A new beginning for a very old story
Dec. 26th, 2011 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakmadusAsa bursts into the squad tent in a flurry, his wings still open wide and covered in blood and bits of entrails. His helmet is askew, but he plucks that off quickly, tucking it under his arm. The tent is still mostly empty, just a few rear guard charioteers, all clumped together and watching something in the middle of their huddle.
He drops his sword and chain mail onto his cot, in the front section of the tent, then sits down to start pulling off his boots. Part of the battle today had taken place in a swamp, and he can still feel the mud squelching between his toes, mixing with blood and other divine ephemera.
"Captain, you should see this!" One of the charioteers is calling him over to their huddle. He grunts and nods his head.
"Give me a minute, I've got a boot full of demon shit and I need a drink."
"No, sir, you should see this now!" His head snaps back up reflexively at the urgency in the charioteer's tone.
"Christ, give it a rest, I've been out there all day trying to clean up some other asshole's mess." An asshole called Division Captain Jephath, but he would never say that to one of his soldier's. He doesn't care about dirtying Jephath's name, but lives depend on high morale, and nothing shits on morale faster than believing your superiors to be incompetent.
He pulls his other boot off and sets it beside its brother, wiggling his toes in the grass beneath his cot. His wings start to fold inward, and he stretches as he shakes them, blood spatters flying off and painting the area around him. Now all he needs is the flask in his footlocker, maybe a roast leg of something--he's not particular what, as long as it had heartbeat at some point--and he'll be a happy man. As much as he wants to grumble about dealing with Jephath's fuck-ups, he can't deny there's a deep satisfaction to be had in spending the entire day clearing a swamp of every rotting hell hound and demon nymph it holds.
Still, the charioteers haven't moved. There are horrified gasps rising every now and again from their group. He stands, ignoring the ache in his muscles--mostly his calves, as it wasn't safe to be airborne much over the swamp, any direct hit and you were falling into a sticky mire that could contain any number of sharp-clawed nasties.
"All right, what are you cherries watching? You guys catch a little demon out there?" He walks over and leans down, to see what all the fuss is about.
Instead of the captured demon he's expecting, there's a scry glass. Technically they aren't allowed in-camp, but he can't remember anyone taking that restriction seriously in the last few hundred years. Anyone with any sense makes sure not to try something stupid, like scrying into hell, and those without enough sense have already met unfortunate ends.
This glass, though, is focused somewhere unfamiliar to him. It doesn't look like anywhere in the heavenly realm. It's some kind of meeting room, with lots of miniature tables and chairs, and a large black surface on one wall, covered in white markings. He blinks and realizes the people in the room are human children. They look terrified, but it's hard to know for sure. Humans are complex enough, but their young are even more unpredictable.
"What is this?" he asks aloud, frowning at the glass. "Why are you--" His voice cuts out mid-sentence when a demon, at least twice as tall as any child and a million times more fearsome, walks into the room. It growls and froths and burns at them, laughing that horrible hyena laugh when the children scream and scatter.
"Where are you scrying?" He lays his hand on the shoulder of the nearest charioteer, squeezing hard. "Where is this?"
The charioteer looks up at him with wide eyes. "It's the human world, sir. On earth."
"No, that passage is closed to hellspawn."
Another soldier shakes his head. "No, sir, it re-opened last week. IS 6* was holding it, and they fell."
"So you're telling me there are demons running loose on earth right now."
The charioteers nod, silent and captivated now by the scene, as the demon plucks children from under the little tables and behind chairs, their small bodies bursting into unholy flame.
Asa can't believe his eyes. "So why aren't you DOING SOMETHING?" he roars, his wings unfurling with a gust and knocking a few of them aside. "You just sit here, watching the show, while a fucking demon DESTROYS human children?"
One of the charioteers knocked over by his wings speaks up from the ground. "We tried, sir. DC Jephath said we weren't to engage. We asked him for permission to go down ourselves, or to at least take over for IS 6 at the passage."
"And he said no?" There is some kind of terrible, fatal misunderstanding at work here. Someone's failure to communicate has cost these humans their lives.
"He said..." The charioteers glance at each other, as if loathe to anger him any more. "He said they weren't worth our time."
Just then, the demon seems to feel the scry on him, turning and looking up to stare right at them. His eyes burn in suspicion for a moment, and every soldier goes still, waiting. He stomps around in an uneven circle, blasting a few more children, then jumps into the air with a terrible scream, heading straight at the scry glass.
There are only moments before he's in the tent, and Asa is cursing himself for leaving his broadsword on his bed. He runs for it, hearing it already tearing into one of the charioteers, the angel's cries of terror and pain ringing out through the tent. Sword in hand, he lunges for the demon, swinging a wild arc as it dances away from him, angelic blood bright on its claws.
