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"Form up! Form up, yer useless shower of bastards!" Hastur roared at his legions.
Beside him Ligur was giving much the same inspirational instruction. The battle wasn't going well, not well at all, though Hastur had to admire the sneaky, dirty, low-down methods of Heaven. Alliance with creation was a good idea, he thought. It was just a pity the Prince hadn't thought of it first. He looked round guiltily, but no one seemed to be listening. The main problem was that Hell's engineers had done a lot of work refining the siege machinery and the hand-held weapons. Heaven, though, had just provided raw materials and let human ingenuity do the rest.
Hell had immense, ornate cannon and beautifully made swords, spears and crossbows. The hosts of Heaven and Earth had fully automatic demon-killing rifles.
"If we make a good push frew their flank there, we can mebbe make it to one of Hell's entrances. Pandaemonium's all set up for a siege --" Hastur said to his captains, only to be interrupted by a squawk beside him. Ligur fell, one wing trailing uselessly. "Fuck!" Hastur shrieked and folded his wings for a dive. His captains grabbed at him.
"My lord!" one screamed. "Don't go!"
"Your Grace, we'll get Duke Ligur!" another yelled. "What are your orders?"
Ligur was a receding white spot far beneath. Hastur looked around him at the angels who'd trusted him too much once long ago, and who looked like they still hadn't worked out he wasn't someone to be trusted. The enemy was drawing nearer. He looked from anxious face to face, and back down where Ligur had fallen.
"Flee!" he shouted. "The battle's fuckin' lost! Save yourselves! Flee!"
He tore himself free and flattened his wings against his back, shooting down faster than gravity would allow. Distraught cries came from above. He risked a look back to see them forming up, like they wanted to cover his escape. Fools, he thought. Why ain't you getting' out of there? He could see something white ahead now, about the size of a seabird, looking like it was hanging motionless above a field of blue. He put some speed on.
Just before Ligur hit the water, Hastur grabbed one of his wings and hauled him into a death-grip embrace. It seemed to wake Ligur out of whatever daze he'd been in, given the way he started screaming.
"Shurrup! I got you!" Hastur said. He flew just above the water, not liking their odds if they flew high.
"My wing!" Ligur moaned. "My fucking wing!"
"Yeah. I ain't never letting you fly again wivout wearing one of them parachute things."
"What happened?" Ligur gasped. "Did we break through? Where's our soldiers?"
"Shurrup," Hastur said again. After a while he said, "They're not coming. They stayed behind to give me a chance to catch you. I told 'em to go, but they didn't."
Ligur went very still. Then, "You left my boys up there?" he hissed.
"Mine too," Hastur said. "Mine too. We're getting out of this, Ligur. We're running."
"You're a fucking traitor," Ligur said in astonishment.
Hastur was just glad he didn't seem inclined to fight. Ahead a dot resolved itself rapidly into a small island, not much more than sand and a few trees. A tropical paradise, Hastur thought, and kept a lid on the laughter that wanted to well up. He landed and put Ligur facedown as carefully as he could. He looked at the right wing with misgivings. The joint was broken, that was clear enough from the way half of the wing just hung there. What he didn't like was the black tendrils creeping through the white feathers. He touched the lowermost feathers gingerly and swore as they crumbled to ash.
"Can you heal yourself?" he asked.
Ligur gave him an impatient look. "I just fell thousands of feet for fun, is that what you think?" he snapped. "Fix me up, Hastur, quick, it's fucking agony."
Hastur put his hands above the break and concentrated. Nothing. The black was spiraling up, quicker now. Fucking human technology, he thought.
"Ligur," he said, "You got hit by something blessed. Just be glad it wasn't one of them holy water cannons Dagon's lads were going up against. But it's spreading, and it'll kill you."
"Fuck. Wotcher goin to do?"
Hastur dusted his hands off and carefully spread the wing out, materializing a rock under the upper bone so he'd have something to give him room to work with. He chose his spot and drew his sword.
"What? No!" Ligur shrieked. "Hastur –"
Hastur pushed him down with one foot on his shoulderblade, and raised his sword. "I'm really sorry, Ligur," he said and struck.
Ligur buried his face in the sand and howled. He howled again when Hastur conjured hell-fire against the wound to stop the gush of ichor. He didn't say much after that, even when he came to.
"We can hide out here," Hastur said. "This place is the middle of bleeding nowhere. When the fighting dies down we can make for Hell, or we can just go to ground on earth. There's lots of people on earth – who'd notice two more, eh?"
"We deserted," Ligur said wearily. "Everyone's goin' to be pissed off with us. And Heaven's not going to let us get away. We're not just random angels in the crowd, us." He hid his face behind his perfect wing, the draggled stump of the other hidden painfully behind him. "We don't even have mortal bodies," he said, muffled. "And no way of getting' them neither."
Hastur sat heavily beside him. He was right. Not that Hastur'd ever give him the satisfaction of saying that. He looked up at the cloudless sky, wondering what had happened to his legions, and wishing he hadn't left them to the mercies of Heaven. He frowned. There, against the sun – he knew those uniforms, though he hadn't seen them in a long while.
"Ligur," he said. "We got company coming in fast."
Ligur staggered to his feet. "I can't balance right," he said. "I'm a liability. You should go."
The angels were almost on them. If he was going to go, it had to be now. Hastur spat to one side.
"Ligur," he said, "You're a moron. Iffin I haven't gone in six thousand years, what makes you think I'm going now?" He kissed Ligur's filthy face and managed a fang-filled smile once he pulled their mouths apart. "Let's show 'em what they're facing."
Wounded and battle-weary, the Dukes of Hell turned to face the foe.