03- The Apostles of Doom Read online

  “Very well,” the captain said, looking around to see who was on the bridge. It was the standard crew plus Dante, Samwell, Heron, Barabus and Sir Lady Serah. The other two Knights Rampant were with Temerlain on the cargo deck. He faced the main viewing mirror. “Put it on the main mirror.”

  Tallswan nodded and made some gestures on his console. Suddenly a huge, incredibly hideous and ferocious red and green orc’s face appeared on the large mirror.

  “Argh…” Sir Samwell said, obviously as shocked by what they were looking at as Barabus was. Dante was looking positively horrified.

  Barabus had never seen such a truly vicious-looking orc before. Those tusks are huge! Wait, does it have wings? He blinked. What in the Abyss? An orc demon?

  “You are Doomed! Identify yourself and explain why you have violated Mount Doom’s airspace!” the angry orc demon demanded.

  The captain replied calmly, “I am Captain Cranshall of the Oorstemothian Extra-Dimensional Enforcement Vessel Inferno.” Barabus had to respect the man’s composure. “Our vessel is here under the direction of Heron, Wing Arms Master of the Oorstemothian Fleet, Lord Protectator of Oorstemoth and the Council of Justice, Duly Recognized Agent of High Justice, and Commander of the One Thousand Four Hundred and Thirteenth Sky Fleet of Oorstemoth.” He gestured to Heron.

  “I am here on a Writ of Forcible Extradition—” Heron started.

  “Writ?” the angry orc demon interrupted. “Fancy words? You aren’t a bunch of lawyers, are you?”

  Sir Samwell made frantic gestures to the comms officer to cut the audio.

  “Audio off,” Tallswan said.

  Sir Samwell looked around at the others. “Trust me—no one here is a lawyer, no one here is a diplomat! Whatever you do, whatever you say, do not admit to being either one of those things, or we will be blown out of the sky!”

  “Why?” Heron asked.

  “If you haven’t noticed, these are D’Orcs. Demon Orcs. You know how regular orcs feel about lawyers and diplomats, yes?” Heron frowned, indicating that he clearly did. “These guys hate them even more.”

  “What’s going on? Why are you silent? Speak up or be shot down!” The D’Orc demanded.

  The captain gestured at Tallswan to turn the audio back on.

  “My apologies; we had a small issue with our sound on this side. I assure you that we are not lawyers.”

  The D’Orc raised one eyebrow, as if he didn’t believe the captain. “What are you doing here?”

  Heron spoke up. “We have come seeking a knight of Tiernon who was defeated and taken hostage by a demon in Astlan. We also seek that demon.” He gestured to Barabus. “This is Arch-Vicar General Barabus of the Rod of Tiernon in Astlan. He only seeks to get his knight back.”

  The D’Orc’s eyes shifted back and forth among the people on deck, apparently trying to decide if he believed any of them. His eyes finally settled on Sir Samwell and narrowed, as if he recognized him. “So then what is he doing there?” the D’Orc asked, staring at Sir Samwell, who coughed uncomfortably.

  “I am Sir Samwell, First Knight of High Justice and Sworn Champion of the Keeper of Law, Ponchas the Third,” Sir Samwell introduced himself. “I have been trapped here in the Abyss for the last fourteen hundred years or so, and they have come to rescue me, as well as Sir Talarius.”

  “Uh-huh,” The D’Orc said rather suspiciously.

  “Yes, my lord... Arg-nargoloth, is it? I do believe you oversaw my torture at one point a few centuries ago when I was in your custody,” Sir Samwell said.

  Barabus blinked. That was curious. Although the man did say he had been tortured here, and the fact that this—D’Orc—Arg-nargoloth recognized him did add to his seeming veracity.

  “Yeah, that must be it,” The D’Orc said derisively before turning his attention back to Captain Cranshall and Heron. “Those you seek are not here. Go away!”

  “May I inquire if you have seen them or if they have been there?” Captain Cranshall asked.

  “Very well,” the D’Orc replied before going silent.

  Captain Cranshall looked around at the others, at a bit of a loss.

  “Have you seen them? Have they been there?” Captain Cranshall finally prompted.

