Dance of Demons

Chapter 21

Nightmare battles of the sort that was raging were no longer strange to them, but all three shuddered on being suddenly precipitated onto the horrible field nonetheless. Leda, most inured of them all to the vileness of the Abyss, was as shaken as either Gord or Gellor, more so perhaps.

"I had hoped never to have to see this realm again, should I live to be a hundred centuries old," the elven girl murmured with clenched Jaw as she stared around her.

"At least we gain the respect promised by. . our half-hearted allies," the bard said, noting the chitinous excretion that Ojukalazogadit had suddenly created between them and itself immediately on their arrival. The demon-brute would not have their feet touch its being.

There was also a movement of nearby demonwarriors, a jostling to get well clear of the three figures who had suddenly materialized near their lines. "They act as sheep when wolves come near."

"Such sheep!" Leda managed to jest.

"And what wolves we make," Gord added wryly. "The fighting here is of usual sort for this place — tens of thousands of disgusting creatures howling and screaming and tearing each other to pieces. Nowhere do I see signs of the leaders engaged in more esoteric struggles. We must find Graz'zt and the other powerful ones here. Surely if Tharizdun is anywhere on this layer, he will be intent on facing his chief enemies."

"Dare we venture at large on Ojukalazogadit?"

"Dare we stand as bumps, girl?" Gellor said with a hard laugh. "This brute seems loath to have aught of our force touch its expanse. Perhaps it will make a pathway of cobbles for us to march over."

"Or try to swallow us whole," Leda countered, and neither she nor the others smiled.

There came a distant braying of great horns, and a thunderous series of noises indicating opposing dweomers at play. At that moment the surface of the demon-brute heaved as an ocean does during a storm, the waves of the motion rolling away in the direction of the sound. "Look!" Gord exclaimed. "The very land seems to rise up to fight against the invading swarm of Tharizdun's armies."

"Ojukalazogadit, not land," Leda corrected. But she had to agree that it was much as if ground had formed itself to repel invaders. In the distance the brute had fashioned a volcanolike protrusion. From the cone could be seen something erupting and flowing downward as would lava. It poured only in the direction of the ringing besiegers.

"We go that way," Gord said. He stepped off the shelled surface to the lIvid stuff of Ojukalazogadit's immense body. While the demon-brute didn't attack, it did not ignore them either. Various forms of barriers to the touch of them were thrown up to its surface by the thing — horn, hide, shell, chitin, bark. All randomly, each in varying degree of thickness and extent.

They proceeded along, a bowshot to the rear of the colliding masses of demons and their foes. The roar and screech of battle was deafening and demoralizing too. "Think on your ring, dear Gord," Leda encouraged when she saw his steps beginning to flag. "There is stuff therein to counter the horrors we must endure here." She was very much correct. Gord had been relying only on his own determination and the force of his sword. Courflamme was of mixed power, and the evil in it was drawn to the battle. The struggle was beginning to affect the young champion, for in his mind he could not help considering the effect of the deadly blade upon attacker and defender both.

The demon-brute was creating swamplike sinks near, and from these malodorous fens clambered things of slime and ooze. Some of their fellow demons they suffocated and otherwise slew as they went, but these bits of the greater brute formed a wall that fell upon the packed ranks of fiends and maelvis about to break through the relatively few demon-warriors left alive there. The surviving attackers fell back in panic. Soon enough some greater ones of Tharizdun's slaves would drive them back to fight again. Distant voicano and fetld marsh-monsters notwithstanding. Ojukalazogadit was comparatively inactive. Was the continual combat wearing away at even so huge a thing as the demon-brute? Gellor gave voice to the question they were all thinking about, not really expecting a reply.

"It is Entropy," whispered a voice that might have been that of Chronos. This is the last hour of the last great battle. …"

Then we have not one breath's pause to spare," Gord cried to his two companions. "You heard it too, didn't you?"

"Aye, we did, old comrade," the troubador growled.

"I as well heard what was timely," Leda called. "We're with you. Hurry!"

He went on at a trot. Leda was at his right hand, Gellor at the other. The increase in pace seemed to disturb Ojukalazogadit more than ever, and because they were making a virtual beeline, the brute sent up what might have been a long ridge of stone. It was rank and rough, but the surface made for very easy travel indeed. Gord increased his pace to a near-run. "I see the standard of Graz'zt ahead," he shouted.

