The Dove (33 page)

Levi frowned as he surveyed the wide valley behind them.  The remains of stone walls, roads and tumbled down ruins dotted the area, interspersed with the more modern destruction.

“Megiddo.”  He raised both eyebrows in surprise and whispered the name as the blood ran from his face.  “Armageddon.”

“Har Megiddo.”  D’Brouchart repeated the correct name.  “And Tell Megiddo lies just over the rise.  They are blasting the site of ancient Megiddo.  These ruins have been under excavation for the past century.”

D’Brouchart hurried back to the head of the column.

“King Ramsay!”  He called to Luke.  “Allow your men and horses a bit of water and then prepare for battle.”

Luke nodded and hurried away.

“King Louis!”  D’Brouchart sought out the Frankish monarch.  “Gather your forces on the left flank.  The Brits will take up the right and the rest of us will form the point.  Meet us back here in half and hour.”

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Jozsef Daniel stood frowning at the truck and its ominous cargo.  Already, he had lost three men when they had attempted to move the wooden crate from the bed of the troop carrier.  They lay burned and twisted on the ground beside the truck.

“Abaddon!”  He shouted to his general.  “Are there no
priests
in your ranks?!”

“Sir!”  Abaddon poked at the latest casualty with the toe of his boot.  “There are no Jews here with us.”

“Then how is that the soldiers from Jerusalem were able to move it?”  Jozsef approached the truck cautiously.

“They must have had some help, sir.  Whoever those monks were Hammed spoke of were obviously of the priestly line of Israel.”  Abaddon backed away from the charred remains.  The three soldiers had burst into flames when they had tried to cut the hemp ropes wrapped around the crate.  They had been dead before they had hit the ground.

“Dammit!”  Jozsef rushed toward the summit of the mound.  “Then we need them alive!”

Abaddon hurried after him.  When they reached the pile of rubble that had once been the entrance to the underground chambers, they found the soldiers tamping out the last of the smoldering fires.  Jozsef had ordered them killed when he had grown tired of bombarding them.  He had the Ark of the Covenant and that was all that counted. 

“Is… is that it?”  Jozsef stared at the blackened stones in disappointment.  He was too late to stop it.

“They should be dead, Sire.”  One of the soldiers told him proudly.  “No one could survive that.”

“Abaddon!”  Jozsef wheeled about and almost bowled over the general behind him.

“Your Grace?” 

“Dig it out!”  He shouted in the general’s face.  Jozsef Daniel was livid with rage.  He had never been on a more disastrous campaign.  Everything they had done had been wrong.  “Find them.  See if there are any survivors!”

“Sir, only the Emperor and Miss Ramsay would have been…”

“I don’t care.”  Jozsef drew a ragged breath and tried to control his temper.  “Find them!  I don’t care if you have to dismantle the whole damned hill.  There may be more to this place than we first thought and there may be more immortals down there than we knew.”

Jozsef stumbled away down the pile of loose rocks as the soldiers began to push and pry on the debris choking the entrance.

He had barely reached the foot of the mound when one of his commanders came scurrying through the rubble toward him.

“Sir!  Your Grace!”  The man stopped short in front of him.

“What now?”  The ‘Prophet’ tossed his hair over his shoulder and jammed his kaffiyeh back on his head.

“The angels!”  The man panted and pointed away to the south.

Jozsef squinted into the bright light of the mid-afternoon sun.  A lone figure mounted on a white horse had emerged from between two low hills and was riding openly across the exposed landscape.  His armor glittered in the sun and his yellow mantle fluttered out behind him.  He stopped his horse and seemed to stand in the stirrups.  A hush fell across the troops gathered about the hill as they waited for the next disaster to befall them.  He raised a curled horn to his lips and let loose a long, solitary blast on the instrument.  Immediately, four more mounted warriors emerged from the hills behind him.  Each of them held swords high above their heads.  As the Fox troops waited and watched in trepidation, a great army of glowing warriors, riding winged horses poured forth onto the plain, riding down on them with blades and lances aloft amidst a tremendous roar of unearthly proportions.

“Great day in the morning!”  Jozsef shouted.  He grabbed the commander and shoved him back toward the base of the mound.  “Get those guns turned!”

The Fox soldiers, who had been lounging about the desert as the artillery pounded the hill all morning, broke in every direction, grabbing their weapons and running for cover wherever they could find it.  Some of them ran in sheer terror in the opposite direction, but were soon running back, firing at random as panic swept over them.  One of the captains fell on his knees and pointed toward the western horizon, babbling in his native tongue about Allah and the end of the world.  Jozsef turned about slowly toward the west and was mesmerized by the sight of a tremendous winged creature that resembled a lion, alighting on a low rise.  The creature pawed the earth and sent up a cloud of dust and debris behind it before loosing a magnificent roar that made the very rock tremble beneath his feet.  Abaddon came skittering down the slope, caught up with him, and then they half-fell together down the remainder of the slope.

“Get some of these men up on the hill!”  Jozsef shouted at the General.  “I don’t want them to stop digging!  Send those idiots off to the south!  Bring the guns to bear on that!”  He waved one arm at the Sphinx.  “Take a company of men with the flame throwers back to the Ark and make sure nothing gets through!  I’ll take care of the damned angels!”

The ‘Prophet’ ran through the chaos toward his command tent.  He scooped up the bag containing the crystal skull and pulled the Urim and Thummin from under his tunic as he ran back outside and turned to face the onslaught of the winged warriors.  He threw himself onto the ground and placed the skull in front of him before bringing the device up in front of his face.  In his haste, he killed a dozen or more of his own soldiers with the powerful instrument before he gained control of the thing.

