Page 77 of Hell Hath No Fury (Tear Down Heaven #4)
“Don’t make me do this,” she warned through clenched teeth. “I swear on Gilgamesh’s name, you’ll all suffer for centuries if you make me do this!”
When the silent demons still didn’t respond, the queen threw up her three remaining functional arms.
“On your heads be it, then!” she roared. “By my own sacred name, I, Dalanea the Fortress, Queen of War and Shield of Ishtar, command you to strike down the Coward Queen! Do it now or slit your own throats in shame!”
Just like when Nemini had invoked her name earlier, the force of the queen’s command shook the Hells to their foundation.
Even Bex was knocked sideways, losing her grip on the Blade of War, who immediately flew back to his queen.
War caught her sword with a triumphant look, cradling her still-healing top right arm to her bronze chest as she waited for her people to tackle Bex to the ground, but it didn’t happen.
The tower was still rattling with the force of her command, but the war demons made no move to attack or to slit their own throats.
They turned away from their queen instead, giving her their backs so she couldn’t see whose mouth was moving when one of them said, “No.”
It sounded like it had taken everything the demon had to force that one word out, but War’s pitted bronze face still snapped toward the sound like a hunting snake.
“Who said that?” she demanded, her mismatched eyes shining in murderous fury as they darted around the room.
“What blasphemous soon-to-be- corpse dares defy their queen?”
“You’re no queen of ours,” growled a different war demon, one who sounded much closer this time.
“You have no crown,” added another. “You gave up your horns to Gilgamesh!”
“We’re all slaves because of you!” cried a third.
“You made us traitors!” yelled a towering demon, who actually turned around, meeting his queen face-to-furious-face as he bared his flat teeth. “All the other demons hate us, and for what? We still have to slave for the gods-dammed warlocks!”
That must have been the final straw. They’d had to force the words out at the start, but now that they were going, every demon in the tower was suddenly shouting at the top of their lungs.
The Queen of War shouted back, but for the first time, her voice was not the loudest, because she was no longer their only queen.
Bex was still burning like a welding torch with the power of the rage they’d offered to her, and while she had no horns to raise or name to invoke, she was still a daughter of Ishtar.
One the demons of War respected far more than the traitor who’d sold them to their greatest enemy .
Bex wasn’t sure which of those factors was the tipping point, but the balance of power was definitely swinging. The more openly the war demons defied her, and the longer the Queen of War was unable to make them stop, the weaker she became.
It was something that never should have happened to a queen, but like the war demons themselves had just said, she wasn’t a queen anymore.
She still had her original body and name, but there was no crown atop her wavy bronze hair.
The powers she’d used in the fight came from her own innate ability as Ishtar’s greatest soldier just as Bex’s flames belonged to her alone, but the authority to command demons was different.
That came only from Ishtar herself, and since she’d already given up her horns to Gilgamesh, War was forced to borrow her own sovereignty back from him.
That made her little better than a warlock, and, just like a warlock, there seemed to be a limit to how many demons she could command.
One or two were easy to crush, but a whole military unit in rebellion was more than her secondhand authority could handle.
Bex could actually see her bronze body shaking in fear as a squad of fearsome-looking war demons broke off from the main crowd and stomped up the stairs to grab their former queen.
Bex was happy to get out of their way. It was obvious by now that this was no longer her fight.
Even her flames were settling down as the war demons reclaimed their wrath for themselves.
She was worried when they got within range of Havok’s sword—no matter how weak a daughter of Ishtar became, Enki’s blades could still bite—but War didn’t even take a swing.
Before a single demon actually got close enough to make a grab for her, the defeated queen thrust her still-healing right hand into the air.
“ Gilgamesh! ” she cried in a terrified voice. “ Great King, save your loyal servant! ”
Bex jumped to stop her the second she saw what was happening, but she was already too late. Gilgamesh’s teleport ban must not have extended to himself, because the moment the disgraced Queen of War yelled his name, an enormous golden bell rang out like a bomb blast.
The wave of sound knocked everyone, including Bex, to the ground.
