The Pleasures of Hell

~~Day 137~~

~~David~~

Thousands of auras of violence saturated the air. David summoned his armor and staff, and prepared for war.

Laoko drew her swords and stood in front of David, a few meters down the subtle slope. The other girls in his crew stayed behind him, weapons at the ready. They didn't join the flowing waves of bodies, much as they wanted to. Tails twitching, wings flapping, fangs bared, the nine demons in his crew stared on and let the hundreds, thousands of other demons rush past them toward the enemy. Only Moriah and Tsila didn't look tempted, and they squeezed their meera swords, Moriah at David's side, Tsila close by.

Every instinct David had screamed at him. This was wrong. Not the war part; that was inevitable. But doing things so ridiculously off the cuff, without preparation. Where the fuck were the battle plans? Khazeer had shown him the map, but even then, the conversation had boiled down to 'we run them down here instead of there' and that was it.

It wasn't as if demons weren't smart. Maybe not human-smart, but still, this was absurd. The demons just didn't care about proper tactics, as if there were no point to winning a war if it couldn't be done through pure brutal violence. Like it was written into their genes that they had to do things bloody, with broken bones and torn flesh.

It wasn't about making sense, not in the way humans made sense. Territory? No, it was about entitlement; they thought they were owed the spires they fought over. Food? Demons killing demons meant more souls per demon, no matter how the demons died; killing each other meant more food for you. Life? Most demons didn't care about who lived or died, and getting a kill meant a skull they could collect as a trophy; killing meant respect.

They wanted to slaughter each other. All David could do was ride the tide.

The two demon armies poured toward each other, and the shallow valley disappeared under roaring bodies. The giant spider in the distance twitched, huge legs poking left and right at the ground, eager to charge forward with the armies from Navameere Fields, but it didn't. The woman on its back didn't let it. She simply sat on her giant spider and watched the tide go forth.

David summoned a tune upon the spider.

Something crushed it. Flattened it. Muted it.

A tune emerged from the distance and came for him, a tiny, rumbling thing. Cellos working up from the background of existence. They were coming from the other unmarked.

David flattened her song. Easy, as long as he looked for it.

The distant unmarked tried another song, and he crushed it. He tried a song, and she crushed it. The silent music was just that, music, vibration, pulsing waves that altered existence. Any changes from the normal she made, he could squash. But it took everything in his mind to do it, every bit of his focus he'd built for playing music.

He summoned a song. As the two armies crashed into each other and the roar of battle drowned the province, David reached deep and plucked the strings as hard as he could. Too hard. Hard enough to maybe summon the presence of Hell herself.

The other woman reached out and grabbed the strings, but she wasn't prepared. The notes smashed through, and the battlefield ripped open.

A dozen colossal black spikes shot up from the ground, and only a little forethought kept them from erupting straight up under Khazeer's forces. The tetrad stood beside him, wide-eyed at the sight of spikes sticking up from the churned earth on Navameere's side of the battle. Like guerrilla warfare, a dozen demons had stepped onto spike straps that'd shot up and turned them into skewered corpses.

"Impressive," Khazeer said at David's side. He had to yell for his voice to break through the sound of battle.

"I was aiming for a hundred. That other unmarked is crushing my music."

Snorting, Khazeer spun his axes in his hands and flared his wings. He was itching for battle.

"Why isn't she attacking?" he asked.

David shrugged. "She knows she's not allowed to get close to me. If she does, it might attract the alien."

Khazeer shot his glare at David. "That's who you meant by attention? I thought you meant the angels."

"Them, too. And I didn't know if I could trust you."

Of all the reactions David expected, Khazeer laughing was not one of them.

"You still don't know."

David smiled at the battle-hungry, enormous demon. "I think we're good."

A song erupted from the ground nearby, and David crushed it again. The other unmarked tried again, smashed fingers on the keys of a cathedral pipe organ, and David blocked the flow of air. All inaccurate metaphors, but it was the only way his mind could understand it. Instruments, and the mental effort and skill required to play them. And conduct them.

