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.