questions to which we may never truly know the answers.[1]

  Why does evil exist? Why does life exist? What truly happens to our souls when we die?

  Next to these come the questions whose answers, given proper insight and logical inquiry, we might discover.

  What is the force that binds men to the ground, but holds birds in the sky? Why does the far northern sky ripple and glow with light that has no discernible source? And perhaps more important than these – at least to our order – is thus: What happens to our brother paladins who don the white cloak of beauty and cross into Hell?

  For certain, none have returned who are so blessed by the White – or perhaps cursed? Should any of my paladin brothers read this, I beg you forgive my words, which some might consider heretical, but the question must be asked. What sort of blessing is it that consumes men with the unconquerable desire to cross into certain death? We know that the Devil is at work in the world, we see the touch of his black hand everywhere, and we know that often the King of Hell seeks to subvert that which our Lord God has given us.

  Does the Prince of Darkness not seek to tempt the hearts of the righteous and use their blessings to foster pride, arrogance, and greed? Does not good fortune engender covetousness in one’s neighbors, often bringing about all manner of ill on one who thought himself blessed?

  Why, then, could the King of Hell not seek to poison Holy God’s blessing of the white cloak and, in their openness to the divine, infect them with an overwhelming desire to cross the Merging? Perhaps he seeks to use our own sense of duty against us. For to cross and confront the demons on their own ground instead of seeking out the dregs of their existence here, to hunt and possibly destroy the Devil himself, to destroy the unholy beasts at their source – such a dream would tempt even the most holy and temperate of men.

  It should be noted that those who have donned the cloak have shown a marked lack of logical reasoning for their actions. None have been able to adequately describe the compulsion which drives them to what is surely a suicidal quest, and the few attempts to restrain one of our White brothers have met with disastrous results. To date, not a single one of our brothers has returned from the crossing,[2] and so we have no answer to the burning question:

  What happens to our brother paladins who don the white cloak of beauty and cross into Hell?

  - 2 -

  “You know, I’m still confused about what happened.[3] I mean, none of us had any inkling of what was happening until it was already over and done with. I wasn’t on duty that Duday, but I heard tell what happened.

  “Hundreds, thousands of paladins suddenly appeared at the gates of the Barrier one day and crossed over the Merging on their way into Hell. They weren’t even Whites, which we’re used to seeing one or even two at a time. It was men of every color in the Prism riding their horses and dakkans on a path that has held only death for their kind for centuries. We heard more details once it was over than we had leading up to their departure.

  “Paladins filtering into the city slowly but surely as they were recalled from across the world, inns and rented homes suddenly filled by the overflow from their headquarters, supplies requisitioned from all over the city to outfit a major operation, you name it. Everything pointed to some major undertaking, but it was done so quickly and quietly none of us put it together.

  “Popular theory held they did it that way to keep it a surprise, as though they expected demonic spies to get wind of it and report across the Merging. I don’t think that’s possible, but based on some of the rumors we heard later, maybe I’m wrong. It’s a sure thing none of us, and by that I mean the men manning the Barrier – none of us knew they were coming. Like I said, I wasn’t on duty, but my friends were, and they said they heard the paladins coming a mile away. Hooves and claws on the streets, you understand.

  “Then suddenly, they were there, countless paladins of every color demanding the Barrier be opened. Said they were crossing on some important mission to create a beachhead or something to that effect. Damn foolishness, if you ask me, paladins or not. There’s got to be tens of thousands of demons in Hell, more than enough to overwhelm that force, no matter how strong and devout they were. That’s why we have the Barrier – if it were just a matter of a few thousand paladins wiping out the demons, we’d have cleansed Hell eons ago, I imagine. But no, we stay safe here because they can’t cross in force, and it just seems common sense to me that we should stay here and they stay there. That’s as God intended, if you ask me.

  “So here we are, a week later, and no one’s heard a damn thing back from them. If you ask me, they’re all dead. It’s a damn shame, too. There’s whispers that something else big is happening, only this time it’s the other way around. The demons will be coming here, and we’re going to wish like Hell that we had those paladins back.”