Whoever the girl was, she had no finesse. Her giant spider mount screeched, and its voice matched the rhythm of drums no one else could hear but David and the unmarked. And Pegasus. David spun as his pet slammed a hoof against the hard ground in sync with the drums, even as David did his best to flatten the beat until it was nothing more than muffled thuds.

But muffled thuds were enough to stir the ground, and David stepped back and leaned his weight on his staff as a hellquake vibrated through Khazeer's forces. Waves of rock erupted upward, not sharp, but heavy and powerful, launching demons into the air like they'd been hit by grenades. While David used spikes, the other unmarked used raw kinetic explosions.

David slammed his staff down and flattened the song again, and the earthquake faded away. Okay, she had no finesse, but whoever this woman was, she had power.

David played a quiet tune underneath himself, and both he and Khazeer rose a couple of meters up on a slow slab of stone. A raised platform of rock high enough to let them both stare out over the battlefield.

"Angels?" David asked, looking down over his platform's edge.

"Nothing so far," Moriah said.

As long as David and the girl didn't summon any firestorms or tear the province in half, they were probably in the clear. Maybe. Hopefully.

Standing a couple of meters higher changed everything. Now David could see clearly over every demon head, and instead of the chaos of rushing bodies sprinting past him, the battle now looked like crashing waves of red and black rivers. Funny how bodies moved almost like water when they sprinted at each other, complete with literal waves as the impact of two forces hitting meant some bodies went down, and others climbed over them.

To his left, a couple thousand demons crashed into a couple thousand more. To his right, the same. If he could just reach out and summon more spikes, or maybe summon a vein of amber and burst its contents out on the field, he could kill so many demons. But each attempt led to the same thing: the other unmarked crushed his song to almost nothing. Any time he got a song through, it was a pale copy of what he'd aimed for, a few spikes instead of a few hundred, a small ditch instead of a ravine, and a tiny splash of lava that was lucky to hit a couple demons.

The other unmarked slammed him with her own songs. She didn't like spikes. She liked blasts. More hellquakes ripped through the ground underneath them, and David crushed her song as best he could. But the song was massive, flirting with being too loud, and rocks ripped up in distant, random areas, as if demons were stepping on random landmines.

If David were a real wizard, he could summon a fireball from his staff and shoot it straight at the girl. But both he and the girl were limited by a hard rule: they could only alter the body of Hell with the music. And it had to be music, which meant anyone else who could hear and play it, could silence it.

He squinted hard across the battlefield. The woman wasn't wearing armor, not like his. She didn't have a batlam rune. Or rather, she hadn't awakened it. An angel had never taught her. And without the aid of the staff, controlling the music was difficult in chaos like this. He had an advantage.

David smiled, pointed his staff across the battlefield, and started a song. Just a little thing, meant to summon a specific, single spike under the spider. The unmarked squashed the song. He spun up another song, a recorder playing a quick, dancing melody. She plugged the instrument. He started another song, a flying violin. He started another, dings on the musical triangle. Quick melodies he hopped through, from one instrument to the next.

He couldn't overpower her. But he could outplay her.

He danced through a dozen instruments, playing different strings for only a few seconds. She couldn't keep up. The woman stood up from her throne upon the giant spider's back, and screamed rage as a melody snuck past her, and a spike shot up beside her, narrowly missing her mount. Another got by, and cracked the ground under the spider's front right leg, nearly toppling it. Another song summoned a splinter of lava, and the glowing blood of Hell splashed onto a tetrad beside her. Maybe a bailiff, maybe a bodyguard. The demon died burning, and their scream tore through the battle.

The unmarked's scream followed, a high-pitched banshee scream, and David shivered. That was not the kind of scream a normal person made.

"You are making progress?" Khazeer asked.

"Barely, but I'm getting somewhere." David ignored the sweat dripping down his face, and the growing ache in his fingers and chest. "I still can't reach her directly. She's not as good as me, but good enough. She--"

The spider shrieked again, matching its owner's crazed scream, and charged forward.

"What the fuck, what the fuck." David slammed his staff in front of him and summoned spikes under the spider, but the unmarked girl flattened his song. So much for harassing her to death with small melodies. "She knows she can't win this fight with music. She's... going to attack!"

