God's Demon

Chapter Twenty-Three

The furnace-breath of stinging cinders blew forcefully into the determined faces of Moloch’s legions as they streamed from their camp. Even with that and the vicious winds, Adramalik could not help but reflect on how much he thrilled at the unforgiving world he lived in. Kneeling next to his giant soul-steed, Adramalik washed his dusty hands in the red blood of an artery broken besides a fallen tree. This day, he thought, this day, to me, is what it means to live in Hell. The ash, the blood, the fires, and this battle—I am truly in my element!

As he savored the moment, he heard an enthusiastic shout go up from the front lines and carry back through the legions to his position; the summoned sulfurous wind had suddenly faded and ceased altogether; slowly the blackened veil lifted from the landscape. Adramalik saw more clearly now the two sheets of fire that extended on either side nearly to Sargatanas’ camp shimmering into the sky for hundreds of feet. A natural wonder, he thought, so beautiful. It seemed almost like a punctuation to complete his contentment, an ironic gift from his enemy. Moloch’s battlefield conjurors must have found a way to counter Sargatanas’ invocation. We can match anything he has to offer. We will crush him and his misguided army. And when we have finished him we will punish the wards of his allies.

For some minutes the two armies faced each other and the only sound was of the breathing of demons.

Drawing his saber from its scabbard, Adramalik swung lightly up into his saddle and pulled the reins until he was facing Moloch. You will be the instrument of my goals, Pridzarhim general, he thought, raising his sword in a perfunctory salute to the mounted general. Moloch, barely acknowledging him, cast a command-glyph in his direction and set off at a trot toward the head of the decamping army.

Absorbing the glyph, Adramalik closed his eyes, visualizing its meaning. The battle plan was relatively simple. Massed heavy cavalry, followed by the legions, would punch its way through the middle of Sargatanas’ lines, flank them, and return to split them into smaller and smaller blocks. The legions would then engage those pockets of disorganized infantry that fought on as he was certain they would. Having borne witness to Sargatanas’ battle with Astaroth, Adramalik had little doubt that the fighting would be fierce.

Around him he heard the thunder of a million footfalls as the heavy cavalry formed up and began to gain speed. He saw the innumerable banners of Dis, surmounted by the Prince’s fly-and-sigil device and attached to long lances, lower in anticipation of the final contact. With a word eagerly uttered, glyphs appeared along his sword’s tempered length, giving way to white-hot flames. While not even close in power to the swords of the Above, it was still more than most demons could withstand. Adramalik pulled his battalion alongside that of Moloch and off to his left, a few hundred yards away, he could just see that the general had lit his baton and was issuing commands, tightening the formation. He held both Hooks in one massive hand, at the ready.

Looking far ahead between the two camps, the Chancellor General saw what appeared to be a distant wall, low and long, and, he imagined, hastily thrown up. Behind it troops of some kind could be seen scurrying back and forth. Even though they were faintly illuminated by the suspended sheets of flame, he could not tell what kind of infantry they would be meeting shortly.

Moloch cast out the command to pick up speed and suddenly, at his urging, Adramalik’s soul-steed was galloping, racing over the ground-skin in huge, bounding bursts. Exhilarated, he watched as the distances between the armies rapidly closed. He could now plainly see the small figures, cowering in fear, he was sure, behind the wall, and to his complete astonishment he realized they were souls. By Abaddon’s Pit, this is unheard of! Bringing in dirty larvae to fight against demons! Directly behind them Adramalik thought he could discern a motley array of legions, including a few composed of pike-wielding demons—most likely Sargatanas’ phalangites. Is this all that he has brought to face us? The battle with Astaroth and the occupation of his wards must have stretched his resources more than I thought. The phalangites are tough veterans… but souls? How desperate is he?

As Adramalik and the speeding cavalry drew closer he began to see more and more legions waiting in the wings. Distant and without any demon’s sigil of possession, they were concealed within summoned smoke, he imagined with some dismay, so as not to alarm the onrushing forces of Moloch. Obscured by clouds in the far gloom, high above Sargatanas’ lines, Adramalik even thought he saw airborne troops, but he could not discern their numbers. And suddenly it seemed to him as if the day might not be won so handily.

With Metaphrax Argastos in command of his Flying Guard, circling overhead, Eligor felt at some ease accompanying Sargatanas to the front. There Eligor’s flyers would stay, concealed in the clouds, ready to pounce if and when needed.

His eyes fell upon the dark shapes of Baron Faraii’s Shock Troopers as they lumbered in a purposeful, ominous wedge ahead, parting the massed legions by their mere presence and making easy transit for his lord, Lord Valefar, and himself. The generals—Demons Major mostly—followed behind, and Eligor examined them in all their occult martial splendor, bedecked in their hardened armor and every manner of physical ornamentation. He paid particular attention to Lords Bifrons and Andromalius and finally to Lord Furcas, who hung closely by Sargatanas, looking concerned and somewhat uncertain. Eligor had not been privy to all of the intricacies of his lord’s plans but had enough of an awareness of the broad strokes to know the importance of the corpulent demon’s role.

