“Right lads.” Their officer had turned to face the crew and passengers of his APC. “Time to pull First Demonic’s nuts out of the fire. We’re to advance down the slope and hit the angels in the flanks and rear. Then, we’ll roll their entire formation up. The APC gunners will do most of the work, the rest of you get ready to debus and take out any survivors. Those of you who haven’t used your bayonets yet, watch Drippy at work. He’s got it down to a fine art.”
Dripankeothorofenex saw the other daemons in the back of the APC look at him with a mixture of respect and envy. They all knew that to catch the eye of an officer was the key to a successful career while to win praise from a human was reward indeed. He guessed what some of them were thinking, why should he have had the luck to be attacked by three angels while they had not. They didn’t know how close that little battle had been to killing him. Then, he felt the APC lurch and its engine start to race as the wave of armored carriers started to accelerate down the slope.
Ahead of him, the Angleic Host was pushing in against the crumbling resistance offered by the First Demonic. They could see nothing else, they were so focussed on turning the impending defeat of the battalion into a complete rout that they simply didn’t see Third Legion cresting the ridge to their left. Nor did their commander who was in the forefront of their lines. Dripankeothorofenex could see him clearly, his armor gleaming in the brilliant light, his mighty sword flashing as he drove through the defensive positions, his trumpet blasts scouring the ground before him. Dumbass, he thought. To make a target of himself like that. Then, with what amounted to extreme shock, he realized that he was thinking like a human.
How much so quickly became apparent. He heard the rhythmic beating sound again and looked behind him. Three helicopters of the Third had lifted up from behind a forested hill and their missiles streaked overhead. The great angel leading the charge was surrounded by their blasts and went down, his body torn in ways that were all too visible even from this distance. He tried to raise himself but another quartet of Hellfire missiles finished him off completely. Without its leader and greatest champion, the Angelic Host was decapitated.
That wasn’t altogether a good thing though, Dripankeothorofenex could see that. The missile salvoes had attracted the other angel’s attentions and revealed the threat that was descending on their left flank. They reacted by starting to shift backwards and to their right, away from the charge of Third Legion while ordering their human levies to about-face and move against the new enemy. They were slow though, they didn’t have the speed or coordination that the human units took for granted. They were still only partially through the process of refacing when Third Legion’s APCs opened fire, their 23mm cannon lashing out with streams of tracer at the combined force of angels and humans before them. For a few seconds, the Angelic Host was frozen by shock, the ferocity of the attack and the sheer massed firepower being thrown at them caused them to just stand and die. Then, when feelings returned to them, when they realized that the armored carriers were not going to stop, they broke. Angel and human alike they broke and ran, their formation crumbling and their ranks scattered.
By the time the massacre was over, the ground was carpeted with bodies. Dripankeothorofenex saw human warfare from a new perspective now. Before now the daemons had only been the victims of massed firepower, they had been the ones cut down in swathes by the relentless armored vehicles and their fast-firing guns. Now he, and the other daemons in Third Legion had seen that firepower from the other side, how it had enabled them to fight a force many times their own number and reduce that force to bloody, slaughtered chaos. He understood well at last, the humans were not gods possessed of unfathomable power, they were simply very good at what they did. And others could be just like them. In Dripankeothorofenex’s mind, hero-worship was suddenly replaced by ambition. If he wanted to, he could be just like them. All he had to do was learn how.
His reverie was interrupted by the tail ramp of his armored carrier dropping. “Hey Drippy, come with me, there’s some people I want you to meet.” His officer was calling him and like any good legionary, he obeyed the call.
1st Mechanized Infantry Battalion (Demonic) was a mess. Its ranks were collecting their casualties, pulling them out of the foxholes and wrecked vehicles where they had fought and sorting the dead from the wounded. Another change, Dripankeothorofenex noted, the care for the wounded. Something almost unknown to daemonic armies. Scattered amongst the groups were figures in white, their hands held above their heads. He could here their words, ‘kyrie eleison’, no longer an arrogant battle-cry screamed out in the frenzy of attack but a plea for mercy, chanted amidst weeping in the hope of survival. Once, Dripankeothorofenex, would have seen them as an opportunity for an afternoon’s entertainment as they were tortured but he knew that was not what humans would do and he had to learn from them. Humans were merciful to those they defeated. So would he be. He made the decision out of a simple desire to copy humans but then the realization hit him. Treat prisoners well and others will be more likely to surrender.
His officer was searching through the scene, looking through the dead and hunting through the groups of living. Eventually, Dripankeothorofenex saw his face brighten and he called out in a voice that rang across the battlefield. “Yo! Aeneas! Ori! Over here.”
Two humans turned around and saw the figure running towards them. The three met in an exchange of hugs and back-slaps. “Tucker, I heard you had joined the Eagles. How goes it old friend?”
“Well, Caesar’s a good boss and we’re getting our legions put together. Hey, have I got somebody you two want to meet. Drippy, over here.” His officer called him and he doubled over to where he stood with his friends. “Drippy, this is Aeneas, a Spartan, and Ori a Samurai. Old friends of mine from the pit. Aeneas, Ori, I’d like you to meet one of my Legionnaires. His name’s quite unpronounceable so we all call him Drippy. Don’t be fooled by his gentle demeanor, I saw this guy take down three angels in thirty seconds with the bayonet. He’s getting to be one of us.”
Dripankeothorofenex saw the other two humans staring at him with an expression he knew well. The way most humans rescued from the pit looked at the daemons. A mixture of anger and desire for revenge, in this case overlaid by the fact he was one of their friend’s soldiers and he had spoken highly of him. His mind was in turmoil, he knew that the correct daemonic response would involve genuflection and prostration but he had quickly learned that such displays did not go down well with humans. He would try and be a human instead. “Sirs, I am pleased to meet you. Do not let my officer mislead you, they were very small angels. But, you have wounded here, how can I help you with them?”
He held his breath and looked at the two humans. Their expressions softened slightly, the anger fading quickly. One of them, the one who carried a sword as well as his rifle nodded. “You are right Tucker. He is indeed one of us.”
Helicopter Base, Third Legion. Heaven
Gaius Julius Caesar sat on an empty fuel drum and watched his helicopter attack unit landing. Five birds were already down, their ground crews closing in on them as the crews dismounted. His heart was dropping slightly because the figure he was searching for hadn’t yet appeared. Two more MH-6s were landing and he scanned them with urgency. Then, he almost sagged with relief. She was there, she was getting out of the cockpit. She had made it.