She reached the three-way intersection a few paces later and turned down the only remaining path she had not yet traversed. She listened for sounds of threats or anything else that might give her a notion of where Kaanyr was, but the tunnel ahead was silent. Only the mad fight between the hezrou and the devils reached her.
Aliisza came to a slight incline in the path and followed it up. As she rounded another sharp bend in the passage, she found herself near the ceiling of a much larger cavern. She stood upon a small outcropping, much like a balcony, that overlooked a roomier chamber below.
A vast collection of prisoners stretched out before her.
Aliisza could see that the captives were not fiends. The humans and humanoids hailed from faraway places, and their shredded rags and bruised bodies gave her the distinct impression they had been incarcerated for a long while. Someone had chained them together in cruel ways that rendered them virtually immobile.
Demonic guards stood watch over them, brandishing weapons and viciously poking and prodding their hostages for the pure glee of watching them squirm. More than a few prisoners cried out in anguish, but those were silenced again with a well-placed kick or punch. Sometimes permanently.
Aliisza grimaced at the display, but she had no time to feel sorry for them. Their own lot in life, she thought. I have problems too.
A commotion erupted from one side of the room. A throng of devils rushed in, swarming over prisoners and guards alike. They attacked viciously, striking to kill the demons and steal the prisoners. The demons, caught off guard for a moment, recovered and struck back, battling the devils with depraved abandon. The chamber became a whirlwind of screaming, thrashing fiends carving one another up with furious hatred.
To prevent the devils from making off with their prizes, the demons began slaying the prisoners. The panicked wails of the hostages made Aliisza cringe.
I was that brutal once, she realized. Does that make it worse to watch now? Can I simply no longer abide the wretched cruelty of fellow fiends, knowing I was once that cruel, or do they behave more mindlessly, more ruthlessly than I remember? It seems I can no longer tell the difference.
Aliisza wanted to rush forward, to swoop down upon both devil and demon alike and scour them from the room with her magic, but she knew she would succumb to the backlash of her curse long before she could destroy them all.
And then I could not aid Tauran and Kael to return ho-
Aliisza gasped. They are in danger! she realized. The fiends will find them and kill them, just because they can. I've got to reach them first! She hesitated a moment, pulled between her worries for Kaanyr and the other two.
She turned and sped back the way she came, hoping to find the route that would return her to her companions.
'I can hear them fighting ahead,' Kaanyr said, increasing his pace. 'Come.'
He raced up a steep slope to a point where the passage became a narrow chimney. They would have to climb up. He glanced back as he reached the vertical shaft to see if Aliisza needed help.
She was not there.
Kaanyr stopped and peered back down the ragged stone tunnel, watching for the alu, but she did not appear. Frowning, he called to her.
She must have gotten lost, Kaanyr thought. He shrugged and turned away. She can take care of herself.
He continued forward, toward the sound of fighting. The ring of weapon on weapon, the death cries, quickened his heartbeat. Once he reached the top of the chimney, he slipped his sword-he had taken to calling it Spitefang-free and grinned. Time to shed a little blood, he thought.
The path took him down and around two more bends, and then he was in an open chamber filled with furiously battling fiends. He had entered the vast cavern along one side, away from the main swirl of melee. The demons and devils battled on the far side, across a strange irregular floor filled with large holes of various sizes and shapes. Kaanyr stepped close to the nearest one and peered down. He could see no bottom; it descended into absolute blackness.
The demons and devils screeched and howled as they slammed into one another, desperate to rend and crush their foes with tooth, claw, and weapon. Kaanyr could see that the opposing creatures outnumbered the abyssal fiends by a substantial amount, and the battle was not going well.
Long years of military instinct took over, and Kaanyr assessed the situation with an eye of how to improve the situation. He spied a small patrol of demons that had just charged into the chamber from another entrance not far from him. Acting quickly, he rushed over to cut them off, navigating his way between the odd craters that filled the floor. It was like traversing a series of narrow stone bridges, but he did not fear falling in.
'You, come with me,' Kaanyr ordered as he reached the group of perhaps a dozen tall, gaunt, ram-headed demons. He had to step in front of them to keep them from rushing forward into the battle.
They glared at him, and one, holding its overly large spear-headed polearm in one hand like a staff, half- walked, half-hopped to stand before the cambion and rose up to its full height. 'Skewer you!' it snarled, spraying spittle from its thin, fanged mouth at him. 'We take no orders from a half-breed.'
The other demons grumbled in agreement. To punctuate its defiance, the first whipped its long, bristle-tipped tail back and forth and drew the long weapon back to strike at Kaanyr.
He sighed, smirked, and levitated up into the air by means of his innate magic. He slashed Spitefang through the air in one clean motion. The demon's rheumy eyes widened in surprise as its head separated from its body in a spurt of black blood. Both head and carcass toppled over and plummeted into one of the strange craters in the uneven floor.
Kaanyr gave the rest of the band of demons a hard stare as they watched their companion disappear into the fathomless blackness. 'Anyone else want to debate?' he asked.
The creatures snarled and grumbled, but none of them openly defied him.
'Excellent choice,' he said. 'Now let's go.'
It felt so good to assume command again. It had been far too long.
Kaanyr led the troop of fiends forward, navigating through the maze of holes, toward where the rest of the demons still struggled to hold their position against the invading devils. They had been overrun, separated into isolated groups surrounded by their foes. If Kaanyr did not act quickly, the entire fight would be lost.
He sent half the new demons accompanying him to flank the horde of devils on one side. 'Wait for my signal,' he instructed the creatures. 'I mean it,' he added, giving them a pointed stare. 'We must strike as one, together.'
The other demons grimaced and gnashed their teeth, but none of them argued. They turned and scurried in the direction Kaanyr sent them.
He suspected they would only hold off for a few moments before battle-lust overcame them. Their fear of me won't stay their weapons for long, he thought, but we'll make sure it's enough.
He led the other contingent of reinforcements to the opposite side and surveyed the battle once more.
'We must hurry,' one of the creatures near him growled. 'There is blood-letting to be done.'
'Indeed,' Kaanyr replied, 'but if we do not hit them in the right place, the blood will be ours.' He raised an arm and pointed to a location where several devils were milling in confusion. 'There,' he said. 'Go.'
With shrieks and howls of glee, the half-dozen or so creatures rushed forward, thrusting their polearms at their targets. They slammed into their enemies and skewered the first few of the devils. It happened so fast, the devils did not have time to react. As the first fell, the demons swarmed and overwhelmed the next rank. Then the devils turned to fight back, and the fight grew hot.
Kaanyr rose into the air to get a better view of the overall battle. The demons he had sent to the far side were just joining in the fray from there. Somehow they had managed to time their attack as Kaanyr wished.
Excellent, he thought, smiling. This might work out well after all.
He spotted an enemy commander that stood a bit apart from the others and directed their forces. Half-human like himself, the leader stood upon a large protrusion of rock. A fine breastplate adorned the half-devil, beneath which he wore fancy clothing. A pair of small, curled horns protruded from his forehead, and his skin was tinged red. He wore an oiled black goatee and wielded a pair of falchions that dripped with a vile, greenish substance.