Arriving at the front and protected by the Baron’s iron-eyed forces, the general staff saw the growing line of Moloch’s cavalry begin its advance, gathering speed in the distance. Above them tiny sigils flared to life and command-glyphs began to dart from officers to soldiers. As they passed silently along the length of the bordering walls of flame they caught the light in such a way, Eligor noted, as to make them look like a glowing, onrushing flow of lava—an illusion enhanced by the vaporous cloud of steam that trailed off them. It was an amazing spectacle and he decided that if he survived this battle, he would write down his impressions back in his chambers in Adamantinarx. Just to remember the day eons hence.

Eligor’s gaze moved down to the few hundred small figures crouched behind the newly erected wall. None had a weapon in hand, and because of this he imagined that their nervous tension regarding the onrushing cavalry must have been extreme. Yet they held still, each one a soul-centurion, each one awaiting the proper moment when he would be called upon to issue their all-important orders. That moment was not far off, the Captain reflected, as he just began to hear the rumble of footfalls across the plain. His keen eyes, the eyes of a flying demon, picked out the many scarlet-clad figures that he knew, from his trips to Dis, to be Knights of the Fly. And then his eyes fell upon the general at the head of the flowing carpet of cavalry. Reflexively, Eligor tightened his grip upon his lance.

A roar of raw hatred shattered the air, easily audible to all in the front ranks of the charging cavalry. Eager for battle, Moloch gave voice as he slowly drew ahead upon his leaping Melding. Adramalik saw long streamers of flame trailing from his head and saw, too, that his field-baton was no longer in his hand; the commands were already firmly in place. Instead he rode with both arms extended outward at his sides, the two Hooks twirling in his hands; he would welcome his enemy with an embrace of shearing oblivion.

Reluctantly acknowledging the general’s charisma, Adramalik began to feel the battle-ecstasy warm his own body, urging him to put the spurs to his charger. The battlefield around him became a blurred hurricane of sound and movement and fire with only the enemy ahead standing out in the sharpest detail. He focused on the olive-brown wall that now, oddly, appeared taller than he had first thought, but, undaunted, he galloped on.

The soul-steeds were howling wildly, a sound designed to wither the resolve of any enemy foolish enough to stand their ground. With a final rush, the cavalry closed the gap to the wall, and Adramalik saw an unusual and brilliant glyph flash upward from just behind Sargatanas’ front lines and thought, peripherally, that it was issued by either a Lord Bifrons or Furcas. Splitting, its duplicates dropped like stones into the small souls and impacted with a roar atop the wall. To Adramalik’s amazement, the wall rippled, began to geyser wisps of flame, and suddenly hundreds upon hundreds of arms extended from along its length. An instant later the upstretched hands of souls and bricks alike came alive with the glow of some kind of glyph-glove from which then blossomed what looked like fiery javelins. Adramalik could almost feel the collective disbelief of his fellow riders, a momentary wave of hesitation—more imagined than real—to which it was too late to pay attention.

For just the briefest moment, before the front rank of Dis’ heavy cavalry crashed against the wall, the Chancellor General had the impression that he was leaping into the hot-breathed mouth of some enormous prone Abyssal, its awful gums lined with long, fiery teeth. And then he saw that terrible beast’s teeth loose themselves and launch in short, fast arcs directly into the riders, aimed, it seemed, at the soul-beasts they rode. And as soon as the hands had released one incandescent javelin another appeared. Some immediately found their mark, penetrating deep into the breasts of the oncoming souls, disappearing with a brilliant, orange glow within their bodies, and cleaving them from within. Their bubbling screams of pain rose above the sounds of the battlefield as they turned and twisted in agony. The soul-centurions were barking orders incessantly, guiding the blind weapon-wielding hands to their targets. Adramalik clenched his jaws as he wheeled his mount. This was not meant to have happened; we were meant to have breached the wall and streamed into the enemy forces. He felt an uncontrollable mixture of anger and disappointment rising within him and found himself beating his moaning steed upon the head with the hilt of his saber in frustration. Furcas! It has to be Furcas the Pyromancer’s doing!

The heavy cavalry was in complete disarray. With their forward momentum checked there was no chance of them bounding over the wall and into the ranks of troops beyond. Instead their bodies crashed into one another and the buckling wall and made turning extraordinarily difficult. But turn they eventually did, amidst a deadly rain of fiery missiles that took a heavy toll upon them. And from the corner of his eye the Chancellor General saw that even though it had suffered minor damage, the wall still stood firm.

A red command-glyph soared skyward and split into a dozen smaller replicas of itself. The command to retreat and regroup!

Within the tangle of demons and soul-steeds he looked for the order’s source. He found Moloch by his size and brilliant sigil-corona, some distance away and visible in his own maelstrom of pivoting cavalry, spinning away as well, and Adramalik could only imagine the blinding rage that must have been filling the general. That the general, for all his boldness and ferocity, had been brushed so easily aside by a simple subterfuge spoke volumes about both him and Sargatanas. Adramalik’s hatred for Moloch cut so deep that even as the cavalry began to regain a semblance of order he found this inglorious retreat an ironic, bitter pleasure. Favorite or not, Moloch would hear much about it from his Prince.

The javelins were now arcing higher, whistling up over Adramalik’s head and landing among the rearmost mounted demons. Without waiting for orders, they were breaking and heading back toward their camp, forming up into ragged, surging groups, which suddenly found themselves heading directly into their own oncoming legions. Adramalik saw javelins hitting his demons, blasting their heads from their shoulders, sinking deep within their chests, and blowing them asunder, the shattered chunks of their bodies falling all around him. The din of destruction seemed ceaseless, the missiles limitless, until Adramalik had finally drawn out of range. Decimated as the cavalry was, he knew, as he plunged ahead, that those legions marching directly in their path were about to experience the unchecked impact of the panicked battalions. He saw his Knights issue hasty orders and thought he saw the great formations begin to turn. But he knew it would be too late.

