A siege commander, standing between the Behemoths, guided their strikes, placing target-glyphs upon those sections of the reinforced portal that appeared weakest. Hannibal could see light from within peeking out of the long cracks.
He peered into the relative darkness of the battlefield behind him; since the wall had failed Dis had been plunged back into the unilluminated gloom of Hell. There was no longer any fighting in the front lines; Beelzebub’s legions had been either destroyed in combat or crushed in the rain of gargantuan debris that had filled in large sections of the Belt. Even now, far from the ramp, Hannibal felt the dull concussion of giant slabs slamming into the lava as they continued to be chiseled away by the bombardment of glyphs.
And the rain of destruction had not been limited to the wall alone. Glyphs arced high into the air to land amidst the towers and minarets within its confines, jarring some of them loose. These rose, Hannibal saw, into the black sky, turning and cartwheeling slowly, and began to float away from the Keep.
Put Satanachia’s sigil appeared at the ramp’s base and Hannibal saw that its owner was mounting the incline and heading toward his position, his staff in tow. His presence was welcome; the Soul-General found himself feeling more loyalty to the Demon Major than toward his own kind. The cold glances Hannibal received even from his trusted souls holding Gaha’s reins were distancing, something he was not accustomed to as a general. Something in Hell he would have to get used to if he was to maintain his position with his demon lords.
Satanachia stopped before Hannibal and patted away some imaginary ash from his immaculate armor. The splendid multicolored sigils that floated over his breastplate shone upon three new disks, talismans of hard fighting against hard foes. Hannibal wondered how the looming demon could appear so composed and, in contrast to Field Marshal Orus and the rest of his retinue, so clear of ash and blood.
“Well done, Hannibal. We are close now, eh?”
“Close enough for me to smell the rot from inside.”
“We will cleanse it with sword and fire; of that you can be sure.”
“And then?”
The gate sagged with a terrific groan. More blows revealed more of the dimly lit interior of the vestibule beyond. Weapons could be seen glittering in the hands of barely seen legionaries.
“And then we will take it down… the whole Keep… and start anew. It is Sargatanas’ wish.”
“That will take centuries.”
“Time is something, with luck, we will have.”
Four simultaneous deafening hammer-blows knocked the immense gate inward and the Behemoths lurched forward and over the twisted hinges, entering the vestibule and grinding the front ranks of enemy legionaries underfoot. A reverberating cheer went up from all who could see the portal’s collapse. A rain of attacking glyphs met the Behemoths, stopping them for the moment; they would not be able to go too far into the Keep anyway, Hannibal knew. The corridors leading up to the palace were intentionally cramped for just that purpose.
Satanachia, a pale mountain of fury, leaped past Hannibal and disappeared between the pillarlike legs of the huge souls, followed by Orus and a steady stream of legionaries. Hannibal saw his souls far below being passed by the demon legionaries and saw, too, their indecision. If he was to have sway over them it would come from this moment. He raised his sword.
“Follow me,” he shouted hoarsely in the souls’ language, “or forever be their slaves!” He turned and sprinted for the entrance.
As he jumped over the wreckage of the hinge he stole a glance backward. Those souls who had been able to hear him—souls who had been earmarked to be converted—were taking up weapons from the long pile and running after him. What real choice did they have? he thought. They could fight and take their chances, either being destroyed or sharing in the victory, or they could resist and suffer the fate of insurrectionists. Or they could run and take their chances with the hungry Abyssals. Hannibal knew which alternative he would choose.
Just behind Satanachia, Hannibal was able to witness the whirlwind of destruction the Demon Major had become. Common legionaries could not stand before him and were obliterated by the dozens as they progressed through the narrow confines of the vestibule. Hannibal heard Satanachia’s breathing, deep and echoing, as he worked his sword from side to side. It would be a long trek upward through the Keep’s innumerable halls and corridors, but watching the fallen angel before him, he felt little doubt they would make it. He was dubious that they would arrive at the Rotunda in time to aid Sargatanas and Eligor, but at least they would divert enough of the Fly’s troops away from that battle to make a difference.
