In the End (4 page)

When the first angel sounded his trumpet, fire and hail rained from the thick dark clouds. The open field was untouched by the fall, as if the eye of a storm.

Lucien whipped his shirt off and let his wings manifest, covering his head with them to protect himself from the hail as the second angel blew her trumpet, and it sounded like it was blowing from across a roaring rush of water. When the third angel joined in the chaos, the dark clouds suddenly cleared, revealing the sky to be dark as night; she played, and the stars fell from the heavens in silvery ribbons. Lucien had to laugh at that, clutching his sides and leaning against his tree when he wheezed with mirth.

When the fourth angel set breath to blow, the moon and sun skidded across the sky and eclipsed, and began whirling together across the firmament; the dark moon and its halo of fire. Lucien wiped the tears from his eyes and sniggered: Merely illusions, a lightshow.

Then the fifth angel added to the cacophony. A bright light like a star shot from the vortex of Ríel into the gaping maw of the Lower Realm. The earth shuddered once and fell still. Then from the pit rose a cloud of smoke, and it darkened the air as it rose. Lucien stopped laughing; that had certainly been no illusion.

“
Come on...” Lucien whispered, tightly gripping the red handles of his daggers.

The sixth angel sounded her trumpet. A voice came thundering from the vortex, in the tongue of the Higher Realm, and Lucien heard a thrill of celestial song.

Imagine ten thousand people singing all at once. Now imagine that they're all singing the same song. Each of them is right on-key and every single one of them hits the notes flawlessly, even the difficult parts. Imagine that they sing with joy and sorrow, with hope and despair, and that their hair shines, halo-like, in the light of Ríel as their wingbeats keep time...

That's the Celestial Choir.

Lucien remembered the Higher Realm in a pang of sorrow long forgotten, and the Light, and the song. And then he remembered Falling.

It was at that point that the seventh angel sounded the seventh golden trumpet, and the armies of Ríel flowed out of the vortex in shining silver armor, and tunics of blue, with their feet bare and their hair flowing, with flaming swords and golden halos and many-colored wings.

Yet as the armies of the Higher Realm were hurtling towards the ground, the gaping pit opened a little wider, and then demons with long, skinny legs, slick black skin and bulbous yellow eyes were crawling up the sides like spiders, or frogs. They threw down filthy, rotting ropes, which the others, following, swarmed up. Those of the Army of Rielat that could fly burst forth first, swarmed above the ground like locusts. From the pit clambered muscled demons with scarlet skin and tall, twisted horns and wide shoulders; the gaunt, spider-frog ones, with pointy teeth and claws, who hissed like cats; tall, thin devils with lanky hair, white skin and eyes; and snakelike demons with human faces; and those like Lucien, with gleaming hair, pale faces, and unearthly, beautiful features – the Fallen. Some flew in the locust-swarm, but the wingless ones, the ones who had fought their Fall, those rode on the backs of great beasts that snorted clouds of sparks and scraped at the grass with sharp, flinty hooves.

The Army of Ríel dropped to the ground, folded their gleaming wings, and waited, still and silent while the Army of Rielat gnashed its teeth or snarled and clawed at the air or glared in the cold fury of those thrown from their rightful place. Lucien, hiding in the cover of trees, waited too.

***

Their blue, gold and white banners snapped open in the breeze that kicked up, and the soldiers stayed perfectly still, but for the gentle waving of their hair and of their clothes. The rushing sound of Michael's perpetual irritation and rage quieted in his head and died out. He was calm. He was peaceful. The breeze blew into his face, carrying the acrid scent of sulfur and smoke from the opposing army.

The wind was rising, he noted, as he gazed across to the enemy.

***

It blew through Lucifer's hair, loose, free, silver as temptation. He, and Belial at his right hand, were still as the Celestial Army.

“
My lord?”

Lucifer closed his beautiful eyes, tilted his head back, breathed in the free air. He'd seen Michael standing at the head of the army, then. Belial glared at the opposing general across the field.

