Chapter 1

This realm had not chosen to be a battleground – it merely was.

The pinprick bright stars that flared to life in the heavens took the forms of constellations of calamity and woe, foretold and foreseen, but not forestalled. Aetherships, carving through the planar barriers between one realm and another, lurched to a stop in the skies above this world’s celestial sphere, and the cracks in the crystalline glass that kept what was and what was not separate started to spread. The ships themselves were brilliant in white, gold, the crimson red of morning dawn spreading across the plains.

The hosts of Heaven had come, and Armageddon was nigh.

Cae watched it from the window of her aethership, her hand resting on the curved pauldron of her battle armor. Her wings shifted, the glowing pinion feathers brushing on the marble and gilt. She frowned, her brow furrowing as she saw the first searing beams of light punching down onto the demonic infestations on the realm below – oceans that had become dark and murky and filled with monsters of myth started to boil, while mountains that were now known as dire dungeons simply came apart, sliced to their bubbling, ruby red bedrock.

People were beginning to die.

And it’s your fault, she thought.

“General Silverhawk,” a cool voice came from the room’s aetheric circuitry, speaking around her like the void itself coming to life. “Your presence is required aboard the battle bridge.”

Cae sighed quietly. She spread her wings, then clamped them tight to her back, to ease sliding her cuirass on. The finest smiths of Heaven, trained by ten millennia of tradition and toil, had etched hexgramatic wards into it to keep away the corruptive touch of Hell and then added on adornments and magic alike, weaving them one over the other until it was like a second layer of skin. While it looked too massive for anyone – angel or no – to bear, it was as light and easy to carry as a cloak or jerkin. The pauldrons socketed on next, their gold faces and red trims wide enough to protect the sides of her head, were she to loose her helmet. She slid on the heavy gauntlets, gold and silver, the knuckles inlaid with circular rune-scription that could, in a pinch, extend blades of flame and holy light if she lost her primary weapon. She tugged on the greaves and the fauld, and each connected one to the other, extending additional layers of chainmail and cloth to close up every gap. Once she was fully clad, she looked every part a warrior of Heaven – a beautiful, winged figure of gold and white. She snatched up her helmet, and sighed.

She slid it on and turned and started through the ship.

When she came to the bridge, the bombardment had reached its secondary phase: Motes of Heaven’s light were being dropped, as were specially bred angels of death that would seek out demons en mass and slaughter them without mercy. They were not expected to survive more than five, six minuets – but their thinning of the demonic horde would be required for this world’s salvation. The bridge was full of the complex celestial engines that allowed the aethership to both navigate the space between realms and coordinate with the other aetherships. It also had the three other generals, each given command over their own particular section of the invasion.

Even for Heaven, the invasion of a whole world was no undertaking a single person could manage. Save, of course, for the Creator.

Only She wasn’t here.

“General Silverhawk,” General Falconheart said, turning to face her. He was as tall and burly as most other angels of his breed, and his wings were clasped tight behind his back. He wore armor of purest silver, a death’s head skull emblazoned on the chest to remember that even angels were ... from a certain perspective, mortal. Beside him stood Generals Twinblade and Fairheart, who were both clad in intricate gemstone armor and shimmerweave fabric, making them the most slight of the company – their bodies as slender and delicate as Falconheart’s was broad and powerful. They were all watching the scroll that was unfurled upon the table – the scroll was enchanted, and it showed the map of the world, updated with new lines of ink and tiny dots of red and blue as Heaven and Hell advanced across the world.

“General,” Cae returned.

“Your plan is working flawlessly so far, Silverhawk,” General Fairheart said, his voice light and lilting. “We’ve hit all the major demonic infestation points from the heavens – we believe we can begin landing troops now.”

“Finally,” General Falconheart growled, quietly. “It is not good for the hosts of Heaven to hide in the cloud’s skirts. We are the Creator’s sword-arm, and we should use them.”

