stay wary of distraction or lapse of attention.' The angels broke through the clouds and saw the lower slopes of the great mountain from which they had descended. Three lesser mountains ringed the larger, each the home of one of the Triad-Tyr, Torm, and Ilmater. Atop the nearest peak, the gleaming white walls of Tyr's Court reflected the sunlight.
'Diving from up there keeps me alert,' Tauran continued. 'I know that even one mistake will be very painful or disastrous. Out there,' he said as he swept his hand around, 'one mistake might cost someone his life. Even mine. Complacency has no place in our duties. I dive to help me remember that.'
Micus turned and gave his friend an appraising look. 'That's very insightful. Perhaps you can teach me how to do it.'
'I will,' Tauran answered. 'When we return.'
The two angels neared a great pinnacle of rock jutting from the mountainside where a host of others like themselves had gathered. The various devas, planetars, and solars hovered in orderly ranks, all facing a dais at the top of the pinnacle. A great arch pierced the stone directly below the dais, like the mouth of a tunnel. Instead of blue sky shining from its far side, though, a curtain of pearlescent light veiled the arch.
Tauran and Micus took their places among the other devas as a great silvery solar settled upon the dais. As she furled her wings, the gleaming being's golden eyes surveyed the gathering critically for a moment, as though assessing the attendants' worth. After a moment, she spoke.
'Today, we fight another battle in the war to free the oppressed. Though we seek the destruction of all that is evil and depraved, we strive by equal measure to offer redemption to those worth redeeming, to save those who can be saved. Our goal, our duty, is not merely to provide salvation to all who wish it, but to rescue those who cannot fight, or even speak, for themselves.'
A murmur of approval ran through the assemblage. The solar waited until the noise abated, then continued. 'Blessed Tyr has bid us embrace this duty, so that one day, all the multiverse might glow with the shining warmth of equality and acceptance.' The solar paused, then delivered her next words punctuated for emphasis. 'Today, we once again take the fight to our enemies, and thwart their foul schemes before they have a chance to grow to tainted fruition!'
The gathered crowd roared with eager acceptance. Tauran and Micus cheered along with the rest. After his glorious swim, the deva felt ready for anything. He thrilled at the prospect of fulfilling his duty, shivered in delight at the chance to bring Tyr's glory to one who had never known it before.
'You know your tasks. You've prepared. Go and bring Tyr's light to the multiverse!' the solar commanded.
Another roar rose up from the host. The planetars sounded their horns, a cry of battle that reverberated through the skies, echoing from the mountaintops. To Tauran, the sun seemed to blaze just a bit brighter, the sky seemed to turn a sharper hue of azure, and the air smelled faintly sweeter. The atmosphere was electric with expectation and impending triumph.
The angels began to sing as they sorted themselves into bands. A hymn of Tyr's glory, extolled in perfect harmony, accompanied the horns. Micus gave Tauran a hearty pat on the back and a handshake before he moved away to gather with his own group. Tauran lifted his voice in song, joining with the chorus, as he bid his friend farewell with a wave and went to join his own band.
His was a small force comprised of Keenon, the solar leader, and four planetars. He was the lone deva, assigned to the group for a special purpose. He grasped his mace and steadied himself, waiting for the command.
Other units swarmed around the arch in anticipation. In orderly succession, they passed through the veil, disappearing in a wink. When it was time for his own unit to surge into the portal, the angel drew a deep breath, remembered his admonitions of staying wary, and followed his team.
The landscape twisted and changed. Light bent and warped around Tauran, deepening into a purple gloom. The crisp, clean air vanished, replaced by the charnel scents of a battlefield. Lightning crackled and thunder pealed in a sodden sky that sent a cascade of fetid rain down upon all beneath it. The deva settled upon slick, clutching mud and surveyed the scene.
