The Heavenly Host

ZZHHHHSSSHsshhhhssZZTTTT — ZZZSSSSTTTTTHHHssHHSSSSZZZ KABOOM!

KABOOM! CRRAAACCKKKK!!! KABOOM! Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the flashing light of Sekhmekt’s sun shield. ZZHHHHSSSHsshhhhssZZTTTT — ZZZSSSSTTTTTHHHssHHSSSSZZZ!

Tom imagined he could feel mental sweat on his brow as he struggled to pull the elements together, along with gushers of air. He needed more mental hands than Tizzy had real hands! It was the high air pressure driving the fluid-like earth and magma through the ground. The superheated gas was dissolving the solid ground before it, tunneling towards the Maelstrom.

ZZZZzzztttt!! Crash! KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM!

There! “Aim higher!” Tom yelled at the top of his lungs as he finally released the pyroclastic flow beneath the Maelstrom. He was about to erupt a small volcano under the maelstrom. WHOOOOMM!!!!! The fluid earth shot thunderously skywards, taking the maelstrom blob with it.

Inky blackness and a large thud followed as the first gravity cannon’s tracking system followed the maelstrom up and blasted it; almost simultaneously, the second gravity cannon fired at a slightly different angle. The blasters and BFGs followed suit.

Suddenly, giant armored horses and eight-to-ten-foot-tall knights in purplish-black plate armor were falling through the sky and smashing against the ground! They’d broken the maelstrom!

Sekhmekt leapt to the front of their unit and drew a huge breath despite the rainy gray sludge permeating the atmosphere. “RRROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!”

Tom cringed and covered his ears at the loudest, most terrifying lion roar he could possibly have imagined. A roar that unleashed what could only be described as a truly hellish blast of incredibly superheated air. Even behind her, the backdraft made Tom feel like a human who had stuck his head in a furnace. How hot could her breath be if he, a demon, thought the heat was scorching? His face felt like it was blistering in the heat!

As the roar ended, Tom stared ahead. Light ash rather than sludge fell quickly to the ground, the rain in the air had completely vaporized and the muddy ground was now parched, actually burnt and cracked as far as Tom could see, which was several leagues.

There were numerous large horse skeletons now dotting the scorched plane, barding falling from the bleached bones. A plain drier than anything else he had ever seen in the Abyss — which was really saying something. The Knights of Chaos were mostly kneeling on the ground, crouched behind sandblasted shields.

“Wow! Now that is a true scorched-earth strategy!” Talarius whispered.

“Unholy terror,” Morok agreed, breaking the stunned silence. Drops of rain finally started falling again; apparently, the roar had dried up the atmosphere quite effectively if the rain had taken this long to return.

Sekhmekt turned and grinned at them. She coughed a bit and licked her lips. “The Roar of the Lioness.” She chuckled. “I haven’t had an opportunity to do that since I created the deserts of Egypt!”

“Yeah, well, remind me not to ask you to blow out the birthday candles on my cake.” Tom shook his head and grinned at the lioness.

The knights were climbing to their feet and getting into formation. “It appears to be time to get back to work,” Morok said, pointing to the knights.

Talarius rotated to face the knights. “Charge!” he shouted, rocketing off towards the Knights of Chaos. The sphinxes leaped over the D’Orcs who had moved in front of them to attack the Maelstrom, and charged the knights.

“AAAAIIIIIGGHHHHAAAIIIIAAAHHH!!!” Sekhmekt let out a terrifying battle scream, although it was quite restrained compared to her roar, and charged the knights.

Tom laughed and slowed the production of new ash and sludge, thus turning the atmosphere completely back to rain. “Twelfth Regiment, fire at open targets at will!” he screamed. Morok laughed insanely beside him as the two charged the knights, who were scrambling to regain their footing on the dust, now returning to its former slippery mush state.

∼

“Fafnir’s beard!” Lesteroth shouted to Bellyachus beside him. Both demons stared down at their blistered and burnt skin. “What in the most infernal depths of this damnable place was that?”

The D’Orc he had been fighting had also paused; he, too, was looking severely burnt. “Dung crabs! In six thousand years in the Abyss, I’ve never felt anything that hot!” The D’Orc said.

He, Lesteroth, Bellyachus and another nearby D’Orc who had been in the process of ripping Bellyachus’s right arm off for the third time, looked towards the source of the loud roar.