Cae frowned, leaning forward. She scanned the map. The glowing dots marking the strike points throbbed, pustules that had been lanced. And yet, the scrying showed that there was only a nominal kill-rate of several dozen millions. She gestured at the hazy fog of it, rising up and off the parchment. “Do you not wonder why our first strike only slew a fraction of the demons that it should have?” she asked. “According to the Talezanic Scribes, this world has been battling demonic incursions for two hundred of their years before we arrived-”

“You know mortals,” Falconheart said, chuckling like a bear – deep and rumbling. “They always overestimate their foes.”

Cae frowned harder. The Talezanic Scribes were an order of mortal sages that operated across many realms – it took a unique mortal to be able to crawl between the spaces in the worlds without dying first. They were rare and, thankfully, mostly aligned with Heaven and not their foes. Their reports on this realm had been exacting and the basis of her strategy. She shook her head. “Something is wrong,” she said. “If we land our troops, we’re going into a trap.”

Fairheart nodded, while Twinblade clicked her teeth. “I believe General Silverhawk is right. We should send in the mortal levies first.”

“No!” Cae exclaimed, at the same time that Falconheart boomed out. “Never!”

The two exchanged looks – but Falconheart had the initiative. “Mortals are no use against demons. Besides, this world has been ... somewhat...” he coughed. “It’s not exactly ready to muster and march, now is it?”

“We brought several levies from other realms,” Twinblade pointed out.

“Those are for afterwards,” Cae said, clenching her teeth. “You cannot rob the logistical strategy of this entire campaign for this – and we’re not sending mortal armies into the demon’s teeth without at least being there to support them.”

“So, you agree, we are to land?” Falconheart asked.

Everyone looked at Cae then. She had planned this entire invasion – her second only, after she had been named General, the youngest angel to ever hold the torch. She rubbed her gauntleted finger against her chin, her eyes narrowing. Eyes that glowed with silver light saw not parchment, but maps and men – the sinews of war, stretching across the suddenly blasted landscape. The people of this realm were cowering from what, to them, must have seemed like the end of the world ... even if the celestial blasts had been targeted at demonic infestations, the knock-on effects of their destruction would be felt for years. The mortals were seeing the dust clouds and feeling the earthquakes, and wondering what might happen next. She dismissed the idea of sending even their most heroic armies out under that circumstance. She tapped her finger down at the map.

“Here,” she said.

“There?” Falconheart asked. “Why this mortal city, why not the demon’s-”

“Because, Uriel,” Cae said, turning to face him, glowering up into his impressive frown. “This is the city of Ul-Nassar, the oldest city of this realm. It is a center of great learning and has a population of five hundred thousand souls. Moreover, the only approach from the demonic strong points is through this valley.” She touched the map. “I propose that we begin to rapture the city.”

“But they’re not even repentant!” Twinblade exploded.

“Heaven will never accept their souls-” Fairheart snapped.

“I never said that we’d rapture them to Heaven,” Cae shot back. “We shall send them to the realm of Falon, into their southern continent.”

“W-What realm is that?” Falconheart asked, looking to the other generals, who shrugged. They made Cae want to scream. They were meant to be protecting the many, many realms of Creation from the Destroyer himself, and they didn’t even remember half their names. She had memorized each, and their geography, and as much of their history as she could in the hours she had had to live so far. This irritation sparked in her voice as she snapped.

“A realm that can accept five hundred thousand souls – and, more over, the rapturing is beside the point.” She mentally rued the fact that it wasn’t, in fact, the point. But Heaven knew that a soul that died neither in grace nor in corruption would be a soul reborn, to be fought over in some future date. And did Heaven or Hell care for the life that the soul had, the momentary, fleeting thing they trampled upon their with aetherships and their armored boots? The idea was laughable. Cae continued, doggedly. “The demonic armies will realize what we’re doing – they will think we are collecting the souls for Heaven. They will be forced to attack a defensive position, rather than having us blunder directly into their jaws.”

Falconheart considered.

Twinblade laughed. “I like it,” she said, grinning wickedly.

Falconheart nodded, and then turned to the map.

“Then it shall be so,” he said, as if he was the one who had planned not just the attack of this realm, but of the entire campaign that this realm was merely the prelude to. Cae breathed out a slow, almost invisible sigh of pure relief, then turned to the map.

The Valley – the Valley of the Sacred Dead, she knew it to be called – would be the killing field.

