The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) Read online

  “Crap! The bastard hit us directly from below!” Zed shouted from behind Gastropé.

  Peter wrestled for control of the carpet; it had suddenly become hard to maneuver, as the carpet’s flexibility was lost due to ice on the bottom of the carpet.

  Gastropé frowned. This is not going well, he thought.

  ~

  Elrose was finally within range of the dragon and lich he had selected. On foot, he was slower than the carpets heading for the other dragons and liches, but he was able to use that time and his Sight to study his opponent. Things looked as expected.

  The ice dragon was made out of ice, frozen water, and while the lich’s cold aura along with the dragon’s own made it very hard for fire to get close, there were other ways to induce a phase change. This was one melee in which combat sorcery trounced the showier pyromancy.

  With his staff, he could bypass the normal material and somatic components; he need only chant the verbal components and point. Time for the first phase change spell. Actually, time to hurry—the dragon was within range and appeared ready to blast him.

  “…eratos notros morphum!” Elrose finished his chant and directed his staff directly at the ice dragon. The dragon shook hard and was suddenly quite a bit smaller. Argh! That was annoying. Once more! Elrose blasted a second phase change spell at the dragon.

  The dragon screeched loudly as it turned completely to water. “Now!” Elrose shouted and followed with a third, yet different phase change spell. Water could easily become ice once again; steam would take more work! Elrose chanted and released the spell.

  Even as small crystals of ice began reforming above the now-falling lich, those crystals suddenly turned to steam. Now for his second area of study: enchantment. Using his staff instead of the material components, Elrose cast a spell to create a high-pressure region in the middle of the dragon steam and let it dissipate into the surrounding low-pressure region, sending dragon steam far and wide! The ice dragon would eventually reform, but it would be a while. Quite a while. For now, it was just the lich.

  Elrose glanced down at the lich, which had regained its composure and was now flying on its own, heading towards Elrose. Elrose grinned—he loved sorcery.

  He chanted a quick spell of true aim, relying on sorcery’s seeing powers, and quickly lobbed a vial at the lich. The potion bottle arced perfectly through the air. As it reached the lich, Elrose gestured with his staff, exploding the bottle, which contained only simple water. The staff’s spell simply used the water as a material component to open a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water.

  The portal would not stay open for long, but it would be long enough for several thousand gallons of water to flow through, surrounding the lich in the freezing atmosphere. A more mundane phase change then occurred as the several thousand gallons of water surrounding the lich froze into a solid, giant block of ice. Thank you, Mr. Lich, Elrose murmured.

  The lich-cube began plummeting to the ground. Elrose doubted the lich would be able to free himself before it hit the ground. He grinned and turned his attention to the next dragon and lich pair.

  ~

  Jenn worked feverishly on the pilot’s burns. She was still on a massive adrenaline rush; the chase to catch the fallen pilot had gotten her blood racing. They had maneuvered under the falling pilot and Paulinas had been able to use aeromancy to slow the pilot’s fall.

  The pilot had landed in one of the nets and Jorg, the large fellow, had hauled her in. Jenn had then quickly set about working on treating her burns. They were very nasty electrical burns; a bit out of her normal range, but something she was trained to deal with.

  No, she could deal with the burns, particularly with some added help from Paulinas; what was really keeping her adrenaline up was seeing Gastropé on another nearby carpet. This could easily have been Gastropé. That bothered her greatly for some reason. She knew it was irrational; they had been in combat together before, and with each other. They both knew the risks, so why was she suddenly so concerned for him?

  ~

  This was definitely not going well, Gastropé thought. Their partner carpet was back online, but was in a dangerous state with a missing pilot, given that it was a larger, six-person carpet. According to Peter, the big carpets were less maneuverable with only one pilot. The smaller carpets like theirs were more maneuverable and could get by with one really good pilot, but the larger ones generally needed both pilots to keep things steady in combat flight and allow the spell casters to work.

  That meant that Gastropé’s group’s carpet was doing much of the work. At least, all of the sweeping attacks. The other carpet worked as a mobile platform, but its lower mobility meant that it was easier for the lich or dragon to hit. Thus, the casters had to work more defensively, and the attacks were easier for the lich to avoid.

