There was another point that worried Abigor. The Heralds had been killed, what had happened to them. The rulers of Hell knew what happened to those on the lower dimensions, their creation and life built up a form of energy that, when they died, boosted them over the threshold and translated them to the next level of dimension. Unfortunately for them, the energy needed to surge the occupants of this reality level was much greater. That’s why Hell existed, the second deaths of the unfortunates from realities below were prolonged as much as possible, by millennia or longer, nobody knew the limit yet, so that the energy released by their suffering would boost the rulers of Hell up to their afterlife. The creatures from below suffered in their afterlife to provide the creatures of this level with theirs. But suppose the beings who lived in the reality above this one adopted the same philosophy. Was there a super-Hell that awaited Abigor and his kind?
The infantry in his legions were crashing the butts of their tridents against the ground as Abigor rode past on his beast. 56 of his 60 legions were his infantry, Abigor’s host was one of the less mobile of its kind, he had only three mounted legions and one flying legion. The information he had was that the humans lived mostly in cities, that meant the war would be one of sieges, the cities fighting from behind their defensive walls in a series of last stands. That would put a premium on his infantry, his mounted and flying legions would only be of use in isolating each city before the infantry besieged and destroyed it. It had been done before, Abigor knew that human myths were full of stories of cities that had been besieged by hordes of monstrous, inhuman foes. Now they would find out where those myths had come from.
The horns sounded, their wailing drowning out the crashing cadence of the trident staffs. The legions did a right-face, towards a black dot that had suddenly appeared against the roiling red smoke of the sky. The dot expanded, opening a gate into the lower dimension that had dared to defy the will of higher beings. This was the critical stage, the energy gradient ran steeply from the lower dimensions to the higher, it was relatively easy for the higher dimension beings to gain access to the lower, much harder for the lower dimensions to ascend. Only opening a portal could ensure easy access between the dimensions. Yet that same energy gradient meant that once a portal between the levels was opened, it would be very hard to close. Size also was a factor and this was the largest portal that had ever been created. Just how hard would it be to close again? Abigor had an uneasy feeling that nobody had thought to ask that question.
The portal reached its full extent and the horns wailed again. Abigor lead his host forward, into the black circle of the portal and from it into the brilliant yellow light and the clear blue skies of Earth.
Headquarters, 1st Armored Division, Task Force Iron, Multi-National Force Iraq
“Have we got the Global Hawk Feed set up?” Major General Wilkens snapped the order out. The situation was breaking loose at last and he didn’t want to fall behind the loop.
“Sir, yes Sir. Direct feed to us, to Washington and to Moscow.” The latter part was new, one of the hurried preparations that had been made over the last two weeks. There had been a frantic effort to link up the world’s military headquarters so that the fight, if it started, when it started, would be properly coordinated. Task Force Iron also had a direct download from Russian satellites and other recon capabilities but it was the RQ-4B Global Hawks that were the key asset. Nobody knew where the attack would come, on paper it could be anywhere but Iraq had been a leading bet. The association of old legends and the fertile triangle of the Tigris-Euphrates was too powerful to ignore.
High above the desert, the Global Hawk turned lazily, its long wings biting at the thin air. Its stabilized cameras focused on a strange sight in the desert of Western Iraq, a black oval that had suddenly appeared in the stony wastes, one that spread even though it had no apparent substance. It wasn’t even a shadow, it was more of an absence of anything. The cameras zoomed in on the strange spreading stain that still grew beneath it.
“Well, that looks like it.” Brigadier General Boothe looked at the image with horrified fascination. If the guesses were right he was looking at something humanity had discussed, described and occasionally cursed but never actually seen, the mouth of Hell itself. The black shadow had stopped spreading and seemed to be holding its breath. “Is that thing flat on the ground or perpendicular to it?”
“Can’t tell.” Wilkens spoke quietly, the tension in the room seeming to dull voices. “I think it’s a different dimension entirely, we’re not seeing it, we’re seeing its shadow. I don’t think it has dimensions or proportions as we understand them.”
Something stirred in the shadow and a line of figures started to appear. “Zoom in on that.” The order came from the commander of the UAV detachment that was operating the Global Hawk. The image enlarged in a series of jerks as the operator clicked up through the zoom scales. The group of figures resolved, one huge figure surrounded by a group of others. Then, another smaller group appeared out of the shadow, followed by lines of others.
“What do you make of that?” Wilkens wanted other opinions, other eyes looking at this.
“First group, the command group. Now. We’ve got combat troops appearing.” The analyst looked quickly at the emerging lines. “They’re coming out in a parade formation. If we only had the assets within range.”
“The alerts gone off to the fly-boys and the squids. We’ll have jets here soon enough. And we’ve got the friends with their toy on scene.”
On the screen the figures had continued to pour out of the portal, forming up into a huge square on the desert. The UAV operator dialed his cameras in again. “OK, that formation seems to be complete. I make it 81 ranks, each of 81 baldricks. They’re subdivided into 9 groups of 9 ranks with a command section between each. I guess that gives us 6,666 down there.”
“Appropriate number. About a brigade-sized formation then? And that would make the smaller sub-divisions battalions.” There were nods around the room, it seemed fair enough, 9 ranks of 81 meant 729 demons in a battalion. This was translating raw numbers into a structure that could easily be understood – and to the people in this room, what could be understood could be destroyed. Once structure, form and numbers were evaluated and put into context, destruction was a matter of planning. “Each line is a company with nine nine-baldrick platoons?” More nods of agreement
“If that’s it, this is something we can cope with.” Boothe spoke as if he was trying to convince himself. He needn’t have bothered, the situation was changing even while he spoke.
“More coming out Sirs.” On the television screen, a second square was forming beside the first, the stream of black figures emerging from the Hellmouth coalescing into a second square to the right of the first. Even as it was completed, a third square started forming to the left of the first. Still the figures poured out, new squares forming until the line had seven in all.
“Assuming the squares are all identical, there’s almost 47,000 of them down there. The baldricks aren’t playing games are they?”
Wilkens shook his head. Even as he did so, the line of seven squares started to move forward and another wave of black figures poured out, forming into squares exactly as their predecessors had done. The command center was utterly silent as the imagery poured in from the cameras on the Global Hawk. The second line of squares was finished, moved forward and a third row started, then a fourth. By the time the figures ceased to pour out, there were eight rows in all, 56 of the black squares spread out on the Iraqi sand.