Both the greater yeth hounds were also in dire difficulty. The strength of their adversaries' rings enabled the two mortals to withstand the monsters' assaults. Both hounds, in turn, were not so protected as to avoid their foes' blades. Devilish Mephisto was sorely wounded, Thrax less so, but in no sense sound, for the dagger Leda plied had punctured his stinking hide repeatedly if not mortally. Perhaps the demonlords watching the duel thought Gord's mighty stroke was the decisive one. Certainly a great chorus of cheering came roaring from the throats of their onlooking warriors.
And Graz'zt chose that moment to work his own stratagem. "I'll have that!" the tall demonking said, snatching the Eye of Deception from Elazalag's unwary grasp. Although Graz'zt held his massive sword in his other hand, one was sufficient to grab and tear free the sphere. The demoness had been so wrapped up in the struggle that she was taken completely unawares.
"No! Don't!" She cried, realizing that her newly regained consort was about to commit the most incredible blunder imaginable.
The ebon demonking ignored her warning. He was already several long strides distant from Elazalag, the object of demonic power held out threateningly before him. "Vengeance!" Graz'zt shrieked, and from the Eye of Deception burst a force that contained all of the pent-up rage of the Abyss.
Gord was taken unawares, and the blast of energy struck him from behind. It sundered the aura of azure and slammed into the young man's body in an instant. Gord fell as if stuck by a tltanic maul.
"Now all is mine!" Graz'zt shouted in triumph, playing the forces from the artifact he held upon the cowering yeth before him.
Tharizdun arose as if the ravening eneigy refreshed him. "No, stupid demon," the archfiend countered. "Now you and all are mine!" With a flick of his fingers Tharizdun turned the Eye of Deception back and Graz'zt was felled by his own device.
Then the final slaughter of demonkind began.
Chapter 22
FRENZY ERUPTED INSTANTLY upon the resurgence of Tharizdun. The nearest to the event began to howl triumphantly or bray a paean of disaster, depending on which side the indIvidual fought. Devils, daemons, maelvis, dumalduns, netherhags, dreggals, cacodaemons and the others in their motley millions who were arrayed under the standard of the archfiend sent up a din of victory, while the demons, goblins, and cacodemons yowled in despair.
Graz'zt was dumbfounded, but the great demonking did all he could to repair the debacle. Flinging the ancient relic of the Abyss back in the general direction of his consort, Graz'zt gripped his huge sword and waded into the enemy. "It is a day to slay or be slain!" he boomed, slashing aside several yeth.
As the ebon lord of demonium approached, Tharizdun stood with apparent calm. "Come then, Graz'zt! You are to be slain!" It was no idle boast The darkest minion of Evil was even then gathering all of his strength for a killing stoke. The energy rushed into him. and then the two-handed sword was streaking down, aimed so as to split the archfiend from crown to crotch.
"Yess!" the demonking shrieked in triumph, seeing his blade about to strik,e true. It would cleave Tharizdun and end the fight, for nothing could stop the blow. Not now.
Tharizdun's hand shot up. "Never," he said mockingly. His bare hand met the massive length of metal. Ten stone of dweomered alloy, a great, wavy blade whose double edge glittered razor-sharp, was brought hurtling down by the tremendous strength of the demonking. Graz'zt had exerted every atom of strength, physical and magical, it was possible for him to put behind that stroke. The archfiend simply caught the blade with the naked flesh of his hand, and the blow stopped as if the sword had encountered a mountain. The keen edge drew no blood. It was, indeed, the demon who was shocked by the stroke. Graz'zt's whole body shook as the blow was caught, and its force struck the demonking's body so as to cause the obsidian giant to tremble as a leaf in a gale.
There was even more to it than that. Graz'zt seemed unable to loose his hold on the sword. Onehanded, Tharizdun held the weapon, still gripping the blade, still not harmed. The demonking holding onto the huge hilt seemed rooted to the spot, and wracked by growing agony from the archfiend's power. Graz'zt began to shout curses. Then the shouting turned to a raving plea, and that in time gave way to screaming the most awful sort. All the while Tharizdun stood immobile, a smile of pure wickedness slowly spreading across his handsome face as he enjoyed the spectacle.
Elazalag managed to recover the Eye of Deception.
As the tableau of Tharizdun and Graz'zt held its near-frozen form, the demon princess used the thing to make her escape. She knew that her warriors there on the surface of Ojukalazogadit were now as good as destroyed, and Elazalag chose to make her last stand in her own castle. As she fled, so too the other lords of demonium who were able. The few without recourse to flight ran gibbering, most in crazed, suicidal instinct straight for their enemies, and with those went the bulk of the demon soldiers.
The crazed charge caused momentary confusion in the massed ranks of the devils and fiends who had fought against the wild demons. There was but one of the attacking warriors for every hundred or two of Tharizdun's troops, but the sheer insanity of the demons sufficed to enable them to strike down one or two of their foes before the sheer numbers of the enemy smothered their crazed attack. Then those demons were torn to gory rags.
During the interval between the frenzy of the last attack and the climax of the confrontation between Tharizdun and Graz'zt, Leda recovered sufficiently to crawl to Gord's side. She was strong enough to stand, but seeing the terrible events taking place around here, the dark elf wisely decided to remain as inconspicuous as possible. She found that Gord was breathing shallowly, but unconscious. She tried to bring her love back to his senses, but nothing she could do, even her healing powers, seemed to have any effect.
"Leave off, girl!"
Leda spun on her belly, dagger ready to defend Gord against whatever thing had hissed that command. "Gellor! Are you all right?"
"Yes. As right as that kind of thing can leave one, I expect," the grizzled troubador managed to add Jauntily. "You seem in pretty fair shape yourself, but Gord is in trouble — I can hear his breathing from here!"
"Even my restorative dweomers had no effect," Leda said with rising panic. "What can we do?"
Gellor wormed rapidly to a place where he could grab Gord from the side opposite the elven girl. "What we do is get the blazes out of here now," he barked. "Soon enough that maggot-spawn is going to tire of his sport with Graz'zt, and then he'll want to play with Gord — and us!"
"Do we have a means of escaping from here?"
"I think the power of the rings will do it, Leda. I hope so, anyway. If they have any efficacy remaining, though, it will be when all three are in harmony."
There was doubt "Won't Gord have to be conscious? And won't he have to lend his will to ours?"
"I hope not, else we three are doomed. You take his one hand now, Leda, and I'll grasp the other. Then we two must tiy to do the work of three. Think on a place which Gord will have harmony with. . . . Do you know such a place?"
"None of safe sort"
"Greyhawk?"
"But little," Leda said to the bard's query.
"Have you sojourned in the realm of Rexfelis?"
Leda responded negatively. "I am sorry, Gellor, but never did Gord and I have opportunity to go to that plane. We had so little time together . . "