Khazeer snarled. "You said if she gets too close, the alien will interfere?"

"Yeah, they will. And they'll rip the province in half doing it."

The spire ruler nodded, took a deep breath, and looked at the axes in his hand.

"Can you keep the unmarked from using her magic on us? On me?"

"Yeah, mostly. What--"

With another snarl, Khazeer hopped down from the platform. Wings spread, he caught air and glided forward, landing in a run between his personal guard. His bailiffs Sazillia and Zaavras rushed after him. Fifteen demons wearing aera armor, three tetrads and twelve brutes wielding aera weapons, bronze and red and gold, the only demons wearing such beautiful, durable gear in a sea of red and black.

Even from a kilometer away, the platform gave David the vantage to see where the two lines of armies met, and where Khazeer crashed into them, straight in the path of the colossal spider.

It was like a scene out of a monster movie, and the demons weren't the monsters. The colossal spider swung its arms out and smashed demons back, breaking bones and sending them flying. Bodies upon bodies, demons crashed into each other, but no one stopped to help a fallen comrade. Each injured demon who couldn't get back up was used as a stepping stone for other demons to launch themselves.

A tiger threw herself at the spider's side. The unmarked played a song, too small, specific, and distant for David to crush. A chunk of rock shot up from the ground and smashed into the tiger, knocking her down. Another demon jumped for the spider's head, but instead of reeling back, the spider ran forward and caught the demon with spiky arms that jutted forward from around its head. It ripped the demon in half.

The spider got closer.

A swarm of vrats threw themselves at the spider's legs, chopping and swinging, but demons from the Navameere Fields interfered. The spider didn't care. It swung its legs out at any that got close and sent them through the air, friend and foe. The demons didn't care. More demons replaced them, some defending the spider, others trying to chop its legs down, like cutting down trees that fought back.

"David?" Laoko asked, standing in front of his platform. "What do we do?"

David stared out at the giant spider heading their way. He hadn't expected her to be able to simply crush his songs like this. If he had a day to work at it, he could get past her defenses, but she'd figured that out and was now rushing straight at him.

And the closer she got, the more he could feel something. A buzz in the music. Things getting louder. Not melodies or harmonies, not even single notes or chords. Existence had its own background sound, and as the other unmarked got louder, the background sound grew louder, like holding up a conch to his ear.

They were resonating. Him, and the girl.

Someone jumped up onto David's platform, and he half spun with his staff, but Daoka clicked at him as she stood beside him, replacing Khazeer. Axe in hand, she took a deep breath and nodded, ready, waiting, eyeless gaze set out toward the oncoming army spearheaded by the giant spider. The demons from Navameere Fields were making ground.

"Dao!" he yelled. "Get somewhere safe! Get--"

Dao shook her head and stayed where she was, stance braced.

Jeskura climbed up the platform and joined her lover, standing with her sword drawn and wings spread and ready.

"We'll keep you covered from up here," Jes said. "And the others will cover you from below."

David took a breath and peeked down. Laoko was still directly in front of him, and Moriah and Tsila had stepped out to stand with her. Caera stood beside the platform on her hind legs and nodded up at David as she flexed her claws. Acelina and the Las were in the back with Pegasus, ready and waiting as Khazeer's army continued to rush past them.

This wasn't going at all how he'd planned. He'd thought maybe he'd have a distant wizard-off with the other unmarked, not spend every moment crushing her songs. He'd thought Khazeer would have stayed by his side, doling out battle orders, not join the fray. The fight between the two lines was a bloody meat grinder, with barely any way to tell which demon came from which side except the direction they were facing. Demons killing demons, and hundreds of them threw themselves at the colossal spider.

The spider couldn't tell who was who either. The girl on its back barked orders, something about 'kill kill kill', and the spider responded, swinging out its colossal legs as it got closer. If not for the armies blocking its path, it would have reached David in moments, but Khazeer and his best stood their ground in front of it.

