A soul was brought forth, dragged by two large Knights-in-training to the center of the formation before Adramalik. Selected for the unusual barbarity of his life, he was a large individual, in Hell a chief mason perhaps, with oversized hands and a sloping, furrowed head. He was trussed in deep-cutting, crisscrossing ceremonial cords of gold, and from each intersection depended an amulet, an inscribed, fly-shaped talisman that the Knighthood had been awarded for every hard-fought victory. As they dragged the soul the golden flies jingled against the wires, an odd, light sound that was disharmonious with the muffled, throaty moaning that issued from his gagged mouth.
Adramalik lowered the barbed shaft until it was chest high, pointing it at the kneeling soul. Seeing this, the Knights began, in low whispers, to intone their credo, a series of short obeisances first to Lucifer the Lost and then to Beelzebub. Each Knight in turn stepped forward and with his drawn sword, and with only one thrust, pierced the soul in a different space between the golden cords. The chanting grew louder with each recapitulation, and when it was nearly shouted the Knights-in-training grasped the soul under his arms, raising him above their heads and then dropping him with gurgling screams upon the upraised pike. There, vertically impaled, he slumped, and all eyes watched what was left of his blood flow down the pike's shaft until it reached Adramalik's hands.
Silence descended like a hammer.
Capping the pike with Beelzebub's crest—a great, golden fly—Adramalik raised the newly created standard high overhead, and the Knights responded by breaking formation, each moving to his steed at the head of a full mounted battalion that stretched out and down the broad, torch-lit Avenue of War. Barracks along its length were still emptying their legions onto the avenue behind the cavalry. Fiery unit sigils stood out in the haze of ash, dwindling as they progressed down the avenue to pinpoints of light in the far distance, lights that reminded the Chancellor General of the specks upon an Abyssal serpent's back.
A sound of cries and crunching caused him to turn in time to see Moloch looming huge upon his soul-steed, trampling a few luckless demon foot soldiers underfoot as he took the forward position. His wheeling mount was an immense Melding—a many-legged, headless steed fashioned of souls com-pressed into a form from which sprouted a dozen weapon-wielding arms. With a snarl and an annoyed flick of one of his Hooks, Moloch set the army in motion. It was a small gesture, Adramalik noted, but a gesture heavy with significance. War was at hand, a war that Adramalik was certain would have but a single outcome. And when it was over, tired as he was of the ceaseless politics, he thought that he might take up residence far from Dis, perhaps somewhere in the newly conquered territory where he could indulge himself away from the ever-watchful eyes of Beelzebub's court. It was a fantasy that caught Adramalik off guard, one that he had never considered before but which brought him some pleasure. As he made his way out of the capital, he found himself looking at the passing succession of familiar landmarks as one who was, at long last, bidding them farewell, a conflicting mixture of euphoria and melancholia washing through him.
THE WASTES
The ground screamed behind them as the army headed toward Adamantinarx, making its way through terrain that had grown rougher and more difficult the farther from Dis it marched. The ancient trackway to Adamantinarx had been disused for a very long time and had become overgrown, the sliced flesh of the old roadbed cuts having filled in considerably in the millennia. But, Adramalik could see, it was essentially still there, the roads remaining clearer in most cases than the tunnels, which were frequently tangled with heavy-branched, arterial trees and tangles of intertwined, venous growth. Small obstructions had been chopped away by the pioneers in the vanguard, but eventually the enormous ribbon that was the army reached the first foothills, low and rolling and grown higher since the road had been cut. Adramalik had watched as the blunt-headed Maws—faster and more precise than the lumbering Demolishers—had been brought forth and had been set upon the landscape amidst a chorus of gnashing teeth and screaming groundswells. Enlarged and attenuated into long tubular shapes and then bound tightly together by the hundreds, the soul-bundles chewed through the fleshy landscape, clearing the straight trek so characteristic of Dis' relentless generals—the arrow-straight path that almost symbolically allowed for no obstacles. Adramalik knew the fields would heal, that the capricious slashings of the soldiers' weapons and the gnawed roadway would scab over eventually, but for the moment, as they made their way through the frontier, he would enjoy the choir of shrill screams that the ground gave voice to.
* * * * *
On the third week of their march the army came upon a wide, gurgling river of blood, which had, long ago, been spanned by a thick-pillared bridge, but while the pillars remained erect, the broad roadway had fallen, forcing the soldiers to ford through the fast-moving currents. The mounted battalions had no difficulty negotiating the river, but the legions were momentarily thrown into disarray as the currents churned and shifted. Stained a glistening, deep red, they climbed the far banks and veered back onto the old road. Here the ground was aflame and the black smoke billowed in huge, shifting sheets. Peering into the gloom, Adramalik saw vague shapes, gigantic Abyssals that concealed themselves in the smoke and dogged the columns, watching hopefully for any small scout detachment to stray too far from the protection of the army. Theirs would be a swift end, signaled only by the sudden flare of lights in the darkness. The Chancellor General knew that few, if any, of the mounted scouts would be foolhardy enough to lose sight of the column.
Without rest the army marched, straight through the wilds of the frontier, through the noisy fields of indifferent Sag-hrim and their Psychemancers, past the towering and floating stelae bearing gigantic sculpted fly heads that marked the border of Beelzebub's realm. Beyond them, through the wide Wastes and past Astaroth's broken realm, lay the wards of Sargatanas' kingdom, a rich prize that the Prince would easily wrest from the upstart Demon Major. If I am careful they could become mine, thought Adramalik. Careful and ruthless. A kingdom of my own with the best of my Knights would be powerful indeed. It had become a frequent thought that brought a cold ghost of a smile to the Chancellor General's hard face as he plodded along atop his mount.
THE FLAMING CUT
The outpost, a low, jagged silhouette of broken buildings, was situated between two long, flaming ridges. It was not on any map that Adramalik had seen back in the chart-rooms of Dis, but that, he knew, meant nothing; those floating maps had been drawn and redrawn dozens of centuries ago, and with relations growing strained between the two cities surveyors had not been sent out since. The ridges may not have even been aflame back then. Or, he thought, perhaps this was simply a convenient roosting spot for the abandoned buildings that had been cut from the city and had floated into the wilds.