A thousand steps back from the wall the two forces collided and, just as he had anticipated, the foot soldiers suffered beyond measure. Trying desperately to evade the cavalry, Moloch’s legions’ orderly ranks were torn apart, dragged under the hands and feet of the frantic mounts, and crushed into rubble. Adramalik’s own soul-steed leaped and dodged wildly and he dug his horn-shod heels in to stay atop it. Growling, he shook his head angrily.

The destruction lasted just as long, the Chancellor General guessed, as it took Moloch to realize that a complete disaster would ensue if he did nothing. Adramalik was waiting for the order, and when it did rise into the sky he raised his saber high overhead, pointed it downward at the back of his steed’s head, and plunged its fire-hot length deep into the beast’s skull. As it crumpled to the ground with a whining exhalation of breath, he felt no remorse, no sense of loss. These were souls, skin-sacks; they were meant to be used and destroyed. Let the Abyssals pick at it, he thought as he extricated himself from the saddle and walked away.

Looking across the field, Adramalik saw the other cavalrydemons dismounting from their now largely inert soul-steeds. Some demons were hacking angrily at their twitching bodies in a rage of frustration.

With the destruction of the mounts, the havoc within the beleaguered legions of Dis ended abruptly and for a few moments the only sounds were those of the seriously crushed soldiers crumbling away. Adramalik and the other cavalrydemons found themselves standing among the barely controllable legionaries whose fury had been aroused by the frenzy of annihilation that had swept over them. But so cowed were they by the presence of the scarlet-armored Knights of the Fly that they dared not act on their rage.

Adramalik ordered his Knights to integrate themselves and the remaining dismounted cavalry into the legions and to assume command. Thus bolstered, the legions would come closer to their original strength and under the leadership of his Knights, resented as they were, might regain their confidence. Or so he hoped.

The Chancellor General saw the cohesion of the legions returning and then saw Moloch approaching, baton in hand, striding easily upon his wing-stilts over the rubble and towering above the infantry. The anger was written upon his blood-dark face and his eyes bore something aside from the normal film of resentment. Is it disappointment? Adramalik could barely repress his satisfaction.

“What, Chancellor General? Have you something to say?”

“Not I, Grand General. But our Prince surely will.”

Moloch snorted.

And then, almost to himself, the ex-god said, “Even without the cavalry we have sufficient numbers to absorb casualties. We will overwhelm them and finish this… in the name of the Prince.”

For a moment the two demons’ eyes locked. Would it be so hard, right here and now, to order this legion to destroy him—to send him to the Pit where he belongs? They would obey me… and follow me into battle. But, Adramalik reasoned, there would be too many questions from the Prince regarding his champion, too much suspicion. There were easier ways.

“This does not end here,” Moloch rumbled, thrusting the top of his baton into the Chancellor General’s chest. Adramalik reflexively grasped its end and shoved it aside.

Perhaps not here, General, but soon.

A shrill cry came from high above them and both demons looked up simultaneously. Barely visible against the shadowed clouds was the large silhouette, lit along the sinuous length of its body by tiny glow-spots, of a cinder-fly. They were rare, Adramalik knew, and portended great events. A hissing flight of black arrows reached up from somewhere nearby and a moment later the Abyssal’s winged body disappeared amidst the troops. Adramalik heard a cheer go up—the omens were good—and shook his head when he saw Moloch’s fierce grin.

Pulling his Hooks from his belt, Moloch gave Adramalik one last look—smugness and disdain mixed—and shouldered past him on his way to the front of the legions. The Chancellor General heard him grate out, “Keep your legion close, Knight.”

Moments later the braying of war horns echoed across the field, followed by Moloch’s command-glyphs, and the hundred legions of Dis began to move slowly forward. Beneath them, in response to their relentless tramping, the ground flexed and rippled, making the footing for the marching troops less certain. But even with what was, undoubtedly, this further evidence of the enemy’s battlefield-influencing invocations, the troops pushed forward and soon found themselves at the farthest limits of the range of the fiery javelins.

The wall was gone, dissolved into a broad line of souls, each holding the new weapon.

There simply had not been enough time for the battlefield conjurors to create counterspells for the new weapons; Adramalik saw, once again, the devastating effect the missiles had on relatively unprotected troops. But he also saw Moloch, in quick response, order all the many cohorts of his archers to race ahead, and despite large numbers of their ranks being destroyed, Adramalik saw sappers dig low, protective trenches, enabling the legions’ archers to begin to let fly their arrows. Such was the discipline of the army of Dis!

Much to his surprise, the Chancellor General realized the sheets of arrows were finding their marks and the javelins’ numbers were gradually decreasing. Such a simple solution! The cavalry had been a terrible mistake—a blunder of reconnaissance—but the unclean Pridzarhim had redeemed himself. Tangled piles of souls lay where they fell, pierced—a sight Adramalik thought odd. Souls—resource that they were—were rarely left unheeded when the life went out of them. But there they lay, and he had the strange errant thought that they were being wasted.