“
This battle,” he murmured, “this battle isn't against the Power, Belial.”

Belial turned his attention back to his prince. “What?”

The Prince of Darkness pinned him with the barest glance. “It won't be me against the Sko Meala. It won't be the tainted against all that is pure. It's not about those. Those don't matter.”

Belial struggled not to stagger back a step under the weight of those eyes. “I'm sorry, my lord, but what do you mean?”

“
It's not Good against Evil, or chaos verses order.” Lucifer nodded at the opposing army. “It's us against them. You and I and our army against theirs. Michael versus myself,” the Prince murmured. “My beloved enemy.”

“
...Beloved, my lord?”

“
I've always considered Michael so,” Lucifer said softly, gesturing for his army to prepare. “Haven't you?” Belial shifted uncomfortably with a clank of black armor and wished his lord could have been convinced to wear armor as well. “Let us go to our beloved, then.”

Lucifer snapped his fingers. Somewhere in the army, a gong sounded, then a flare of crude trumpets.

***

With a roar that only they could cry, the army of the Lower Realm charged forward, tattered banners of old-blood and stained yellow tearing through the air above them.  A shout from Michael, and the army drew their swords as one, singing their war cries in the angels' language. They stood ready as the oncoming army broke upon them like water upon the rocks.

Fallen struck seraphim, angel smote the monsters of the deeps, and over both sides, death loomed.  Lucien watched, alone, as the Last Battle was fought, a lone witness at the End.

He saw groups of demons crushed by opposing platoons; he saw the Higher Realm's shieldwalls swarmed and broken.  He saw an angel chase down one of the Fallen, and the two stalled in a fatal deadlock near the edge of the forest. For a moment, Lucien considered darting out with his daggers to help – but which one? The angel was the obvious choice, but he didn't want to give Rielat a whit more assistance than they had. His action now could be the difference in the outcome of the battle.

But it was too late, the angel had been stabbed in the chest, and the Fallen had caught her last panicked slash with his neck. The Fallen collapsed, and choking on blood, the angel stumbled away from the battle, into the forest, and caught sight of Lucien. Before she could so much as raise her arm for a final weak blow, she too fell to her knees.

There was no way to save her. She had fallen without a sound, her hair pooling in the grass, stained red as her blood soaked into it. Lucien didn't want to touch her. She was out of sight of Rielat's army, here; she wouldn't be disturbed. He left her in peace and went to find a new place from which to watch.

The battle raged on; first one side prevailed, then the other, beating each other back and forth, deadlocked. Soldiers of both sides alike fell like stones; war was waged on the ground and in the air, opponents chasing their foes and everyone trying to run each other into the ground. Lucien climbed nimbly up a moss covered tree to get a better look at the battle: They were well matched, these two armies, for where the forces of Ríel were skilled, deft, and orderly, the opposition made up for it in numbers, ferocity, and brute strength.

Suddenly, Lucien heard a rustling and the snap of a few twigs beneath him. He looked down, only to see a mop of disheveled hair – and an angel attached to it. The angel's wings were manifest, one held in a stiff position and streaked with blood. His blue tunic was ripped on one shoulder from a nasty gash (talons, perhaps?), which was oozing down his arm. As Lucien watched, the angel looked around frantically, gasping wildly for breath, and began climbing the very tree that Lucien was already in. Lucien ducked out of sight behind the trunk until the angel seated himself on a slightly lower limb on the other side of the tree, leaned against the mossy green trunk and began to catch his breath.

Lucien peeked out from behind the trunk and studied him curiously. He had a smaller, more delicate build than the other angelic soldiers the Fallen had seen, and his face was framed in soft russet. Beautiful, of course, like any angel, even though he was covered in muck and mud and battle gore. He craned his neck, looking at the wound across his shoulder. He clearly had no idea what to do with it – he prodded at it in distress, wincing, and dabbed at it with a bit of his sleeve, which wasn't any cleaner than the wound itself. He still held his wing awkward angle. Lucien would assume a sprain, possibly dislocation; when the wind caught and shifted it, the angel tensed and squeaked with pain.

