Armageddon?? (42 page)

His
body started to seize up and muscles cramped as he took those moments to slow
down. He had pushed himself beyond all endurance and his body was now reacting
to his fevered pace. At any moment he would collapse in an exhausted heap and
sleep through the hazy pain to awaken refreshed.

However,
one glance back at the bloody crater where before several of his kith and kin
had stood fired him up and he raised one arm to his mouth and he bit deeply
into the bicep. Flesh was rent from his bone and blood gushed into his
nostrils. He snorted in pain and pleasure and that small spark of pain he was
so keen on inflicting upon the useless wretches of humanity kindled a small
surge in power pushed by will and fear and the Never born exploded back into
his break neck pace.

And
so he ran and ran. He ran past the sight of his grand army shattered into
bloody remnants and screaming broken brethren who were begging for release, for
a return to the fiery bloody skies of home and cursing humanity in whatever
tongue they deemed fit. He ran through a charnel house of guts and sinews,
hooves cracked exposed bone and ribs. He ran even as the air burned within his
lungs like a furnace. He ran as he heard more thunder claps and whistling
booms. He ran until he could run no more and collapsed in heap, blood spewing
from his ruined bicep, frothy saliva spilling from his mouth and foam flecking
along his heaving flanks.

There
was no more left. No more to give and not even enough energy to take.

Memnon
was spent to the last dregs of his reserves and he looked up to the sky to
scream his defiance and await the human magic that was sure to rend him limb
from limb. But then he noticed he was right at the lip of the portal to hell.
Could it be? Was it not a failure? Had he pushed himself enough? Before him in
a pathetic display a great beast dragged itself towards the yawning doorway
home. Both hind legs reduced to splintered messes of dying meat and trailing
entrails still it tried to get itself home. A leg from its rider was still
firmly in the stirrup the rest of its charge probably scattered along the
wastes. Memnon growled and fell upon the beast in a scream of desperation and
anger at the predicament he find himself in, reduced to feeding off one of the
great beasts to survive. He let his anger and frustration out on the wretched
beast as it bleated in its death throes while teeth and claw rent muscle and
sinew from bone.

Memnon
fed deeply and voraciously as his anger, despair and shame burned in his belly
worse than the rancid meat being guzzled in with such relish. He wanted to feed
away the pain, the anguish of the defeat, the shame of running from prey, the
despair of knowing that their magic had failed so completely and utterly and
the gnawing fear that Nameless One was moving behind the scenes, that Uriel
would trod this world completely unleashed.

What
victory was there in that? It was whispered from the elder days that Uriel’s
power was so grand that his death touch obliterated not only human life but
also the human soul. His power, one of the greatest of all angels save perhaps
for Michael the Great General, was the ultimate weapon because it robbed
everyone, including the Nameless of the prize of human essence. When the first
born of Khemet were swept aside their souls did not go screaming into Hell or
the Etheric Realms. They simply ceased to be. Oblivion.

The
very concept chilled the demon to its core. Nothing. Just the great darkness
and void. At least in hell these pathetic humans drew solace from the fact that
they still existed. Despite the pain and anguish they still mattered. But Uriel
robbed everyone of that solace. He was the Nameless Ones’s weapon of last
resort. The great scythe that robbed all sides of the prize. Or so it was
rumored by those higher than he otherwise why the dread at his coming. Why the
reticence of the Nameless to unleash him? His thoughts paused in a moment of
revelation.

Standing
at the Hellmouth was a Lord. The Duke, Abigor.

In
that instant he felt something alien. Something alarming yet exhilarating as he
watched his Duke move among the shattered remnants. He was still tall and proud
yet there was no longer that cold arrogance to his gait, the sneering pride on
his features, the snarl of command on his lips or the lash of rebuke in his
eyes.

Haunted.

He
looked haunted and humbled yet he was proud now, not a pride borne of Dukedom
granted to him in the mists of ancient history but pride in personal knowledge
that he had faced the human magic and lived. Pride in that he was still here.
He was a Duke of Hell yes, but now he was a survivor. Memnon watched him speak
gently to one of the survivors and he heard a brief whisper in his ear.

“Follow
him. Follow him till the end of your story.”

Memnon
nodded numbly and rose wiping the gore and gristle from his snout. He strode up
to the lord and spoke.

“My
lord?” When Abigor turned to regard him Memnon knew he had found his leader.

Throne
Room, Palace of Satan, Infernal City of Dis

There
was, once again, silence in the great Throne Room.

“And
what was Yahweh’s message?” Satan’s voice was loaded with contempt.

“He
said this. ‘The One Above All has spoken yet he sees vile repugnant defiance
from humanity. The Great Chorus must not be disturbed. The Chanting must not
cease. Your ilk were given this world and we see nothing but abhorrent failure.
We do not want to take a more active role. Uriel awaits on the ether like a
sword of Damocles. Last he moved upon man, the Land of Khemet wept bitter
tears. Do not force our hand. Cow them. Stop the defiance. Should they find a
way to disrupt the Chorus we will end this charade once and for all.’ That and
that alone, Majesty.”

The
silence in the room deepened. This was unheard-of, the great ones never
interfered with the domains of others. When they did, it meant a war. There had
been one between Satan and Yahweh already and nobody wanted that experience
repeated. Still, Yahweh never interfered in the work of hell, just as Satan
never did so with Heaven. Or anywhere else for that matter.