The Hosts of Heaven stood under glittering banners, filling the Valley of the Sacred Dead’s southern end, standing before the walls of Ul-Nassar, and waited. The walls themselves were immensely tall, made of sandstone blocks carved by sorcery that flowed with the ease of wine when the world was young and full of life. Now, the realm was old, and the walls were old. The city they looked over was older still. Her minarets were faded, the gilt slowly chipped away by desperate guttersnipes and scavengers, and the palace had long since fallen into disrepair. The spears held by her militia and her mercenaries were once sharpened by magic and honed with the blood of summoned elementals, but no more. Now, they were merely steel, and held by men and women who had seen too many summers or too few battles – veterans called to service, shepherding the desperate newcomers that had flocked under the order of the King.

The wall was of little use against demons who could scramble and climb like water, or teleport, or burrow, or fly. And so, the militia had taken up their positions at the flanks of the angelic army. They were like children, standing next to their adult siblings, and they watched in awe as the angels under the leadership of General Caelael Silverhawk prepared themselves. While the army under General Falconheart simply arranged their formations and began desultory work on some basic entrenchment for their archers, Cae saw that her troops – all of her troops – were busy at work. They blasted glassy canyons into the valley, taking little care with the many thousands upon thousands upon thousands of tombs cut into the valley sides. Those that were most wealthy and rich fell to ruin, collapsing into the newly formed rents as angelic workers carved out traps that demons would need to leap, climb, or teleport over.

She placed her artillery upon the wall and the sides of the hills, and sighted them to aim down into the valley. She primed magical blasting stones at several points to trigger avalanches. And, as she took herself and two of her best engineers along the side of the valley, she considered the tombs.

Each tomb was similar in shape, if not in style. The wealthier ones were not larger, merely more beautifully decorated: They were essentially triangular shaped tunnels carved into the rocky valley’s hillsides, leading into circular chambers where the honored dead of Ul-Nassar had been buried. The hills were so filthy with them that a single blasting stone could collapse almost half a mile of the hillside – but as her engineer explained that, Cae considered the tombs and their occupants.

“In some realms, Hell has called forth the undead,” she said, quietly. “Are these tombs going to be a knife in our back?”

“No, my lady,” the voice came as a surprise to Cae. She turned and saw a weathered, wrinkled old mortal walking towards her, flanked by four of Ul-Nassar’s mercenaries. He had the complexion of an aged walnut, and a smile that showed that he had but his wisdom teeth and naught else. His voice, quavering and high, had a sense of whimsy that seemed ill suited to the grim hour that his world now faced. “These tombs are protected by the Staff of Shalier, an ancient and powerful wizard who helped to found the city. The magic keeps the dead quiet, no matter what deviltry the forces of Hell might seek to unleash.”

“Very good,” Cae said, feeling her tension unwind slightly as she turned to regard the tombs. “It pains my heart greatly, to see the honorable resting place of so many dead heroes to be put to such ruin. If I could have spared this world, I...”

“Speak not of sparing, oh honorable angel,” the old man said, leaning forward on a walking stick as gnarled as he. His brownish robes rippled in the wind, and he shook his head slowly. “Our world has been sickened by demonic corruption for longer than the oldest sages yet living. You are to us as the red hot poker is to the gangrenous limb.”

Cae winced – in a younger realm, such terrible illnesses would be scoured away by a single casting of a spell. Here? She made note in her mind to have angelic healers on hand to ensure that mortal levies did not simply suppurate and die when retrieved off the field of battle. Aloud, she said: “I but wish it need not-”

A sound of clattering rocks. A feral hiss.

“-hold!”

Senses alive to danger, she sprang forward, putting her armored bulk betwixt the man and his guards and the sudden leaping shadow that dropped from the hillside upon them! The claws rasped against Cae’s back and shoulder, catching on the edge of her pauldron, but she beat her wing hard, sending the beast smashing into the side of one of the tomb entrances. Stone splintered in a spray of grayish dust and the demon – one of Destruction’s red skinned, horned creations – growled and flashed its claws. It had no time at all before Cae drew her sword and decapitated it in one smooth stroke. Its head tumbled through the air and black ichor splattered the sandy ground, soaking this once sacred valley with the spilled blood of the wicked.