Khazeer pulled his head back, and several of his back spikes glowed amber for a quick moment, before the spire ruler unleashed hellfire. The spider shrieked, backing away and flailing its eight legs and two arms as the deadly fire engulfed the battle. Demons ducked to the sides and around the waves of flame, only for the bailiffs Zaavras and Sazillia to step up to Khazeer's sides and do the same. Three tetrads, each breathing flame from their mouths onto the field and incinerating all demons in front of them. Khazeer's forces were quick to get out of the way. Morgana's were a bit too slow and burned to ash.

The spider monster stepped back, each leg skittering and covering ground quickly. The flame could not reach it, not with how fast it was, and how easily it stepped over demons. It didn't care where its legs landed, and it moved to the side easily. Something that big should not be allowed to skitter.

The girl upon her spider played a song, her hands pointed down at the demons in front of her. But she was closer now, less than a kilometer, and David crushed it easily. She shrieked with rage and tried again, but David had her now, had his grip on her sound, and she was close enough to--

The background hum grew louder. He wouldn't have heard it if he wasn't looking for it, if he hadn't spent every day for months now experimenting with the music. But it was there, just a little louder, and Hell responded. No, not Hell. The thing below Hell responded and reached out from the ethereal endlessness of the black below.

Hell shook, hard, and ten thousand demons fell over as the quake ripped through the ground. Pits, remnants crushed by demons running over them, awoke. Crimson shot up from the red pits as cracks ripped through them, geysers of blood that squirted high. Another pit, and another. The small holes with remnants inside broke apart into craters, each reaching deep into Hell, and each unleashing floods of blood straight up, high into the air. It came back down as red rain.

David waved his free hand and screamed at the top of his lungs. "Unmarked! Get back! You'll kill us all!"

Either she didn't hear, or didn't care. Her spider sidestepped like a crab, moving around the waves of hellfire heading its way. The three tetrads re-aimed, but the spider was absurdly fast, skittering turning into a sprint as it got closer. Their hellfire died away, the three tetrads unable to maintain waves of pure destruction for very long. A few hundred demons had died to their flames, black ash turning to mush under the blood rain, and the giant spider's front legs were on fire. It screamed animal sounds, high-pitched and alien, but it didn't stop moving either. It rubbed its legs against the wet ground, tearing off pieces of exoskeleton and black spikes, but putting out the fire, too.

Demons poured over Khazeer like ants swarming over an invading caterpillar. For a moment, the three tetrads disappeared under a sea of red and black bodies, but twelve brutes rushed in and did something brutes never did. They used weapons, and tactics. For the first time, demons swung their swords out with a restrained hand, careful strikes that avoided friendly fire. They formed a perimeter, carving through Morgana's forces and protecting their bosses.

Morgana, the spire ruler of Navameere Fields, was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she'd sent the unmarked girl on the warpath and sat back and watched? Maybe she just refused to go beyond her territory. But Khazeer was all too happy to get his hands dirty, and the moment his honor guard freed him of the swarm of vrats and gargoyles who'd covered him, he went on the slaughter. The group moved together, hacking their way through the oncoming rush of smaller demons, and David winced every time they cut down a girl demon; old views died hard. Khazeer didn't so much as hesitate. He chopped his way toward the spider again, and again, the unmarked girl tried to play a song aimed straight at him.

David crushed it with one invisible hand, while his other reached out and flattened the growing hum in the background. He might as well have been trying to hold back a moving car with his bodyweight, single-handedly. Better than nothing. He pressed his second hand against the vibration harder, until white spots danced in his vision, and the growing hum flattened a little. Not enough, but quieter than it was before.

"Unmarked, stop!" he yelled. "You must retreat! You'll summon the alien!"

She was close enough now. She'd heard him. Not close enough for him to see her face, but the body language was clear. She held onto her throne of bone, strapped tight to the spider's back by a dozen leather straps, and she pointed a hand straight at David.

The spider sprinted past Khazeer and his honor guard. Some brutes rushed past the armies and crashed into the spider's back legs, and it collapsed forward, stomach sliding across the blood-soaked battlefield. A dozen demons jumped for its face, but the spider got back to its feet and struck them down, tearing some apart with its two arms and pulling their bodies between its mouth. It was not a spider's mouth, but something worse, full of teeth in a sideways maw, with a dozen giant fangs grabbing and pulling squirming meat into its awaiting depths.