Hannibal threw himself into the fighting with renewed energy. Satanachia inspired him and he unconsciously began to emulate some of the Demon Major’s sword moves. After a few halls had been cleared, Hannibal’s confidence had grown along with his identification with the demon. No matter what the outcome in the Rotunda many levels above, Hannibal would be sure to be at Satanachia’s side when it unfolded.
* * * * *
“It has been too long since we last held counsel, Demon Major. What has made you so… restless?”
Deliberate in his movements, Beelzebub calmly stood atop his throne, adjusting the long cloak that hung from his lean form. He had adopted the mien of a regal and aloof being, thin and armored in his customary carapace, his multieyed head disturbingly flylike. Four enormous iridescent wings, unlike any others in Hell, projected behind his cloak. Churning within the angry masses of flies in his torso like an ever-moving luminous skeleton were ill-seen skeins of glyphs and sigils, the accumulated wisdom and horror that defined the Regent of Hell.
“I could not let go of my past as easily as some,” Eligor heard Sargatanas answer in the language of the Above.
“That may be,” Beelzebub said, “but you know They do not want you back. And I certainly do not want you here, so what will you do?”
The heavy armor that Eligor had seen forming when Sargatanas first arrived at the Black Dome was fully congealed upon his body, armor so similar to that from Above, painfully white and strangely reflective. But the demon’s protection was not yet complete. Another layer, a mail of glyphs, was beginning to emerge as tiny, growing embers.
“I will do what I must to gain the Throne’s acceptance. I will show the demons of Hell that they can be forgiven, that they can, if they choose, go back.”
Beelzebub nodded slowly as if in resignation and then Eligor saw a sudden torrent of glyphs pour forth from the figure of flies with such force that Sargatanas was lifted and driven backward, his fanlike wings clawing at the air. Eligor saw his lord flinching and grimacing and could only think that it had been sublime madness for the Demon Major to presume that he could confront the Prince. His were powers unthinkable to demons.
Ever so slowly under the stress of the relentless onslaught, Sargatanas’ glyph-mail finally came together. Hundreds of the protective glyphs merged across his entire body to cover him in a continuous interwoven blanket, a blanket that deflected the majority of the lethal projectiles. And equally slowly the demon descended, flaming sword outstretched, until he was nearly within arm’s reach of the Fly.
Sargatanas suddenly leaned in and swept his fiery blade out and through Beelzebub’s writhing neck and Eligor saw how those flies it touched flared briefly into blue-green flame and were extinguished. But the neck had parted of its own volition and when it came back together it appeared to be unharmed. The seraph sword had cleaved nothing. Time and again Sargatanas arced his blade through the body of shifting flies, weaving it through the black, buzzing motes and pulling it back, only to see a small number destroyed and the remainder rearranging themselves as they had been. Beelzebub’s stance remained unchanged.
Eligor, unable to take his eyes from the unfolding duel, began, unsurprisingly, to hear the battle on the floor slowly, fitfully, resume. The dull sound of tens, hundreds, then thousands of weapons clashing rose in his ears like the beginnings of an avalanche, slow
and gathering, until, once again, it filled the Rotunda. He cast a command-glyph to Metaphrax and watched a squadron of his Guard detach themselves from the hovering squadrons of demons and bank away to attack the Knight Chancellor General Adramalik and those around him. So eager was his lieutenant to fight the guardians of the Keep that Eligor knew he would have happily spearheaded the diving attack on twice their numbers. And this delegation of duty, Eligor thought a bit selfishly, would allow him, for the moment at least, to watch his lord.
