Command Post, Northern Front, Phlegethon River Bulge, Hell
The flickering lightning seemed never to stop, it was rolling backwards and forwards along the horizon. Overhead, Beelzebub heard a dreadful screaming noise, obviously the battle-cry of the human mages. It was squeezing his mind, causing his vision to blur, and as it peaked, he saw the whole of the river bank under his army erupt into volcanoes that spewed mud, water and bits of demon skywards. A rippling surge of explosions that blanketed the whole area. That was when Beelzebub felt something very strange, a wind, a warm wind that picked up force as the human mage bolts pounded into his Army. Overhead the same winds rippled the clouds of dust that saturated the atmosphere, forming them into strange patterns that swirled and changed even as he watched them. Like the blood of a human kidling stirred into a cup of wine.
“My Lord, the magery, it is causing winds to blow and storms to form.”
So the humans could control the weather as well as their other accomplishments. That thought did not make Beelzebub any happier. The descriptions he’d heard of the human mage-bolts had been bad enough, although he’d dismissed Abigor’s more colorful descriptions as being part of his alibi for defeat. But he’d never mentioned strange winds and patterns in the sky. The idea hardly had time to form in his mind before the explosions that were shattering his army along the banks of the Phlegethon shifted back to engulf a new zone and spread their death toll amongst another portion of his Army. Beelzebub looked at the carnage forming on the ground in front of him and knew that Abigor hadn’t lied, if anything he had understated the truth. He’d mentioned the human mage bolts that struck from afar and devastated the ground but he’d never said anything about a concentration of magery like this.
Combat Group, Northern Front, Phlegethon River Bulge, Hell
Hertonymarkess felt himself staggering under the sheer impact of noise and the crushing power the explosions that were all around him. He couldn’t think straight, every time a thought tried to form in his mind, the terrible screams and explosions drove it away or entered his head and shredded it. Screams, they dominated even the explosions, the battle cry of the human mages as their mage-bolts slammed into the army, the screams of the demons and Beasts as they were torn apart and died. He couldn’t hold his trident properly either, the shaking was too much. The ground was heaving and rolling under his feet, in ways Hell had not experienced since the great earthquakes a few millennia ago. The little quakes, the ones Hell experienced every day had nothing on the destruction the human magery was causing.
Yet Hertonymarkess knew that the magery was only part of the shaking that was causing his problems. The rest was his own muscles, shivering with fear of the mage-bolts. An enemy, even a human, was not something he feared. If there was a human in front of him now, he could have fought and, win or lose, fought ferociously. It wasn’t the prospect of fighting that was terrifying him at all. It was the human’s ability to deliver remote-controlled death. For, there was nothing to fight here, the humans were still far away and their mage bolts just pounded the target, administering death and destruction at random. There was nothing Hertonymarkess could do about it, his skills, his courage, his training, his spirit mattered nothing. All that mattered was the pure blind chance of whether he and his combat team would be standing where the next mage bolt, or dozen, landed. It was that utter helplessness in the face of random, pitiless fate that was so terrifying.
Without being aware of it, Hertonymarkess had entered the Phlegethon River and it was with utter astonishment he realized he was in water up to his waist. The wading was slowing him down but he realized it mattered little. The human mage-fire was concentrated on the banks of the river behind him, some of the bolts were landing in the water but they were few in number. Most of the bursts were behind them and he got the feeling the ones in the river were mistakes, bolts that were landing short. Ahead, he could see a target, the first of the little forts that the humans had set up. Now that was odd. Why had the humans set up lots of little forts rather than one big one? Everybody knew that the bigger the fortress, the harder it would be to take?
There were Iron Chariots in the fortress, Hertonymarkess felt his stomach cringe at the thought of iron, then he set his grip firmly on his trident and closed the grip, discharging a bolt at the defenses ahead. It was immensely satisfying to strike back at last, after the helpless terror of the mage-bolts, now there was some way he could fight. Overhead, the vast cloud of harpies was closing in, with luck they would suppress the defenses long enough for his group to get close to that little fort.
