heard the area outside Dis where the Demons lived was quite pleasant by their standards.
Getting there would be a problem for the demons now though. That road had been the scene of one attack after another, the dead mounting as explosions tore into formation after formation. Rahab shook her head, it made little sense but she sensed the demons were losing the fight down here. They were trying to protect themselves against ghosts who would strike and slip away before they could be found. The new arrivals didn’t fight the demon way, for pride and honor. Rahab realized they fought for other reasons entirely, they fought to win and woe to anybody who got in their way.
Rahab felt the slam in her back that threw her to the ground and knew the agony of fear. Had she been caught after all this time? A figure was holding her down, her arms twisted behind her back and she guessed what was to come next. An agonizing rape certainly, then return to the hell-pit from which she had so barely escaped once before. Her time of freedom was at an end, there was no point in fighting and she went limp as she was rolled on to her back.
It was a kind of demon she hadn’t seen before, one with huge, staring, lidless eyes and a face below them that was featureless. It was red-brown, a varied skin coloration that merged in with the background. Then, as her senses overcame the blind panic, she realized something else. This creature wasn’t a demon, it was human. More than that, it was a living human, one from outside Hell. A living human that had voluntarily come to Hell? It was rumored there had been others but this was solid fact.
“Hello Rahab. I see you’ve met Lieutenant Madeuce. Sorry about the abruptness of the meeting.” Rahab looked up, it was the woman she had met before, the one who had abandoned the hiding place with her friends. Now she was different, she was wearing the same red-brown clothes as the still-alive had on. Rahab looked harder, she was also wearing a harness with strange green slabs on it and she had a black stick in her hands. An oddly, indescribably-shaped stick.
“Who are you?” Rahab needed to know.
“I’m Lieutenant Jade Kim, call-sign Broomstick. These are the rest of my unit. That’ll do for now. You might have noticed we have started a war down here. It’s going to get a lot worse. That’s part of the reason why we found you.”
“Found me, how…”
“It wasn’t hard. Leave it there. I’d guess the only reason why the baldricks haven’t found you is that they couldn’t be bothered with you and there weren’t enough of you to make any difference. So, they didn’t even try. That’s changing, we’ve hurt them bad and they’re going to start fighting back. You need to warn your people and get them out of here. We don’t have the numbers, yet, to protect a static population.”
“Yet?” Rahab was bewildered. None of what she was being told make sense.
“That’s our first question, you wander all over the place. Have you seen any more like us arriving? If so, tell us where they are.”
“Do you know how many people arrive here all the time? And this is a small part of Hell, a segment of one circle. A small segment owned by a minor duke. A few more have arrived here recently, I can show you where. But what if they are not the ones you want.”
“That’s the second thing. First part. We busted a guy out from one of the other rings. Tried to take him back to Earth but it didn’t work out. He started dying as soon as he arrived. So, he was brought back here. He’s not a soldier, no use to us. We want you to take him in, hide him. Second part. Same with any others that we bust out. If they’re of no use to us, we want you to hide them along with the rest of your people.”
“So you made a mistake and now you want me to put it right for you.” Rahab had the conceit and viciousness back in her voice. “Why should I help you?”
“Because we’re all human, because hell isn’t going to last very long. Our people are coming for us and Satan and all his foul legions won’t stop them. The more chaos we stir up down here, the less resistance he can put up back there, and the sooner we will win. Because we are, believe it or not, on the same side.”
“Or we’d better be.” Madeuce’s voice was muffled by the scarf over his nose and mouth. The first few hours down here had been horribly uncomfortable for him and his chest still felt raw and heavy from the atmosphere. The scarf and goggles had helped a lot, just as they had in the sandstorms of Iraq. “Just an idle question Rahab. What happens when people down here die?”
Rahab felt her stomach drop slightly at the veiled threat. “The Demons believe that we generate some sort of force that helps lift them to their afterlife. Humans, I suppose we just vanish.”
Kim nodded. “Not a good deal is it? We can offer you a better one. Out of this pit, movement elsewhere in Hell, whatever elsewhere is, and a life. We’re on the same side, just lets act like it, huh?”
Rahab thought it over. They were right, things were changing and, like it or not, there was a war starting in Hell. “Very well, I’ll take in your person. And any more you ‘bust out’. Just don’t overload me with numbers and give me time to get them away before your war turns into a bloodbath. Turns into more of a bloodbath.”
“Done.” Kim turned around. “Bubbles, get Richard out of hiding, tell him he’s got a new girlfriend.”
Throne Room, Palace of Satan, Infernal City of Dis
Satan relished the atmosphere of absolute terror that was building up in his great throne room. The word was spreading across the halls and circles of Hell, through the streets of Dis itself, down the great Pit that it surrounded and into the garrisons that held the walls separating the rings of Hell. Abigor had failed. Abigor had been defeated, his army massacred. He had been defeated by the humans, his Army driven back inside the gates of Hell. He had been ordered to crush the humans and he had failed. It had amused Satan to dream up some really inventive punishments for one who had defeated him so badly but there were more important things than petty revenge. He had to find out how this unimaginable thing had occurred. Was Abigor treacherous or just plain stupid?
The audience stirred and shrank back as Abigor entered, a Lesser Herald trailing in his wake. In a way, it was almost amusing, the desire for the other Demons to get out of the possible line of fire. Abigor walked down the hall, conscious of the eyes on him as he approached the great throne where Satan sat, watching him. He reached the foot of the throne and threw himself at Satan’s feet.
“So, Abigor, you have come to tell us of your great victory and regale us with stories of the sufferings you have inflicted on the humans?” Satan’s voice was the silky smoothness that portrayed real trouble and Abigor knew it.”
“Infernal Majesty, I fear…”
“Good”
Abigor felt a flash of irritation at the interruption. “I fear that I have grim and terrible news. My Army was defeated, destroyed by the Humans. Something has happened on their world, something that is terrible beyond belief. They have magic that is so powerful we could not stand against it. They can breath on whole sections of an Army and leave nothing but mangled flesh, they have lances and arrows that never miss their target, that follow the one they aim at no matter how much they run.
“Run? So you admit your army ran?”
“After all but one in a thousand had died, Yes Sire, we ran. All those who did not died. Most of those who tried to escape the humans died. The humans have iron chariots.”
A thrill of horror went around the room. Iron chariots had caused them problems once before, problems that had required a succubus, a peasant girl and a tent peg to sort out. Now they were back in a new and more terrible form?
The thought of Iron Chariots sent screaming rage flooding through Satan’s mind but he kept himself under strict control. There was so much he needed to know. “Tell me all Abigor. From the start.”
Sprawled on the floor, Abigor started to relate the history of his devastated Army. How it had marched out of Hell and across the desert to its first objectives. The strange attacks on the way, the flying chariots that had killed some of his commanders, the mysterious explosions that had wiped out whole command groups. Then, the enemy defense line, the fire lances, the exploding ground, the snakes of iron that tore his troops apart. The way the humans had breathed death, how they never came close to their enemy but killed from distances. How they had slaughtered Abigor’s Army then chased it back across the desert, killing remorselessly as they did so. By the time he finished, the room was silent and the demon Dukes were looking at each other with profound unease.
“So now we know the reason for the destruction of your Army Abigor.” Satan’s voice oozed charm, then suddenly turned to a berserk scream. “It was cowardice. Unmitigated cowardice. You claim that your Army pressed home its attacks bravely yet you are here alive to give the lie to that statement. Your soldiers were cowards who would not charge the enemy but ran away and you were at their head. You led the disaster, you led their failure.