Behind them and barely diminished by the arrows stood a long, unwavering line of Sargatanas’ veterans, heavily armored and not nearly as vulnerable as the souls had been. They were the phalangites of Adamantinarx under the collective command, Adramalik knew, of the Demon Minor Aetar Set. In count they numbered a full twenty-six legions, and each of their ranks bore a long pike that was leveled at the oncoming demons.

Moloch commanded the middle of his line—three legions of heavy halberdiers—to form up behind him into a thick wedge. Recognizing that there could never be an effective flanking maneuver with a defensive line as long and deep as Sargatanas’, the general was clearly determined to reach the demon lord by ramming his way through the bristling wall of pikes.

Adramalik felt a sudden wave of envy for the general’s bravery. As he watched the two armies converge, he knew that Moloch was going to do everything possible to shatter the enemy and that that was why he was so favored by the Prince. Moloch’s unhesitating loyalty was at once naive and invaluable. And, Adramalik grudgingly admitted, admirable.

From a short distance the Chancellor General could see Moloch standing within a group of standard-bearing demonifers. Suddenly he rose up, tall upon his flightless wings, encircled in glowing bands of protective glyphs, and all the troops of the surrounding legions could hear him roar, “Legions, for the Prince of Hell!”

Twirling his terrible Hooks, the ex-god leaped fearlessly into the wall of pikes, chopping them down with blindingly fast swipes of his hands. Raised up by his wing-stilts and twisting away from the pike thrusts, he was a whirlwind of movement. His height and agility made him a very difficult target for the stationary phalangites and their awkward pike-hands, and Adramalik, fighting not too far behind, saw that steady progress was being made. The tip of the wedge was now well buried within the deep line of pike demons, and it was forcing a broad and ever-widening gap.

As there was no art to an avalanche, there was no art to Moloch’s unceasing destruction. And wherever he created an opening Adramalik and the legionaries would rush in, exploiting the opportunity. In a last-ditch effort to hold the line, Adramalik saw that the phalangites had been ordered to snap their pikes and use the new shorter weapons’ rough, pointed ends as close-righting spears. But it was to no avail; the gap was too large and their cohesion was diminishing by the moment. Clouds of dust rose where the phalangites were being broken.

The phalangite commander Aetar Set, whom Adramalik found easily by his Demon Minor’s sigil, strode forward, impressive with his glyph-lit antlers, a long fire-tipped lance in hand. He raised it in preparation for the combat with the approaching ex-god, but as its white-hot head leveled with Moloch’s chest the grapplelike Hooks came up in a blurred, prismatic flash of diamond that was so fast Adramalik’s jaw opened. Aetar Set dropped the broken lance, a look of shock upon his face. And then his body, ripping apart in six diagonal sections, imploded.

The Chancellor General saw Moloch laugh, snatch up the demon’s disk without breaking stride, and move past the reeling enemy, springing over steaming mounds of their still-crumbling rubble, and on into the body of Sargatanas’ army. While Moloch’s hands moved with a fluid rhythm of their own, wielding the Hooks with an almost casual savagery, it was clear that his focus never strayed from the Seal of Sargatanas that hung some hundreds of yards ahead.

Eligor watched with some uncertainty the advance of the legions of Dis and, in particular, the steady, relentless approach of the Pridzarhim champion amidst the fray. He had recognized the personal sigil from afar and knew its significance. And he watched Aetar Set’s sigil go out abruptly. In single combat Eligor knew of few, if any, under the station of Demon Major who could match Moloch, and even those of high rank would be challenged. Eligor looked down toward the Baron and his hulking Shock Troopers, as yet untested in this battle, and wondered how they might fare. Perhaps collectively they would stop Moloch. But if not, would it only be his lord or Valefar who could finish Moloch, and at what cost? The Guards’ Captain looked up into the clouds toward where he knew his troops to be but saw nothing.

Turning around, he saw his lord standing motionless, observing the battle without any sign of emotion. Even the layered plates of his face, usually so expressive, were hard and unreadable. Perhaps it made sense, given the ebb and flow of battle.

Beside him, Valefar stood fingering the hilt of the huge sword that rested lightly upon his shoulder. He saw Eligor looking at him and nodded, as if to reassure him, but Valefar’s concern was clear.

Eligor heard a raucous outcry and spun around in time to see the flood of enemy troops surging behind the phalangites, cutting them down at their unprotected flanks. The wound Moloch had ripped into Sargatanas’ phalangite legions was quickly hemorrhaging. Clouds of steam and dust were rising thickly from the battlefield, but Eligor could still see the unmistakable sigils of the legion commanders winking out as they were destroyed.

“My lord, my Guard…”

“Would be shredded, Eligor,” Sargatanas said evenly. “This is not a fight for them to take up. Better that they stay out of sight and deal with any scouts Moloch may send up.”

Eligor’s disappointment was profound, but he could not responsibly disagree with his lord’s appraisal; this was not a battle where precision would prevail.

Moloch and his broad wedge of soldiers were chewing into Sargatanas’ secondary line of legions, a force that combined the new allies and legions from Adamantinarx and was comprised primarily of thousands of sword-wielders and hatchet-armed demons. These were slowing the enemies’ advance, blunting the sharp edge of their attack, but Eligor saw that, no matter how the legions of Dis fared, Moloch and those Knights and standard-bearers around him never slowed their approach. So much latent energy was being released from the furious fighting that short tendrils of lightning played along the grinding edge where the two armies noisily clashed.