By the time she rolled back up, the Queen of War had already grabbed hold of the scarred, masculine hand that had appeared out of the empty air above her.
It was the same hand Bex had seen when Gilgamesh showed up to snatch the Princess of Greed’s hand out of her fingers the first time she’d fought a prince in Adrian’s forest. Now as then, though, there was nothing she could do.
The moment the Queen of War’s bronze fingers touched Gilgamesh’s, she vanished into thin air, leaving Bex leaping at nothing.
She hit the ground where War had just been with a frustrated scream, pounding her empty fists against the broken stone. She was still trying to catch her breath when another hand appeared in front of her face. A big bronze one that belonged to an even bigger bronze demon.
“Great Queen,” he said, lowering his horns in reverence. “Allow me to help you up.”
Bex didn’t need help, but it felt rude to refuse, so she grabbed his hand and let the demon pull her back to her feet. As she went up, though, everyone else in the room went down, leaving Bex standing on a broken battlement in front of hundreds of kneeling war demons.
“Honored Queen of Wrath,” said the kneeling demon who’d helped her up, whom she just now noticed had an official-looking sash draped across his bronze shoulders.
“I am Roga, captain of security for the Upper Hells. The soldiers in this tower are under my command, and I now surrender them to you so that you may render judgment.”
“Judgment?” Bex repeated, confused. “What would I judge you for?”
The bowing demon lifted his horns just enough to give her a nervous look. “We turned against our queen,” he explained. “We have broken the oldest law of our kind. You were the one who should have dealt with her, not us.”
“I was dealing with her,” Bex reminded him, relaxing a little now that she understood the problem.
“But I stopped when the rest of you spoke up because you deserved that victory more than I did. You say you broke the law, but the Queen of War broke faith first when she turned her sword on the people she’d been made to protect.
She betrayed her goddess and behaved in a manner unworthy of her sacred name, so it is my judgment that you acted rightly. ”
That should’ve been obvious to everyone, but proper old demons like this Roga always liked for things to be spelled out formally. Sure enough, the captain looked enormously relieved when she finished. All the war demons did, though not enough to stop bowing.
“Thank you for your respect,” Bex said, doing her best not to sound impatient. “But if you really want to honor me, go help my people. They’re evacuating into the Hell of War through a hole we blew in the ceiling.”
Roga jolted upright. “You blew a hole through the Hells?” he cried before he remembered himself and ducked his horns again. “How was such a thing possible?”
“It was pretty simple, actually,” Bex told him with a smile.
“Gilgamesh’s power isn’t as absolute as he likes to pretend.
As you all proved just now when you defied your queen, most of his control depends on us being too scared or beaten down to challenge him.
That’s how men like him work, but we’re not his cowards any longer.
Just as you threw off your queen, we can throw all of Heaven off our backs, but we have to work together. ”
The big war demon nodded. “Then we shall do whatever we can. I know the word of a traitor doesn’t carry much weight, but we—”
“War demons aren’t traitors,” Bex interrupted.
“You’re soldiers of the Riverlands and Children of Ishtar just like the rest of us.
Kirok gave his life to prove that, and I will honor his name and sacrifice.
I refuse to hold you responsible for what your queen made you do, and I humbly ask the people of War for help. ”
“And we are happy to offer it,” Roga said, rising to his feet at last. “Where are your people?”
Bex’s mouth made it all the way open before she realized she didn’t actually know.
She’d been so focused on burning her tunnel, she hadn’t actually looked to see which part of the ceiling Iggs was blasting.
She was still scrambling to come up with something useful to say when Adrian came to her rescue.
“It’s on the far western edge,” he said as he pushed through the crowd toward her. “Directly above the exit for the Lust banishment gate into the Middle Hells.”
That sounded like a great description to Bex, but the war demon captain was glaring at Adrian even harder than he’d glared at the Queen of War.
“My queen,” he whispered, reaching for one of the many swords strapped to his waist. “This man is—”
“I know,” Bex said quickly. “But it’s fine. Adrian’s an involuntary prince who hates Gilgamesh as much as we do.” She smiled at her witch, who was still elbowing his way toward her. “I couldn’t have made it here without him.”