Book 3, Chapter 88 - The Crimson Arrival (2/2)

Cloudhawk’s mind raced for an answer. He had to get himself out of this situation, and he needed to find some way to help the Dark Atom. Drake wasn’t an idiot and hedging would only make him more suspicious, but how was he supposed to explain what he was doing with a group of terrorists? What excuse could he offer to explain why he was sneaking up on him?

One of Drake’s retinue stepped forward, an enormously fat man whose armor was badly damaged in several places. He was wounded, but they didn’t seem to bother him much. Hammont Seacrest, Magistrate of the Sandbar made his presence known. “Sir, what are you doing here?”

“I am out here on a secret mission in the wastelands, the Dark Atom is one of my targets!” He couldn’t let the Dark Atom be destroyed, so Cloudhawk grasped at any excuse. With a grim expression he stepped forward. “And you all are morons. You fell for the Dark Atom’s trap. If you keep this up everyone – I mean everyone - is dead.”

Drake and Hammont both looked at him in shock.

It was exactly what he wanted. Scare them for a minute, just enough to give him time to think up a way out of this mess. But he was careful not to show them any sign he was working off the cuff. “In my investigations I’ve discovered that the Dark Atom is working with demons. They’re scheming something, and this so-called war is a part of it. You’re being played – think about it! All of a sudden you get handed the location of the Dark Atom’s secret headquarters! Totally out of the blue, am I right?”

Drake didn’t know where leadership got the information, just that they were on the move right away. It was strange… where in the world did their intelligence come from?

Cloudhawk answered before the question was posed. “Your information came from a wasteland group that’s been trying to weaken border security and attack Skycloud. This whole thing was a distraction. I was trying to stop you, but when I arrived the fight had already started. I was too late.”

Drake narrowed his eyes at him. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

They were in the midst of it now, and pulling back on the cusp of victory would be catastrophic.

Besides, the general had given explicit instructions that they were to destroy the Dark Atom, even if it meant their deaths.

A vague threat wasn’t going to be enough to convince him. Yes, it was true there was a demon, but that didn’t prove that Skycloud was in any direct danger.

Demonhunters were here now to deal with the fiend, and the border forces already had the situation under control. With the addition of Frost’s three thousand Knights of Splendor there was no question the rebels would be eliminated, unless something drastic occurred. As far as Drake could tell, the whole matter would be cleaned up in under an hour.

To pull back now would be ludicrous. No one in their right mind would believe the order even if he gave it. Drake and Cloudhawk had a deep connection, and he believed Cloudhawk wouldn’t want to kill him, but he wasn’t going to let friendship make him blind to the big picture.

Cloudhawk replaced his lack of hard evidence with urgency. “Drake, if you ignore what I’m telling you shit’s gonna to get bad.”

Hammont interjected. “Sir Cloudhawk has been sent to the wastelands on a secret mission from General Skye. He was ordered to uncover information about the Crimson Church. I don’t believe he would deceive us.”

In Hammont’s eyes, Cloudhawk was larger than life. It was unthinkable that he would collude with the Dark Atom terrorists.

Drake looked at both men with a calm expression. He was a resolute and inflexible man, and even if he was inclined to believe Cloudhawk he wouldn’t act on just his word. He only believed what was in front of him, and right now there was nothing to convince him to pull the border forces back.

While Cloudhawk was struggling to find some solution, the unexpected happened. An ominous whistling sound arose from above.

In a quiet plain or lazy city the sound would have captured everyone’s attention. But here, amidst the screams and explosions, it was easily overlooked.

An odd streak of flood of light approached from a valley, thousands of thickly dotted sparks like glowworms or fireflies. They blanketed the sky before falling down among the recently gathered Knights of Splendor.

“Ahhh!”

”What’s happening?!”

These weren’t fireflies at all, but a hail of arrows. Strangely, the arrows were all burning with a sickly green fire. While the projectiles themselves were not strong enough to pierce elysian armor, they were far from harmless. Once they struck the flames they bore splashed in all directions, and the briefest contact caused it to spread. The result was a sea of green fire and writhing bodies.

This was punishment from the depths of purgatory! The ire of the gods visited upon them! Cloudhawk cried in disbelief: “Castigation!”

As if on cue, another force appeared on the peripheries of the battlefield. Leading them were a group of men in red missionary robes. The force with them was not large, numbering perhaps only a thousand.

However, their equipment was excellent – bows and compressed weapons of elysian make, which shot arrows with range to match a sniper rifle.

It was the arrows that were most deadly. They were all cursed with Castigation fire, the most deadly substance in the world.

Cloudhawk felt his heart racing. Had the Crimson One recovered already? If that old shit was here he could change the tide of battle all by himself. He could destroy a small army without any help!

But what were the priests of the Crimson Church doing here, anyway? They weren’t the Dark Atom’s allies!