God's Demon

Chapter Fifteen

The flight to the border with Sargatanas, Faraii, and Valefar had been quick and easy. War had been imminent for some time, and Sargatanas had had his chosen troops in place long enough for their camp to be well dug in. Upon landing, Faraii headed off to join his Shock Troopers, while Sargatanas and Valefar joined the staff that had gathered beside a conjuring pit. Eligor, wings twitching in anticipation, volunteered to reconnoiter and chose six flyers from the Flying Corps. They took to the air and, after a few dozen wing beats, Eligor realized just how much he enjoyed being in his lord’s service at a time as important as this.

Looking down through a heavy mist upon the remnants of the border outpost, Eligor saw Astaroth’s Demolishers chewing their way through the remaining low buildings. Broad-backed and flattened, each slow-moving creature was, in reality, hundreds of souls compressed together to form nothing more than a giant mobile digestive tract. Myriad enlarged mouths bit off large sections of soul-brick wall and masticated them into pulp. Eligor saw the ruddy haze kicked up by the destruction and the long, straight reddish mounds that trailed behind them, the excreted remains of processed souls. The mounds extended for hundreds of spans, all the way back, he guessed, to the edge of the ward. The slickened ground they left behind was scoured and bloody, smooth and featureless.

The lower he and his half-dozen lightly armed scouts flew, the more distinctly he could see the buildings twisting upon their foundations in a futile effort to protect themselves and hear them crying out. When he had witnessed Demolishers in the past, Eligor had felt a sort of pity for those soul-bricks, mostly, he thought, based upon their complete defenselessness. The wailing only heightened this.

He flew on until he spotted the carpet of slowly marching soldiers that was Astaroth’s army. Glyph-commands sprang up from its officers, guiding the Demolishers, opening the front so the legions could advance. Eligor counted twelve full legions but due to the mist could not find any evidence of Astaroth’s Flying Corps. The more Eligor peered into the concealing clouds, though, the more convinced he was of their presence.

Eligor turned his flight back toward the massed legions of Sargatanas’ advance army. A virtual legion of fleet mounted decurions had been dispatched with utmost haste to the region’s lava-fields to conjure an army as quickly as possible in immediate defense of the distant ward. They had been marvelously successful; arrayed like a vast checkerboard, they only awaited orders to march on the invaders. Eligor knew that, once engaged, these few legions would serve as a delaying force until Sargatanas could bring his approaching ground army to bear.

Eligor descended and swooped in low over the legions, seeking his master’s personal sigil amidst the many glowing unit commanders’ emblems. He found the glowing emblem and, beneath it, his lord standing next to his mount discussing the terrain with the Decurion Primus, a scarred, battle-hardened commander named Gurgat. The one-armed veteran seemed just as interested in Eligor’s findings as his lord.

“It is just as you thought, my lord,” the Captain of the Guard said. “The town of Maraak-of-the-Margins is almost gone. Its inhabitants are scattered. A full dozen Demolishers have seen to that. Behind them is Astaroth’s entire army; he is gambling everything on this move.”

“He feels he has nothing to lose,” Sargatanas said gravely, shaking his head. “We must show him that, in fact, he has everything to lose. Gurgat, rouse the legions. I have orders to issue. It is finally time for this to begin.”

The Decurion Primus mounted a waiting soul-beast and trotted off. Already shrill horns could be heard. Sargatanas turned to Eligor. “I want my old friend Astaroth taken alive, Eligor. I have said as much to Valefar and Faraii as well. It is the least I can do for him. But as for his army, it must be annihilated to a demon.”

“I understand, Lord.”

A red, permeating blood-haze from the Demolishers hung low and heavy above the glistening rubble, making it difficult to see their looming forms as well as their relentless progress. Only Astaroth’s protective guiding seals hovering over them could be seen easily, each slowly growing as they drew nearer. Eligor could hear the siege creatures masticating their way through buildings and streets alike, the cacophony of their thousand jaws mingling with the sound of crumbling walls and the diminishing cries of the bricks. The metallic tang of the pulverized souls’ blood upon the hot air reached Eligor’s nose. The winds were, largely, heading obliquely to them; otherwise they, like the landscape before them, would have been stained red from the mists.