There was a deep wedge of attackers driving into the packed bands of defending demons who fought beneath the dark banners of Graz'zt and the other lords with the demonking. It was no surprise that it was Tharizdun himself who fought at the point of the thrust. The archfiend was as starkly naked as when first arisen, and he carried no physical weapon in his hand. Lightnings and bolts of energy shot from Tharizdun's body, palms, fingers, eyes, even mouth, as his whim dictated. It was because of his presence that the defenders were crowding back Each gout of energy the terrible being sent forth slaughtered all in its path, whether least demon or proud noble able to stand before a charging behemoth and laugh.

The wedge was aimed directly at Graz'zt and his fellow sovereigns of demonium. Ojukalazogadit had attempted to break the spearpoint of the attack by the ulcerous volcano that spewed forth hungrymouthed stuff whose very touch dissolved most substances. Whether or not Tharizdun had laughed at that attempt, he did delight in the opportunity to punish the brute who had cost him much in the way of slave soldiers. The archfiend had used his force to crumble the mountainous upthrusting, and then proceeded to skewer the lavalike flows with other beams. They hung in the air, writhing, almost as if pennons being tossed in a wild wind. Then Tharizdun let them fall upon the heads of the demons who had been aided by the stuff, and even in its death throes the substance of the demon-brute was potent enough to eat away those it covered in its falling. Ojukalazogadit made the atmosphere vibrate to its agony as that occurred.

The demons guarding Graz'zt, Orcus, and the others there tried to escape the inexorable archfiend. Great dweomers played upon Tharizdun, and the daemons and devils who came behind were burned, melted, shredded, rotted, or simply vanished into nothingness. As fast as a thousand were thus destroyed, a fresh thousand rushed up to take the places of the slain, and their dreadful master advanced yet nearer to his goal. This was truly the last battle to be fought in demonium, the last hour of the fray, the end of the Abyss as it had been. In very short time Tharizdun would reach the place where the last of the demonkings waited. These foes of the Ultimate One of Evil had no further place to go, no other choice than to stand, fight, and die. Tharizdun gave no quarter. Because of that, the lesser tried to flee and were slaughtered, the greater fought desperately and died with their teeth or talons gouging life from their attackers.

Suddenly Gord, Leda, and Gellor appeared in the midst of the towering knot of desperate demons, having come up unseen from behind. Only Graz'zt paid more than momentary heed to the three — he and Elazalag, to be exact. The rest, even Orcus, Marduk, Arioch, Nergel, a dozen others but glanced at the humans, cursed them, and returned to concentrate on hindering the advance of their deadly foe. The ebon demonking seemed not to be so concerned with the archfiend's advance, however, as to neglect the ones whom he regarded as the instruments of his forthcoming destruction.

"You have come into my grasp!" Graz'zt croaked through a throat parched from battle screams. Then he recoiled. The forces of time and probability might have been responsible. Perhaps it was the sudden pulsing — bright, then dark — from the unsheathed length of Courflamme.

Elazalag directed the Eye of Deception squarely at them, focusing its force on Leda. "One at least shall pay," the demoness grated with frightful countenance.

"Walt!" Gord shouted, and somehow his command made the princess of the Abat-dolor hesitate. "Time enough to settle any such scores between us after we do our work"

"What new mischief, bastard man? Do you wish Graz'zt's bollocks now?"

"Not at all. We three are come to take the head of Tharizdun!"

The feral eyes of the great demoness went wide at that. "If that you can do. Champion, then not any of the princely demons of the Abyss will dare to call you to account for past grievances. But if you seek out that one, why come into our midst?" she asked suspiciously.

"Play the Eye's energy upon them!" Graz'zt screamed in fury.

"Shut up," Elazalag told him without anger. "Well, Gord the Champion?"

"It should be evident to you — all. This is where Tharizdun comes. He might flee from me should his eyes spy me from a distance. In this place, sheltered by your massive forms, hidden by the surging dweomers. the foe will not notice us until it is too late for him to escape. He will have to fight against us then!"

"Very well, but you must go forth from our midst before his powers are brought to bear upon us here!"

"Agreed, demoness. Judging from the rate Tharizdun advances, it will be only a short wait indeed."

Gord's prediction was accurate. The archfiend, laughing wickedly all the while, advanced almost unhindered, leaving an ever-growing wake of death behind. The recoiling demons before him began to break entirely, and the scene became a debacle of destruction and rout. Only a thin scattering of exceptionally mighty demon-warriors remained to support the lords of the Abyss as Tharizdun came to within a hundred paces. Elazalag was about to command Gord hence when the champion suddenly darted from the midst of the demon kings and lords to confront the Juggernaut.

"You sought the greatest adversary of demonium, I know," Gord shouted to the startled archfiend. "Yet I think I now command precedence!"

"You!!" At that bellowed sound a hush fell upon the place: even the demon-brute fell into near motioniessness. "You dare seek me out?" the darkest master of Evil bawled, and because of the spreading quiet the query was heard all around. So was the reply.