&nbs
p; - 3 -

  At the edge of a sheer cliff, a lone figure stood silhouetted against the volcanic sky. Gray, motionless clouds hung suspended in the air, completely obscuring what should have been a sun. Yet behind them, no orb of luminance blazed; there was no globe of brilliance to shed warmth and light on the landscape below. Instead, a source-less light shone through the ashen clouds with a fiery brilliance. The clouds themselves were motionless in the perpetually windless sky, but the light suffusing them seemed to dance and writhe with a life of its own, like the churning of a sky made from restless magma.

  The landscape itself was devoid of life. No brush, no grass, no trees; not even a dried and desiccated stump to indicate that something might have once existed there. Nothing.

  A lone man looked down on the plains below and smiled mirthlessly. His lips were tightly drawn and tightly sealed. He was encased in platemail that shone like a mirror, and resplendent fire danced on the surface from the reflected sky. One hand rested familiarly on the hilt of his sword, the other absently fingered the visor on the helmet held low at his waist. Across his shoulders was a cloak of the purest black, hanging straight to the ground with no wind to stir it. Perhaps that was something – the only thing – he missed from his old life; the wind.

  The armor he wore and his cloak were both holdovers from his past, and he wore them still as a sign of who and what he was. He’d earned the ebony cloth as he embraced his destiny, and the armor had been with him too long to cast aside. Certain adjustments had been made, of course – the sign of the Tricrus had been carefully removed and replaced by the symbol of his new allegiance.

  Three lines intersected in a perfectly proportioned triangle with overlapping corners.

  The Cthonis.

  The man’s face was chiseled as from stone, with a dispassionate sternness carved into the basalt contours of his jaw, and a cruel look in the set of his human features. His hair was nearly white, not as with age but as though all color had simply been leeched free by the same power that had touched his eyes.

  His eyes. Ebony pools of merciless depths, without love, without humanity. No stars marred their perfect, compassionless night; no color save the pearly sea that surrounded the inky black islands.

  He stood alone, a power among powers amidst a realm that respected nothing but. His master ruled every creature, every denizen of this world – the most powerful entity in an infinite domain. When the man spoke, he spoke with his master’s voice and authority. His words were as law here.

  His name was Malith, and his master was Mephistopheles, the King of Hell.

  Malith raised a gauntleted fist and signaled two men on the hill well behind him. Each was garbed similarly to him, with nothing to designate command or authority. There was no need. Everyone knew Malith – and for whom he spoke – and none would fail to obey the general of Hell’s armies. The men rose and left to convey his unspoken order.

  On the lifeless plains below, Malith watched as a long snake writhed its way forward. The snake’s scales were the armored hides of dakkans and the burnished armor of the men who rode them. The snake slithered on thousands of clawed dakkan feet and steel-shod horse hooves. Its tail was a long train of supply wagons, guarded by men of faith bearing swords of blessed steel and shields of lethal design. Over the snake’s spine flew more men on dakkan-back, their duty to see from above what the snake could not see from below.

  The snake’s head was made up of six men, each marked by a different color. Red. Blue. Green. Yellow. Orange. Violet. The six colors of virtue worn by the Prismatic Order in the mortal world. The men were holy warriors of God – paladins – and they’d come to Hell on the words of an enemy hidden amidst those left behind in Lokka.

  By Malith’s orders, his forces were concealed within, above, behind, and beneath the cliffs on which he now stood. The denizens of Hell, be they demon or damned, were poised to fall on the holy fools and annihilate them. Others had argued about the wisdom of tempting the paladins to cross the Merging and assault Hell directly, but Mephistopheles had held to Malith’s plan and allowed The Three to prompt the attack.

  Malith knew that in the mortal realm, the unholy trio of demons had been about their individual missions. Malith had personally selected The Three because of their unparalleled abilities in shapeshifting and mind control. Min had infiltrated the chapterhouse of the paladins and subsequently corrupted several members of the Prismatic Council. Under his influence, they’d ordered several thousand paladins, nearly half of all that lived in the mortal world, to cross the Merging in an attempt to reconnoiter Hell and perhaps lay siege to any city of power they found there.

  Min’s brothers, Sal and Ran, had their own missions as well. Ran had assumed a position of power in the country of Merishank, a militant country run by a strict dictator. Under the influence of Ran’s guise as an advisor, the country was to gird itself for war and prepare to assault Nocka[4] and keep other forces from reaching the city. Malith knew all too well the heavy defenses that protected Nocka from both sides, and a large army of men attacking on one side would weaken the city’s defenses and chip away at her resources until Malith’s own army could attack from the other side and grind the city to dust if necessary.

