won. It could easily be considered treason if he lost.
“But where is our great blow? How shall we defeat the enemy without the one massive strike to break his will? How can we crush their defense without the concentrated blow of the Beasts?” Lapradanultrox looked again at the strange formation.
“Look at the humans, Lapradanultrox, look at them. Where is the defense for us to breach? They have not drawn a line, not even one behind a ridgeline as Abigor described. Instead there is a field of death ahead of us, as deep as we can see. Our cavalry cannot charge through it, they will lose speed and momentum before they get far enough to matter and they will be destroyed. We cannot charge through the defense the humans have constructed, we mush chew our way through it. The foot soldier groups, each with the extra strength of a Beast to support them, will take on those small defense positions and we will chew our way through.”
“This will be a bloody day.” Lapradanultrox adjusted his vision for long range and scanned the human defenses that were waiting, silently, mercilessly.
“Bloody day? I think not. This battle will not be over in a day. It will go on for days until the human army has been crushed. Like it or not, Lapradanultrox, the days when a battle would be decided honorably in a single day are gone. The humans have won the first battle of all, we now fight on their terms and no matter what happens, things in Hell will never be the same again. Now, sound the advance to contact.”
Below them, the great Army started to move forward. Word was being passed to the assembled harpies, to swarm into the air and commence their assault on the humans. That was Beelzebub’s plan, to hit the humans with his foot soldiers, harpies and Beasts all together so that the humans would be overwhelmed.
Then, far away behind the human lines, beyond the region where the dust-laden atmosphere closed out vision, Beelzebub saw something strange and inexplicable. A sheet of flickering light, like the bolts thrown by the tridents of his foot soldiers and nagas, but covering the horizon in great sheets, reflecting off the clouds overhead.
“Human magery!” Lapradanultrox’s voice rose into a scream. “The human mages have started their work. The battle is joined.”
Artillery Battalion, Rear Echelon, Phlegethon River Front
This particular battalion had guns that were an odd hybrid, old D-30 122mm guns mounted on a new truck chassis. A product of the emergency mobilization that had all of Russia in ferment. The guns had come from storage, the trucks had once been intended for the civilian market, although why civilians would need 8 x 8 trucks had never been quite clear. It was rumored Americans wanted them for conversion into SUVs. But, the design for the self-propelled guns had been drawn up for the export market where wheeled, self-propelled artillery had been a big growth sector. Those plans had been modified quickly for the Great Salvation War and the truck-mounted guns had poured off the lines as fast as the factories could be converted. Artillery was the God of War, a God that had never let the Russian Army down.
Lieutenant Sergei Aleksandrovich Ehlakov commanded this battery of six guns and he had his assigned fire- plan. It was laid down, strictly, severely, the targets clearly designated for destruction on a finely judged schedule. It was not his place to select targets or to swing his guns from one place to another. He was not an American officer who would swing his guns from one point target to the next, his place in the scheme of things was as a part of a machine that delivered massive, total destruction. His task was to keep his guns firing, to drench the battlefield with high explosive so that the enemy could not move forward to attack the defense lines. He had his support of course, the big trucks carrying ammunition and all around him, the little jeeps with their anti-aircraft guns welded on to the beds. His D-30s had come from store and so had the anti-aircraft guns. Quadruple 14.5 mm machine guns, twin 23 mm cannon, whatever had been in storage was here, to protect the guns from attack.
“Battalion Control Tovarish Lieutenant. The enemy is moving. Commence fire plan in six-zero seconds.”
The gunners were waiting, the first shells already in the breeches of the guns. Who would have the honor of firing the first shell against the enemy horde descending upon them? The first of the thousands that would descend like rain on that enemy and grind his forces into the mud. Would his guns, here on the northern flank, succeed in opening this great battle? Or would the guns further south have that honor? Ehlakov watched the figures on his clock changing as they reached the appointed second. Then, the strained silence turned into a mighty roar that crushed his eardrums and seemed to drive him into the ground. The ground that was already shaking in a rolling sea-like motion as the long lines of guns recoiled, their spades digging deep into the ground, before they returned to their position and their gunners could stuff more shells into their chambers and send another ‘package’ to its recipients. Now, all that Ehlakov could see were his men dropping into the methodical, routine motions as the shells were brought forward and fired. He looked down to his next target, in two minutes he would have to shift to the next aiming point.