"Dare? I am here! I will slay you!" Gord cried, and at the last words he rushed straight for Tharizdun.

The archfiend sent out three blasts of force meant to wither his small adversary into a husk Two dark rays of destruction shot from Tharizdun's hands, while a gush of fiery radiation vomited from the terrible being's mouth and splattered down upon Gord.

There was a sudden blue glow around the champion at that. Dark beams vanished as they contacted the azure sphere. The burning hell of the radiation belched upon Gord was reduced to a dim and spattering rain of leaden ash by the adamantite force. Even so, the soft cinders of the malign effluent seared any exposed flesh, and where shadow armor was contacted the stuff made it pale and weak Bent low as if advancing in the face of a blizzard, the young man came on.

Now it was Tharizdun trapped against a press from behind, rather than the archfiend trapping and slaughtering demons caught thus. Gord was upon him too quickly for the being to do more than attempt a second attack resembling the first. Courflamme met the force spewing from Tharizdun's mouth, severing it as if it were a material object, ending the onslaught and threatening one of its own.

"Die!" the archfiend cried with near desperation.

Gord ignored such exchange, contenting himself for the moment with a series of rapid strokes. The sword cut back from left to right, upward on the opposite track then down in a overhand from high above his left shoulder. The effect was most gratifying. for Tharizdun's naked paleness was now crossed with red furrows. Seeing the clear power of Courflamme, the champion now taunted his adversary. "Who will die?"

Tharizdun lashed out with his bare fist. Despite his armor, Gord was struck so hard by the unexpected blow that he actually flew backward in a somersault "You will die!" the darkest of Evil howled as he threw himself bodily upon his smaller opponent and proceeded to beat and strike Gord with fists, elbows, knees and any other striking surface that could be brought to bear. The awful energies that were housed within the archfiend were sufficient to destroy the dweomer of shadow plate, break the enchanted links of elfin mail, and to bruise flesh, break bones.

His own stature relative to Tharizdun's great size, and the trained responses of nerve and muscle, saved Gord from being slain. He managed to twist, scramble, and get free of the being who was intent upon grappling and beating him to death in a furious melee. Courflamme remained in his hand, and as he got loose and rolled. Gord managed to stab the archfiend. Tharizdun sought to seize his foe and drag him back into an embrace of destruction, but Gord ran the point of his sword through the reaching hand, and Tharizdun howled and jerked his injured member free. That allowed the champion opportunity to regain the initiative.

The demon onlookers had given voice to a babble of cheering sounds when their chief attacker had been stopped and punished by the little human's ferocious and daring assault. The far more numerous mass of devils and other enemies of the demons had been instantly hushed or sent into hissing exclamations of alarm at the sight of the unstoppable and invincible archfiend battered thus. Upon this sudden turn of events the demons were sent reeling back in fear, Gord seemed vanquished, and their own fate thus sealed. At that moment the maelvis ululated horrid triumph, devils cheered, and a general cacophony of noise erupted from the million throats of the motley horde of evil viewing the life-and-death duel between their leader and his only remaining adversary. Naturally, even the dimmest of those evil creatures was aware that Tharizdun could be slain only by the appointed champion.

Then Gord spun free of the melee, and the diamond and dark length of Courflamme again played havoc upon the Master of Malevolence. Tharizdun was stabbed and slashed a half-dozen times before he could regain a fighting stance. Even then, the archfiend was pressed back and wounded again and again, for the blue radiance from the small mortal who fought seemed to be now nearly impregnable to bolt or blow from the greatest of Evil, while the sword appeared unstoppable by any device Tharizdun could muster.

Back moved the daemons and imps, fiends and dreggals. Not far, slowly, but back. A few hundred turncoat demons now scuttled away to stand beside the few of their ilk who still fought against the hordes of Tharizdun. A trickle of deserters too began to thicken the ranks of defenders who viewed the match. And a match it was. Tharizdun somehow managed to recover something of his form, as it were. The Ultimate Expression of Wickedness appeared to have drawn from deep down in the cesspool of vile power and stood his ground.

The recoiling of his massed legions gave the pair of gladiators space in which to maneuver and counterattack The archfiend wielded various forms of magical attacks as if they were hand-held weapons. Gord, with Courflamme, relied on actual physical assaults mainly, but the pure essence of altruistic weal bound within his adamantite and sapphire band also provided him with means of dweomered defense and attack as well. Despite disparity of size and the leeching of evil powers from the nether realms, it soon became evident that Tharizdun, not the champion, was destined to wear down sooner. As the formerly allied demons began to skulk in growing numbers, slipping away into the enemy line, the archfiend realized his dilemma of inability to break free from the contest and the certain result of remaining locked in battle with Gord. While seeming to use even greater efforts to counter his adversary's successes. Tharizdun began to surreptitiously cast out a web to summon his last trump in the game.