He chases it into the back section of the tent, into the darkness that has not yet been lit by evening lanterns, moving toward the wet, snuffling grunts. He may be blind back here, but he's spent the entire day killing things in a place that was not only dark, but also full of gluey swamp mire. This is a step up. He pauses, waiting for it to stumble--the vision of demons has never been terribly superior to that of angels--and when there is a clang of it hitting a footlocker left out in the walkway, he whirls toward it. There is a crunch as his broadsword slides home, spearing the demon through the stomach. He reminds himself to buy a drink for whoever the idiot was that didn't stow his locker properly today.
He pulls his sword back out, wipes it on the sheets of the locker's owner, and carries the dead demon out by its neck. In the front section of the tent, a medic is already bent over one of the charioteers, shaking his head as his bandages fail to staunch the bleeding. Demons deal mortal wounds, even to the hardiest of angels, and one unarmored charioteer, taken by surprise, never had a chance.
The sight of Asa dragging the demon through camp causes a stir, but he ignores the gasps and cheers until he reaches Jephath's tent, walking right in and dropping the foul thing in front of his table, where the DC sits with his maps and his wine, plotting fantasy missions that Asa will have to do clean-up on.
Jephath jumps and glares at him, his lips curling in disgust. "I know you want to please your master, little kitty, but please--don't bring your kill to me."
"Fuck you, Jephath, your kill is back in my tent, bleeding out in front of his friends."
"Excuse me?" Jephath stands. "Squad Captain Asakmadus, I would remind you that you're speaking to a superior officer. Have you been drinking?"
Asa's voice is gravelly with anger. "I wish I wasn't as goddamned sober as a nun, it might make this easier to handle. You told my charioteers that demons in the human realm wasn't worth their time? Is that right?"
"Oh, that." Jephath sits back down, picking up his wine glass. "Yes, well. We're busy up here, Asa. We're fighting a war, in case you hadn't noticed. There's no time to go tromping down to save the human every time a minor demon manages to get through the pass. You know none of the major ones can get through, anyway."
"Even a minor demon is enough to cause incredible damage. I just watched one light up a room full of human children."
"You watched one? Through what? Your soldiers weren't operating an illegal scrying glass, were they, Squad Captain?"
"Don't even try to pull that bureaucratic bullshit with me right now. One of my men is dying because that demon managed to get into our tent from the human world." He struggles to get himself under control. Jephath needs him, and they both know it, but there's only so far he can be pushed before snapping. Asa's promotion to Squad Captain is only a century or two old, so the threat of demotion is still very much possible.
"Look," he continues, "I just need you to authorize an out mission to the passage. We'll pick up for IS 6. I'll take a team out myself, tonight."
"No, you won't." Jephath regards him dryly. "One of your men is dying because you were allowing your squad to run an illegal scry glass operation. That's unfortunate, but hardly anyone's fault but your own. And we cannot spare an entire team to guard a passage that, frankly, has no strategic value. You'll stay right here in camp."
"No strategic value? Did you not hear me? The demon killed children."
"I don't think I'm the one with the hearing problem here, Squad Captain. I said no, and that's final. The loss of human life is regrettable, but hardly our main concern when the hellspawn are pushing us farther back each day."
"Yeah, and then we push them back the day after. This isn't new for us, it's been the same shit day in and day out for years. Those humans... this isn't their fight. They have no defenses. It isn't right."
Jephath has stopped looking at him. "Leave what's right and wrong up to The Host. You just concentrate on fighting when and where I tell you."
Asa stands there, staring at him, unable to believe that even Jephath is this heartless. It's true that the have a lot of extra legroom when it comes to morality, their own salvation all but guaranteed by their holy warfare, but they still have souls. This is... soulless. It's wicked.
"If you don't authorize a mission, I'm going to go on my own." His voice is level, deadly calm. It's a voice his soldiers have come to know and fear. His anger has passed into a cold, lethal rage.
"And if you go on your own, you're disobeying a direct order and I'll have no choice but to strip you of your position."
"I'll gladly lose a rank to save innocent human lives."
"Oh, no, not your rank." Jephath looks up at him from the table. "I mean your entire position. If you disobey my order on this, you can go wash the floors in the heavenly palace of some advisor to The Host. You'll never carry a sword again in your life."
"You're not serious."
"I'm quite serious, Squad Captain. And if you don't leave my tent and take that stinking thing with you right now, your entire squad will get a rank demotion."
It takes every ounce of self-control in Asa's body to move forward, pick up the demon, and turn around. His hands itch to pull out his sword and lop Jephath's head off in one smooth swing. He can see it happening, so clearly that it seems more like a memory than a visualization. But a moment later he's outside the tent, and he knows that the DC is still inside, alive, sipping on his wine.
He walks to the far edge of the camp, throws the demon as far as he can manage, and turns back to find the only person he can talk to now, the only other soldier in the camp who will understand what he's about to do. He goes to find Ezrael.