“Despite
those ill-chosen words, crushing the humans is a necessity. All our armies are
being brought to full strength of 81 legions.” That was almost 550,000 demons
in each. “Asmodeus, Beelzebub and Dagon will command three such armies
including their own for our renewed assault in Earth.” A gasp went around the
room, that meant Satan was committing 729 legions out of the professional Army
force of 999 legions, 939 now that Abigor’s Army had been destroyed. They would
only have 210 legions left in Hell to train the reservists and conscripts that
made up the rest of Hell’s nominal force of 6,666 legions. Almost 5 million
demons would be turned loose on Earth. There had never been a military exercise
like this, not even in the war with Yahweh.

“Sire,
I beg you.” Abigor’s voice was urgent, his mind filled with the picture of what
must surely come. “The portal is a death trap even for such a force. There is a
ridge that dominates in and humans fight from behind ridges. By now they will
have every chariot, every fire-lance, every seeker lance they have aimed at
that portal. As our demons funnel through it, they will be destroyed. The death
will continue until the portal is blocked by our dead.”

“I
know.” Satan’s voice was still calm and oily. “That is why you will take your
Army and seize that ridgeline.”

“My
Army has been destroyed. Barely 300 are left in condition to fight.”

“Then
make up the numbers with your mates and your kidlings. The youngest and the
oldest. If they can carry a trident they go. If they cannot, they can go anyway
and fight with bare hands. You will leave none of your clan behind. If they can
crawl to that ridge, they will go.”

Abigor
shook at the sentence. It meant death for him and all of his line, that was
clear. He rose to his feet, nodded and left.

“And
now, Herald, what shall I do with you?”

“Majesty,
I would join Abigor and go with him.”

“So
be it.” Memnon turned and left, following Abigor from the throne room.

“Asmodeus,
Beelzebub and Dagon. You have many reservists in your ranks. Train them
properly before launching your assault. There is no hurry.”

Asmodeus
frowned. “But Sire. What about Abigor?”

“Abigor
who?”

Chapter
Thirty One

Army
Training Centre, Cultybraggan, near Stirling, Scotland.

Warrant
Officer Class II William Bell watched with some satisfaction as the company he
had helped train entered the firing range to practise their musketry skills.
The men who made up D Company, 7th (Fife) Battalion The Black Watch, had shown
great promises; there had been many bright individuals among them, who were
potential Non Commissioned Officers, and also possibly officer material, and
all had been keen to learn. That was something of a relief, the problem with
any rapid force expansion was finding good NCOs and reasonable competent
officers. The British Army had paid badly for that particular problem in the
past, Bell hoped that this time around it would be different.

He
was also rather pleased that General, sorry Field Marshal Dannatt, as he was
now, had decided that as the army was expanding that the recent regimental
amalgamations, which had been deeply unpopular in Scotland, would be reversed.
Hence The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland had once
again become the 1st Battalion, The Black Watch, and the regiment had regained
its independent identity. The alternative, as Dannatt had pointed out, was to
have battalions with absurdly high numbers, and anyway the public better
identified with the more traditional regimental names. That argument had
carried the day and regiments were demerging all over the U.K.. The parades as
the merged regiments had formed, then split apart, their colors being cased and
replaced by the old traditional standards were a frequent news item on
television these days.

Bell
himself had served for the full twenty-two years in the 1st Black Watch,
retiring as a Company Sergeant-Major. Like all other army pensioners he had
been recalled to the colours to help train a new generation of National
Servicemen. It was highly doubtful that he would actually go into action with
the new battalion once it was operational, but he was certainly fit enough to
continue to serve in his current training role, or transfer to the
re-established Home Service Force.

As
the first platoon began to shoot at the targets, Bell remembered the first
month after conscription had been brought in. The army had been totally
unprepared, the last time they had to train thousands of new recruits had been
1960, and arguably they had not faced a situation quite like this since the
raising of the Kitchener Armies in 1914. There had been not enough uniforms,
weapons, equipment, or accommodation, as in 1914-1915 new recruits had to be
billeted amongst the civilian population while new hutted accommodation was
constructed.

At
least now the worst of the shortages were over, everybody now had uniforms and
at least most of the normal equipment that an infantryman should expect to have.
Moreover the new L1A2 Self Loading Rifle chambered for .338 Lapua rounds had
begun to come off the production lines in some numbers. The first orders had
gone to FN-Herstal over in Belgium. Years of being players in the export market
had meant they were geared up to switch between calibres quickly. The
omnipresence of the 7.62x51 NATO and, later, the 5,56x45 had eroded that
capability but enough had remained for them to start producing the new rifles
within a week of receiving the orders. Initial priority had gone to regular and
Territorial units in the Middle East, which had at least freed up numbers of
L85A2 and L86A2s for the National Servicemen to train on, but now the first
L1A2s had begun to be issued to conscripts for familiarity training. British production
was ramping up as well and once that happened, the re-equipment of the rest of
the Army would follow.

Today
was the day that the 7th Black Watch would get their first chance to fire the
new rifles, having spent the previous week learning how the weapon worked, how
it should be cleaned, and what its various features were. Bell himself had
examined one of the rifles closely himself and had realised that although it
was semi-automatic, just like the old 7.62mm L1A1 SLR the old matchstick/paper
clip trick would work on it. However it was debateable whether firing a .338
rifle on full automatic was a good thing. The old 7.62 NATO had been hard to
control on full auto, the .338 was way out there. Given the muzzle climb, it
might be good for shooting down harpies though.

“In
your own time, commence firing!” The range officer called out.

‘CRACK!
CRACK! CRACK!’

Bell
watched with interest as a few members of the platoon paused after the first
shot, somewhat shocked at the recoil of the .338 round compared to the 5.56mm
that they had gotten used to. To their credit they adjusted their position
slightly and resumed firing. From what he could see, despite the extra power of
their new weapons the level of marksmanship had not dropped off appreciably.