It was as if on cue. Tharizdun gave a great shout, and suddenly his pack of a hundred monstrous yeth hounds were there to join in the fight. Just as quickly. Gellor was at Gord's right hand, deadly sword and golden ring set to keep the horrible dogs of hellish from making off with his comrade. To the champion's left stood the little dark elf, her silvery band also generating a wall of force from the spheres of Weal, while in her hand she held the deadly dagger before her. The yeth bayed and yammered, but they could not close upon Gord.

"Mephisto!" the archfiend cried, and the devilheaded hound charged the steady Gellor. "Thrax!" the darkest one of Evil then commanded, and that ghastly yeth was bounding toward Leda.

"Hold them off, comrades, or the whole pack will close!" Gord warned. He could have saved his breath. Both of his friends were staunch, and the two greatest of the horrid pack were met and sent back with magic and steel.

"Again!" Tharizdun ordered. Snarling hatred, as much for master as for foes, the two monsters returned to the fray."Pack!" the archfiend called, but the remainder of the big hounds with chimerical heads were unable to force their way through the fields of energy that surrounded the contestants. All the expression of malign destlny had accomplished in his machinations was to engage two more foes with his chief slaves. Tharizdun cursed, knowing that because his power was incomplete, that he himself was also lacking, he and the yeth were not going to prevail. Had he only the third greatest monster, the one from demonium, then the force of his pack would be double. Instead of having to cringe before their opponents, the two could have snapped the humans in twain with slavering Jaws. He too could have his foe in his hand, squeezing the very brains out of the champion's head, had the Abyss been Tharizdun's from which to draw strength. Realizing that that would have already occurred had he devoured the skull of the stupid boy-Tharizdun, the archfiend yammered in maddened fury.

The enemy was literally dancing in rage. Gord struck him while thus distracted. "To the void, fiend!" he cried as he laid both hands upon his longsword and scythed toward his adversary. The force of the blow sent Tharizdun back, down, as the archfiend's curses changed to a howling shriek of pain and fear.

Had Entropy been there, the entity would have long ago intervened. He was fully occupied in his own contest, however — the struggle against the howling madness that was Ojukalazogadit. Aware of the desperate situation. Entropy could do nothing. The demon-brute too knew of what was occurring, insane and near incoherent as Ojukalazogadit was; it sought to hold the entity and draw Entropy into itself, to bring both into a void from which there would be no return. Entropy condensed yet more of itself, putting all of its ponderous inertia into the contest, for unless it triumphed, the demon-brute would surely change the entity into something else … or nothing. Conscious of the potential failure of all his plans, Entropy was for once powerless to act.

Both the greater yeth hounds were also in dire difficulty. The strength of their adversaries' rings enabled the two mortals to withstand the monsters' assaults. Both hounds, in turn, were not so protected as to avoid their foes' blades. Devilish Mephisto was sorely wounded, Thrax less so, but in no sense sound, for the dagger Leda plied had punctured his stinking hide repeatedly if not mortally. Perhaps the demonlords watching the duel thought Gord's mighty stroke was the decisive one. Certainly a great chorus of cheering came roaring from the throats of their onlooking warriors.

And Graz'zt chose that moment to work his own stratagem. "I'll have that!" the tall demonking said, snatching the Eye of Deception from Elazalag's unwary grasp. Although Graz'zt held his massive sword in his other hand, one was sufficient to grab and tear free the sphere. The demoness had been so wrapped up in the struggle that she was taken completely unawares.

"No! Don't!" She cried, realizing that her newly regained consort was about to commit the most incredible blunder imaginable.

The ebon demonking ignored her warning. He was already several long strides distant from Elazalag, the object of demonic power held out threateningly before him. "Vengeance!" Graz'zt shrieked, and from the Eye of Deception burst a force that contained all of the pent-up rage of the Abyss.

Gord was taken unawares, and the blast of energy struck him from behind. It sundered the aura of azure and slammed into the young man's body in an instant. Gord fell as if stuck by a tltanic maul.

"Now all is mine!" Graz'zt shouted in triumph, playing the forces from the artifact he held upon the cowering yeth before him.

Tharizdun arose as if the ravening eneigy refreshed him. "No, stupid demon," the archfiend countered. "Now you and all are mine!" With a flick of his fingers Tharizdun turned the Eye of Deception back and Graz'zt was felled by his own device.

Then the final slaughter of demonkind began.