Armageddon

Chapter Eighteen

Headquarters, Army of Abigor, Western Iraq.

The Great Beast saw Abigor approaching and clicked its claws in greeting. As befitted Abigor’s status, his Great Beast towered over the lesser Beasts ridden by the cavalry brigade and its black skin swirled with iridescent colors that caught the rising sun and sparkled into a shimmering halo. Abigor returned the salutation of his Great Beast and swung up on to the animal’s back. Over his head, he could see the viciously curved tail straighten and then fall back to its natural position. The Great Beast was ready to move, to attack the humans that dared to defy its master.

Ahead of him, Abigor saw his legions start to roll forward, the thinned ranks looking pitifully slender by the standards of demon warfare. The legion was designed to fight as a solid mass, its 81 ranks adding mass and weight to the charge that would strike the enemy with the force of a battering ram. Abigor had knowingly sacrificed that weight, given up the power of his charge in favor of hitting the humans along a much broader front. Ahead of him, he could see the humans had done it again, they had formed up behind the ridgeline where they were shielded from the trident bolts of the demon infantry. They had to be up there though for this was the day of the great battle.

Overhead, Abigor could see the strange white clouds the human Sky Chariots left behind them as they searched out the remaining fliers. He could hear the sound of their battle-cry, a strange roaring scream punctuated by thunder-like explosions as their fire lances tracked their targets and blew them apart. There were more Sky Chariots here that Abigor had ever seen before, they filled the sky above the battlefield, dipping down to slash at the fliers who floundered helplessly below them. Casualties up there must be terrible, Abigor thought. Even as he watched, three fliers fled westwards back to the hell gate. A Sky Chariot was in hot pursuit, closing the range on them with terrible speed. Oddly, this one was silent and if Abigor hadn’t been watching, he wouldn’t have known it was passing. Only after it had passed did Abigor hear the thundering crash and roar of its battle-cry. The Sky Chariot swerved after the fliers and it gave forth a rasping moan that filled the sky with bright lights. One flier exploded, there was a brief pause, then another rasp and a second flier died. The Sky Chariot zoomed skywards, rolled over and slashed down at the third. It too died as the lights engulfed it.

Still, it was the ground forces that were important. Fliers were important for terrorizing a fleeing enemy but in a real battle, it was the cavalry and infantry that counted. Abigor urged his Great Beast forward, keeping close to the infantry as they surged forward. He could sense the uneasiness in the ranks, the infantry felt exposed without the thick mass of the ranks that usually surrounded them. And the Cavalry were staying back, normally they led the charge, the shock of their weight and speed breaking through the enemy lines. Now they were being held to wait on events. If the army started to fall apart, it would be their job to stem the breach and hold the line. Abigor suddenly stopped himself, he was thinking about what would happen if he lost? Something had changed in him the previous night when he had listened to Tomovoninkranfat’s account of how Merafawlazes’s Army had died. Defeat had ceased to be unthinkable, now it was all too real a possibility.

The sky to the east was changing, suddenly, the rising sun was shining through the streaks of the human fire lances suddenly emerging from far behind their lines. Their mages had to be at work already. The front like of the advancing infantry lowered their tripods to the horizontal and let fly with a withering barrage of lightning bolts. The ridge crest was at extreme range and man of the bolts had dissipated before they made it there but enough hit the line to disrupt the concentration of the human mages. Abigor was sure of that. Yet it did not seem to affect the Fire Lances as they arched over and raced down into his infantry. The rippling sea of explosions engulfed a whole section of his front line, devouring it, shredding those unfortunate enough to be caught in its hot breath. That was how Abigor found himself thinking of it, it was the Humans breathing death over his infantry. They were faltering, looking around, seeing the wire ahead of them and realizing what was to happen. Abigor drove his Great Beast into the middle of their ranks, urging them forward, firing his tripod – and hearing the wailing screams as yet more human magic was added to the chaos.

Headquarters, Multi-National Force Iraq, Green Zone, Baghdad.

“Pumpkin-One reports receiving heavy inbound fire Sir. The baldricks are firing on the ridgeline as they come in. Fire is ineffective Sir.”

Petraeus nodded. The truth was, he wasn’t that interested at this point. His artillery was tearing huge gaps in the baldrick attack although the reduced density of targets meant the death toll was lower than it had been yesterday. Standing in front of his screen, he could see the baldricks surging forward, taking their losses from the deadly MLRS barrages and the minefields. They hadn’t reached the wire yet. Not that it mattered to him, the brigade commanders along the front knew what they had to do and Petraeus had left them to get on with it. They had enough on their plate without their commanding general peering over their shoulder and second-guessing them. Petraeus had enough to do as well, in addition to handling his corps artillery, he had to keep supplied of ammunition and fuel flowing towards the brigades. He had truck convoys scattered all the way between the front line and Baghdad, keeping them flowing forward was a job in itself. He had staff handling that as well, his part of the battle was to stand here in front of this screen and spot things going wrong.