“Get back!” Cae shouted, her wings flaring as her engineers drew their spears and focused, drawing magic into their blades. Blue flames roared to life, while her sword’s flickering golden luminescence roared to full life. More dark shapes were crawling along the side of the valley, spittle dripping from snarling, tooth filled maws.

Scouts.

Cae split her focus – half was upon the mortals, half upon the demons. She considered – there were a mere thirty of them. She nodded. “Taelel, Urakel, take the mortals back under your aegis.”

“But General-”

“Do it!” Cae snapped, then sprang forward, drawing the demon’s attention. Four sprinted at her, growling furiously. One swept low, one high, two others looped to her sides. She split the two coming at her with a single stroke, cleaving them from hip to shoulder and sending their, hissing, steaming bodies flying to the ground. She beat her wings, shooting up moments before the two flankers smashed into where she had been. She dropped, folding her wings behind her, and her golden boots crushed both into paste, grinding spine, skull and muscle with a sickening crunch.

More demons came, faster now. They leaped upon her arm as she lifted it to ward it off, three of them clinging to her, trying to drag her arm down. She beat her wings to scoot backwards, a billowing pal of dust kicked up into the air, shrouding the demons and causing several to screech in fury. She flung her arm and cast off two demons over the side of the switchbacks that lined the tomb-studded valley walls. One hit the side of the valley on the way down, leaving a smear of blackish blood against a carven king’s ancient, withered face. The other crunched upon an old, time weathered boulder, snapping its spine in half. The third, though, remained on, teeth crunching against her golden armor. The hexagramatic wards burned its mouth, but it remained dogged. She dropped and smashed her arm into the ground, shattering some ancient paving stones in a spray of gore.

Three more demonic beasts rushed at her – but they skidded to a stop a few yards away, opening their mouths and vomiting up greenish bile in thick lines! Projectiles of hissing acid, rushing straight towards her. She cupped her wings around her, letting the acid splatter the feathers and allowed her angelic immunity to such horrid stuff flick the bubbling, frothing vileness away. She flicked her wings wide, then shouted a war cry at the demons. The three roared back ... then started to edge backwards.

In the distance, horns blew. She cocked her head – then risked a glance back.

Flags were being raised. The army had spotted the demons ... no, not these demons. Something else. A host of demonic warriors, she was sure. She beat her wings, then saw what the angelic scouts had seen: A teeming, cresting wave of Hell’s legions, coming straight along the valley, just as she had predicted.

And so why did she feel the cold, creeping sense of dread in her belly?

Cae frowned.

It was the tombs. The unquiet dead. She flew towards her army – and made a note to herself: She would need at least two angels to protect the Staff.

That settled her mind – even as the artillery began to fire, catapults firing flaming orbs up, up, up into the air, to come raining down, to bring Hell to the hellish.

The battle was joined.

Cae stood on the hill, itching to join into battle. But she kept her gaze on the field, frowning intently. There were two forces at work here – the legions of Ruin and Destruction. The two had been intermixed, intermingled like water and sand, to create the muddy morass that hurled itself bodily at the shield line of her heavy infantry. Glowing flashes of light bloomed from the interlocking heavy shields as angels shoved back against demons and, in the momentary freedom from pressure, lifted their other arms up to bring their blades swinging down. Flames exploded across the front line as dozens, hundreds of demons fell every second. The second rank thrust with their spears, standing higher than their comrades and pushing their blades into any demon that yet lived after the holy avengers had had their way. Behind them were more ranks – ready to exchange place should heavenly sinews and muscle grow tired or lamed.

This anvil was the centerpiece of the formation. At the flanks, there were the lighter infantry – angels unburdened by heavy armor, free to sweep and swing around on glowing wings. They battled demons that sought to soar overhead, forcing them either to the ground or to their doom with nets of shimmering white light or quick, thrusting stabs with their spears. Beneath them were the mortal levies. While their steel spears were as a child’s plaything to a snarling demon, they were both massed and bolstered by angelic magicians, who spoke the words of the Creator Herself.