Sargatanas dared a complicated command-glyph that Eligor noted was created for Tribune Karcefuge and his Spirits. Whisking through the air, the glyph set the cavalry into motion, splitting their battalions so as to enter the gap between the decimated front line and the rear from both sides, converging upon the enemy in the middle. By now, other breaches in the phalangite line were beginning to appear, and the Spirits might have to deal with them before engaging the main force, but the hope, Eligor surmised, was that Moloch’s forces, so intent upon the destruction ahead, would become aware of Karcefuge’s arrival only too late.

The sword in Adramalik’s hand rose and fell so swiftly that he ceased feeling as if he were actually in control of it. Demon after demon fell before him, melted and shattered and split to rubble by its sizzling blade. And through it all, panting and snorting with the effort, he wore a savage, tooth-baring grin, a mask of ferocious, unrestrained, prideful delight. It had been so long ago that he had been a participant upon the battlefield that he had forgotten just how much he missed the carnage. Holed up in the Keep and preoccupied with the endless stultifying minutiae of the Prince’s paranoid court, Adramalik had lost touch with what it was to be purely physical. To be a demon. He thrilled to reawaken the presence that he was upon the battlefield.

Through his exhilaration Adramalik began to sense that perhaps his plans for the future were not to be so easily attained after all. As much as he reveled in his own prowess, the Chancellor General recognized what his rival was accomplishing; the army of Dis would not have gotten so far without him. Moloch seemed all but unvanquishable, and Adramalik watched with growing unrest the ease with which the Pridzarhim dispatched the enemy. Was there none, Adramalik wondered, among them capable of facing him—no newly allied, renegade Demon Major willing to match blades? Something would have to be done, and between sword falls the Chancellor General scanned the field for his Knights’ sigils.

A plume of dust to one side and behind him caught Adramalik’s eye, but before he could fully grasp its meaning Sargatanas’ cavalry was crashing into the legions with full force. He realized, as he spitted yet another enemy legionary, that this was exactly the opportunity for which he had been waiting. He would be taking a supreme risk, a risk that threatened his very existence, but in the balance he knew he would always regret passing it up if he did not act.

Without hesitation and even as he fought, he issued the command-glyph to his Knights to pull back the legions and protect their flanks.

Almost immediately Moloch responded with a counterorder, but the Knights, well aware of their Order Chancellor General’s intent, continued to regroup. Forward movement ceased, and because of the suddenness of the order the ex-god, Adramalik reasoned, would find himself quite alone within a deep pocket of the enemy.

On the surface it is not an unreasonable order, Adramalik thought. And then suddenly he realized that, in fact, there was great cause for concern. Sargatanas’ attack had been a coordinated blow coming from both sides, its design to neutralize the archers, and now Adramalik watched the Spirit-lancers of Adamantinarx carving away at his legions with a fury that his own troops could not match. He ordered the Knights to leave their positions at the head of the legions and concentrate along the line directly confronting the cavalry. Perhaps, he thought, that would slow them.

He watched Sargatanas’ roaring legions surge forward, encouraged by the apparent ground being gained. Circling the embattled ex-god, the demon soldiers managed, through weight of numbers, to halt his progress. Most continued on to attack the regrouping legions of Dis, but two full legions were ordered to contend with Moloch.

Adramalik pulled back and took a moment to scan the battlefield. Was he not now, after all, the self-appointed commander of the army of Dis? Through the clouds of dust and flickering lightning he saw that the repositioned Order Knights were fighting magnificently, taking a heavy toll on the rebel Karcefuge’s Spirits, and that the legions behind them were now fully regrouped. The lightly armored archers on their former flanks were no more, having borne the worst of the attack. Adramalik turned, hoping to see that the ex-god had finally fallen, but to his dismay and amazement, Moloch was still fighting, his Hooks catching and rending the enemy without pause. He shook his head, marveling at the pile of rubble that was accumulating around the spinning figure, but in moments it became apparent that while the fighting remained furious, the two sides were becoming stalemated.

“Lord, I could go down there and confront him myself,” Valefar ventured. Eligor saw his silvered eyes glittering with anticipation.

“It is time for the Baron to make amends,” Sargatanas rumbled, shaking his head slightly. “If he and his troops can finish him, and quickly, I will fully reinstate him. Otherwise… otherwise it will be left to us alone.”

Valefar nodded.

Eligor felt a wave of relief. He was uncertain that any single Demon Major could dispatch Moloch and was not eager to see Valefar test himself. It was a thought, Eligor suspected, that had crossed his lord’s mind as well. Valefar was far too valuable a friend to risk.

A violet command-glyph streaked away from Sargatanas and dove into Baron Faraii’s position, not too far from them, where it was absorbed. Almost immediately Eligor saw the Baron issue the order to advance and he and his troops began to move forward.

Something deep within Eligor made him want Faraii to succeed, to regain his status so that the two of them could go back to their old ways. He sorely missed the endless tales the normally taciturn Baron had unreeled for him in their countless meetings and missed, too, entering the tales into his chronicles.

He watched Faraii’s back as he and his bulky troops parted the legions and came within yards of Moloch. As they drew near Eligor even saw the flying rubble of destruction, cast into the air by the Pridzarhim, rebounding off the Baron’s armor. Faraii did not duck or flinch as the debris hit him but moved like a figure in a dream, impassive and without hesitation. Despite himself, Eligor could not suppress his feelings of admiration. And then, as Baron Faraii’s troops moved out in broad wings around him, with black sword in hand, he turned and faced Sargatanas.