  Sal’s mission was two-fold. He was to sew chaos in other countries, specifically in the dwarven and elven nations, but also he was to hunt down the one man who had escaped Hell where so many before had not. Malith was convinced that if he’d been given command of the search, the escaped man – he’d never bothered to ask the captive’s name – would have been recaptured. Instead, Mephistopheles had left him training his men and had ordered Daella to lead the search.

  Malith snorted. Daella. The female demon was one of the strongest creatures in this realm, but still her power was nothing to Mephistopheles’s own. Malith’s master was the unchallenged ruler of Hell, and he would lead the immortal plane to victory with Malith’s help. Mephistopheles had been gathering his forces for centuries, but he’d had no definitive, feasible strategy until Malith joined him.

  After years of planning, Malith’s plan would finally begin to bear fruit with the slaughter of the paladins below him.

  Watching the snake’s progress carefully, he signaled again, and two more men left from the hill behind him, running to deliver his silent order and take their own places for the assault. The first pair had carried the order to be ready. This pair carried the order to execute.

  After a moment’s waiting, the ground began to tremble. From his vantage, Malith could see the lifeless plains below vibrate and shiver with the force of the quake, and he could hear the air itself hum with the violent shaking. Men were thrown from the backs of their dakkan and equine mounts while their comrades struggled to stay seated. Streaks of lightning struck without warning from the molten clouds and struck a half dozen riders from the sky. Their flaming corpses fell to ground in the middle of the column, creating chaos and disorder in the ranks.

  Onto this scene of mayhem burst a horror such as few mortal men could ever imagine. The ground erupted, and multi-limbed demonic horrors emerged and tore men from their feet and ripped them to pieces. Demons that seemed nothing but wings and teeth suddenly swooped down from the sky, lifting men from their saddles and slashing their flesh viciously before they were dropped to the ground. The paladins’ descents began to slow, instinct saving them as they activated the powers of their blessed cloaks, but their slow drift toward the ground left them easy targets for Malith’s archers and aerial demons. Of the hundred men hauled into the sky, one in twenty made it to the ground alive.

  Meanwhile other demons were assaulting the column of paladins on all sides. The long column had been pressed immediately from every direction at once, giving the warriors no time to reform into a defensible position. Childris, with their chitinous bodies and lightning-fast reflexes, slashed with razor-sharp talons or threw wickedly barbed spears at their mortal opponents. Tens of thousands of demons pressed against them in an overwhelming mass of slavering fu
ry; for every mortal heart that stood resolutely, ten eager demons sought to rend them body and soul.

  More of the monstrous, multi-limbed drolkuls stormed into the fray, either charging into the vulnerable flanks or tunneling under the ground to erupt in the midst of the chaotic column. The demons were half again as large as any man, and their strength was terrible as they ripped men bodily from their saddles before biting or tearing their heads off. The paladins rallied to fight and even began to make a stand against their inhuman opponents as decades of training forged them into a single, coherent force amidst the Hellish chaos.

  A battle cry rang out as thousands of paladins cried out in one voice, “For God, for man! For life!”

  Malith had anticipated this, even counted on it. Now it was time for him to take a direct hand. Strike in their moment of greatest hope and crush them to the depths of despair. He settled his helmet on his head with a shiver of anticipation.

  Malith leapt from the edge of the cliff and drifted swiftly to the ground. His feet touched down a score of yards from the closest edge of the fight. At his side appeared a dozen men garbed in same style of gleaming platemail and black cloak as he wore. The swords they wielded were as black as the cloaks they wore, Malith’s own weapon included, dark counterpoints to the shining armor that so closely resembled their former brethren’s. With a commanding flick of his blade, the thirteen men charged forward. The press of demons parted for them, none willing to bar the path of Hell’s general and the Black Viscia[5].

  Then Malith was face-to-face with the paladins who led the force of holy warriors: the snake’s head.

  “Fools,” he said contemptuously, then split a man in half from behind with a single sweep of his sword. His black-bladed weapon cut through steel and bone like so much paper, and Malith reveled in the power it gave him over a man he might have once called brother.