The mounted angels swooped in on the wildly firing soldiers, slaying them right and left with swords and lances.  The horses were ephemeral and the blurry forms mounted on their backs were impervious to the bullets and mortar fire.  Only the green cones of light emanating from Jozsef Daniel’s position had any effect on them.  As the power of the Urim and Thummin passed over them, they evaporated, leaving only a steamy trail of vapor behind, but there were hundreds more.  Behind him, the artillery opened fire on the winged cat as it crouched on the hill and prepared to leap upon them.

Abaddon ushered a terrified group of soldiers up the hill to where the digging was progressing at a frantic pace.  The soldiers were more interested in digging a place of safety now than looking for survivors.  They pulled together to dislodge a huge block of stone as others pried at it from above with metal rods.  Just as Abaddon reached the summit of the hill, the stone gave way and a torrent of water gushed from the passage, sweeping the dark angel and his startled companions back down the slope, head over heels.

Chapter Twelve of Sixteen

And the sixth angel sounded, And the four angels were loosed for to slay the third part of men.

“There!”  Il Dolce Mio pointed toward the center of the chaos before them.  “There he is!”

Lucio strained to see what the elven King was pointing at.

“I see him, little brother!”  Lemarik said excitedly.  “He is using the great device of power!”

“The Urim and Thummin!”  Lucifer spat the words.  “He will not release the twins!”

“What is happening on the hill?”  Vanni asked Luke Andrew as he scanned the scene with his binoculars.

“It looks a flood.”  Luke frowned and Lucio took the glasses from him.

“It’s water.”  Lucio agreed.  “But how?”

“The Luminary has awakened the Fountain of the Waters of Life within the crystal palace.”  Lucifer answered him.

“Crystal palace?”  Luke squinted at the confusing picture in front of him.  He could see several people tumbling down the face of the mound, along with a small landslide of mud and rocks.  Many more were clinging to boulders and small bushes on the crumbling hillside.

“The crystal palace of the Watchers.”  Lucifer took the binoculars from Lucio and looked at them curiously before placing them against his eyes.  “Ahhh.  Wonderful!  Abaddon! Cursed demon!  May the Waters of Life choke the breath from your wretched body.”

Lucio snatched the binoculars back and looked again.

“You are right, my friend.”  He said.  “That is the general. 
Santa Maria!
  That’s a lot of water!”

Il Dolce Mio had mounted his pony and was already leading his elven troops across the rise and into the plain beyond.  Their immediate approach was sheltered by the mound itself.

“Your little friend might need your help, Golden One.”  Lucifer chuckled softly at the sight of the fearless elves, marching into destruction.

“
Santa Maria!
Wait!!  Stop!!”  The Knight of the Golden Eagle shouted inanely after the mounted troops.  None of them even looked back at him.  Lucio dropped the binoculars and made a mad dash for his horse, followed closely by Luke Andrew and Vanni. 

Lucifer retrieved the binoculars from the dirt and wiped the lenses with his mantle.  He smiled as he watched the progress of his old enemy in the wake of the deluge, but his smile faded as he found the truck containing the golden relic of the Old One surrounded by the Fox soldiers armed with flame throwers.

“
Santa Maria!
”  He exclaimed and then bolted for his own mount.

He let out a long warbling call for the remainder of his warriors to follow him and they rode down on the scene just as Edgard d’Brouchart’s troops topped the rise and charged down from the north. 

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The sight that met the disbelieving eyes of the Templar forces was one of total chaos.  The Fox soldiers were fleeing helter-skelter in all directions.  When they saw this final threat descending from the north, they turned again toward the west and south, the only clear path remaining to them, but again, they were stopped in their flight by the sight of the British forces under King Ramsay’s flag and the sight of the sleek, black dragon, spouting green flames did nothing to restore their confidence in their leader.  They made one last attempt to turn back, but found themselves completely cutoff by the Grand Master’s forces and the Frankish contingent riding in from the east.  Some of them threw down their arms and fell on their faces.  A few formed lines and fired on the advancing enemy troops with little damage and soon a full third of Jozsef’s army had surrendered to the Templar forces.  Another third had fallen to the swords of the mounted angelic forces and the onslaught of the winged lion.  The remaining portion was either hiding among the rocks or running haphazardly across the desert in every direction, pursued by the two great beasts, the ephemeral angelic forces mounted on winged horses and seeming hordes of screaming soldiers on horses, camels and foot.  The battle of Armageddon as St. John had seen it was no battle at all, but a rout. 

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Mark Andrew helped Sophia sit up against the foot of the basin and held her chin in his hand.  She coughed once more and spit up a mouthful of water into his face.

“Good grief!”  She muttered as he wiped at his face.

“Good grief!”  He repeated her words and then stood up.  Several of the soldiers lay dead upon the floor of the chamber.  Simon was doing his best to help the survivors to their feet before the next phase of the disaster struck them.  Nicholas and Gregory were already searching through the chambers for weapons and supplies.  Selwig clung desperately to the top of one of the columns of stone with his eyes squeezed shut.  Nicole and her young man had changed positions as she was left to help him cough up all the water he had swallowed and breathed into his lungs.  The Colonel had a sizable number of his soldiers on their feet with their weapons at the ready for whatever might be coming down the re-opened passageway to the surface.  Light filtered into the central chamber and the sounds of distant explosions, screams and gunfire echoed off the crystal walls.

“Selwig!”  Mark Andrew said as he reached for the Tuathan’s legs and pulled him down.  The healer shrieked and hugged his soaked yellow bag as he fell into Mark’s arms.  The Knight lowered him carefully to floor and he opened his eyes.

“Master!”  Selwig hugged him tightly. 

“Come with me, little friend.”  Mark Andrew took his hand and led him from the chamber.