The angel’s words cut through the frozen awe of the angels, and the nearby single rapholem dove for Mia. Vinicius stopped him. With a roar that rose above the growing thunder, Vinicius dove around Mia, and smashed the rapholem to the side. Angel reflexes saved him from taking a set of claws to the body, but Vin’s weight and strength were more than enough to send the angel flying back, barrel rolling through the air and almost landing.
The angels had their cue. Nearly a thousand sets of angel wings descended upon them, but before they could reach the demons below, the gabriem had their moment. A couple hundred shining arrows shot into the sky, and like shooting stars, they fell upon the land. But they didn’t go where the angels aimed them. Mia pulled the burning sky down and down, and the twisting vortex of flame tore the air open. Twisting gale winds grabbed the glowing arrows and scattered them.
They decorated the mountainside, each glowing arrow sharp enough to sink into the rock, but none landed near Vinicius or the tetrads. Distant demons screamed, some falling to the deadly volley, but the second volley fared no better, hitting random demons that climbed out from their tunnels, but none fell upon Mia or her guardians.
The rapholem came first, giant shields in front, spears pointed forward along their sides. The mikalim followed, smaller shields ahead, swords in front, as if their bodies were weapons themselves thrown toward the battlefield. All of them came for Mia, ignoring the waves of demons that exposed themselves, called by the horde.
They were Mia’s horde, and she used them. She did not have the reach of a spire, but for several miles in all directions, her music permeated the ground and the sky, until every demon felt its pull. And like shrieking banshees, they ran to Mia and the inevitable battle with the speed of predators.
Using her open left hand, she pointed a finger at the angels, and the demons attacked. They swarmed, wings, horns, and claws all pouring toward Mia and the oncoming angel battalion. Vinicius, Romakus, and Julisa moved toward the mass, but Mia slammed the base of her staff into the rock beneath her, and they stopped, ripped free of the hypnotizing, silent song.
She needed them awake and aware. But the demons she did not know, the strangers pulled up from the depths of the rock and stone, would be fodder for the machine of war.
Livian and the Damall ran up the tunnel, summoned by the horde call, but Vinicius turned and blocked them. How he stopped them, Mia could not see; her attention was elsewhere.
The tornado above continued to rage and soon it touched down, splitting the approaching angel tide, but even with all the power of its burning madness and screaming wind, the angels did not get swept in its wake. Even if angels truly were weak compared to their betters of the past, they were still a host of deadly powerful entities, and wouldn’t be so easily dissuaded. And, in the sky, they abused their God-given privilege, and flew above the demon army. But at least the oncoming tide of the demon horde had given them pause.
Mia swung her staff upward and called upon the mountain. The mountain listened, and erupted. Rock shot upward in front of her, a colossal spike of black and red stone, a small mountain in its own right, and it cut through the air as it blocked the incoming servants of Heaven. Hell tore open, rock breaking rock, and the rising layer of new ground sent hellquakes for miles in all directions.
She needed time for her army to arrive.
She swung her staff to the side, the ground erupted with a mighty crack that threatened to pop her ears, and lava shot up from the cracks into the sky between her and the approaching angels. The geysers died quickly, but the angels at the front of the charging mass stopped, lest they drown in the molten rock. She played the song harder, and again, shots of lava attacked the sky, turning the angel army into a mess of panicked birds dodging what would have been death, even to a servant of the other half of the Great Tower.
Was Galon still alive? Did her song hurt him? She couldn’t see him anymore. Yosepha? The angels continued to carry her, high above and in the back of the army, but for some reason, they did not retreat. She could still save her.
Mia’s new mountain was less a mountain, and more a half bridge that reached high into the air, with a sheer cliff face opposite of Mia, and a ramp on her side of it. And her demon horde used it. The angels compensated quickly, diving around the new mass toward Mia as the lava died, but the flood of new demons used the raised ground to meet them in the air.
Gargoyles; gorgalas. Vrats; vratorins. Brutes; devorjins. Tigers; tregeeras. Bats; dilojas. Satyrs; riivas. Minotaurs; borjins. Succubi and incubi, volaras and volarins. Even some impas, impins, gremlas, and gremlins, usually resistant to the horde call, merged into the horde. They all emerged from whatever hunt they were pursuing, left whatever prey they chased, abandoned whatever political games they played with each other, and joined Mia’s horde. They swarmed up the ramp, the new bridge that cut into the howling sky several hundred feet, and all demons with wings dove upon the scattered angels.
The angels roared with defiance, but the demons did not care. Those with wings used the deadly wind and caught the air long enough to catch some angels, and latch onto them. For all an angel’s strength, even they could do not fight against gravity when a dozen imps or grems, or a half dozen gorgalas, dangled from their limbs and feathers. Endless wings, a canopy of white and gold, and black and red, that swirled in the hectic path of the deadly hurricane of flame.
The wind grew stronger, and what had once been a maelstrom of bending fire twisted upon itself into a tornado. It touched upon the crest of Mia’s new mountain, and grew, ripping the wind apart, twisting pockets of distant air into their own whirlpools of fire. The song beckoned, and the fire sky danced to its tune, reaching down with a dozen more fingers of flame that ebbed and flowed.
Twelve new bending tubes of amber cloud fell from the sky until they touched the ground and unleashed havoc. Tornadoes of scorching flame flowed around the ramp, and the cut through the swaths of angels as much as the demons. And from the roars that rose to join the battle, the demons lost to the call of the horde were happy to be lost to the madness.
Angels fell. They either fell to the fire tornadoes that danced with unpredictable beauty, or to the hundreds of demons that used the ramp to take to the sky. Demons could not fly, but the absurd winds grabbed their wings and launched them into the air, sending them into the chaotic flow of a dozen vortexes of fire fighting each other. Like kites guided by madness, they drifted in the air, roared with hunger and bloodlust, and many found angel wings to sink their claws into.
It was not long before many angels had fallen to the ground, and were engulfed by the demons that could not glide. And the angels in the far back, carrying Yosepha’s cross, slowly fell toward the ground, unable to resist the shrieking, burning wind as Mia pulled the roaring sky down upon them.