Sargatanas drew back and Eligor saw a complicated glyph-weapon form in his free hand, a barbed device the color of which shifted like a crystal-prism. It was, he guessed, a gift of the destroyed Pyromancer Furcas, but as Sargatanas pulled his hand back to cast it, Beelzebub struck out with a stream of dark flies and engulfed it, smothering the burning weapon before the Demon Major even had a chance to throw it. The Fly hissed in unmistakable disgust and turned his back. Eligor knew this made no difference whatsoever in Beelzebub’s defense, knew that his eyes were everywhere on his person, but saw how the gesture of arrogant diffidence, the symbolism of casual superiority, confounded Sargatanas, who flailed his sword in impotent rage.
Eligor felt his lord’s frustration and sensed that his worst fears were now proven. There is no weapon that can finish him. The rebellion will end here and the Fly will destroy us all. In what seemed a final attempt to prevail, the Demon Major’s Great Seal began to glow more brilliantly and the sigils of all of those Demons Major who had joined him in his rebellion began to flare. One by one and with a scraping sound like claws on flint, they separated from the burning disk and then arrowed straight into Beelzebub’s turned back. With each terrible impact the flies broke apart, some igniting into flames and vanishing, others scattering in clouds of fiery sparks. The Prince’s figure billowed, appearing at turns to disintegrate and re-form in shapeless disarray, and this made Eligor smile fiercely. He could see that every fiber of Sargatanas’ being was focused on the attack and that it was having an effect. Dozens of the sigils penetrated the agitated mass of flies, and each took its toll in numbers. And when it was over and Sargatanas’ sigil was no more than just his own, Beelzebub had turned back to face him and a wavering uncertainty seemed to have entered the Fly’s demeanor. There was no immediate response, and for a moment it seemed to be re-evaluating the demon that faced it. It had suffered considerably; half of its head was missing as well as both wings and its remaining arm. But Eligor sensed that there was enough of the Fly left to be more than dangerous.
To Eligor, at that moment, it seemed a perfect standoff. Neither opponent had seemed capable of destroying the other, but Eligor feared that that balance might have changed, that without the many demons’ sigils that had so helped his lord get to this point, Sargatanas could be vulnerable, even to a very much weaker Beelzebub.
With a gesture that Eligor thought at first was more petulant than effective, the Fly threw a glyph down to the floor that suddenly swept the demons directly around Sargatanas up, tossing them forcefully at the Demon Major. Destroying them with his dashing sword and deflecting them with his free hand, Sargatanas was engulfed in an ashy tornado of crumbling, shouting bodies, his brilliant white form nearly obscured by the sheer mass of them. Eligor saw his troops, legionaries of Dis, and Order Knights alike, indiscriminately uplifted into the air and catapulted toward Sargatanas until the floor hundreds of feet around him was empty. And as he smashed his way clear, Beelzebub cast down seven archaic red glyphs that touched the floor and disappeared, melting into the rubble and blood and flesh and leaving behind pillars of smoke.
Sargatanas freed himself from the diminishing storm of demons and saw the glyphs’ trajectory and swiftly rose up well above the throne. Somehow he had read the glyphs and knew what was coming.
* * * * *
No one, Adramalik mused, could help but marvel at the ferocious beauty of his Prince’s foe, nor could they help but admire the demon’s bravery. Adramalik looked from side to side and saw that his remaining Knights, flaming scimitars flashing, were engaged in furious combat with the Demon Minor Metaphrax and his flying lancers.
Adramalik looked from that fight to the glowing disks of his Knights unfortunate enough to have been caught up in Beelzebub’s petulant rage. Sargatanas’ convictions had made him truly transcendent among demons.
Adramalik remembered his many punishments over the millennia and the pain of each and, setting his jaw, turned away from the Prince. Beelzebub does not deserve my loyalty, he thought with disgust, and in that moment, the path he had always wanted to travel upon opened for him. He raised his hand and shot a command-glyph out to his Knights to sheathe their weapons and form up around him. He would withdraw and leave the Prince and Dis itself, taking his Order with him. Wounded and distracted, Beelzebub would not be able to stop them.