Third Platoon, Second Company, Third Battalion, Fourth Regiment, 247th Motor Rifle Division, Phlegethon River Front, Hell
“Here it comes Bratischka. The enemy advances and our gunners make their reply. Soon it will be our turn.”
Lieutenant Anatolii Ivanovich Pas'kov dropped into the turret of his BMP-2 and fastened it in place. There was nothing to be gained by staying outside now. The word passed down from on high was that humans were more or less safe inside their armored vehicles. They should fight from them, not outside them. Pas’kov felt agreeably comfortable with that advice. Overhead, he could hear the express-train roar of the artillery shells overhead, heard it even through the metal shell of his BMP. “Outbound” he yelled, instinct taking over. For a quick second he wondered what it would be like to be outside, under the tons of descending metal that was aimed at the demons, then he decided he didn’t care and certainly didn’t want to find out. Being inside his faithful BMP-2 suited him just fine.
Outside, seen through the vision blocks of the BMP, Pas’kov could see a mass of black covering the opposite banks of the river. A terrifying sight, he’d heard the numbers of the enemy were counted in the millions but he’d never quite imagined what “millions” looked like. Now he knew. The artillery had its work cut out.
Tornado GR. 4, 617 Squadron, Royal Air Force.
“You know, it’s a pity we phased the old JP-233 out of service.”
“You can say that, you never used one.” Squadron Leader Desmond Young had been one of the pilots who had used the JP-233 on its one and only operational deployment, 17 years ago in the Gulf War. He wasn’t quite certain which had been worse, the light displays as the submunition dispenser had fired its cargo, the violent changes in pitch as the weight distribution had changed or the Iraqi anti-aircraft fire that had been all around them. All in all, it had been an exciting night and Young had been only too pleased to hear that the JP-233 had been withdrawn from service. Officially that was because of the anti-land mines treaty but the real reason was that the crews had made their discontent with the weapon very plain.
“Targets dead ahead.” In the back seat, Flight Lieutenant Wyngarde had the target area marked on the rolling map in front of him. Navigating in Hell was weird, nothing seemed to work quite right, an aircraft couldn’t just retrace its route to get home. A crew that relied on instinct to navigate could get hopelessly lost. Still, the navigation systems people were working on that, they had the beacons set up and, with them, a modernized version of the old Gee navigation equipment first used by Bomber Command in World War Two. It might be an old system but it worked, even in Hell. “Clear of the prohibited zone.”
That was crucial, the last thing the Tornadoes needed was to get caught in the mass of descending Russian shells. So, the bombers had flown a looped route, one that took them parallel to the Phlegethon River and over the area where the drones had said the enemy harpies had gathered. Young didn’t need navigation systems to see where his target lay, it was directly ahead, marked by the beginnings of a cloud of harpies taking to the air. The strike was a few second late but that didn’t matter too much.
The eight Tornadoes swept over the harpy assembly area, raining more than 60 BL-755 cluster bombs on the creatures below. The ground vanished under a rippling wave of explosions as the Tornadoes swept over the scene and turned for the run home, the airborne harpies floundering in their wake. Long before the Tornadoes crossed the Harpy grounds, they had pulled back into a steep climb, releasing their bombs as they did, so the bombs were tossed into the mass of harpies, rather than dropped on them. By the time the bombers reached the center of the target area, they were already clear of the harpy cloud and climbing steeply.
“We’re clear Peter, Dragon-one to all dragon elements, weapons delivered, time to go home and get some more.”
Wyngarde looked over his shoulder at the explosions still rolling over the ground now far below them. “Drop confirmed Boss. And to think they wanted to take our cluster bombs away.”