*Infantry Squad 6, a sister squad to Asakmadus's Infantry Squad 5
He drops his sword and chain mail onto his cot, in the front section of the tent, then sits down to start pulling off his boots. Part of the battle today had taken place in a swamp, and he can still feel the mud squelching between his toes, mixing with blood and other divine ephemera.
"Captain, you should see this!" One of the charioteers is calling him over to their huddle. He grunts and nods his head.
"Give me a minute, I've got a boot full of demon shit and I need a drink."
"No, sir, you should see this now!" His head snaps back up reflexively at the urgency in the charioteer's tone.
"Christ, give it a rest, I've been out there all day trying to clean up some other asshole's mess." An asshole called Division Captain Jephath, but he would never say that to one of his soldier's. He doesn't care about dirtying Jephath's name, but lives depend on high morale, and nothing shits on morale faster than believing your superiors to be incompetent.
He pulls his other boot off and sets it beside its brother, wiggling his toes in the grass beneath his cot. His wings start to fold inward, and he stretches as he shakes them, blood spatters flying off and painting the area around him. Now all he needs is the flask in his footlocker, maybe a roast leg of something--he's not particular what, as long as it had heartbeat at some point--and he'll be a happy man. As much as he wants to grumble about dealing with Jephath's fuck-ups, he can't deny there's a deep satisfaction to be had in spending the entire day clearing a swamp of every rotting hell hound and demon nymph it holds.
Still, the charioteers haven't moved. There are horrified gasps rising every now and again from their group. He stands, ignoring the ache in his muscles--mostly his calves, as it wasn't safe to be airborne much over the swamp, any direct hit and you were falling into a sticky mire that could contain any number of sharp-clawed nasties.
"All right, what are you cherries watching? You guys catch a little demon out there?" He walks over and leans down, to see what all the fuss is about.
Instead of the captured demon he's expecting, there's a scry glass. Technically they aren't allowed in-camp, but he can't remember anyone taking that restriction seriously in the last few hundred years. Anyone with any sense makes sure not to try something stupid, like scrying into hell, and those without enough sense have already met unfortunate ends.
This glass, though, is focused somewhere unfamiliar to him. It doesn't look like anywhere in the heavenly realm. It's some kind of meeting room, with lots of miniature tables and chairs, and a large black surface on one wall, covered in white markings. He blinks and realizes the people in the room are human children. They look terrified, but it's hard to know for sure. Humans are complex enough, but their young are even more unpredictable.
"What is this?" he asks aloud, frowning at the glass. "Why are you--" His voice cuts out mid-sentence when a demon, at least twice as tall as any child and a million times more fearsome, walks into the room. It growls and froths and burns at them, laughing that horrible hyena laugh when the children scream and scatter.
"Where are you scrying?" He lays his hand on the shoulder of the nearest charioteer, squeezing hard. "Where is this?"
The charioteer looks up at him with wide eyes. "It's the human world, sir. On earth."
"No, that passage is closed to hellspawn."
Another soldier shakes his head. "No, sir, it re-opened last week. IS 6* was holding it, and they fell."
"So you're telling me there are demons running loose on earth right now."
The charioteers nod, silent and captivated now by the scene, as the demon plucks children from under the little tables and behind chairs, their small bodies bursting into unholy flame.
Asa can't believe his eyes. "So why aren't you DOING SOMETHING?" he roars, his wings unfurling with a gust and knocking a few of them aside. "You just sit here, watching the show, while a fucking demon DESTROYS human children?"
One of the charioteers knocked over by his wings speaks up from the ground. "We tried, sir. DC Jephath said we weren't to engage. We asked him for permission to go down ourselves, or to at least take over for IS 6 at the passage."
"And he said no?" There is some kind of terrible, fatal misunderstanding at work here. Someone's failure to communicate has cost these humans their lives.
"He said..." The charioteers glance at each other, as if loathe to anger him any more. "He said they weren't worth our time."
Just then, the demon seems to feel the scry on him, turning and looking up to stare right at them. His eyes burn in suspicion for a moment, and every soldier goes still, waiting. He stomps around in an uneven circle, blasting a few more children, then jumps into the air with a terrible scream, heading straight at the scry glass.
There are only moments before he's in the tent, and Asa is cursing himself for leaving his broadsword on his bed. He runs for it, hearing it already tearing into one of the charioteers, the angel's cries of terror and pain ringing out through the tent. Sword in hand, he lunges for the demon, swinging a wild arc as it dances away from him, angelic blood bright on its claws.
