The Heavenly Host

Phaestus nodded. “A large one!”

“Oh, my beloved pêTah! You are the sweetest husband a woman could ever desire!” She clapped her hands. “I am so excited! How much time do I have? I need to summon some troops!”

“They are on radar, outside the DoomNet at the moment; we have a few hours at most. We also need to coordinate and plan with the others,” Phaestus explained.

Sekhmekt shook her head in dismay and puzzlement. “What? Was this some sort of sneak attack?”

Phaestus nodded. “Yes, remember — huge party, Tizzy baked cookies, lots of x-glargh, half the fortress is still passed out.”

Sekhmekt stroked her chin. “Well, one cannot fault Lilith’s timing, then.” She sighed. “Well, we’ll just have to make do.” She chuckled. “If nothing else, it means more for me!”

Sekhmekt turned to stare at the wall over a large mantled fireplace and shook her head sadly. “Unfortunately, Knights of Chaos vanish like demons after you slay them, albeit a bit more violently. I’d love to mount one of their heads above the fireplace!”

∼

“I will zoom in a bit,” Horken said, adjusting some dials on his terminal as they peered at the computer screen showing the radar images of the advancing army. “This mass here is what we believe to be the demon army from Doom’s Redoubt, plus their reinforcements.”

Tom nodded at Horken’s explanation.

Vargg Agnoth spoke up. “They have not had over one or two thousand demons there for several centuries. It appears that she sent in about the same number of demons as reinforcements.”

“Is there any way to determine how strong they are?” Tom asked.

Arg-nargoloth, standing beside him, said, “Not until they are on the DoomNet. At that point, the main table” — he gestured to the 3D mapping table in the other room — “should be able to gauge them.”

“How long did you say that was?” Tom asked. He had been told before, but the klaxon had been so loud that he’d had trouble hearing it. Once they had been sure all the commanders were awake, they had turned off the klaxons and let the commanders take care of rousting any still-glarghvost-passed-out D’Orcs.

“About half a period. Once on the DoomNet, they have about another half period until they reach an entrance,” Vargg said. Tom quickly calculated that to be about two hours for each leg.

“From past experience, they will probably try for multiple entrances. We are sending reinforcements to the most likely entrances first,” Darg-Krallnom said.

“The knights?” Tom asked.

“Let me pan over here,” Horken said, spinning a trackball in front of him.

“See that dead zone?” asked Zog Darthelm, the commander in charge of the TCC, pointing to an unlit region that Horken had moved over. “We know from deep space experience that this sort of blackness typically indicates a Chaos Maelstrom. The maelstrom has very distinctive effect on most all tech scanning systems.”

“You’ve encountered Knights of Chaos in space?” Tom asked.

“Not me, personally, but there have been many reports from starship shamans describing this effect. It’s been well documented. Naturally, these were the shamans’ last reports; so follow-up was always difficult.”

“And we are sure it’s not a glitch with the radar system? We just brought it up the other day,” Tom asked.

“Glitches don’t usually move,” Horken observed.

“And the movement is tracking with the demon horde,” Zog Darthelm added.

“Same speed?” Tom asked.

“Roughly,” Horken said.

“Hello!” Phaestus called to them from the command center.

Tom looked towards the smith and was surprised to see a very large anthrolioness in very ornate plate armor standing behind him. Tom nodded to the others in the TCC as he moved to join Phaestus in the other room.

“Hello?” Tom asked, looking at the lioness, who was his own height and size.

“Tommus, this is my wife Sekhmekt!” Phaestus said.

Tom shook his head slightly in surprise. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized you were married.”

“Seems to surprise a lot of people,” Phaestus said as Sekhmekt stuck out a hand for Tom to shake.

“Glad to meet you, Sekhmekt!” Tom said, shaking her hand.

The lioness’s expression was hard to read, but she seemed quite happy. “Honor to be here. My husband tells me you have a Chaos Maelstrom heading your way?”

“We do. I take it you are familiar with them?” Tom asked.

The lioness nodded. “Indeed, they are worthy opponents in battle. Not very nice opponents, but worthy. I do not get that many opportunities to battle them. At least not in the last hundred thousand years.”

Tom nodded, trying to keep a neutral expression at the idea that this woman was at least a hundred thousand years old. “Well, we would really appreciate your help,” he told her.

“I only regret the short notice; I was only able to summon half a dozen of my most experienced warriors,” Sekhmekt said.

“They are waiting in the dining hall at the moment,” Phaestus said. “They are still adjusting their barding; we really scrambled.”

“Barding?” Tom asked, puzzled.

Sekhmekt grinned, or so Tom thought. “They are sphinxes.”

“Wow, I’ve never met a sphinx before,” Tom said.