Apostles of Doom

The chancellor nodded. While the woman was incredibly attractive, one would have to be truly insane to even contemplate cuckolding an archdemon. Are angels, or former angels, even able to deflower maidens? Dante suddenly wondered. Are they not purely spiritual beings? Perhaps that was why Hesseforthalus did not object to their close quarters.

“So, you say you have some manner of locating Talarius?” Sir Samwell suddenly interrupted Dante’s thoughts.

Melissance glanced at Sir Samwell and then to the others on the bridge. “Indeed,” she said, smiling beguilingly as she lifted a small velvet pouch in her right hand.

“What is that?” Sir Samwell asked skeptically.

Melissance reached into the pouch and pulled forth a golden locket. “My Gifting locket: the everlasting symbol of Talarius’s love and devotion to me.”

Dante noted that the other Knights Rampant suddenly looked a bit uncomfortable at this. Dante was not familiar with Etonian “gifting,” but he assumed it was some form of promissory collateral.

“I have not attempted to pursue the link upon it which once bound us,” Melissance said. “However, even if severed, I should think a skilled wizard could leverage the Law of Contagion to repair and recreate the linkage. Unfortunately, it is not something that I can do with my limited resources here in the Abyss.”

Dante smiled warmly. Melissance was as intelligent as she was beautiful. “You are absolutely correct, my lady! I should think we shall be able to recreate the linkage within a few days, even if it has been severed!”

“Excellent! I shall eagerly await reports of your success.” Melissance placed the locket back within the pouch and handed it to Dante.

Citadel of Light: Late Fifth Period

Beragamos Antidellas stood at a window in one of the higher inner towers, peering out at the atunset. He’d had to pull a fair amount of Unnoticing to get here. As one would expect, this location was not open to the general public. He was dressed as a Brother of Tiernon and was carrying a large portfolio of papers, posing as clerk in the bureaucracy. That and surreptitious Unnoticings — an invisibility ritual would have gotten noticed way too easily — had gotten him to a spot from which he could observe the assembled forces.

The drawbridges had only been up about an hour and already the advanced parties of Unlife were entering the outskirts — more a collection of villages — around the Citadel. In the sky, Storm Lords on ice dragons, as well as other riders on an assortment of other Unlife creatures, patrolled over the encroaching army.

Beragamos shook his head. This was a very odd siege. It was extremely orderly, and no one was rushing to attack the other side. The aerial Unlife were not yet seeking to fly over the Citadel with attacks, nor were the forces within the Citadel doing anything to impede the setting up of the Unlife camp. No sorties, no poking at the incoming forces with mad dashes for the drawbridge at the last moment.

Of course, given the seriously unprecedented level of avatar support inside the Citadel, Dashgar and the rest might be purposefully allowing the besieging army time to get set up. Allowing them to become entrenched targets to be blasted in wide swathes of Heavenly Light. Certainly the Unlife could not be expecting that surprise.

He had been rather shocked at how many avatars had shown up. Dashgar and Inethya had clearly outdone themselves in getting support. Sentir Fallon’s reticence at sending in avatars had apparently created quite a bit of frustration among not only among Tiernon’s and Torean’s forces, but the others as well.

Traditionally, one would send in several ground-level saints, not the Attending Archons and prophets. This was an incredible amount of firepower. It should be a major victory for the Light, one that should please Tiernon and all of the Siblings. Yet Beragamos found himself frowning; something did not seem right. He could not say what was wrong, other than everything seemed extremely off.

Fire Line Around the Citadel: Late Sixth Period

“That is the last of the land-based beacons,” Ramses told Exador as one of his demons secured the nearest beacon in place.

“Good,” Exador replied, looking at his map under a small ball of Demon Fire. “The ships with beacons should also be in place. I will head out to them and run final tests on the aligning mechanism.”

“I’ll stay with the land beacons in case I need to adjust any settings with the drift compensating mechanisms with the beacons on the shore,” Ramses said.

“Hopefully, the other ships will be able to keep any of Namora’s priests outside the range of the beacon ships. The last thing we need is to have giant waves shoving the beacon ships out of position,” Exador said. “They’ve got every single sorcerer and aquamancer on the ships working to keep them in position.”