  The D’Orc shook his head. “No. Nobody here but us D’Orcs! No knights, no kidnapping demon. Now go away, you are not welcome.”

  “We would just like to spend a little bit of time here. We want to look around to see if those we seek are nearby. You have our word that we will not bother you,” Captain Cranshall said.

  “No. Go ‘way,” the D’Orc said.

  Captain Cranshall turned towards Heron and Barabus, looking fairly confident. Heron nodded at him. Heron also seemed confident. Obviously, they had experience with orcs and knew how to handle the creatures.

  Cranshall turned back to the viewing screen. “We promise not to bother you. We will just stay where we are for a short while. We will not come any closer,” the captain told Arg-nargoloth.

  The D’Orc seemed to calm down a bit, although, if anything, he seemed even more determined. “You are within the territory of Mount Doom; you have come uninvited and are not welcome. You will turn your vessel around immediately, or whatever it is you do with your silly flying submarine, and leave at once.”

  Barabus was surprised. He was not sure he had ever heard an orc speak in such a manner before; normally they just grunted and yelled. He also had no idea what a submarine was. Clearly it was something that belonged below water, so how that had anything at all to do with the Inferno was a mystery. But he really did not claim to be an expert on orcs.

  Captain Cranshall turned once more to Heron, who indicated that they should ignore the order. The captain turned back to the mirror. “I regret to say that we are unable to comply with your request until after we have finished our investigation,” he said politely.

  “Very well.” Arg-nargoloth suddenly smiled; Barabus felt an odd chilling sensation at seeing that smile. “I was hoping that would be your position. Our engineers will be quite pleased! You shall receive a friendly warning; you will then leave or we will get serious.”

  The mirror went blank for a moment before returning to a view of the volcano a few leagues away. Captain Cranshall shook his head. “Use all sensors to detect D’Orcs coming for us, and raise the shields as soon as you spot anything. In the meantime, we—”

  CRUNCH!!!

  The mirror suddenly went pitch-black, and then everything went dark, all light on the bridge extinguished. Barabus felt himself suddenly, agonizingly crushed to the point where he could not draw a breath, his heart could not beat. The crunching and shrieking of overstressed metal assaulted his ears even as his breath suddenly returned, and he found himself flung into the air, bouncing agonizingly off the ceiling of the bridge. Light flared out as the bridge was suddenly lit with colorful glowing runes; every surface was covered with them, flaring brilliantly as loud klaxons drowned out the very thoughts in his head.

  Barabus slammed into the wall and console to his left, once more taking away his breath, as the ship suddenly tilted forward and to the right. He saw people screaming orders in panic as the world careened around them. Crew members were flung willy-nilly about the bridge, arms and legs broken as they crashed into pipes and railings. The navigators were scrambling to strap themselves into their seats and regain control of the Inferno.

  Captain Cranshall, with a bloody gash on his forehead, lurched to the command chair and shouted into the horn to engineering, “What in the Abyss just happened?”

  Sir Samwell was helping Dante get to his feet, his right arm twisted in a very unhealthy manner.

  Barabus looked to Sir Lady Serah, who nodded to him. “I’m going to the cargo hold where the wizards and priests are. That place has got to be a disaster!”

  It would have to be; it was the largest open space in the ship with a large ceiling. He was sure that the priests, wizards and all their apparatus had just been sent flying. What a disaster!


  Suddenly he found himself careening across the room as the ship suddenly shook and there was an incredibly loud noise that sounded somewhat like a gong. Metal screeched and groaned as the Inferno seemed to collide with something.

  “Captain! The forward keel hit the ground!” one of the navigators yelled as the captain tried once more to strap himself into his command chair.

  “Forward geomantic propulsion is down; port propulsion is restarting using backup mana pools. Starboard is online, but primary pool is at one-third capacity. Rear propulsion appears to have been overloaded but is now recovering!” one of the engineers shouted.

  “All wards and reflectors to full!” Captain Cranshall yelled.

  “All shields and reflectors at full current capacity,” an officer replied. “However, forward geomantic repulsers are offline with the forward geomantic drives.”

  “Rat’s lice!” Captain Cranshall cursed. “What in the name of Ponchas Pilas hit us?”