He chases it into the back section of the tent, into the darkness that has not yet been lit by evening lanterns, moving toward the wet, snuffling grunts. He may be blind back here, but he's spent the entire day killing things in a place that was not only dark, but also full of gluey swamp mire. This is a step up. He pauses, waiting for it to stumble--the vision of demons has never been terribly superior to that of angels--and when there is a clang of it hitting a footlocker left out in the walkway, he whirls toward it. There is a crunch as his broadsword slides home, spearing the demon through the stomach. He reminds himself to buy a drink for whoever the idiot was that didn't stow his locker properly today.
He pulls his sword back out, wipes it on the sheets of the locker's owner, and carries the dead demon out by its neck. In the front section of the tent, a medic is already bent over one of the charioteers, shaking his head as his bandages fail to staunch the bleeding. Demons deal mortal wounds, even to the hardiest of angels, and one unarmored charioteer, taken by surprise, never had a chance.
The sight of Asa dragging the demon through camp causes a stir, but he ignores the gasps and cheers until he reaches Jephath's tent, walking right in and dropping the foul thing in front of his table, where the DC sits with his maps and his wine, plotting fantasy missions that Asa will have to do clean-up on.
Jephath jumps and glares at him, his lips curling in disgust. "I know you want to please your master, little kitty, but please--don't bring your kill to me."
"Fuck you, Jephath, your kill is back in my tent, bleeding out in front of his friends."
"Excuse me?" Jephath stands. "Squad Captain Asakmadus, I would remind you that you're speaking to a superior officer. Have you been drinking?"
Asa's voice is gravelly with anger. "I wish I wasn't as goddamned sober as a nun, it might make this easier to handle. You told my charioteers that demons in the human realm wasn't worth their time? Is that right?"
"Oh, that." Jephath sits back down, picking up his wine glass. "Yes, well. We're busy up here, Asa. We're fighting a war, in case you hadn't noticed. There's no time to go tromping down to save the human every time a minor demon manages to get through the pass. You know none of the major ones can get through, anyway."
"Even a minor demon is enough to cause incredible damage. I just watched one light up a room full of human children."
"You watched one? Through what? Your soldiers weren't operating an illegal scrying glass, were they, Squad Captain?"
"Don't even try to pull that bureaucratic bullshit with me right now. One of my men is dying because that demon managed to get into our tent from the human world." He struggles to get himself under control. Jephath needs him, and they both know it, but there's only so far he can be pushed before snapping. Asa's promotion to Squad Captain is only a century or two old, so the threat of demotion is still very much possible.
"Look," he continues, "I just need you to authorize an out mission to the passage. We'll pick up for IS 6. I'll take a team out myself, tonight."
"No, you won't." Jephath regards him dryly. "One of your men is dying because you were allowing your squad to run an illegal scry glass operation. That's unfortunate, but hardly anyone's fault but your own. And we cannot spare an entire team to guard a passage that, frankly, has no strategic value. You'll stay right here in camp."
"No strategic value? Did you not hear me? The demon killed children."
"I don't think I'm the one with the hearing problem here, Squad Captain. I said no, and that's final. The loss of human life is regrettable, but hardly our main concern when the hellspawn are pushing us farther back each day."
"Yeah, and then we push them back the day after. This isn't new for us, it's been the same shit day in and day out for years. Those humans... this isn't their fight. They have no defenses. It isn't right."
Jephath has stopped looking at him. "Leave what's right and wrong up to The Host. You just concentrate on fighting when and where I tell you."
Asa stands there, staring at him, unable to believe that even Jephath is this heartless. It's true that the have a lot of extra legroom when it comes to morality, their own salvation all but guaranteed by their holy warfare, but they still have souls. This is... soulless. It's wicked.
"If you don't authorize a mission, I'm going to go on my own." His voice is level, deadly calm. It's a voice his soldiers have come to know and fear. His anger has passed into a cold, lethal rage.
"And if you go on your own, you're disobeying a direct order and I'll have no choice but to strip you of your position."
"I'll gladly lose a rank to save innocent human lives."
"Oh, no, not your rank." Jephath looks up at him from the table. "I mean your entire position. If you disobey my order on this, you can go wash the floors in the heavenly palace of some advisor to The Host. You'll never carry a sword again in your life."
"You're not serious."
"I'm quite serious, Squad Captain. And if you don't leave my tent and take that stinking thing with you right now, your entire squad will get a rank demotion."
It takes every ounce of self-control in Asa's body to move forward, pick up the demon, and turn around. His hands itch to pull out his sword and lop Jephath's head off in one smooth swing. He can see it happening, so clearly that it seems more like a memory than a visualization. But a moment later he's outside the tent, and he knows that the DC is still inside, alive, sipping on his wine.
He walks to the far edge of the camp, throws the demon as far as he can manage, and turns back to find the only person he can talk to now, the only other soldier in the camp who will understand what he's about to do. He goes to find Ezrael.
*Infantry Squad 6, a sister squad to Asakmadus's Infantry Squad 5