  ZZzzssstttt! Another quiet lightning bolt shot by to their left. It missed.

  They had made several more passes at the lich, but the results were not much better than before. They were keeping the lich and dragon from the Nimbus, but that was about it. They needed to shake things up; they needed another weapon. The tools they had were not sufficient.

  A loud explosion came from their port direction. Gastropé glanced to see another carpet working a different lich spiraling down with a large cloud of black smoke trailing it. His vision was not good enough to see, but it looked like many of the carpet riders were bent over or lying down.

  This was not good. Gastropé looked at the lich with his wizard sight. It was so disturbing, that oily black cloud of foulness, but he had to find some advantage. There was no obvious answer and he was getting tired, as was Penelope. He hung his head for a moment as they began banking for another turn.

  As he looked down, his wizard sight still active, he saw the link to Tizzy. Did he dare? Bringing that crazy demon here could be suicide! However, surely Tom would be upset with Tizzy if Tizzy killed Gastropé. Would that not keep the demon in check? He had to take the risk. They were not going to win at this rate.

  They came around for another pass. Gastropé launched his cone of fire against the dragon’s wings, hoping to melt them slightly. Penelope targeted the same wing, trying to tilt the dragon and pull it down. They had tried to repeat the gravity suck thing a few times, but the lich had gotten skilled enough to thwart them each time, resulting in only minor downtime for the dragon and lich.

  The flames and gravity blast did not do any more than expected. Gastropé shook his head and decided to go for it. He chanted the spell to open the link, a summoning prelude for a bound demon.

  “Tizzy?” Gastropé asked. Suddenly, faster than he would have imagined, he saw Tizzy’s smiling face, or rather the demon’s head, in his mind’s eye. Gastropé blinked in surprise. Tizzy was buried to his neck in molten lava!

  “Greetings, Accursed Master!” Tizzy shouted back, apparently very happy to see him.

  “Are you okay?” Gastropé asked, concerned to see the demon in the hot lava.

  “Sure, just relaxing! Going with the flow, as they say.” Tizzy flashed him a bright grin. “So what’s up?”

  “Uhm, I’m sort of in a jam and I need your help?” Gastropé said.

  “You need my help? Moi?” Gastropé had not thought it possible, but Tizzy’s grin got wider.

  “Yes, and I need it fast. I’m on a flying carpet and we are fighting a bunch of storm liches on ice dragons and things aren’t going that well,” Gastropé explained.

  “Storm liches? Ice dragons?” Tizzy asked; he suddenly looked upset. “Why wouldn’t you invite me to that party? I thought we were friends! How could you go partying with them and not invite me?”

  Gastropé shook his head at the demon’s insane mental processes. “We are really high in the stratosphere, where the air is thin. Aetós cannot fly here, but for some reason ice dragons can. Can you?”

  Tizzy snorted. “Adding insult to injury?” He shook his head. “I am a demon! I can obviously fly there; I can fly anywhere I damn well please
!” he retorted before tilting his head a bit and frowning. “As well as several I don’t please.”

  “Well, could you maybe come help me out? Eviscerate a few liches, dragons and such?” Gastropé asked. They were taking another pass by this point, but Gastropé sat it out; he needed to talk to Tizzy.

  “Hmm, can I bring some friends?” Tizzy asked.

  “You mean Tom?” Gastropé asked. That would certainly fix the lich problem, but could create quite a few others.

  “Nah. He, Antefalken, Rupert, Reggie and Talarius are over at the shanties shopping.” Tizzy shook his head. “Guys?” He was apparently talking to some other demons. “You up to disemboweling some liches and melting some ice dragons?” Tizzy nodded and grinned.

  “Well?” Tizzy asked Gastropé.

  “Sure, the more help the better!” Gastropé was getting desperate; the others on the carpet were now watching him, trying to figure out what he was up to, and the lich was going to be attacking them soon. His conversations were all mental, so to them he appeared to be in a trance.