Eligor looked at Sargatanas, who stood, impassive, as if rooted to the ground. His unblinking eyes were fixed upon the vaguely seen Demolishers. The plates of his face shifted, reconfiguring his visage into a rigid series of bony planes, barbed and heavily textured. Where there had been eight eyes only three remained, and these were mostly hidden behind protective sclerotic armor.

“Enough of this,” he said softly, almost to himself. “They are close enough.”

Sargatanas raised both hands and a blue effulgence grew between the floating horns above his head. It drew together, growing brighter, and became a quickly rotating ball composed of a dozen tiny repeated glyphs. Eligor could not discern their meaning, but in moments it became clear. The ball split apart and each twisted symbol sped away like a blue-flamed arrow shot at the center of each Demolisher’s glyph. With a crackle of electricity audible even from where they stood, Sargatanas and his legion watched the short but fierce struggle for control that ensued. One by one the blue glyphs disassembled the great fiery-orange seals of Astaroth, casting aside and extinguishing the component glyphs until nothing remained to protect the lumbering Demolishers. Eligor saw the first tendrils of jagged blue lightning scratch at their backs, setting them aflame. It took only a few seconds before all of them were burning. Then, nearly simultaneously, they arched their backs in spasms of pain and burst apart, ripped into glowing chunks that tumbled into the few standing buildings, causing them, in turn, to explode.

A roar of approval rose from behind Eligor and Sargatanas as the front lines of the legions saw the empty expanse of terrain that now lay before them.

Sargatanas mounted his soul-beast and unsheathed the sword named Lukiftias-pe-Ripesol, Light of Heaven. With a flourish of the blade, he and the legions behind began to advance. Eligor and his chosen Guards spread their wings and took up position above him, measuring their wing beats so as not to outpace their lord.

Eligor saw Faraii and his troopers running to create a wedge in front of their lord. As big as they were, they ran easily, powerfully, their thick ax-hands swinging low at their sides. Eligor, remembering Faraii’s ceaseless training, now admired their discipline and their merciless teacher for it.

The legions’ steady tramp could be heard—almost felt—as high as Eligor flew. He banked to the left, coming around until he was over the left wing cavalry, a full brigade of troops who referred to themselves as the Spirits. Eligor had been told, long ago, that this name was out of deference to the souls they rode and bonded with. Now, led by Valefar on the one side and his tribune, Karcefuge, on the other, those expertly ridden souls were walking slowly, matching pace with the center legions. Eligor knew, even without flying there himself, that on the right wing an identical brigade was advancing, lance-hands seated, in a similar fashion.

Returning to the center of the line, he saw Sargatanas issue the command-glyph to halt, a great glyph that rose high, vertically like a banner, so that all could see it; his army was more than halfway to where Eligor knew Astaroth’s many legions waited. Eligor circled lower, keeping his eyes fixed on his lord, watching him prepare for the battle to come. Seated upon his plodding war steed, Sargatanas composed himself, chin down, hands upon the flexing sword that lay atop his saddle, his back straight. He seemed relaxed and Eligor saw him fade into a state with which he could not identify, a state that, undoubtedly, balanced the phantom armies in his mind that needed his commands and the physical armies in the field that needed his sword arm.

Sudden puffs of hot, spark-laden vapor vented from Sargatanas’ flared nostrils, blown out in short, sharp exhalations; some decision had been reached. A few small glyphs appeared above him, blossoming larger and heading off toward the troops. Dozens of horns, made hollow and eerie from the distance, acknowledged their receipt. These were just the beginning of a fountain of glyphs, a fiery cascade of orders that Eligor knew would flow from his master as long as the battle lasted, whether he was engaged in combat or not. Such were the manifold powers of a Demon Major that he could split his awareness, enabling him to wield the legions as he did his own sword. As the armies converged and the glyphs came more rapidly, Eligor grasped his lance more tightly, grateful that he had only to fight.