  “First Geomancer Komanskus here, sir. It appears to have been some form of geomantic wave or distortion. Whatever it was, it has strained our geomantic systems to the limit. Our drives were able to naturally deflect most of the attack, but they are severely damaged. It’s going to take us some time to repair them,” Komanskus reported over the ship’s internal communication system.

  “Can we get out of here using the remaining drives?” the captain asked.

  “In theory,” Komanskus replied. “The navigators will need to compensate with the port and starboard systems to lift the front of the ship. We can then use geomantic attraction to reverse our way out of here. At the moment there is no feasible way to propel the ship; not until we get the forward system repaired. Propelling with the rear drives will most likely drive us into the ground, and obviously we can’t push with the front drives; we need the port and starboard to keep the nose off the ground, so all that’s left is to use the rear geomantic drives in attraction mode to pull us out of here. It is going to be extremely tricky as is, since we don’t have much to attract to.”

  “Do what you can to get us out of here before they fire again,” Captain Cranshall ordered. The bridge went silent for a moment as people continued to pick themselves up and the navigators and engineers tried to get the ship moving.

  “Very, very impressive,” Sir Samwell suddenly said, nodding.

  “Yes. A bit more than I would have expected from orcs or demon orcs,” Heron said, shaking his head in wonder and disbelief.

  “I suppose,” Sir Samwell said, “but I was actually referring to this ship. Most of your defenses were lowered to search for Talarius, and yet we survived a gravity cannon blast. That is quite impressive.”

  Dante looked at him in confusion. “A gravity cannon blast? Is that what that was? What is that?”

  Heron and the others also looked curiously at Sir Samwell.

  The knight shrugged. “That’s what I assume it was; I have never actually been on the receiving end of one before. Although I suppose that is obvious, given that I am still three-dimensional and not a singularity.” His face had a bit of an ironic expression at this point. “I’ve only ever seen them used on others from a distance.”

  “Where have you seen them?” Captain Cranshall demanded.

  “Well, here in the Abyss, obviously. Where else?” Sir Samwell asked, seemingly annoyed that anyone could assume he would have seen them anywhere else.

  “But what is it?” Barabus asked.

  “If I understand what Dante has built, it is a weaponized version of his geomantic drives. Even as this ship’s drives repel the force of gravity to move, these cannons cause a gravitational collapse at their target site. In essence, they crush the target with overwhelming gravity from all sides,” Sir Samwell said. “I have no idea how it is done; I only know what I’ve seen.”

  Dante was shaking his head in amazement. “I do not see how that would be possible! It is incredible!”

  Barabus was getting a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. If the Oorstemothians now knew that such a weapon was possible, how long would it be before they developed one? Tiernon protect us.

  Nysegard: Mid Fifth Period

  Tom breathed a sigh of relaxation as they finished up the current ceremony. They were going to take a break for dinner and a celebration for the most recent groups, and then there would be one more ceremony this evening, followed, of course, by a celebration for that group. This was definitely more productive; they were getting multiple villages covered at each ceremony.

  Hearing the sound of hooves behind him, Tom turned in his chair to see Arg-nargoloth approaching.

  Darg-Krallnom, sitting to Tom’s right and a bit behind him, nodded in greeting. “Come to visit now that your watch is up?” he asked Arg-nargoloth.

  Arg-nargoloth frowned. “Not exactly. We’ve had some unwanted visitors and I’ve been dealing with them. Roth Tar Gorefest is continuing to monitor their retreat.”

  Tom and Darg-Krallnom both stood to face Arg-nargoloth. “What happened?” Darg-Krallnom asked.

  “An interesting assortment of characters are searching for you and your hostage,” Arg-nargoloth said, nodding towards Tom.

  “Lilith’s people?” Tom asked, puzzled. Who else would know where they were?

  Arg-nargoloth shook his head no. “Definitely not her. No, it was a bunch of military types, who I suspect were also lawyers. They used lots of big words and titles. They said they were from someplace called Oorstemoth.”

  “Oorstemoth?” Tom exclaimed loudly in surprise. How in hell had they followed him here? “You’ve got to be kidding me! How are they even alive in the Abyss?”