  “Excellent; so make some fire, and recite the standard chant for a fiend. I can bring them through with me,” Tizzy instructed.

  Gastropé looked up and around at the others. “I hope this isn’t insane.” They looked at him askance; he shook his head and quickly activated his wand, shooting fire out over the edge of the carpet. It was tricky to maintain that and chant the fiend ritual, but he needed to do this.

  He heard Penelope behind him. “Am I crazy or is he trying to summon a demon on a flying carpet moving at fifty miles per hour?”

  “No… I think that’s what he’s doing. He’s the one that’s crazy!” Zed said.

  Gastropé ignored them and hoped this would work. He did not know Tizzy’s true name, but with the binding, he should not technically need to speak it, or even think it. It should be built into the binding.

  As his chant came to an end, three figures began forming in his wand’s fire cone. One was Tizzy; the second was a large, craggy humanoid demon with large wings, and the third a shorter, chubbier demon who even so, was still rather ferocious. If he had to guess, the other two were fiends like Tizzy.

  He heard Penelope and Zed gulp behind him.

  Peter glanced over and his eyes widened as he saw the three demons. “Unholy shit!” he exclaimed.

  “Thanks!” The short, chubby one waved at Peter.

  “Where’s dinner?” Tizzy asked.

  “There!” The craggy, humanoid demon pointed to the lich and dragon.

  “I love ice carving!” the short one yelled as the three demons took off at high speed towards the lich and its dragon.

  Somehow, Gastropé could hear the smaller demon ask the others, “Liches are dead, right? So how do we kill them?”

  “No idea!” Tizzy said. “I think that will make it fun. We just shred it into lots of pieces and see if it regenerates.”

  “Abyss, that geezer looks a might moldy as it is!” The craggy one said. “I bet he’s all squishy and mushy!”

  “If not now, he will soon be!” Tizzy yelled.

  The three demons descended on the lich and ice dragon. Suddenly ice chips were flying everywhere. Dark clouds of smoke and a horrible stench rose from the battle. How did they smell a stench? Gastropé wondered. Or was it just him with his link to Tizzy? He shook his head; it was not quite clear exactly what was going on.

  There was a ton of screeching and lightning bolts started raining down on the demons, but they apparently had little trouble shrugging them off. The entire group was suddenly engulfed in a large cloud of ice crystals as waves of cold began reaching the carpet. Thunder rolled from the cloud as the blackness quickly enshrouded everything.

  There was a loud boom and suddenly everything was silent. Gastropé was concerned—scared, really. Had the lich slain the demons? Suddenly the cloud began breaking apart and the three demons came flying raggedly out of the black cloud, laughing and slapping each other.

  “Woo hoo! Now that was fun!” Tizzy said. All three were definitely looking a bit worse for the wear, but seemed to be in pretty good shape.

  “Got any more?” Tizzy asked.

  Gastropé pointed towards another of the lich dragon pairs.

  “Ho! You didn’t tell me it was an all-you-can-slaughter smorgasbord!” the craggy demon yelled at Tizzy. “Charge!” The three demons charged off and up in the air towards that next dragon and lich.

  ~

  Elrose finished his second lichcicle and started running over to where three carpets were attacking the next lich. The remaining two liches each had three carpets on them, thanks to his now tried-and-true combat scheme. The rather long walk, and climb, gave him time to observe the situation.

  Two of the carpets were keeping the lich and dragon quite busy with swooping attacks of fire, lightning and what appeared to be very intense beams of light. The light beams seemed the most effective, as they were clearly putting dents in the ice dragon, and several more holes had appeared in the lich’s clothes after a few beam attacks.

  The third carpet was sitting a short distance away and remaining stationary. A wizard was standing straight up on it and was casting something. It took a few minutes for Elrose to realize that the wizard was actually casting a Cloud of Disintegration.

  “Time to pause and do long-range attacks,” Elrose muttered to himself. He had no desire to get near a COD. Given the results he had witnessed during the siege, the fellow on the carpet could probably go head-to-head with Lenamare for egomania. There was no way that could be a stable conjuring situation!