The angel and his cohorts stood within a low river valley, along the rim of a great bowl surrounded by the silhouettes of low hills. Two armies collided within the middle of that valley, slipping and slogging through the torrential rain and mud to slaughter one another as best they could. One force, badly outnumbered, found itself surrounded on three sides by its enemy and pressed hard up against a churning, frothing river.
'There!' Keenon shouted to be heard above the din of war and weather. 'Near the river!' He pointed, and very quickly, he and the four planetars took flight, racing in that direction.
Tauran took to the air along with his companions, but his mission was different. They went to save the brave-hearted defenders who desperately called for the angels' aid. The deva sought a different life-force, one that wouldn't be eager to welcome him. Knowing he would not be well received, he cloaked himself in innate invisibility.
Swooping over the plain toward the center of the engagement, Tauran soared above snarling clusters of savage beasts, orcs and ogres-and worse things from the Abyss-that surrounded tiny defiant pockets of men and women in mismatched armor. The mercenaries-and they were mercenaries, hired to fight for some petty lord- stood back to back in tight circles, clinging to their final moments in desperate hope that someone or something might save them.
The deva felt remorse course through him, saddened that he could not spare the time or energy to save them all. But they prayed to different gods, and ineffectually called on other celestial beings for salvation. Their lives were not his to assist. He had a different goal.
He quickly found what he sought. At the far end of the battlefield, near one edge of the great bowl-shaped valley, flapping pennants atop a pavilion tent marked the location of his quarry. Numerous campfires, sputtering feebly in the rain, surrounded the tent, and brutish creatures huddled near those fires, cursing their ill luck at both the weather and their guard duty. They wished to be out among the others, gleefully fighting and killing.
Tauran drifted unnoticed past them, the soft whisper of his wings drowned out by the concussive clash of combatants in the distance, as well as the rumble of thunder overhead. He settled upon the ground near the entrance to the tent and studied the two guards flanking the opening.
Each creature appeared as a hulking, upright toad, equally as tall as Tauran himself and easily surpassing his own bulk. The slick skin covering their bloated bodies was green and bumpy, but unlike a normal toad, rows of jagged teeth lined their mouths. They both wielded massive axes, which they held cradled in their arms. The pair exuded a nauseous stench that nearly made the deva gag, but he stood still for a moment to adjust to the smell before he approached them.
Gripping his mace, Tauran stepped as lightly as he could, hoping to catch the creatures off balance for an initial strike. Though he moved with deftness and grace, one of the two must have sensed something was amiss, for it jerked upright and hefted its axe. A low, menacing growl issued from deep within its voluminous body.
'I smell the stench of a celestial!' He snarled, taking one step forward and drawing his axe back as though to strike. Tauran saw that the demons beady eyes shifted back and forth, and he was reasonably certain the demon could not sense where he was, but his moment of subterfuge had come and gone. Not waiting for the creature before him to determine his location, the deva channeled divine energy, summoning the holy power of his kind and pouring it into his weapon. He swung his mace with both hands, smashing it against the demon's shoulder with a brilliant flash.
The beast snarled in rage and pain and staggered backward as Tauran spun and struck the other in the same manner. The second demon howled and stumbled against the side of the tent, but Tauran could not close in and finish him with a blow to the head, for the first one had recovered enough to take a swipe at him.
'Your time is over, fiend,' Tauran said, once more calling on his innate divinity to aid him in the fight.
He blurted out a word of power, a word of divine force, a holy word. He spoke it clearly, and there was no mistaking that the two guards heard its utterance. Simultaneously, they shrieked and dropped their weapons. One clutched at his eyes, while the other wrapped his arms around his head and cowered.
Tauran drew his mace back, ready to crush the skull of the first demon as he writhed before him. Just as he brought the weapon down in a great, sweeping arc, though, the fiend vanished. His weapon thudded hard against the sodden ground, spraying muddy water everywhere. The deva growled in exasperation, but his frustration was shortlived, for a cloying miasma enveloped him, as though a greasy darkness had descended upon him.