Much to his disgust, Adramalik found himself accompanying the Duke Fleurety and his ten legions well to the rear of Astaroth’s army, there, he knew, more as a symbol of support than a perceived weapon of final resort in the event that things went badly. Marching behind the ragtag legions, he mused that it was more than likely that he would not see action, that Astaroth’s army would be obliterated quickly, leaving the demons of Dis to simply fade away to do the Prince’s bidding. Adramalik could see that this army of Astaroth’s was as poorly trained as it was ill equipped. Most would undoubtedly perish against one of Sargatanas’ relatively small but well-trained border armies. Fleurety, empowered with a seal from the Prince, would step in and assume control in the Prince’s name of the old demon’s wards while Astaroth would be offered exile in Dis—a choice even he could not be foolish enough to dismiss. And after Astaroth had been escorted back to Dis, after he had fulfilled his master’s misbegotten sense of honor, Adramalik vowed to ask Beelzebub to send someone else on these kinds of official missions. His place was with his Knights, not serving as escort to an impotent lord. For now, Adramalik rode next to the Duke and off in the distance Astaroth and his army etched their fate upon the ash-gray ground with each footstep.

The two lines met with a thunderous impact, like that of many massive stones colliding. Eligor saw the long, continuous point of contact flicker with the incessant sparking of tempered-stone weapons upon tempered-stone armor.

Sargatanas, Eligor saw, was keeping his troops’ line taut, neither advancing nor falling back. The demon lord, protected by Faraii and his enormous Shock Troops, had moved slowly toward the front line of his legions while Valefar and Karcefuge were keeping the Spirits in place.

A shroud of smoky ash began to ascend where the two armies met, blanketing their frenzied ferocity in gray and muffling, somewhat, the clash of arms. Astaroth’s legions fought with an urgency born, Eligor suspected, of the awareness that uncompromising annihilation lay in defeat. There would be no prisoners, no demons left standing to swear allegiance to a new lord. Astaroth had removed that conjured element—that possibility of shifting allegiances—from their seals of obedience. He had committed them that completely in his final cast of the die.

Eligor saw the distant Great Seal of Astaroth dimly through the pall and knew that beneath it that that lord was guiding his army. And for the thousandth time, he wondered how one as great as he could have let his realm sink so far. Turning his gaze behind Sargatanas, he saw his own Guard, lances and shields in hand. Five hundred strong, they awaited his orders with eyes trained upon him, gleaming eagerly.

Sargatanas broke Eligor’s momentary reverie. “I do not trust the air to my next command, Eligor. I must be beyond careful when facing Astaroth; he taught me so many of my command-glyphs. Fly to Valefar then, and to Karcefuge as well, and tell them to advance, to draw up the ends of our line.”

With a nod, Eligor took wing and sped over the five legions between the center and Valefar. He hovered beside the bone-armored Prime Minister, momentarily admiring his effortless handling of the giant soul-steed.

“Valefar, Sargatanas wishes you to begin drawing up the wings.”

“Is Astaroth where we want him?”

“Yes, if he does not alter his position at his army’s center he will be enfolded.” Eligor paused, looking out at the chaos of the battlefield ahead. “It will be sad to see him under these circumstances, Valefar.”

“True, but he will survive. I am to escort him back to Adamantinarx on Sargatanas’ orders.”

“It will be a quiet journey.”

Valefar looked down, frowning. “I had not thought of that.”

He shook his head and then, unseating his pike, spurred his mount with the two large spikes on the insides of his boots, and beast and rider leaped forward. Eligor raised his hand and waved Valefar on. The Spirits around him were whining, straining to break into a gallop, and in a few short strides got their wish.

