demon's mind was almost overwhelming. 'This is Lakheenahuknaasi,' she reported 'the human city lies before me. I am ready to guide the portal.” Euryale's response was swift. “I am approaching Jorkastrequar now. Keep the link open and focus your thoughts on the city. They know it not, but a wave of fire is about to carry those pitiful beings straight into our domain.”
Chapter Forty Six
Outer Ring, Seventh Circle of Hell Aeanas continued working with the file; he was nearly through. He'd been worrying it back and forth for some time now, and at last, the left prong of the trident was free. It clattered to the dirt floor of the cave where the right prong lay, leaving only the center on the weapon. Aeanas stood and hefted the weapon. It was heavy, like the doru to which he was accustomed, and the balance seemed correct on it now. It would make a passable weapon.
The warrior called Ori watched him silently. Like Aeanas, he didn't speak very much, and for this he enjoyed the man's company. He was grateful and loyal to McElroy and the others, but they prattled on like children! Perhaps Aeanas didn't want to like his new companions. Sure, they were soldiers, and they found some common ground in that, but everything about them was alien and heterodox. As a Spartan, he'd spent his entire life turning his body into a weapon; turning the doru, the xiphon, and the aspis into extensions of his body. Just by holding a weapon, his muscles knew how best to move it so that he might destroy his enemies. There was nothing else to his life but killing his enemies.
But these soldiers from the future-no, from the present-were different. They knew how to read. They spoke of music and art, and of other forms of entertainment that he could not understand. For their purported superiority to other soldiers(after all, they managed to escape where he hadn't), the fact remained: their martial prowess was not their only consideration! In that way, Aeanas thought them similar to the citizen-soldiers of the other Greek cities. Though, he mused, there was courage in that kind of man. He recalled those Thespians, those brave men who refused to abandon the Spartans at Thermopylae. The night before they all died, Aeanas recalled sharing a meal with a Thespian named Polyphanes, who was by trade an architect. And the morning before the final battle, he and Polyphanes traded cloaks, and was proud to have died with that man's cloak upon his shoulders.
But everything about these soldiers was different. Much of what they said was barely comprehensible, anyway. Whatever magic allowed him to understand their speech was somehow flawed, and much of their slang was indecipherable for him. But perhaps most oddly, these alleged soldiers didn't know how to fight with a sword or spear! Well, most of them didn't. Ori was a warrior to Aeanas' liking; he was skilled in many forms of unarmed and armed combat. He had received one of his native blades from the living world, and he practiced frequently. But more than that, he was an outsider, too. He trained for war and only war, so he did not care for art, or music. Like Aeanas, he couldn't even read. Ori stepped closer to Aeanas and held out his hand. Aeanas passed him the weapon. Ori tried a few maneuvers with it, then passed it back to Aeanas with a grunt.
'Graceless,' he muttered. 'The weapon should bend around your body.'
'Why?' Aeanas asked. 'A bent spear is useless to the phalanx.'
'What is that?'
'It is how we fight…how we fought,' he corrected, casting a glance of disdain at the modern humans nearby. 'Heavy armor, large shields. Shoulder to shoulder, four ranks deep.' He mimicked the pose of a man in the first row. 'Make a wall of shields and spearpoints, and break your enemy upon them. Never let a gap open up in your line.'
'A phalanx,' Ori said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. 'How many men wide?'
'As wide as possible. Prevents flanking.' They were silent for a moment. 'And how did you fight?'
'Many ways. Sometimes I would ride and shoot my bow, or charge with a spear. Others I would simply fight with my katana.'
Aeanas held his hand out, and Ori stiffened for a moment. Then, silently, he passed him the weapon. Drawing it out from its sheath, Aeanas commented, 'A longer sword. And single edged. Must be made of iron, yes?' Ori grunted in the affirmative.
'So the balance would favor…' he sliced through the air, '…a two-handed grasp. You do not use a shield?'
'Not with the katana. I can parry and counterstrike to great effect with it.'
Aeanas nodded, passing back the katana. 'I hope to see you slay a demon with it soon.'
They were silent for a moment. 'And you are proficient in unarmed combat?' Ori asked.
Aeanas shrugged. 'For my part, yes. I wrestle. I wrestled.'
'I too, grappled. We must spar some time. To test our styles against the other.'
Aeanas smiled at this. 'It would be a privilege. I am sure you will be more engaging than the others. I threw McElroy as through he were a woman!'
Ori suppressed a laugh. 'Yes, they are soft creatures, made so by their infernal weapons. Why need they fight honorably when they can strike you down from a great distance? They're so weak that they may count women as soldiers!'
'Hey, baby dick!' snapped Private Cassidy, skin newly grown, stepping in close to them. 'You got a problem with me?'
Ori frowned. Aeanas thought that, wherever this Japan was, their men did not suffer the barbed tongues of their women. But they were a long way from Japan, so…
Ori grunted, 'I was discussing with Aeanas the weaknesses of modern men, and how they compensate for this weakness through weapons requiring such little strength and courage that even women can wield them.'
'Man, shut the hell up,' Cassidy snarled, crossing her arms over her ample breasts. Aeanas thought them unappealing things, the breasts of a peasant woman with a litter of babes to feed. 'If it weren't for those weapons, you'd still be cooking in that river!' For a moment, Aeanas thought that Ori would strike her, but the moment passed quickly.
'Alright, can it, you guys,' McElroy said, stepping in. 'Ori, take your sword and go with DeVanzo and Walsch down to the river. Walsch, you got the rifle.' He turned to Aeanas. 'Come on, hoss. You, Cassidy, and I are gonna go check out that cluster of villages on the other side of the northern ridge. You can bring your new spear if you want, but I dunno if these things are worth a damn against baldricks.' He hefted his own trident, adding, 'Better than nothing, though.'
From the cover of the forest's edge, they watched the sloping grade down to the river. And waited. For Tom Walsch, it was still strange to think that millions of people were writhing in agony beneath that river at this very moment. And why were they pulling out only military? Odds were extremely low that they'd get no civilians at all. Perhaps there were only military in this molten river, civilians went to other torments. Then again, the civilian mindset was different. Persons of weak will might simply resign themselves to their torment and sink to the bottom after a few years of failed escapes. In utter misery, they would only move as reflex to the burning, sightless, deaf, pain the only sensation they knew. Military people of all types would fight, though. Futility didn't matter; that's why military history was littered with otherwise pointless last stands. It might take longer for a soldier to break the way civilians did. After all, Walsch had only been in the river for a scant few weeks before he was pulled out, and he had the benefit of hoping that his persistence would pay off. And it did.
'There's one,' DeVanzo whispered. Walsch scanned the shoreline before spotting the creature. It was an act he'd seen a dozen times. It flopped like a fish for a while, and then, as it became able to breathe and see, it started crawling further up the bank. They would continue until a baldrick sentry happened along, which could mean they'd be anywhere from ten to fifty meters from the river.
This particular one made it about twenty-five before Ori grunted, 'Demon. Left.'
Walsch chambered a round and waited. He loved this rifle; it was simple, deadly, and accurate. Though he'd always been an excellent marksman, this thing made it almost too easy. And he had a whole box of ammo to hold them over until the next official resupply.
The baldrick was a typical sentry, sporting a trident and simple bronze armor. He bellowed, as was the wont of these sentries, and charged. The crawling creature, now looking a bit more like a human, stood up and began hobbling away.