“
Need some help with that?” Lucien asked as he stepped down and across to the other branch, settling casually against the trunk. The angel started and scrabbled for a sword which wasn't at his belt.  Harmless. Lucien smiled. “I'll make you a deal: I won't kill you if you won't kill me. I'd like to get out of this mess –” he jerked his head towards the battle, “– alive. So which side are you rooting for?”

“
Demon!” the angel cried, scrabbling to get farther away; he nearly fell off the branch.

“
Nah,” Lucien said amiably. “Fallen, actually.” The angel was still poised defensively as far out on the branch as he could manage without falling, brandishing a small dagger – more of a penknife, really – at Lucien with shaking hands. “Here. Angelkins,” Lucien drawled. “I don't want to die, you don't want to die: I really don't see how this is anything but a win-win situation, do you?”

“
And then you kill me as soon as I let my guard down!” the angel snapped, wincing. His wing was caught on some twigs and he was having trouble freeing it without hurting himself or taking his eyes off Lucien.

“
I don't know why I would bother doing that.”

“
And I'm supposed to
trust you
or something?”

“
I'm not a liar.”

“
Oh, really? Well, that makes me feel so much better,” the angel snarled.  

Lucien raised his eyebrows. “No need to get vicious. If I wanted to kill you...” Lucien drew one of his daggers from the sheath. “See? Shiny, shiny.” The silver edge of the black blade glinted.

The angel went still. “Go ahead, then,” he demanded quietly. “Do it. Kill me.
They
don't want me.” He flung his arm out towards the battle in a wide gesture. “No one does. I might as well be dead, so just
make. It. Quick.
”

Lucien sheathed the dagger, leaned back against the trunk, and folded his arms. The angel really was a pretty creature, even covered in guts like he was. Nothing a good bucket of water over the head wouldn't cure. “Maybe I don't want to kill you.”

“
What??
Why not?”

Lucien shrugged, smiled again. “Supposing our places were switched? I wouldn't want to die for no reason other than... because you're allegedly my enemy, or because of a few thousand years' grudge. Although I don't claim to be innocent of that last one. You, though, you haven't done anything to me.”

The angel sputtered for a moment before he found his words. “I AM your enemy, demon!”

Another shrug. “I'm not yours. It wasn't your fault I was Felled. As far as I know. You don't seem like a bad sort. Can't imagine what you're doing in the army, though, you don't seem to be very good at it.”

The angel growled and stabbed wildly at Lucien. He blocked easily, but the angel's wing was still tangled in the branches and he couldn't catch himself, and he overbalanced and grabbed at Lucien when he realized he was starting to fall, bringing them both toppling out of the tree. Lucien landed on the uneven ground fifteen feet below with a sickening thud, the angel sprawled atop him. The angel had lost his dagger when they'd fallen, but it only took him a fraction of a second to adapt and regroup, fling himself at Lucien, and attempt to get a throttling grip around Lucien's throat. Lucien, the wind knocked out of him by the fall, had been momentarily stunned, not to mention a bit impressed with the angel's quick recovery. Nevertheless, he managed to throw the angel off and clamber to his feet.

The angel stumbled up as well, entirely ungraceful, still favoring his injured wing and shoulder. Lucien coughed and cleared his throat – that had been a good grip. “I suppose if you really want to fight, I can't stop you.”

“
Demon!” the angel hissed. He glanced about for his dagger, edging away from Lucien as he did so.

“
Fallen.” Lucien corrected again. “Bit of a sore spot, I'd prefer not to talk about it.” The angel had found the knife now; Lucien dodged an awkward tackle. “I'm sure you have a similar one,” he continued as he continued to evade each unskilled stab and thrust. “Possibly even – whoops – two or three. You're the strong, silent type, aren't – whoa, nice one there! -- aren't you?  I never – really saw the point of – fighting someone I don't have to, but I'm sure – that you have your reasons.”