Shadowveil

The Promise

Alec heard the screaming long before he knew its cause.

It was the sound of ultimate pain, the kind of pain that was deeper than torn flesh or a shattered bone. It was the sound of a heart breaking into a thousand tiny shards, never to be whole again; and something inside of Alec screamed along with the voice, understanding the shadow of that agony.

His hand flinched on his bow, although his shot still landed square in the demon's beady eye. The scream pulsed thinly in his ears; he could see from the pale faces around him that everyone else felt it too, the instinctive knowing of another human's suffering. 

The sound was endless. It rose and rose until Alec almost thought he could see it winding up towards the ceiling like a jagged black mist. And when it finally stopped, it seemed like the air rang with silence despite the sounds of the battlefield. He staggered a little. Who died? he thought to himself. 

Someone gasped behind him. Alec landed an arrow in the heart of a horned demon and glanced around. It was Simon; he was crumpling over himself, his head snapping back in a paroxysm of silent agony. His dark hair fell over his eyes; he hit the ground and rolled once, wheezing for air like he'd been tossed against a wall. 

Alec smashed two demons back with his bow and crouched next to his friend, nocking an arrow while he did so. "Simon," he said urgently, lacking the free hand to shake the man's shoulder and using his foot to nudge him instead. "Simon, what's wrong?" Alec saw no sign of a wound; no blood, no poison, no tears in the gear. But Simon's eyes were rolled up in his head, only a sliver of white showing between his dark lashes, and his lips were turning an alarming shade of blue.

"Rune," the prone man gasped, forcing the word out between gasping breaths. "Check the rune. Is it--?" Alec felt his heart stop for a second. He grabbed for Simon's collar and wrenched it aside, letting his bow clatter to the ground. The parabatai rune was still in place, its ink dark and vivid against Simon's ash-smudged skin--but the edges of it were twisting, eroding and bulging back into place. Alec stared. He'd never seen anything like it before.

"What--" Something smashed into him from behind, and then he was flying, losing connection to the ground as he hurtled through the air. Cold spikes of pain jabbed at his shoulders, tearing through his gear. He hit the ground hard. His vision flashed red and green as he spat blood onto the dusty ground, the air knocked out of his lungs. 

A shadow loomed over him. He frowned up at a tentacled demon, the barbed suckers on its appendages dripping gently with his own blood. "Cheap shot," he grumbled, levering himself to his feet and drawing a seraph blade. Behind his adversary he could see Simon slowly getting to his knees, a hand clamped over the rune on his neck. 

Good. Izzy would've killed me if I let him die on my watch, Alec thought. He tried to banish all thought of Simon's parabatai rune from his mind; if it was still there, that meant Clary was still alive. But younger Clary--the demon lunged. Alec ducked a second too late and felt its tentacle draw a bloody line down his scalp. He swore and raised his sword--

The cavern ceiling exploded. 

Chunks of rock rained down in almost slow motion, stalactites crashing down in a beautiful, deadly rain. The sword lowered in Alec's hand as he craned his neck upwards, mouth open in shock. Around him, the fighting rippled to a halt in concentric circles, adversaries stilling to look up at the source of the noise. 

His brain struggled to compute. Hundreds of feet above the battlefield, a perfect sphere of blue sky showed between the rocky edges of the hole. White light was streaming down in gentle rays around the edge, too pale to be the sun. The overall effect was that of an eye; a massive, emotionless blue iris, weeping tears of light from beyond the depths of the Silent City. 

Alec's eyes watered from the brightness of the light after so long in the sweltering dark. He squinted at the hole and felt his heart kick into high gear: between the crown of rays a figure was coming into being, coalescing from the rainbow sparks. Alec's lips parted slowly in a long, drawn-out gasp as wings spread across the sky, their feathers holding all the light of the world. Alec felt a thrill in his blood, the spark of angelic fire surging to life. He fell to his knees; the blade clattering out of his hand, its light paled by the radiance above. 

Across the field, the other Nephilim knelt, the movement sweeping across the cavern field. The demons stood frozen, their eyes bulging, their dark appendages still raised mid-attack. The light swelled above; Alec thought wildly of a verse he'd read in the Bible many years ago: "the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."

He'd seen an angel before. Magnus had raised Raziel himself to bargain for the fire of Heaven; but Alec had never seen an angel freely, of its own volition. He'd also never seen more than one at a time. But now they were pouring down like rain, the sky crowding with wings. The column of light was threaded with the forms of angels. 

"Fear not," the angels said, speaking in perfect unison. Their voices were more beautiful than any sound created by man; they seemed to ring on forever. "Lift your heads, warriors. We have come to aid our children in their time of struggle. Long have we watched and waited as battles waxed and waned upon the surface of the earth, but at last the ancient treaty has been broken. The daughter of the Angel has proved you all worthy and opened the way of Heaven."

Alec looked up at the host of Heaven. The angels had never once interfered in the lives of Nephilim, had never offered aid or lent a hand when things seemed darkest. We must be really screwed, he thought beneath his awe. The angels were close enough now that he could feel the wind from their wings; they glittered so fiercely that tears ran down his face from their light. They were armed for war; helmets of copper and gold gleamed on their heads and spears of white-hot radiance pulsed in their hands. Horses with metallic coats stamped fiery hooves in midair, their silver traces lashed to chariots that floated inexplicably on the currents.

"Rise, children," the angels commanded. "This is to be the greatest battle of an age, and you shall not fight it alone. Rise! you must offer all you have to the service of the light." 

Alec stood slowly. This all felt like a dream, like a far-fetched dream from someone else's life. He found his sword in his hand somehow, reflecting the light of the angels above. They were drifting to earth now, leaving scorch marks in the ground from their heat. Beneath the metal of their armor they seemed only semi-corporeal, made more of ether than of flesh and blood. An angel settled beside Alec, so close that he could see every detail on its helmet. It shone so brilliantly in the corner of his eye that he was almost blind, even when he turned his gaze forward to the bulk of the demonic army.

"Have courage," the angel next to him whispered, although her mouth did not move. "You are not alone." Alec swallowed and half-nodded as the rest of the angels took their places in the army; there must have been hundreds of them scattered throughout the Nephilim's forces. At their head floated the brightest of all, his helmet and arms of pure gold instead of copper or silver. 

"Ready yourselves," the angel said. His spear rose into the air, a bright streak like a shooting star. Alec stared at the opposing forces. They had never seemed so large or so dark to him before now that their opposites stood amongst the Nephilim's army. 

The spear lowered. The armies charged.

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Was the angels' entrance a little lame? I kind of forgot that the battle was taking place underground so. . .