“There’s a flight of C-17s coming in from CONUS. Carrying reloads. Make sure our fighters screen them from any harpies surviving out there. And have the fighters report when the harpies are cleared out of the way. The Apache crews will want to get their licks in.”

“Sir, Yes Sir.” That had to be one of the Marines Petraeus thought. Still it was better than the Rangers, that constant Oooh-Agh got on his nerves after a while. Getting the AH-64s into action was going to be critical for more reasons than one. The 25th Mechanized Infantry Division, known on the radio as “Pumpkin” was already tearing the baldricks apart, they had the firepower and mobility they needed. The baldricks in front of them were going to die, it was simply a question of how many of them would do so before the rest broke and ran. Not that there was anywhere for them to run to. In the west, the Shamshar Division and the First Armored were rapidly closing the gap that was the baldrick’s only escape route.

No, 25th Mech were going to be all right. The problem lay to their north, where the 10th Mountain Division, call sign Mango, held the line. They were a light infantry division, they didn’t have the armor that had dominated the battlefield so far. They did have four brigades rather than three and more artillery but their force structure was light. Petraeus had put them on his right for two reasons. One was that they covered a more inhabited and built-up sector of the front where the armor would be at a disadvantage. The other was a more ruthless one, Petraeus had to find out how human infantry would fight against the baldricks. All the reports so far said that the baldrick infantry were larger and stronger than humans and they took a lot of killing. Could human infantry stand up to them? It was a question that had to be answered sooner or later and sooner was better than later.

Hence the importance of getting the Apaches back over the battlefield. They were an important part of 10th Mountain’s firepower.

“Sir, Mango reports the baldricks are moving to attack them. Should we divert artillery support from Pumpkin?”

Petraeus thought for a second. “Negative. Keep battering the troops attacking Pumpkin. We can destroy that attack fastest, then we can thin out Pumpkin’s positions and shift forces to support Mango.” 10th Mountain had its artillery and that would have to do. The 25th Mech and 4th Infantry Division’s artillery was concentrating on the baldricks assaulting Petraeus’s left, over 100 Paladin self-propelled 155s and 60 MLRS launchers. The sheer volume of fire they were pouring into the advancing baldricks was enough to stop even an Army from hell. Or so Petraeus hoped.

“Gee Sir, will you look at that!”

The Marine’s voice had lost its dispassionate inflexion. In the middle of one surging mass of baldrick infantry, pinned up against the wire, was a single jet black figure that towered above the rest, mounted on a rhinolobster that dwarfed the others.

“I guess he must be important.” Petraeus raised his voice slightly and addressed the fire direction center. “Put an MLRS battery on to that location soonest.”

Front Line, Army of Abigor, Western Iraq.

Abigor saw his infantry surging against the river of silver threads that strung across the battlefield. Some of his demons had tried to grab the threads with their hands, only to scream in anguish as the razor edges bit through their flesh to the bones. Others had tried to force their way in through the coils, only to become entangled and slowly sliced apart. The momentum of the attack was broken and all the time the shrieking howls of the enemy magic drowned out any attempt at thought. The infantry had to get through the threads, there was no other choice.

He saw the answer over his shoulder, on their way through to the threads, they had crossed a field covered with bars that exploded when a demon stepped on them. Many of them had been killed and their mutilated corpses littered the ground. Others writhed in pain from the traumatic amputations the bars had caused. Yet, Abigor thought, even the dead and the half-dead could still serve him. “Get those bodies. Throw them on the threads and use them as a bridge.”

The noise was too great for his words to carry far but some heard and started to collect bodies and throw them on top of the coils of threads. Others saw what was happening, understood and copied them. Soon the wire was sagging under the weight and the first of the demon infantry was running across, clear of the wire and into the open ground beyond.

“Sire, there are problems on our left!” One of the lesser demons, a legion commander by the look of him, carried the message but could barely make himself heard.

The left, Abigor thought, ten minutes fast ride away. He had better get there and find out what was happening. “Take over here, keep driving them forward.” Then, he turned his Great Beast’s head and started the ride up to his left flank. This was a problem he hadn’t thought of, in the traditional formation he could see all of his forces, in this new style of attack, he could see only a small portion of the battle at any one time. He was spending all his time running from one crisis to the next, trying to solve each one before it became a major problem. Time he should have been spending in finding the enemy commander so Abigor could have the pleasure of killing him.

There was another shrieking howl and the terrifying ripple of explosions that were the trade-mark of the fire-lances. Abigor felt the blast and the sting as stray fragments at the end of their trajectory flicked at him. Behind him, the area where he had just been had vanished under a rolling cloud of dust and smoke. Abigor had already seen enough fire-lance breaths to know that nothing was left alive in the area he had been in just a few minutes before. Then it struck him, he might not have time to find the enemy commander, but the enemy commander had found him.