Harpy Group, Northern Front, Phlegethon River Bulge, Hell
Uxaligantivaris screamed out her battle cry and tried to launch a jet of flame at the Sky Chariot but it was too fast for her and it rolled away and zoomed upwards. The humans were cowards, they refused to fight, they just stood off and let fly with their fire-lances and seeker-lances, cutting her comrades out of the sky. She knew the losses already suffered by the harpies were almost beyond comprehension, the first strike by the Sky Chariots had killed hundreds before they had even taken off. Then, there were the great seeker lances that had torn into the formation from afar, their explosions killing hundreds more. Then, after that, the Sky Chariots had returned and were slashing at the harpy cloud.
Her skin was on fire, a mass of mad itching that threatened to drive her mad. If the voices in her head didn’t do that first. There were so many of them, some were human speech that made little sense, others were a weird, intense beating noise, as if somebody was pounding her with a giant hammer. Yet others were a gentle hiss that simply filled every corner of her mind and drowned out all that went on inside. The mass of electronic noise was hardly surprising, Uxaligantivaris had no means of knowing it and would not have understood the implications even if she had, but she was being painted by more than 2,000 radar sets. Those alone were doing damage to her, quite distinct from the missiles and guns that they targeted. Uxaligantivaris knew that something was wrong but she couldn’t know how wrong for the truth was she was being slowly microwaved to death in mid-air. Already her body temperature was slowly rising as the radar energy was exciting the molecules that formed the liquids in her body.
Below her, she could see the human forts that formed their defensive position. It made little sense to her, but her job wasn’t to understand, just to do as she was told. Even though that meant something she had never done before. Harpies were scouts and raiders, intended to observe enemy formations and report on their movement. Sometimes they would attack undefended positions by night to spread fear and terror. Never before had the harpies been told to attack defensive positions that were fully-equipped and putting up resistance. Harpies traded protection and firepower for speed and flight. Not enough of either of course, not compared with the human Sky Chariots, but a good trade for their proper role. Now, they were being pitched against a serious defense.
There was one advantage in doing that. Uxaligantivaris had noted that the human Sky Chariots were staying high, not dropping close to the ground. Perhaps they couldn’t, she’d noticed that their wings didn’t flap like any proper flying creature. Oh, a couple had had wings that seemed to flap forward and backwards but none flapped properly. Still, the message was clear, close to the ground and the Sky Chariots would leave them alone. Cheered at the thought, she folded her wings, expelled gas, and dropped like a stone on the defense position beneath.
Command HQ, Camp Hell-Alpha, Hell
“The battle is joined Tovarish General.” General Ivan Semenovich Dorokhov was standing in front of his screen, the facilities here in hell were nowhere near as good as those General Petraeus had left behind in Baghdad but they would serve.
“Very good, Ivan Semenovich. How goes the day?”
“Well, David Howellovich.” Both men grinned at the mangled Russification of Petraeus’s middle name. “Our artillery and air strikes are hurting the baldricks badly. We estimate their casualties already must be approaching ten percent of their total.”
“A word of advice Grazhdanin Ivan, divide your estimates by three. We learned this the hard way in Iraq and before that in Vietnam and the Balkans.”
“And we learned that same lesson in Afghanistan and fighting the Hitlerites. But Gospodin David, we have hit Beelzebub’s army hard. His casualties on the northern flank are mounting and they are only now moving into our main zone of resistance. The southern flank is moving more slowly, the situation had not developed there yet. There appears to be no movement at all in the center.”
“Hmm. The baldricks are learning. Not slowly either. Whatever you need, just call. We’re lining up the support for you here.” As far as Petraeus was concerned, that was his role in this battle. Let the Russian Army do its thing and just make sure they have every tool they needed, and some that they didn’t know they needed, not yet anyway. “For your information, the BUFFS have arrived. They flew through the hellmouth a few minutes ago and are circling to gain height. They’ll be ready when you need them.”
Dorokhov laughed. “The sight of those flying through the Hellgate must have been impressive. Is there an