By all that Lucifer stood for, the Prince will not be denied! Faraii has finally awakened! Adramalik thought. He roared in exultation, a cry picked up by a thousand legionaries around him when they, too, realized how events were unfolding.

He saw Faraii issue a green glyph that only Beelzebub could have created and watched it spread like fire to the troopers, each of whom spun on his heel in turn until a solid wall of them faced back toward the rise upon which Sargatanas and his staff stood.

Moloch, seeing this, redoubled his efforts to push forward. Some moments later, he was swinging his weapons so close to Faraii that he might have reached out a Hook-wielding hand and touched him. The Baron raised his sword-hand and with incredible deftness began to cut his way back toward Sargatanas.

Adramalik saw many things happen at once. A Demon Minor, the Flying Guard Captain Eligor, he thought, shot up into the sky and vanished into the clouds. Lord Valefar began to move hurriedly toward them, parting his legions with a steady stream of glyphs, and then, sprouting four great fanlike wings, took to the air. And an enormous glyph, unlike any Adramalik had ever seen, billowed out from the rise, soaring high over the battlefield and then moving over and behind the legions of Dis to explode into a million fragments that stabbed downward, scratching a curtain of harsh light into the dark sky, somewhere in the vicinity of the abandoned town. But why? Was Sargatanas blocking their way back if they were forced to retreat?

The Chancellor General managed to make his way closer to what he now felt was the center of the battle. In his mind, as well as the enemy’s, he was sure, Moloch’s fearsome presence was the fulcrum upon which the battle seemed to balance. This moment, this sudden unleashing of all of Sargatanas’ troops, could only reveal his desperation; it would not be too long now before the battle was won and the Prince was rid of him. And, Adramalik hoped, the Pridzarhim as well.

Leaping over the piles of shifting rock that had once been legionaries of both sides, Adramalik clambered to within a dozen yards of the ex-god. Here, atop an ash-blown mound of rubble, Adramalik began to work at the attacking legionaries, keeping an eye always on the back of Moloch but meeting easily the ferocity of the legionaries he was felling.

Faraii, too, was busy leading his troopers deep into the heart of the enemy. No common legionary could stand before them, and the Chancellor saw that the Baron was leading them in a direct path toward the enemy field-camp. Ever the artist with a sword, he was creating yet another masterpiece of destruction by his own hand as well as with the chopping ax-hands of his troops.

In the short time that he was in close proximity, Moloch dispatched a full cohort of Bifrons’ legion; only its centurion remained, and he was surviving only by his remarkable agility. But his fate was inevitable and the centurion stumbled and was swept up by one of the Hooks. Before he could be shattered, something, Adramalik saw, distracted the ex-god.

A silver-blue sigil heralded the approach of Lord Valefar, and when he stopped a yard above the ground just before Moloch the carnage in the immediate area all but ceased in anticipation of the fight to come. Adramalik hardly recognized the Prime Minister, not just for the many horns, small wings, and embers that had formed a living crown about his head but more for the terrible wrath he saw upon Valefar’s face. Resting lightly in the Demon Major’s hands was an unusually long sheathed sword.

The demon lord looked from side to side, taking in the half-dozen scarlet-armored Knights who flanked the ex-god. With wings rippling, Valefar pulled his sword from its sheath and in one fluid, unanswerable move lopped the heads of the Knights cleanly off. Adramalik’s jaw opened in disbelief as he stared at the featherlight blue-flame sword from the Above—an ancient ialpor napta! He could not begin to imagine how it had come to be in Hell, but the sight of it sent a ripple of fear through him.

Adramalik looked at Moloch and saw that he was grinning, his eyes fixed balefully upon Valefar. As if in answer to Valefar, the ex-god tore the struggling centurion in half, treading upon his smoking remains as they fell to the ground and crumbled into rock. Moloch then squared his shoulders and held his Hooks out in a beckoning gesture of defiance, the same gesture with which he had baited Adramalik, the same purely predatory look in his glittering icy-blue eyes. Covered in black ash, panting, he appeared primal, savage.

The fires of Valefar’s corona flashed for an instant and he lunged and the blue flames of his sword arced in a half-circle of violet and purple. Moloch spun to one side, but not quickly enough, and Adramalik saw the long and terrible cut the ancient sword had sliced into his upper arm. A sound like the screeching blast of a dozen fumaroles split the air as the enraged ex-god countered with a clawing combination of strokes that pushed the demon backward with their ferocity into his own troops.

The harsh sound of weapons beating upon shields arose from the legions of Dis as they watched their champion and general stalk forward. The Chancellor General had never seen him so angered. Short bolts of lightning wavered in sinuous tendrils from within his body, sheathing him in a crackling net of energy.

Valefar was quick to recover, charging forward with a powerful thrust of his wings, and again the two combatants faced each other, lashing out in great sweeping attacks. Lunging, parrying, and counterattacking, they twisted around each other, the ex-god spinning nimbly upon his wing-stalks, the Demon Major diving and dodging with a constant whirring of wing beats. Evenly matched, they circled, wary at one moment and bold at the next, each inflicting small wounds upon the other, the speed of Valefar’s sword matched by that of the two flashing Hooks.