They are advancing too fast, too far. Reckless. What is he thinking?

Adramalik could barely see the rear guard of Astaroth’s army as it disappeared across the gray-olive skin of the field and into the haze, and while Duke Fleurety could have issued an order to keep up, he seemed disinclined. So began the betrayal. Just as well, reasoned Adramalik. There was no place for fat upon the bones of Hell. Astaroth, and what was left of his army, would be absorbed by the urban body of Dis.

Reports had been coming in since the two armies had engaged each other. Sargatanas’ destruction of his own town—a bold move after the Demolishers’ elimination—had been a surprise, his ruthlessness commendable. And now, when he could have dashed into the unknown and attempted to overrun Astaroth, Sargatanas’ restraint was proving admirable. It would be interesting to watch him perform upon this field. The Chancellor General smiled inwardly; Sargatanas could be an enjoyable opponent if it ever came to it. But for now, at least, Adramalik knew the Prince had no interest in confronting him.

As he flew back, after conveying his lord’s message to Karcefuge, Eligor saw that the air had grown thick with the gyrating bodies of fighting demons. Both forces had waited until the sky was heavy with smoke to throw their flyers up into the air, an effort to conceal their true numbers. In Astaroth’s case it was a prudent measure; it seemed he could not field more than a legion of the winged soldiers, and this he broke up to create the illusion of greater numbers. But it was this very tactic that spelled their destruction as Sargatanas’ flyers chopped them into even smaller groups until they were no more, raining their crumbling limbs down upon the combatants below.

Nearing Sargatanas’ position, Eligor saw three winged forms drop down around him. He pulled up and saw that it was an officer—a Demon Minor—and his aides. They were in a grievous state, their wings tattered and weapons notched, but Eligor knew better than to think of them as anything but a serious threat. Even with his many battle-earned wounds, the officer—whose sigil proclaimed him as Scrofur—was an imposing demon bearing massive horns upon his shoulders and dozens of tiny, luminous eyes that spattered his face like blood-drops.

Eligor cowled the two small neck-wings about his head protectively and slitted his eyes, studying the two aides for a brief instant. They would have to be dealt with first and quickly.

He grasped his lance and threw it vertically as hard as he could. The three demons, jaws agape, stared up at it for just long enough for Eligor to raise his hands and create two destructive glyphs—glyphs that Sargatanas had taught him—which he fired into the bony torsos of the flanking aides. They each looked down in amazement as a livid fiery script from within burst them apart. With a snarl, Scrofur leveled his halberd and attacked, and Eligor, with the deftness and assurance of one well practiced, reached out and felt his descending lance slide into his waiting hand. Dodging sideways, he parried, evaded the other’s strike, and lashed out, feeling his jagged blade tear satisfyingly at the officer’s wings. It was not a painful wound, but it was a telling one. The Demon Minor lurched and spun as his wings tried to compensate for their sudden loss of effectiveness. He stabbed out desperately and caught Eligor under his cowl and behind the ear-hole, chipping the bone and causing him to wince and pull back.

Shaking his head, Eligor twisted back in and determinedly focused on his opponent’s wings, slicing and tearing while evading the hurricane of blows that Scrofur was dealing. As they fought they both dropped lower and lower toward the battling legionaries below, who reached up with their pole arms in a vain effort to hook the demons. Ribbons of slashed wing-flesh gathered and swirled around Astaroth’s officer as he tried to stay out of Eligor’s lance’s reach, but the inevitability of the fight must have been apparent to him. Wings beating twice as hard as his opponent’s, Scrofur’s breath came out in great, stentorian coughs.

With a move as graceful as it was deadly, Eligor whirled and severed one of Scrofur’s wings at the elbow-joint. Pulling his lance free, he stabbed again at the reeling demon, thrusting unerringly and deeply into the demon’s gaping heart-hole. Amidst a blaze of ruby light Scrofur began to collapse into himself, shrinking and compacting until he was nothing more than a hand-sized flattened disk adorned with his frozen face and glowing sigil. Teeth bared in a smile, Eligor snatched at the tumbling trophy and, holding it tightly to his breast, watched as it fused to his bone breastplate—a permanent phalera imbued with the powers that had been Scrofur’s.