  However, the COD was successfully formed and started moving towards the lich and dragon. The cloud did not get far before the lich noticed it and took direct aim at the wizard controlling the carpet. A giant bolt of lightning raced toward the carpet faster than Elrose could see what was going on.

  There was a loud crack as the lightning bolt hit a wall—or rather, a shield of ice that had formed in the bolt’s path. Clearly, the other wizards on the carpet were prepared to deal with such attacks. This also gave the other two carpets a couple of free shots at the lich and dragon. They managed to score several good hits before being forced to pull back due to the approaching COD.

  Elrose’s magically enhanced sight could see the concerned expression on the lich’s gruesome face. It shook its head and jerked on its dragon’s reins, kneeing it. The dragon dove down fast and hard, banking away from the carpets and the COD.

  Elrose blinked. The lich was fleeing; the dragon had summoned a large burst of speed and was flying away as quickly as it could. They were also diving quickly. Elrose reflected that was probably a good idea. Given how high up they were, the lich had a lot of vertical distance where gravity would seriously assist its speed.

  Clouds of Disintegration were notoriously unmoved by gravity, so it was limited to the same speed in all directions. The carpet with the COD caster started to follow, given that there was a range limit on how far the caster could be from the COD. However, they soon stopped, realizing they could not catch the lich.

  The lich and dragon suddenly vanished in one of the auras, apparently plane shifting out of the border region and back into Nysegard. The three carpets cheered.

  “We are going to keep the COD active and slowly move towards the fourth lich,” said a voice over the circlet. “You guys go ahead and join the other three carpets.”

  Elrose looked to where the fourth lich and dragon were. Six carpets should be enough. He glanced towards the rear of the ship to see how the others were doing. He had to up the power on his enhanced sight to find the other battles. He blinked as he saw multiple carpets along with three slightly wobbly flying figures heading towards what appeared to be only two remaining lich-dragon pairs. Where had those wobbly red flying figures come from? He upped his sight again and then groaned. It was Gastropé’s demon and two other fiends.

  It was bad enough that a Master Wizard might summon a COD from a flying carpet in the middle of battle,
but a young wizard fresh out of school summoning and controlling three fiends from a fast-moving flying carpet? This day just kept getting more insane!

  Elrose shook his head. Time for a line of sight teleport!

  ~

  “Gotta hand it to you, Gastropé; I thought you were insane, but those demons of yours are kicking some lich butt!” Peter said, shaking his head as the three fiends headed towards their fourth lich and dragon.

  “Amazing how joyous they seem even though they are taking a severe beating themselves,” Zed noted.

  “In my experience, demons don’t look at things the same way we do,” Gastropé said, shaking his head. “They look at this as sort of a vacation. The Abyss is a really miserable place, trust me.”

  “Trust you?” Penelope asked, looking at him oddly. “You sound like you have firsthand experience.”

  Gastropé chuckled. “More than I want.”

  “You’ve been there?” Peter had twisted on his cushion to look at him.

  Gastropé nodded. “Multiple times. The first time was when I was working for Exador; he took his entire army through the Abyss as a shortcut to get to Lenamare’s school.”

  “He sounds insane!” Zed said.

  “Yes, well, it turns out he is most likely an archdemon who has been disguising himself as a human for several millennia,” Gastropé said. “So insane is really not the half of it.”

  Everyone on the carpet stared openmouthed at Gastropé. “Are you saying you worked for an archdemon?” Penelope asked in shock.

  “Well, I didn’t know he was an archdemon at the time; he was pretending to be a wizard. He fooled the entire Council of Wizardry including Trevin, who I am sure has had dinner with him.” Gastropé felt he needed to defend himself a bit. It was rather awkward to have to admit to having worked for the Forces of Evil.

  “You are going to have to tell us all about this when we get back to the ship!” Zed exclaimed.

  “Wait—you said there were more times?” Penelope asked.

  Gastropé sighed; he should have kept his mouth shut. “Yeah, similar idea—Jenn and I, along with a few others, have passed through it a couple times to get to or from various locations in Astlan.”