Sargatanas pulled up just short of the top of the throne, but as Eligor sailed past him, followed by his Guard, he could not tell what his lord found atop the stinking mound. Eligor and his Guard slammed into the assembled legionaries with enough force to drive most of the standing demons to their knees. Ranks of the demons sprawled momentarily in the soup of blood and meat that filled the floor of the Rotunda. The Knights, however, managed to remain standing, having powerful, protective glyphs floating above, and with booming voices they rallied the Janissaries. A clot of them, flaming swords at the ready, surrounded something or someone, and when they parted Eligor saw, with dismay, that which had once been Baron Faraii. He stood with black blade bared and ebony armored as always, but his formerly gaunt body was now perforated in a thousand spots, hollowed as if there was nothing within. Tiny Abyssal worms played upon and through him, and these revolted Eligor. Faraii turned his pitted head, his one remaining eye glaring, and raised his sword toward Eligor and the onrushing demons.
Eligor and Barbatos knew that to alight was to lose the one advantage they had over their numerically superior opponents; this lesson had been learned many ages ago. They and their troops would fly until they had destroyed the enemy or were forced down. Both Demons Minor led their flyers in broad, sweeping passes that enabled their flights to thrust with their lances in well-practiced maneuvers.
Through the still-falling skins and the jabbing spears from below, Eligor stole as many glances at the throne as he could safely manage. At first, it seemed as if his lord was only hovering above the vacant seat looking about for the Fly, but in a fleeting glimpse Eligor saw the Demon Major wrenching away his flight skins and preparing himself in ways he had never seen before. No longer fully winged, Sargatanas' body was exuding an intricate interlocking armor that glistened pure white in the ruddy haze of the Rotunda. But Eligor was not able to see the transformation through; the hooked spears of the Keep's Janissaries were bringing down more of his flyers than he liked and he could not linger to watch his lord. With their growing experience against the Flying Guards' tactics, the Knights were now lashing out with powerful glyph-bolts that were nearly impossible for the tightly packed flyers to dodge. Eligor's fear that they would have to engage the enemy on the ground seemed to be coming to pass.
Eligor worked his lance calmly; oddly, the battle-Passion had not overtaken him yet. Perhaps, he thought, it was some of Faraii's training finally having effect. The Janissaries were formidable but predictable warriors, and unlike his flyers, he found dispatching them not nearly as difficult as he might have feared. He knew his presence bolstered his Guard and knew, too, that as they flew and fought they were watching his composure, the very way he was fighting. Only when he saw Faraii in the center of a maelstrom of lances did he grow concerned. The Baron was more than capable of changing the balance of a melee, and Eligor slowly moved toward him, sucked in by the vortex of destruction that the former Waste-wanderer was creating.
From the dark, newly exposed recesses of the dome a buzzing began, low but loud enough to be heard and felt over the clamor of battle. It was insistent, and something in its vibrating tone shook Eligor. It is anger sublime.
He saw what he thought was the briefest pause in the fighting, as if all of the combatants in the giant Rotunda felt the tremor of pure rage.
A sudden flash caused him to look past the throne and he realized, to his profound dismay, that Barbatos had fallen. A cluster of moving Order sigils hung over the spot. Apparently Adramalik and five of his Knights, bolstered by the imminent arrival of their Prince, had surrounded the Demon Minor and felled him. Eligor knew they would focus upon him next. He soared upward followed by a hundred of his best flyers, vowing to do what he could to even the loss. A bold stroke was called for, and seeking one sigil out of the many, he focused upon the dark form of Faraii.
* * * * *
When the ramp had reached halfway across Lucifer's Belt, the wall's defenses came alive again with a sound like the sharp snapping of a giant's back. Hannibal looked up from the edge of the ramp. Beneath him the lava flowed and swirled, and its heat reached up and threatened to choke him. Though he stood much closer to the wall, Hannibal had not reacted as had many of the souls around him, flinching or calling out, frightened by its sudden reactivation. Through narrowed eyes he watched the carnage begin anew as the wall's incandescent bolts leaped forth and decimated souls and demons alike. What can I do? This is exactly why we must hurry. His eyes lifted to the heavy gate, now much more distinct, and he saw the carvings on its face that he had not seen from the battlefield. Grand curses, no doubt. Will Satanachia be able to nullify them? And if we do manage to complete the ramp, break down the gate, and enter the Keep just how many of us will there be left to fight whatever we meet up with inside?
Another layer of souls was laid down and Hannibal moved forward a few yards with the Conjurors and Satanachia's Overseers. Progress was steady and Hannibal estimated that if they did not suffer a direct hit, it would take only a few hours before the project was completed. He saw that the next file of souls was moving quickly into place, pushed and prodded savagely by their former demon allies. At least they are not being driven by Scourges. He looked away, searching the faces of the souls around him—none would meet his gaze—for Mago, but knew that he was nowhere nearby. Gone. Just as well, with the wall's bombardment wreaking such destruction. As if to punctuate the thought, a bolt shot through the air and crashed into the massed fighting demons a few hundred feet from the ramp's base, sending up a dark plume of ash and broken legionaries. Indiscriminate—the Fly does not care whose demons he destroys!
Another few layers of souls were laid down, and if anything, the wall's defenses increased. The many bolts grew in frequency and in strength and Hannibal was reluctant to look back toward the blasted landscape where so many were perishing. He marveled at the puzzling fact that not a single bolt had been directed at the ramp but felt that it was just a matter of time.
Hannibal looked closely at the wall and, in particular, the countless orbs that were embedded in its surface, each one protruding from the crushed body of a soul. They seemed to somehow collect and focus the energies the architect Mulciber was using as a weapon. When Hannibal had possessed an orb himself he would never have guessed they could have been used in such a way. He nodded in silent approval of the Architect General's genius.
Hannibal saw yet another massive bolt forming, a coalescing of bright motes that would, in seconds, discharge outward in a mighty clap of thunder. He braced himself for the sound, but without warning the entire wall suddenly went dark. And then, after a long silence in which he was sure the bolts would resume, he heard a distant roar of elation start from somewhere behind his lines, a cheer that was taken up all around. Something had happened to shut down the wall.
He saw the Conjurors redouble their efforts, fearful, he guessed, that the lull might end, the wall might reactivate itself, and their opportunity to finish the ramp unhindered and gain the gate would suddenly pass. But the wall remained inactive, its only illumination from the Belt beneath, its only sound that of the howling wind that clawed at its rounded sides.
A command-glyph rose from Azazel at Satanachia's position, racing away too fast for Hannibal to read. Moments later a relatively small, bright glyph darted out from Sargatanas' army heading straight for the wall. It impacted toward the top of the battlements and the Soul-General saw a burst of soul-bricks explode away and drop the vast distance down to splash into the lava below. It was just a test, just the beginning. Destructive glyphs, greater in size and numbers, were soon speeding toward the now-vulnerable wall, pocking its sides in showers of exploding debris. Experts in the art of demolition, the demons pounded at the wall in patterns designed to shear off the largest sections with the least effort. Frequent bursts of spurting fluids cascaded down from some ruptured artery or conduit from the archiorganic buildings behind. Enormous flat chunks came free and tumbled slowly from the wall, peeled away as if by equally enormous fingers, and landed in prodigious fountains of lava that threatened to immolate the demons on the far bank. Eventually, Hannibal saw that the debris was actually creating bridges of rubble across the Belt to the wall's foot. Once the destruction was halted he knew these unexpected causeways would be exploited.