Eligor paused, wings beating slowly, and breathed in deeply. A palpable ripple of pleasure warmed him, causing him to relax momentarily. As he dropped even farther, three heavy, hooked pole arms came up to greet him from Astaroth’s legionaries waiting below and he immediately flapped his wings hard, shooting upward.

Dodging knots of winged combatants, he flew back to his lord. The front line had slowly bowed backward, not, he knew, because of Astaroth’s legions’ ferocity but because Sargatanas had ordered it so. The mounted Spirits had curved around behind the enormous force of enemy legions and were driving them in upon themselves. Pushed irresistibly together, their formations mingled, losing cohesion. And facing them in the now-inflexible shield-wall of Sargatanas’ army, poised like an arrow at their breast, were Faraii’s troops, honing their ax-hands upon their rough greaves and bellowing in anticipation of the slaughter to come.

From a few hundred feet away Eligor spotted Sargatanas, falcata in hand, a dark form limned in the fiery light of his Great Seal, standing against a backdrop of fluttering banners. Watching with unwavering attentiveness the battle unfolding and without turning toward him, the Demon Major issued Eligor his flying orders.

He assumed his place at the head of a giant wedge of his Flying Guard and ordered them to drop down. The five hundred closely packed flying demons swooped over the middle of Astaroth’s confused legions, harrying them with their long lances from above. Eligor heard the shrill whine of arrows passing close to him. He saw a wavering sheet of another flight, poorly arrayed, arc up from behind the enemy legions only to bounce ineffectively off his and his demons’ shields. He could not tell if they had been aimed at his troops or Sargatanas’ but saw few gaps in his lord’s legions below.

Diving headlong, Eligor led his troops into a slashing attack designed to help the Spirits gut the rear forces of Astaroth’s middle legion. Stabbing lances and weighted sinew nets reached up from the enemy troops in a vain attempt to claw his demons from the sky, but the Guard was far too well trained to fall victim to these tactics and, with wings flapping furiously, darted into their midst. His lance connected with both a standard-bearer and a legionary with a satisfying jolt, impaling and lifting them as one, and he watched them crumble away into falling piles of rubble that tumbled onto their comrades. He hovered, seeing how the ash blown up from his wings, and the Guard’s behind him, disoriented the enemy legionaries, and taking advantage of their confusion, he proceeded to spear one after another. The smoking rubble grew in mounds, making the footing treacherous for the enemy troops.

Eligor felt that long-missed exhilaration—the Passion, he called it—come over him; it had been a millennium, at least, since he had been in full combat.

With the Passion brought on by the cumulative brutal physicality of it all, he smiled as he thrust and jabbed and lost all sense of time. The battle-change was common enough—every demon he had ever spoken with had experienced it in some way, called it something. And every one had spoken of it with open yearning. Had the Fall changed them that much? He had often tried to remember if he had felt the same Passion during the War, fighting the Cherubim, the Seraphim, but found that he could not.

Eligor pulled back and up and watched his Guard slice into the legionaries again and again. Directly beneath him he saw a centurion’s head explode from the impact of a lance driven through his eye socket. And then, seconds later, one of Eligor’s own was pulled down and ripped apart. It was the give-and-take of war, something he was used to, but in this battle, he knew, there would be far more taking of life than giving. He watched rank after rank fall beneath the Guard’s lances, leaving a trail of rock worthy of a mountainside. As he had hoped, the enemy beneath him began to waver, with small clots of soldiers trying to protect their backs, nulling in tight clumps or striking out blindly. And better than that, some began to run forward pell-mell, trampling their comrades, pushing into the already-crowded legions ahead of them. It would take little time; the panic they had created in the rear of Astaroth’s formation would affect the entire army’s cohesion.