  “They are in a giant metal ship. Looks sort of like a weird nuclear submarine, except that it flies. It’s pretty good-sized, too,” Arg-nargoloth said.

  Darg-Krallnom looked at Tom in amazement. “How could they have tracked Lord Tommus to Mount Doom? The Abyss is infinitely large; you don’t just find someone in a few weeks!”

  Arg-nargoloth nodded. “Ah, but that was only one group. There were others in the ship with them. Barabus, a general in Tiernon’s Astlanian army, was there.”

  “Barabus? From the Rod?” Tom asked. “He was here? With the Oorstemothians?” Is hell freezing over? Tom wondered. Oh shit! It has! And I’ve done it! Tom laughed to himself. He had to laugh because otherwise, these bozos showing up on his doorstep would have him weeping with frustration.

  “Who was the other?” Darg-Krallnom asked.

  “Sammael,” Arg-nargoloth replied.

  Now it was Darg-Krallnom’s turn to looked stunned. “Sammael? With Tiernon’s army and priests? Has the multiverse lost its mind?”

  “Wait—you mean Sammael, as in the Co-Factor?” Tom asked.

  “Yep,” Arg-nargoloth replied.

  “Those two groups were both bat-shit crazy about me being a demon. They hate demons! Why on Earth—I mean Astlan or Nysegard, would they be standing next to the biggest demon in the Abyss?” Tom asked.

  Arg-nargoloth shrugged. “Well, I assume they didn’t realize it was him. He was in his default human form, which is how I recognized him over a mirror cast. He was wearing some sort of knightly armor and told me his name was Sir Samwell something or other, a knight of Oorstemoth who had been trapped in the Abyss for a thousand years or so, but had now been rescued by them.”

  “Hmm. He must have spotted them and decided to infiltrate them to find out what they were up to,” Darg-Krallnom said.

  “That’s pretty standard for him. I think Tizzy’s the only nosier demon in the Abyss,” Arg-nargoloth agreed.

  “Wait, so we’ve got this flying submarine crammed full of nut-job lawyers, a holy army and the Emperor of the Abyss, and they somehow magically just appear on our doorstep? Where are they now?” Tom asked gesturing broadly with his hands. He was near freaking out again.

  “Well, we hailed them, as I said, and found out who they were. I told them you guys were not there, that we had not seen you and that they needed to le
ave. They refused me a couple times. Told me they wanted to stick around and search,” Arg-nargoloth said.

  “Probably using their priests to look for Talarius.” Darg-Krallnom nodded.

  “And conveniently,” Arg-nargoloth smirked, “he happened to be here in Nysegard—so they were unable to locate him.”

  “Well, at least something is working out for us,” Tom said. “So did they search and leave?”

  Arg-nargoloth looked at Tom as if he was crazy. “No. I told them to leave or else. They said else; I said fine and gave them the thanks of our engineers. We needed to test the restored gravity cannon turrets anyway, so we blasted them. Their shields were down so we damaged them pretty damn good. They had come charging in at twelve hundred klicks per period, they went limping out at about two hundred klicks.”

  “Hah!” Darg-Krallnom high-fived Arg-nargoloth. Both were wearing shit-eating grins.

  Arg-nargoloth continued, “As I mentioned, Roth is monitoring their very slow retreat. We think they got the message.”

  “Impressive,” Tom said with a grin. Very impressive. This made him feel quite pleased. “The only thing that bothers me is how they thought to look here.”

  “I would have to assume that Sammael pointed them towards us to test them out. Clearly, he would want them destroyed, or eliminated as a threat, and he would not want to risk testing on the Courts or any of his palaces. So he probably decided to test against us.”

  “That seems a bit annoying.” Tom shook his head. “It makes sense, but I find it a bit rude.”

  “Demon princes are not known for nice house-warming gifts,” Arg-nargoloth stated.

  “I am sure,” Tom agreed. “But that means he knew Doom was back in business.”

  Darg-Krallnom nodded. “He would certainly have learned of Lilith’s defeat. Very little she does escapes his notice. He’s more than mildly obsessed with her.”

  “And she with him,” Arg-nargoloth noted.

  “True. However, he is much subtler,” Darg-Krallnom said.

  “How big a risk is he to us?” Tom asked.