The mortals charged with the suicidal bravery so common to their kin, pushing into the flanks exposed by the demonic fervor – they were so eager to claim the blood of Heaven that they barely paid attention to heroic men and women who stole along the narrow switchbacks of the valley and dropped along steep, perilous slopes, to then come upon demonic stragglers and scouts. Those fierce, pitched battles left many a demon splitted not by an angel’s honed edge, but by sheer mortal determination. Cae wished she could look away from such sights. Mortal men and women were not for this war. But still, they fought and would always have to fight, until Heaven had extinguished Hell under their might.

She took a moment to glance back at the artillery. The catapults were still firing, regular as clockwork, aiming for the measured out distances that she had had her engineers carefully tack out and mark with spectral guidelights that only a Heavenly being could see. Those white orbs, floating at the far end of the valley, were for the fire charges, which would break high overhead and cast their incandescent fury upon a wide area. Many demons were immune to flames, being birthed in far hotter places, but those that were not fell and died in great lots. At the blue orbs, the catapults launched and fired blue crystal shards that struck the ground before exploding – spraying a haze of razor sharp ice carved from the Stygian depths of Heaven’s most sacred lakes, where the holy light of Heaven’s eternal Throne grew dim and holy water froze into blessed crystal. The demons struck by the shards screamed as they were flayed apart. Only the most agile or lucky survived.

But at the green orb, the catapults ceased firing and instead aimed their fury back to the white orbs once more – keeping track with every wave of Hell’s legions, for within the green orb’s radius, they risked a short shot or mischance to drop their own hateful weapons upon Heaven ... or, worse, her forward flung mortal levies.

Cae nodded slowly. The battle was progressing well. They need only bleed another million, another two, and this horde would disperse. Her brow furrowed at the sound of horns blatting. She swung her gaze upon the eastern half of the fortifications that she had crafted, and saw that General Falconheart was signaling a charge.

“You fool!” she hissed under her breath as a quarter of his army – angels in heavy armor, bearing blazing swords and shimmering shields – took to their wings. The demons that they had been hammering had wavered and fallen back, retreating in disorder and Falconheart was, as his wont, eager to chasten them. The effect was catastrophic for the demons: The angelic warriors fell upon their backs and carved them to pieces by the hundreds. Within moments, Falconheart was himself lost among the bodies. But their success was also their own peril: They came closer and closer to the line marking the blue orbs.

Cae turned to one of her signal officers. “Tell the catapults to not drop along the eastern edge of the blue line!” she said.

The signal officer, a young cherub, nodded and turned, holding aloft a pair of flags and beginning the signaling. As he swept them around, spelling out the order, Cae turned to a messenger. “I need you to tell General Falconheart to pull back!”

“Yes, General!” The young angel said, her wings flaring. She took to the skies with a streak of blue light. Cae turned back and watched the battle. This was still workable – but more demons would be hitting her front lines as the catapults slacked in their firing. She was just considering the possibility of swinging into Falconheart’s aggression, to take advantage of the unexpected success he was seeing, when a figure slammed to the ground before her, cracking the ancient tiled stones that decorated the hillside. The torches that marked the entrance to her general’s tent fluttered and the figure stood in the haze of dust ... and Cae’s immediate reaction shifted to one of pure confusion as she saw it was not her messenger but rather one in the copper and bronze of General Twinblade’s army, which yet now harried one of the other demonic infestations on the realm’s scarred surface.

“General Silverhawk!” she said, panting, sweat streaming along her golden-brown cheeks as she yanked off her helmet, bright white hair flowing free in the bitterly hot breeze. “We’ve found something!”

“What?” Cae asked, her frown growing intense.

“Pestilence’s forces are falling before us – fast enough that we captured some of their mortal followers and, here!” The messenger held forth a scroll. Cae took it, unfolding it and reading the blood splattered parchment. The ink was scribed in Hell’s most foul runes – but its meaning was clear to Cae, who had studied her enemy’s language as fervently as she had studied the realms of mortal kind. She read ... and then she gaped in shock.

They were orders for the Circle of the Dead to make all speed for Ul-Nassar.