Headquarters, Multi-National Force Iraq, Green Zone, Baghdad.

“Missed him.” The Marine sounded disappointed.

“Don’t sweat it son, it was only a chance. He’s heading north, guess on his way to Hit. Sitrep?”

“Mango-Four is in Hit sir, they’ve dug in. They’re all west of the river and there’s only one bridge out.”

Petraeus knew what that meant. If Mango-Four tried to evacuate the city, there would be a massacre as they piled up before the bridge.

“Sir, Mango Four requests permission to blow the bridge. They say it won’t do them any good and taking it intact might help the Baldricks.”

“Tell them to do it. We can throw an assault bridge over easy enough. The baldricks don’t seem to have heard about combat engineering.”

“Sir, with the bridge gone, Mango Four won’t be able to….”

“I know, so did they when they suggested it. Order Cherry-One up on Hit. Tell them to form up to the east of Al-Ramadi.”

Outskirts of Hit, Western Iraq.

“We’d just got this place quieted down as well.” Corporal Tucker McElroy looked out at the advancing baldricks with certain level of disgust. A year earlier, Hit had been torn to pieces by gangs of terrorists and insurgents whose attacks and murders spared no one. Then, the Marines had moved into the city as part of Task Force 17 and cleaned the city up. It had come back to life and its economy had been improving everyday, so much so that a week before The Message had changed everything, the City had been handed over to Iraqi security forces. Now the baldricks were coming.

Not as many as there had been, that was for sure. At first their long ranks had been a terrifying sight but Mango-Four’s artillery had got to work as the baldricks had stalled in the minefields and on the razor wire. By the time the baldricks had swarmed through the artillery over the wire, their neat ranks and serried formation had gone. In its place was a stream of baldricks in groups of varying size making their way towards the outskirts of the city. McElroy heard the 120mm mortars coughing as they lobbed their first rounds at the larger of the groups, the brigade 155s were still pounding the baldricks hung up on the wire. By now, the leading groups of demons had reached the great divided highway that swung around the outskirts of Hit. It was time to do some real soldiering.

A few yards away Charles Foss was scanning the nearest group of baldricks through the powerful scope on his M82A3 sniper’s rifle, well, it wasn’t actually a sniper’s rifle, officially it was an anti-material rifle. There was even an urban legend that it was illegal to use it against humans but that wasn’t true. Anyway, the targets this time weren’t human. Foss checked his ammunition, the tips of the. 50 caliber bullets were green on white. That meant they were Raufoss SLAP rounds, multi-role armor-piercing explosive incendiaries. They’d been pouring in to Iraq for days now, the joke was that they had still been warm from the production line in Norway when they’d been stuffed into a transport and flown here. The infantry formations had been given priority for their issue, they needed the firepower.

Magazine in place, Foss squinted through the scope again. The baldricks cleared ground fast, at least twice as quickly as a human. One figure in the nearest group seemed to be the driving force, urging the others forward. Foss put the cross hairs on his forehead, just between the horns and gently squeezed the trigger, just the way he’d taught his six-year old son to shoot. Never pull the trigger, squeeze it. The heavy Barrett rifle kicked and the baldrick went down.

“Damn.” Foss swore to himself. The baldrick was down, his head mangled, but he was still moving. What did it take to kill these monsters?. A second shot was the answer, it fixed the leader for once and for all. Foss swung his scope to the second in the group and fired again. This one went down hard and finally with the first shot. The rest of the baldricks went to ground, confused by the inexplicable outbreak of sudden death that had struck them. That was a fatal mistake. The mortar teams saw the group stop moving and a pattern of 82mm mortar bombs blanketed their position. By that time, Foss and his fellow snipers were seeking fresh targets.

Inside the fortified house, McElroy looked over the sandbags that blocked the doors and windows to see the baldricks rapidly closing in on the forward defense line. They were over the inner ring road, less than 200 yards away, running into an area of ploughed sand where a new city block had been planned. Those plans had been abandoned and would probably never be revived now that half the city’s population had laid down and died as demanded by The Message and the rest were refugees being sheltered further east. But the blocks either side of the cleared area had been built and then they’d been fortified.

Human infantry would have seen the deadly danger of that open ground and avoided it. To the baldricks, it was an alley into the city and forty or more piled into it. They’d been the first group through the wire and minefields, the first to cross the open ground and get close to the city, the city that was defenseless. To their astonishment, they could see the buildings in front of them, the humans hadn’t built walls or moats to keep attackers out. Just the threads, the exploding bars and their horrible magic fire-lances.

McElroy gave a last check, the baldricks were in a three-cornered ambush with infantry squads on both flanks and another in front of them. Worse, from the enemy’s point of view, McElroy had dismounted the Browning. 50 caliber from their Humvee and had it on its tripod, firing through a narrow slit, its green-and-white tipped bullets waiting to bite. Fine, the baldricks were in a trap, time to spring it.

“Open fire. Let them have it!”