Still thrusting and parrying, Eligor made his way to his lieutenant, Metaphrax Argastos, a former cherub whose laconic demeanor was counterpoint to his exuberant bravery upon the battlefield. Like himself, the wiry many-tailed demon was caked in dark, smoking ash and was grinning as his wings beat furiously and his lance flashed.

“Metaphrax, assume command!” Eligor shouted. “I am going to return to Lord Sargatanas.”

Metaphrax, never losing concentration, nodded as Eligor’s superior glyph-of-command blended into his own. Eligor then picked two dozen demons to accompany him across the battlefield. Soaring fast and low away from his Guard, he plunged through the columns of smoke and ash that rose skyward from the line of battle, the clashing of arms below mixing with the ferocious bellowing of the combatants and filling the Captain of the Guard’s ears like a cantata of chaos.

For an instant he had seen, through the billowing ash, Lord Astaroth’s blue and shimmering Great Seal. Faraii’s troops, with orders to capture the enemy lord, had finally entered the fray, and Eligor, with his lord’s approval, had vowed that he would not miss that eventuality.

Eligor had never seen the Baron’s sword-work so eloquent, so deadly upon the battlefield. He had seen Faraii practice many times, even witnessed him in battle before, but this was something special. The Waste-wanderer’s black blade flitted from victim to victim fluidly, wielded by an artist of death with an eye trained like no other’s in Hell. And in contrast, behind him, his Shock Troopers’ axes hacked a wide avenue of destruction that left nothing but mounded stone and powder. They were as artless in their killing as Faraii was talented—his tutelage could never give them his elegance. Astaroth’s legionaries were chopped and tossed up above them as cleaved limbs and heads and torsos, only to bounce down upon their dark armor as rock to be crushed into black gravel beneath their heavy feet.

Did Astaroth know what fate was fast approaching? Eligor wondered. Surely he must. Or, seeing Sargatanas’ line bending, did Astaroth think he was winning the day? Anything was imaginable in the confusion of battle, especially when one was losing.

Eligor and his cohort of demons hung above Faraii, watching his progress as he carved his way toward Astaroth’s position upon a folded and veined rise. The Baron was always easy to find, the train of flames that licked out from his breastplate-vents lit all around him. From where he hovered, Eligor could actually see the tightening periphery, the noose of Sargatanas’ encircling army drawing tighter and leaving nothing alive outside of its confines. And, with grim fascination, Eligor watched Faraii’s demons stab deep into the body of the remaining enemy troops, plunging toward the heart that was Astaroth.

Eligor felt a hot wind gathering up from the south. Unimpeded upon the barren, now rock-strewn plain, it was gaining strength, and he saw in the distance that it brought with it heavy, dark clouds. He hoped that the battle would be over by the time they arrived; he would have to ground his flyers when the storm passed over.

The airborne demons passed through a broad, dense plume of smoke and were enshrouded in disorienting darkness. Command-glyphs sizzled past him, fiery arrows pointing his way out, and when Eligor burst into clear air it was only to realize just how close he was to the battle’s center.

The fighting had reached an intensity that he had rarely seen; Astaroth’s demons, true to their orders, were yielding only in death. Looking with admiration at Faraii, at the maelstrom he was within, Eligor excitedly realized that the battle’s end was nearly at hand. Hanging in the air no more than a hundred yards before him and his flyers was Astaroth’s blue-fire Seal, crackling with intensity, while, lit by its cool glow, the Baron and his demons were engaged with the Demon Major’s last defense, his implacable bodyguard. Dressed in their characteristic patterned and dyed skins, they fought to protect their lord with tiring sword arms, valiantly, grimly, and they fell where they stood, one after another, before the terrible onslaught.

Small pockets of demons fighting desperately in knee-high ash dotted the battlefield, but to all intents and purposes the battle was won; Sargatanas had easily carried the day.