* * * * *
Hannibal felt the sound in his bones before he heard it. Beneath his feet he felt the floor of the Keep vibrate, felt it yield slightly as if it were shifting. At the present, they were climbing steadily upward and Satanachia informed him that they were roughly halfway to the Rotunda. At first he thought the dull sound was diminishing, but suddenly it gathered into a deep rushing sound and then the floor beneath his feet cracked. Braziers tumbled to the ground, spreading pools of flame.
Satanachia turned and looked at him with knit brows, listening.
“What is it?” Hannibal asked.
But realization suddenly cleared Satanachia’s face and, wide-eyed, he shouted “Back, back the way we came!”
As one, the vanguard turned, and the command went back down the unending stairs. The hundreds of confused troops squeezed into the narrow passage tried to maintain some form of order, but were too slow to respond. The rushing sound from below became the din of crashing bone-supports and bricks, and the Keep shuddered like a wounded animal. The floor heaved and buckled and Hannibal saw the long, dim staircase ahead thrown upward, completely broken apart by some titanic force.
As he fell, through the dust and broken bricks and tiles that flew toward him, he had a brief impression of something enormous, something vaguely human in form, rising irresistibly up through the ruptured floor on powerful wings. And as it passed, it gave voice, a deafening cry of release, pained and hoarse but also unmistakably triumphant. Hannibal recognized it as the voice of Semjaza.
* * * * *
The Rotunda floor buckled from the lack of support beneath it and formed a fractured and deepening bowl into which slid hundreds of Beelzebub’s legionaries. The ugly mass of flesh that was the Fly’s throne sank into a soup of ashy blood, rubble, and flailing demons and then suddenly erupted as the entire floor split open.
Eligor’s mouth opened in silent shock.
For eons, the few scattered Watchers, buried and nearly forgotten, had been thought of almost as forces of Infernal nature. They had been in Hell before the demons arrived and, it was speculated, would be there after time ended. No demon had ever dreamt of actually seeing one.
Once Semjaza the Watcher had been beautiful, but that was very long ago. Incarcerated, it had grown immense and mad feeding upon the blackness that lay beneath all of Hell. A rank odor of age and decay filled Eligor’s nostrils.
So tall that it was nearly a tenth the height of the Black Dome, the Watcher floated on six slowly beating wings that, fully extended, seemed as if they might span the Rotunda. It had fared poorly in its captivity, Eligor saw. Blind and with its nose eaten away by worms, its face was a tortured landscape of pits and wrinkles, the chiseled contours of its skull prominent. Its skin, once golden and miraculous for its magical markings, was a sickly pale gray and was dotted with holes and covered in sores. Visible, too, was the ancient, Throne-mandated punishment, the great scarred wound where its genitals had been ritually, wrathfully, excised for its sins. Upon its wrists and ankles were the burned-in scars of the elaborate glyphs that Those from the Above had used to cast it down and shackle it—glyphs that somehow Beelzebub had managed to n
eutralize.
Eligor saw it turn its huge horned and winged head to and fro, trying blindly to sense its surroundings. Beneath it, the remains of the floor cracked and began to slowly slide down, sinking of its own broken weight, lower and lower until it separated and dropped, taking with it those screaming demons that had been clinging to the bricks. When the dust had cleared, Eligor could see well down into the burning heart of the Keep. When he looked up he saw the hundreds of his flying demons who had retreated; there were fewer of them left than he had expected.
Once the sounds of the floor’s sinking had subsided, a strange quiet settled throughout the Rotunda. Only the cavernous sound of Semjaza’s breathing could be heard, as well as the slow flapping of its wings.
And then a soft buzzing arose and a green command-glyph sprang to life from the deformed figure that was Beelzebub. It sped up toward Semjaza and, without pause, sank into its head. The milky eyes closed and the six wings beat faster as the message was revealed. Eligor was sure that the Fly’s weapon was gathering itself.
From the heights of the dome a white form descended and hovered before the withered face of the Watcher. Sargatanas, head ablaze and blue ialpor napta held before him, hung on gently beating wings so close to the titan that he might have reached out and touched it with the sword point.
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