The Heavenly Host

“Yes, but I am not one of the vast unwashed masses. I’m a goddess, for my sake!” Sekhmekt complained.

“Uh huh, and as such, naked as you might now be, you still have more reserves than the other 99.99 percent of life in the multiverse,” Phaestus pointed out.

“I don’t seem to recall too many objections on your part when we all signed up for this latest venture to try and get us back on our feet, to boost ourselves back up from the 0.01 percent to the 0.001 percent of life in the multiverse!” Sekhmekt retorted.

“That’s because sometimes agreeing with all of you is easier than arguing with you!” Phaestus groused. “Now, I need to concentrate on this cannon. In case you have not noticed, I am literally ‘under the gun’ to get this done.”

“Very well, ptooey on you, pêTah!” She gave him a friendly snarl that he could not see under the gun.

Chapter 115

“This weather really sucks!” Lesteroth yelled to his nearest companion, Bellyachus.

“You think?” Bellyachus yelled back. “I’m kind of glad to have weather for a change. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had any.”

“Yes, but it’s getting very hard to fly with these winds! They keep getting worse,” Lesteroth complained.

“You in a hurry to get chopped to pieces?” Bellyachus yelled back.

“No, but I’m not sure about working my ass off to fly into battle as cannon fodder for the Knights of Chaos!” Lesteroth complained.

“Better that than relaxing your way to Lilith’s dungeon!” Bellyachus shouted.

Lesteroth cursed, using an extremely unprintable epithet. “Now it’s also getting hard to see through this rain! It has really picked up in the last several deminutes,” Lesteroth complained.

“Why are you doing all the complaining? I’m the one called Bellyachus — I should be doing the belly aching!” Bellyachus said.

“You weren’t doing your job!” Lesteroth grinned over to his buddy.

CRACK!

A bolt of lightning came down just to their left about a hundred feet away.

“Unholy bat dung!” Bellyachus screamed. “That was fragging close! Are we under attack?”

“No idea!” Lesteroth yelled back.

They flew on for a bit as the winds continued to grow stronger.

Finally, Bellyachus spoke up again. “You know how soldiers going into battle are always saying ‘Today is a good day to die?’ or something like that?” Bellyachus shouted.

“Yes,” Lesteroth returned. “My favorite is ‘Tonight we dine in hell!’ ” They both laughed at that one.

“We’ve had a lot of meals down here!” Bellyachus yelled back.

“We have!” Lesteroth shouted back.

“Well, so, I know I’m supposed to say stuff like that, and yeah, I’m like forty-two hundred plus years old, but today is not a good day to die!” Bellyachus shouted.

“Don’t worry!” Lesteroth said, grinning. “You’ll get over it!”

“Ours is but to do or die!” the two shouted together while laughing ruefully.

∼

“Radar shows that the army has slowed and appears to be on the ground,” Horken reported from the TCC. “I would have to guess this is due to the wind speed. We are measuring sustained wind speeds of nearly 30 leagues per hour.”

Tom, standing at the 3D map board in the Command Center, replied, “Excellent! Those are hurricane-class winds, and I haven’t even started venting the volcano!”

“Affirmative,” Horken agreed. “We have them on the ground. We are also recording significant lightning strikes in the area. No direct hits so far, but there are plenty of close calls. At least for the demons. Really hard to see through the Maelstrom.”

“So, they continue on foot,” Arg-nargoloth stated. Since they were now on the rune network of the complex, the board could map their progress. “The Maelstrom has slowed as well; however, I am not sure if that’s due to the weather or simply keeping pace with the grounded demons.”

“Either way, for the demons, that’s somewhat impressive,” Darg-Krallnom said.

“Or stupid.” Vargg Agnoth chuckled.

“I would go with desperate,” Antefalken said.

Tom looked at him. “What do you mean, ‘desperate’?”

“I mean Lilith.” Antefalken shook his head. “Given the relatively short notice, the logistics of getting here, and most important, the very serious risk of using Knights of Chaos, I suspect she is feeling a bit desperate.”

Arg-nargoloth nodded in agreement. “She has never used Knights of Chaos against us here; not since the defeat, and never before.”

“We think she used them in Etterdam against Orcus. That is the most likely explanation for all the permanent casualties we had,” Vargg said. Tom looked at him curiously.

Vargg shrugged. “Knights of Chaos can kill demons permanently if they get a good strike in. At least against lesser demons.”

“So, as planned, we keep the D’Orcs focused on the demon army. Tommus, myself, Talarius, the sphinxes and Morok’s regiment will focus on the Knights of Chaos,” Sekhmekt said.

“Targeting them inside the Maelstrom will be difficult,” Zog Dethelm said.

Sekhmekt grimaced. “We will need to work to separate the knights, break up the Maelstrom.”