Chaos had been created upon the battlefield, but Hannibal knew that it was a chaos deliberately orchestrated by Beelzebub. The organization of its seemingly random elements followed a logic, Hannibal recognized, that most likely only the Fly could comprehend and control.
Far off in the haze of mist and ash, during a short lull, Hannibal saw the silhouetted forms of the giant soul-beasts seemingly motionless, gaining ground one difficult footstep at a time. The Urban Legions were tough, hardened troops, he had been told, accustomed to living in a harsh city formerly under that severest of generals, Moloch; they would not be an easy obstacle to pass over.
As Hannibal resumed fighting he occasionally stole a glance toward Satanachia's position, and as time wore on he saw that the Demon Major's forces were suffering considerable losses. A large salient of Rofocale's troops was bulging deep within Satanachia's lines, and try as the Behemoths might to stop the enemy from pushing forward, they seemed too few against the seemingly limitless waves of steaming legionaries that issued from beneath the Keep. Time and again Hannibal saw their massive hammers come down amidst the carpet of enemy demons only to see the pulverized foe immediately replaced by clots of aggressive halberdiers climbing atop the rubble.
The ten nearest legions, arranged in close formation, entered the fray, packed tightly so that they seemed a solid wall. The rubble from the destroyed demons of both sides was so extensive that both armies found their legionaries climbing up steep, irregular inclines to engage each other. With the ceaseless, mounting destruction the footing was becoming extremely unstable, and he saw as much damage incurred because of masses of falling soldiers as there was from actual combat wounds.
Slowly, the Behemoths began to gain ground and what had been a standstill turned into a rout. The Summoning of legionaries from the Belt finally abated and Satanachia's legions fell upon the fleeing demons, leaving a field strewn with smoking rubble.
Briefly, Hannibal thought he saw Satanachia's sigil floating against the brightness of the Belt just where he would expect it—over the line's center. A swift flash of white might just have been his brilliant two-handed sword, but Hannibal could not be certain. A giant green glyph emerged unexpectedly from the summit of the Black Dome and with a terrible scream of energy the wall came alive. Enormous bolts sprang from it, each one targeting a different Behemoth and enveloping it in a fireball of destruction. In short, disastrous moments, only fiery pits remained where the Behemoths had stood and the crackling wall had resumed its shifting glow. And a new wave of demons seemed to be forming upon the Belt. The battle had turned for the worse, and Hannibal's spirits sank.
He looked again to the Demon Major for any commands or for Azazel. and as Hannibal picked the standard-bearer's gaudy form out of the milling legionaries a glyph rose into the sky from that embattled position and he knew without doubt that Satanachia was there. The fiery command streaked toward Hannibal, and when he had taken a moment to interpret its filigreed complexities the realization of what the Demon Major was asking of him nearly made him drop his sword.
* * * * *
Beelzebub was, Adramalik noted with some relief, in a state of rare and unexpected calm as he observed the progress of his legions. The Prime Minister, face burning from surveying the windswept battlements, stepped closer to the throne and saw something new in his Prince's hand. Stripped of its flesh undoubtedly by Husk Faraii, Lucifuge Rofocale's head had been ingeniously adapted by the Prince's own hand to serve as a lens to focus upon the events far below him on Dis' field of battle. Mounted on a short, gold staff, the once-defiant, proud head had been picked clean, broken apart, splayed out, and transformed into a dark contrivance, all inscribed bone with inlaid, functional gems and spinning glyphlets that covered its blackened length and breadth up to its gold-rimmed, circular eye sockets. Watching his Prince peering through Rofocale's empty eyes, Adramalik had to marvel at the things his master could do, things that he found at once revolting and, despite himself, inspiring.
A noise caught his attention from the throne's base. Adramalik noticed Agares for the first time, as the distorted demon tried in vain to suppress a bubbling cough. His appearance had so worsened that he seemed no longer a demon but now, wasted and raw, a detached part of the shadowed throne of flesh that he sat beneath.
"He is coming," the Prince buzzed.
"Sargatanas, my Prince?"
"The Heretic!"
"Where is he, my Prince?"
"I cannot tell," he said, never taking his many eyes from the skull. "He is clever, Adramalik. I only know that he is close."
Adramalik looked up, past the Prince atop his throne. The dangling skins were in a constant state of agitation, creating a palpable breeze within the Rotunda and stirring the rank smells of its contents. The battle in the city below must have been affecting them.
"All is in readiness for him. We have fielded every last legion, and the Keep Wall is fully alive."
"I think it will not be enough, Prime Minister. He is a determined heretic."
Adramalik said nothing; there was little more that could be said or done than what his master had already implemented.
Adramalik never dreamt—that was for souls and beasts. But when he had returned to his chambers and laid down upon his pallet after his impossible exertions supervising the demolition of Dis, he had come close. Perhaps, he thought, what he had seen was more of a vision. Whatever it had been, it was brief and disquieting.
It had begun with him standing upon the wall, watching as countless gangs of souls hastily labored to finish its construction. He watched, too, how methodical their demon Overseers were as they efficiently prodded the shuffling, whimpering souls—most only recently able to move about again—into place while the soul-masons positioned them with precision. And he saw them transformed, course after gray course of them, into the heavy bricks that comprised the great, soaring structure. He looked down in his dream and saw their many thousand black, protruding orbs dotting the wall's flat, curving surface and was amazed and pleased.
When he turned, it was with the expectation of seeing the Black Dome rising skyward just as he knew it, but it was not there and a clenching fear gripped him. In its place, when he peered in astonishment at where the Keep should have been, there was instead a gaping hole, frost edged and impenetrable in its darkness. He knew what the hole was; he had seen it for himself. The unforgettable stench of it filled his nose as he stared once again into the entrance to Abaddon's realm, and now fear gave way to panic. From within that maw he could hear the distant sounds of moving bodies beyond count scuffling and scraping and also, most disconcertingly, their faint echoing cluttering cries. Suddenly an inward rush of air began to suck at the foot of the wall, breaking it apart and dragging chunks toward the Pit, and in seconds a spiraling maelstrom of soul-bricks was disappearing into the darkness. Adramalik took wing but to no avail. His wings could only claw futilely at the cold air as he was dragged down. Just when he was even with the icy lip of the Pit did he jolt awake, jittery and panting.