“I knew those Tombs would be a fatal flaw,” she whispered, crumpling the scroll and thrusting it to one of her aids. “But that means Pestilence must have some scheme to deal with the Staff of Shalier...” She frowned, her mind whirling. There were no better angels in her service to send – they were all on the front lines. She glanced back, frowning intently. The line could hold for a few moments. She only needed a few to foil the plans of the Lords of Hell. She grabbed up her helmet, slamming it onto her head, and spoke through it’s faceplate. “Tell the catapults to resume firing – we’ll hope that Falconheart and his fellows know when to duck!”

Her wings beat once and she shot into the air, soaring up and then sweeping down as she dove, dove, dove towards the palace of the mortal king of Ul-Nassar. The onion domed towers and the thick walls of the castle were not her goal – she shot towards the tallest spire, which narrowed to a thin point. There, at the very top, was the Staff that had kept the tombs of the city quiet for so many long centuries. She corrected her course at the last moment with one mighty beat of her wings, bringing her up to the vertical and allowing her to drop onto her mailed feet right upon the balcony.

The Staff remained housed in its shimmering column of pale white light, surrounded by the wisest of the wise. One of them, the mortal wise man that she had spoken too before, turned. “My honored lady, what is the matter?” he asked.

“The Staff is in danger,” she said, taking her helm off so that he might not be as terrified of her visage. “The Lord of Pestilence seeks to raise the dead of the tombs – can we move the Staff to my army camp? Angelic protection and the sudden change of position will do more than a thousand men to keep the foul agents of our Adversary from the sacred relic.”

“It can be ... yes, it would be so,” the wise man said. “The magic will cast as well from anywhere else. But you must guard it well, or else-”

Cae, not wasting a moment or breath on inaction or debate, stepped forward and snatched the staff up. It seemed dreadfully fragile within her armored grasp, but she held it gingerly as she might hold a newborn baby. Lifting it away from the column of light produced, at the exact same instant, a sudden flare of green-white light from beyond the tower. For a sinking, horrible second, Cae thought that she had dreadfully mistaken the sagacity of the mortal man – but she and he realized a heartbeat later that the flash had come not from the valley but from the city of Ul-Nassar itself. Cae strode to the balcony, and peered around, brow a furrowed and lips pursed.

“What in Heaven’s name?” she whispered.

Then she heard the sound of crunching, grinding, thumping. The sounds of shocked screams and cries. The surge of people, running into the streets, fleeing from the southern edge of the city. She swung her gaze and saw that the greenish glow did remain like witchfire, hazy around a sprawling field of flowers and grass that now writhed as if it had come to life. Before her eyes, skeletons surged from the ground, zombies too, undead of every sort. They shambled from the field and towards the streets – where guards went to try and stem the tide, doing little but arm the most ferocious of the unquiet dead. Cae looked down at the staff that she yet held, then to the wise man. Her hand snapped out and took hold of his robe. She hefted him off the floor, unthinking of the fragility of his mortal form, and glowered into his shocked face.

“When you said the Staff protected the tombs of the valley, it seems that you forgot that it did not protect the pauper’s graves!” She snarled. “How much gold does it take to get yourself a tomb in the Valley!?”

“S-Six aurels!” he exclaimed.

Cae resisted the urge to throw him as she might toss aside a broken shield. She set him down, then thrust the staff into his arms. “Congratulations, wise man, you have put us into a battle on two fronts!”

She swept to the air, her sword in her hand.

But already, she could see it: A new legion had arrived, composed almost entirely of winged demons. They flew not towards the Heavenly host, but towards the city itself. The skirmishers in the air sought to slow them, and the archers upon the wall would scour them ... but all they needed to do was to open the gates and the undead would pour into the army’s rear, joined by the civilians fleeing for their lives. The line would be thrown into confusion, and all would fall.

She would need to sound the retreat.

Cae landed before her tent and started snapping out orders. “Blow the horns for an immediate retreat and send orders to the Aethership I...” She balked at the order ... but she knew it needed to be given. She opened her mouth, but again, her tongue refused to say the words: Fire upon the city. Burn it to the bedrock.