Suroth studied the blade.
“Amazing to think that this was crafted by one of His special monkeys,” he observed, admiring the craftsmanship of the piece. “I seriously doubt a Heavenly craftsman could have done better.”
He brought the blade closer to his ear, closing his eyes and listening to the voice of the weapon.
“It’s waited a very long time for this,” he said, “to at last be reunited with its master.”
And with those words, Suroth attacked the case, digging the tip of the dagger into the imperfection that he’d cut in the face of the sarcophagus. Again and again he jammed the blade into the stone, digging and twisting the metal, breaking away sections of the stone lid.
Remy watched, horrified, as the broken pieces of the coffin fell to the ground. He struggled in the grasp of the fallen, but their grip on him was firm. They were sapping his strength, their voracious number feeding on his inner light.
All he could do was watch.
The knife wasn’t doing the trick fast enough, and the Nomad tossed it aside, going in search of something to quicken his work.
Having already used the axe, Suroth reached for the katana.
Madach screamed out, throwing his broken frame across the blade.
“Don’t do this,” the fallen angel begged.
Suroth extended an arm, using his magickal abilities to yank the injured Madach up into the air. The fallen still clung to the sword, his face twisted with the agony of his injuries.
“Please don’t,” he pleaded. “If it starts again… if the war resumes, all the pain and suffering we went through… it’ll all be for nothing.”
The Nomad leader approached the fallen, who hung in the air, grabbing the hilt of the sword and ripping it from his grasp. “Think of it as a precursor to victory,” Suroth said, admiring the blade before, with a wave of his hand, he cast the begging fallen aside, sending him flying through the air to land in a shattered heap across the chamber.
“All the pain and suffering is fuel for what is to come,” Suroth said, gripping the hilt of the Japanese sword in both hands. “A victory in the making.”
He spun around with a blurred swiftness, the sword blade cutting into the surface of the sarcophagus with an explosion of fiery blue.
Still held in the grip of the escaped Tartarus prisoners, Remy flinched, as if the sword had bitten into his own flesh. He watched with disbelieving eyes as more pieces of Lucifer’s pall broke away.
Remy tried one last attempt at breaking free.
“Suroth!” he screamed, giving it everything he had, flexing his wings with enough force to temporarily toss off the fallen, allowing him to achieve flight.
He had only one thought inside his head: to stop the Nomad leader. He hurtled toward Suroth, at the last second, spreading his wings, using the sudden resistance to slow his progress and drop to the ground. The Nomad spun toward him, sword in hand as Remy grabbed for a weapon, snatching up the Pitiless axe.
“Of all of you, I thought you were the one that would understand our plans,” Suroth said, attacking with the skill and ferocity of the ancient samurai.
Pitiless metal struck Pitiless metal, arcs of hissing energy exploding out from where the weapons kissed.
“I understand them just fine, Nomad,” Remy said, swinging the axe wide, hoping to drag the razor-fine blade across his enemy’s midsection, severing him in two. “The problem is, they’re completely insane.”
Suroth jumped back and sprang into the air. Remy watched as, with a cry sounding of both pain and pleasure, the angel sorcerer unfurled wings that had likely not seen light since before the war in Heaven. They were impressive things: a dark, almost chocolate brown, with a texture that reminded him of velvet.
“To what do we owe the occasion?” Remy asked, springing up to meet his foe in flight.
The Nomad seemed almost euphoric, his powerful feathered appendages beating the air.
“The celibacy of flight has come to an end,” Suroth stated, reveling in each and every flap of his mighty wings. “I fly for all my brothers now.”
Remy rushed the Nomad, raising the axe to his shoulder, ignoring the intensity of the pain radiating from his infected shoulder wound.
Shrugging off his happiness like a cloak, Suroth met his attack like the warrior that he was, the millennia of not using his wings seemingly having little effect upon his aerial combat skills.
The Nomad was just as ferocious in the air as he was on the ground, driving Remy back as he lashed out with the Japanese sword. Avoiding the blade’s bite, Remy cast his gaze up toward the chamber’s vast ceiling. Leaping above the Nomad’s attempt to separate his head from his body, Remy flapped his wings furiously, soaring up to the chamber’s highest regions.
As he had hoped, Suroth followed.
On the roof of the chamber, resembling the teeth of some enormous mythical beast, there hung huge dripping stalactites. A quick glance below and he saw the Nomad leader leering up at him, his eyes glistening with a madness that would not be satisfied with anything other than Remy’s death.
Remy flapped his wings all the harder, increasing his speed, seemingly on a collision course with the ceiling fangs. Straining against the increasing pain in his shoulder, he lifted the Pitiless axe, swinging the razor-keen blade into one of the hangings of ice as he passed alongside. Darting between the chunks of falling debris, Remy struck at the next, and one after another, huge pieces of the ceiling ice rained down on the ascending angel.
At first Remy thought his efforts had failed, the Nomad leader able to maneuver through the falling rubble as he continued to ascend. But one of Suroth’s powerful wings was struck by a large chunk of ice, sending the Nomad leader spinning into the path of other pieces of debris. It wasn’t long before the Nomad leader plummeted to the chamber floor.
Remy dropped, following the rain of debris to the chamber floor. He hovered just above the ground, searching for Suroth’s body, imagining it buried beneath the tons of ice. Bodies of fallen angels who had been killed by pieces of the falling ceiling littered the ground. He could see others peering out fearfully from patches of shadow, having escaped their brethrens’ crushing fate.
He doubted it would be long before they were again drawn to him.
Touching down, Remy suddenly realized how weak he was, his legs barely able to support his weight. He dropped to his knees upon the ice, looking around the chamber.
His eyes touched upon the body of Madach, lying bloodied and twisted upon the ground, protected from the falling rubble by Lucifer’s pall.
Remy pushed himself to stand, stumbling over the shattered pieces of ceiling ice to reach his reluctant partner in this insane endeavor. The battle-axe slipped from his grasp, but he did not bother to retrieve it. He lowered himself to the ground, pulling Madach into his arms.
“Hey,” he said, giving the fallen a gentle shake. “Are you still with me?”
Madach’s eyes flickered open, looking into Remy’s fearfully.
“It’s all right,” Remy reassured him. “I think we might’ve actually averted the disaster.”
Remy chanced a look toward the sarcophagus; though large chunks were missing from its surface, none of the blows had actually managed to break through to the inside.
He felt Madach’s body stiffen in his arms.
“No,” the fallen angel stated, shaking his head. “No, it’s not all right at all.”
The explosion immediately followed upon Madach’s words. Remy watched as the blood-covered form of Suroth rose from the rubble of the broken ceiling.
Steam wafted up from his soaking robes, his features twisted in a combined grimace of rage and agony. In his hand he still clutched the hilt of the Pitiless katana. The blade had been snapped about midway down, but Suroth had still managed to hold on to his weapon.