A growing cry of dismay suddenly swept through the battlefield, coming. Adramalik realized, from well behind his own lines. He turned and his eyes widened as he saw the town far to the rear of his legions appearing to melt away, the buildings bending and crashing forward like the slow cresting of a wave of cooling lava. And between all of them, in the center of the town’s widest avenue, Adramalik could just make out a solitary figure—a soul, it would seem—seated motionless atop a war-caparisoned Abyssal. Where the cascading bricks fell souls suddenly arose, and Adramalik could see them running purposefully to and fro, snatching up the weapons that he had seen so carelessly strewn about. He could also see that they were assuming formations and that the lone mounted figure was directing them. The Chancellor General could already see, to his dismay, that they easily equaled his remaining legionaries in numbers and not even half of the buildings had broken apart.

Shouts brought Adramalik’s attention back to the duel. Moloch’s focus had not wavered, but apparently Valefar had, for the briefest instant, taken his eyes from his crouching opponent. The Hooks whipped out simultaneously and one caught Valefar, raking through his left wing, shearing through the bone, and rippling membrane, and dropping the demon to the ground. Down on one knee, his wing in long tatters, Valefar counterparried another blow and slipped his sword under Moloch’s guard and into the ex-god’s shoulder. Both combatants pulled back, the pain unmistakable upon their faces.

Valefar rose to his feet and, seeing that Moloch could no longer wield his right-hand Hook, began to concentrate his efforts on the ex-god’s weaker side.

At the periphery of his awareness, Adramalik began to sense the legions of Dis pulling back, melting away from the duel that had only moments before seemed so important to them. Now their own existence was in jeopardy as the first wave of souls attacked their flanks. The Chancellor General, himself, felt the tug of both battles but remained in place, unable to pry himself away from the unfolding duel. Valefar’s wondrous, awful sword was, more and more, finding its mark, and every grunt from Moloch revealed his diminishing strength. With grim satisfaction, Adramalik watched events unfolding just as he had hoped.

Streaking down through the murky clouds, Eligor burst into clear air only to see his lord and the staff generals beset on all sides by Faraii’s Shock Troops. With lances extended, Eligor’s Flying Guard hit the black-armored soldiers from above, catching them unaware as their ax-hands rose and fell. He could not immediately see the Baron and so moved deftly from one trooper to the next, penetrating their heavy armor from above wherever possible. Sargatanas had been right to suggest that Eligor’s lightly armed Guard would be relatively ineffectual against Faraii’s soldiers. The best Eligor could hope for was to slow them and wound them enough to make his lord’s work easier.

For their part, Sargatanas and the other Demons Major were taking a heavy, relentless toll, felling the enemy one by one, but not as quickly as Eligor would have hoped. Brief, intense fountains of sparks arose where Lukiftias shattered another of Faraii’s elite warriors. Too often, though, the Shock Troopers’ axes found their mark, and to his dismay, Eligor saw Bifrons fall amidst a brilliant flash, cleft completely across his waist.

Gradually, amazingly, Eligor saw the combination of his Guards’ and the embattled Demon Majors’ blade-work take effect; the dark, hulking Troopers began to give ground, falling one at a time as they grudgingly moved backward. Finally he spotted Faraii, untouched, flicking his blade skyward to deflect the new aerial onslaught. Eligor looked at the lean figure, so masterful in his attacks, so poised, and hated him more than he could have imagined. As he watched he saw the Baron suddenly break ranks and fall back, Eligor guessed, to lead his now-beleaguered troops in a reluctant retreat. Pulling up, Eligor saw the souls under Hannibal’s generalship crash into the enemy legions’ flanks, causing great confusion. Faced by an enemy at both their head and tail, the legions of Dis began to flee from either side. But where was Valefar?

Moloch was clearly weakening; that much was obvious to Adramalik. While the Pridzarhim still swept out with his remaining Hook, the conviction, the snap to his wrist, was missing from his attempts. Valefar, seriously injured himself, was taking his time, measuring, picking the targets carefully upon the ex-god’s body and then flicking his sword with precision. Each wound caused a new flow of black blood, a new degradation of Moloch’s considerable power, a near stumble, a tiny hesitation.

The Chancellor General began to sense the shifting tides around him, the dwindling of his own forces to his back, and the sudden influx of soldiers as they began to retreat from the wavering front. With little effort he now saw Shock Troopers, and perhaps Baron Faraii himself, backing away from the vortex of destruction that emanated from Sargatanas and his fellow generals. And, hearing the tumult from the souls attacking behind him, he began to wonder whether it was fast growing time to withdraw.

Valefar flicked his sword and a terrible scream rent the air as Moloch’s already-disabled hand fell to the ground severed. Blood streamed thickly from the wound, black and thick, clotting upon the fleshy ground and making the Pridzarhim’s footing uncertain.

Adramalik suddenly saw souls hacking at his legionaries, much closer than he had realized. Turning fully around, he saw the same soul—their general, he guessed—leap into the fray upon the back of his Abyssal mount. The soul was clearly an expert rider, raising his mount upon two feet to avoid the more concentrated knots of fighting soldiers. Swinging a heavy sword, the general leaned far out of his saddle, chopping fiercely at Adramalik’s demons, even destroying one of his Knights not thirty paces from him. The battle had turned, and now, Adramalik thought, now would be the time to leave the field. He glanced back at Moloch. No need to stay; the duel’s outcome was all but certain.