A glyph sped into Faraii and Eligor read it; Sargatanas was on his way. Almost simultaneously the last of Astaroth’s bodyguards fell beneath Faraii’s sword and the Baron contemptuously lifted his iron-shod foot and crushed the upturned cleft face. The bodyguard crumpled inward, providing the Baron with yet another phalera to apply to his breast, she disdainfully shook the dust from his foot. And there stood the Great Lord Astaroth along with his sole remaining field marshal, Nebiros. The panting troopers, ax-hands hanging, surrounded them, creating a huge wall of dull, dark armor that contrasted with the pair’s tempered-topaz armor. Ash and grit were all that remained of Astaroth’s army, and it eddied around him in sere winds like a vortex of dark, disappointed ghosts.

He stood unbowed, head high, but to Eligor’s eyes the Great Lord looked hollow and tired. Ribbons of protective glyphs twined and wove about his body, and his face morphed continuously, uncontrollably. Only momentarily did Eligor see the old demon’s face as he remembered it, and it looked withered and gaunt. Astaroth looked at Nebiros and then down at the baton of command in his hands and, with the slightest shake of his head, knelt and proffered it to Faraii. Nebiros followed suit and remained kneeling, looking up at the Baron with undisguised resentment.

“A most remarkable performance, Baron Faraii,” Astaroth said, his voice dry and quiet. “You and your troops are a credit to your lord. Rarely have I seen such zeal. But then you are something of a legend in my wards… or what is left of them.”

“It is good to be highly regarded,” Faraii said with an air of confidence, snapping the two batons away from their owners.

“I did not say that, Baron. Rumors still abound since you departed my Wastes.”

Faraii’s eyes narrowed fractionally.

Astaroth took a deep breath and gathered himself. Eligor knew what would follow; he was familiar enough with the Ritual of Defeat. During Sargatanas’ campaigns he had witnessed it many times. “I must concede defeat,” Astaroth said, “and, as per the ancient Compact of Demons Major, I, Great Lord Astaroth, humbly ask you to bring me before your lord, the victorious Lord Sargatanas, that he may do with me as he will.”

Faraii, Eligor saw, was looking down, weighing the two batons in his hand. He turned and handed them to a hulking trooper. When Faraii returned his gaze to Astaroth it was with his black sword again in hand. With a lazy twist of his wrist he sliced Nebiros’ head from his shoulders. The breath caught in Eligor’s throat as he started forward. Giant Shock Troopers effectively blocked his and his flyers’ way. Eligor realized that even if he and his small cohort could take wing they could do nothing to prevent the inevitable. He could only bristle and watch impotently.

Patting the steaming Nebiros phalera in place upon himself, Faraii gazed for a moment at Astaroth. Faraii tilted his head like a stonemason regarding a block, envisioning it in its reduced form. He was an artist, after all.

“You have no intention of bringing me before Sargatanas, do you?”

Faraii paused. “No.”

“Are you no longer loyal to him?”

“His crusade is not mine.”

“Be careful, Baron. Remember what you see here at Maraak. When you are facing him across a battlefield.”

“Sound advice, indeed, from a broken, old demon. I will be doing Hell a favor by destroying you.”

Faraii backed up slowly, leaving Astaroth alone in the circle of Shock Troopers. Faraii caught Eligor’s eye, held it for an instant, and then turned away grinning. Whether it was upon a signal from the Baron or not Eligor never knew, but he saw the troopers set upon the kneeling demon with a fury. He closed his eyes. Their ferocious snarls and the sounds of the Great Lord’s demise lingered terribly in the air.

Eligor opened his eyes in time to see Astaroth’s Great Seal fade away. He saw that Faraii was nowhere to be seen and saw, too, his lord and Valefar arrive on foot, their gaze flashing over the scene.

“What is happening here?” Sargatanas said to Eligor over the din. “Where is Lord Astaroth?”

