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.