Shock Troopers and demons from Adamantinarx fought just behind Valefar, but seeming not to notice, he raised his sword once again and as it plunged deep into the ex-god’s chest a strange look came over the demon lord’s face—a look of shock and puzzlement mixed. For just an instant Adramalik thought he saw the thin point of a black sword protruding from just beneath Valefar’s chin. The blade worked from side to side, deftly slicing a long arc, and then was gone. Did I really see it? Adramalik wondered. Without waiting he turned and ran, finding a dozen or so of his Knights who had banded together for protection against the overwhelming numbers of souls who now flooded across the field. Escape was uppermost in their minds.

It was a total failure. Somehow, he thought, somehow Sargatanas has done it again!

Dis was a long way off; with them hunted continually by Sargatanas’ troops, theirs would be a difficult journey home. And, Adramalik realized with a pang of terror, at the end of that journey the Prince, without his Consort and now his champion as well, would welcome him from this day with little less than total contempt and all of the pain that it would bring.

Eligor dove down toward where Valefar had been standing, the sense of urgency pounding in his head, the hot air screaming beneath his wings as he tried to gain speed. He had finally spotted the demon lord amidst a carpet of retreating demons, found him by the fire of his blue-flame sword. Moloch, Eligor had also seen. The ex-god was struggling to stand, propped up by his broken wing-stilts and burned by a hundred cuts. Valefar stood before him, legs apart and sword-arm outstretched, but something was not right, because as Eligor descended he had seen the sword leave the demon lord’s hand and fall to the ground. And then, to Eligor’s horror, he had seen a brilliant flash followed by a gathering whirlwind that began to obscure the field in a funnel of ash that grew in intensity, making his and his fellow Guardsdemons’ rapid descent extremely difficult.

When he alighted he knew that what he had feared, what in the back of his mind he had tried to deny, was true. Valefar was nowhere to be seen and Moloch was still alive, panting heavily, blood streaming in a hundred rivulets, single Hook raised defiantly. At bay and swiping at the Flying Guard who were harrying him with their lances, he was dangerous yet.

The Guard Captain, momentarily in shock, saw his lord’s sigil through the wavering sheets of wind-driven ash and the countless fleeing enemies; Sargatanas was nearly at hand, and Eligor knew that his lord would be all too eager to confront Moloch. But as that thought crossed his mind, Hannibal’s steed leaped upon two legs into view, the general pulling hard upon the reins, making the creature drop quickly down on all fours. Without hesitating, Hannibal sprang down from the saddle and attacked the ex-god, swinging the sword that Sargatanas had given him with a fury that Eligor had never conceived possible in a soul.

Moloch, spent as he was, was no faster than Hannibal in his defensive moves. They traded blows and parries and then one long, raking attack caught Hannibal on his shoulder, twisting him around and tearing a gash that peeled the soul’s left arm to his knee and lodged the Hooks in his ribs. Moloch tried, futilely, to disengage the weapon from the soul’s body for a killing blow but in the effort brought Hannibal to within striking distance. Caught on the weapon and grimacing with pain, he leaned in even closer to the bent form of the ex-god and with a single vicious one-handed chop severed the snarling head from its neck. Immediately the ground began to shake, knocking Hannibal and those demons around him off their feet, and Eligor, some paces away, took wing and watched Moloch’s body collapse inward in a red flare of light and disappear.

When the shaking of the ground had subsided, Eligor rushed to the Soul-General’s side, pulling him to one knee. Carefully Eligor pulled the giant Hook from the terrible wound. Hannibal held himself up by his sword and raised his eyes to Eligor’s.

“So you see,” Hannibal said weakly, “it is not so hard to kill one’s god, after all.” His eyes closed and he slumped against the demon’s leg.

Eligor nodded respectfully; he knew what Moloch had been to Hannibal and understood what the soul had achieved. Eligor waved some of his Guard over to surround Hannibal and instructed them to bind his wounds. The Soul-General was still alive, and Eligor carefully watched glyphs-of-healing being created to keep him that way until they returned to Adamantinarx. Eligor was uncertain about the soul’s ability to heal himself; these awful wounds had been inflicted by a weapon with unimaginable properties. When he looked up he saw the welcome form of Sargatanas standing before him. Apart from a fist-sized, oozing hole in his armored side, the Lord of Adamantinarx was unharmed. Eligor watched him move slowly to where Valefar had stood and saw Sargatanas reach down to pick up the demon’s sword. The fires of its blade grew, spreading briefly over the hilt and onto Sargatanas’ shaking hand. The strong blue light etched the profound sadness of his face forever upon Eligor’s mind.

Eligor began to search through the rubble and ash for Moloch’s disk. When he found it, a dark, heavy, and tarnished thing, he brought it to his lord, who regarded it for a moment.

“Keep it with him,” he said quietly, indicating Hannibal. “I am sure he will want it.”

Eligor’s eyes began to search the ground where they stood. Steam began to form in their corners, hindering his efforts.

“I… I do not see his disk, my lord.”

Sargatanas scanned the ground as well, finding nothing.

Turning away, the demon lord looked up at the curling zephyrs of ash that rose high into the olive sky. Eligor could almost feel the enormous grief that was taking hold of him.

“Perhaps, the winds have taken it.”