“He is no more, my lord. There was nothing I could do.”

Sargatanas’ eyes widened. “Who did this, Eligor? Who disobeyed me?”

Eligor’s insides twisted. The admiration, the loyalty, and the closeness he felt for Faraii were suddenly unclear. But his fealty to Sargatanas was not.

“My lord, Baron Faraii’s Shock Troopers committed the deed; the Baron did nothing to prevent it,” Eligor blurted, realizing his mistake immediately. “In his defense, however, he fought heroically; your goals could not have been achieved without him.”

“One of my goals, Captain, was Astaroth’s survival.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Where is the Baron, now?” said Sargatanas, probing the outside ranks of troopers. They had regained their feet, forming a circle once again, and stared sullenly at him, avoiding his eyes.

Sargatanas strode forward, falcata in hand, pushing brusquely, angrily, into the troopers. He was no Astaroth, weakened and old, but instead was capable of wondrous acts of carnage—a fact not lost on the assembled warriors. Not accustomed to being swept so easily aside, they reacted with baleful, hissing intakes of breath and nothing more.

Sargatanas found Faraii at the circle’s center crouched, with Astaroth’s disk in hand.

“Baron, what has happened here? Why have you disobeyed me?” The ominous rumble was unmistakable.

“My lord,” Faraii said, rising, “it was not I but my troops. They destroyed him.” He paused, shaking his head. “You did not see him… in the miserable condition he was in. My troops, in their overzealousness, did him… and you as well… a service by ending his life.”

“You decided this? On your own?” Sargatanas’ faceplates shifted, and even from where Eligor stood, he could see that the new configurations were threatening. Flames atop the demon’s head blossomed wildly.

“I neglected to give my demons explicit orders regarding his disposition; that is my fault.” Faraii’s free hand nervously played with the hilt of his sword. “But as I said, my lord, he was a broken figure… pathetic. He would have asked for that end… a noble end… if he had been thinking clearly. But clearly the battle’s outcome affected his—”

“So you did the thinking for him… and me as well.”

“His demise saved everyone much trouble.”

“Not yourself, however. You will return immediately to Adamantinarx, where you will consider yourself confined to your chambers. Only your exemplary past service to me is keeping you alive, Faraii.” He reached out and plucked the disk from Faraii’s hand.

The Baron dropped to one knee, saluted, and rose. Without a backward glance he walked stiffly through his troopers, who, in turn, filed away with him.

“Valefar,” Sargatanas said, “you and Eligor are done here. Send the legions on to Askad. I must remain and go in and secure Astaroth’s wards. Or what is left of them.”

Valefar nodded and sent out the command.

Sargatanas regarded the Astaroth disk, holding it tightly, and sighed. And then, with reverential solemnity, he put the disk to his breast, where, with a bluish glow, it fused.

Many hours passed before Adramalik felt he could approach the place where, from afar, he had seen Astaroth destroyed. The Duke had already withdrawn and was heading back to Dis via a discreet route, and Sargatanas’ legions were well into Astaroth’s wards.

The Chancellor General walked with some difficulty through the turbulent darkness of the storm, its winds seeming to delight in gusting the knee-high ash up into his face. The only sound upon the once-tumultuous battlefield was that of the wind-driven grit that pelted his bony armor. He climbed the cairn that he had watched Sargatanas’ troops build from the rubble of dead legionaries and stared up at the commemorative sigil that hung above it. It had been a marvelous victory, one worthy of his own lord—complete in its outcome, merciless in its devastation. Faraii’s performance had been incredible; Beelzebub would have to know how adept he was. And just how brilliant a commander Sargatanas had become. A foe to be reckoned with for sure, Adramalik mused.

On the positive side, Adramalik reasoned, at least he did not have to shepherd that ridiculous old demon all the way back to Dis.

Again he looked up at the luminous sigil. Maudlin sentimentality, he thought. Perhaps that and that alone was Sargatanas’ greatest weakness.