The ram demon gave Vhok a rheumy stare. 'Bah!' it said. 'If you fear them so much, perhaps you should hide here while the rest of us make sport with their heads.'
Vhok smirked. 'Don't say I didn't warn you.'
It was their turn. The front row of his column of demons stood before the arch, on the verge of passing through it. The lead rank hesitated until the ram demon rushed forward and encouraged them with liberal use of his weapon. 'Move it, you craven worms! Into the arch! Find the enemy! Slay them all! Go! Go!'
The demons shuffled forward and vanished through the portal. More followed.
Vhok shot into the air. He swung around and made his way back to the end of his command. His elite cavalry force waited there.
Unlike the craven lesser demons, the lanky winged beasts stood proud and tall, disdainful of the rabble around them. The fiends reminded the cambion of lithe, wiry gargoyles, though they had no skin. Their dark, purplish-black flesh and muscles glistened wetly, bound together by violet sinew. Black horns curved up and back from atop gaunt, skeletal ebony skulls in which red eyes glittered with fury. Their mouths hung agape, revealing rows of black, needlelike teeth and darting, forked tongues. Each one carried a slender, double-headed spear.
'We must taste the blood of angels!' one of them screamed.
The others clamored in agreement.
'Let us rend their flesh!' another cried.
'You will sate yourselves upon celestial meat soon enough,' Vhok called out. 'But first, we have another task to attend to.'
The skinless creatures howled and gnashed their teeth. The cambion was not sure if it was in frustration or glee. He motioned them up, into the air.
'With me!' he shouted and flew toward the archway. As he neared its surface, he thought again of whether it would lead him to glory or oblivion.
Only one way to find out, he thought, diving through the portal.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Garin dodged to his left as the glabrezu snapped a pincer at his head. He swung his mace down hard upon the bony outer casing of his foe's limb. The blow drove the arm away from him, but his mace bounced off harmlessly.
Must find a way to crack this nut, Garin thought, shaking his hand to alleviate the tingling sensation.
Archons and fiends battled around the two combatants. Two hound warriors tried to join Garin and engage the glabrezu, but after the demon sliced the head from one, Garin motioned the other way.
'Just keep those other fiends off me!' he shouted.
Garin channeled divine energy into his body and opened his mouth to drive the demon to its knees with a holy word. The glabrezu, perhaps sensing what the angel was about to do, kicked out with its taloned foot and struck a glancing blow against Garin's wounded shoulder. Stabbing pain shot through the angel and he cried out. The glabrezu followed with another pincer attack, which Garin barely swatted away with his mace. The demon motioned, and swarming, ricocheting bursts of multicolored energy inundated the angel and struck him from every angle. Where the explosions touched his body, disruptive energy made Garin's muscles convulse.
Garin arched his back in pain. The glabrezu bounded forward, its pincers snapping. The deadly claws stretched toward his neck. Garin flung himself backward and rolled across the ground, heedless of the blood and flesh beneath him. He gestured at the oncoming demon, summoning a wall of magical flying blades as a barrier between the two of them.
The demon stepped into the whirling cloud of razor-sharp weaponry before it realized what was happening. The sound of steel ringing on bone echoed from the spot as a dozen wounds opened on the fiend's tough skin. It roared in pain and jumped back out of harm's way.
The distraction gave Garin enough time to regain his footing and recover his wits. Stay focused, he admonished himself. Don't let it get that close to you.
He backed up a step or two and cast a quick glance around.
The battle seethed around them, though the fighting had retreated as archons and demons alike avoided getting too close to the whirling, slashing pair. Demons by the score lay piled on the field, interspersed with the occasional archon. The hound warriors might have been the superior fighters, but the demons balanced that in terms of sheer numbers.
Garin cast a quick glance at the edge of the clearing and saw fiends still churning out of the slash in the earth. They rushed to join their allies, clambering over one another to get to enemies.
They just won't stop coming, Garin thought with growing dismay. We won't be able to hold them back.
He returned his attention to the hulking winged demon before him. The glabrezu had retreated from the whirling cloud of blades and was performing a little dance of pain as it rubbed its injuries with the smaller hands protruding from its chest. It snarled at Garin and vanished.
Not waiting to see what the demon had had in mind, Garin launched himself skyward, taking wing over the battlefield. He felt a faint touch against his wing as he shot out of reach. Just as he had suspected and feared, the glabrezu had teleported directly behind him. He glided in a tight circle, scanning the ground below. The fiend was up in the air too, coming after him.
Garin wasted no time. He channeled the power of Torm. When the glabrezu drew close enough, the angel shouted the holy word. The rippling energy of the focused blast struck the demon squarely, knocking it back. Its wings fluttered, but it quickly regained its balance.
The demon grinned. 'Your words are useless against my superior power,' it rumbled. The thing vanished again, and Garin was forced into freefall to evade its powerful pincers.
This thing is tricky, Garin thought, worried. How do I kill it?
He spun in place and smashed at the onrushing demon with his mace. The weapon whisked through empty space as the glabrezu vanished yet again. Garin dived away as the demon reappeared behind him.
I must out-clever it, he decided. Anticipate its tactic and counter it.
Garin swooped around and came at the glabrezu once more. That time, when the creature vanished, Garin did not dart away. Instead, he drew on his holy might to produce a powerful, blinding aura of goodness, a tiny bit of Torm's essence. The aura burst all around the angel, and he heard the glabrezu grunt in surprise and pain.
Garin spun and struck rapidly. The demon, blinded by the divine aura, did not see the strike coming in time and took the brunt of the blow on the side of its head. Garin hit it again, hard in the chest.
A deafening boom erupted from the point of contact, and the demon was driven back by preternatural energy. It flailed in the air, stunned, and plummeted.
Garin followed the fiend down, and when the demon struck the ground and sprawled there, the angel hammered it again with his mace. The blow landed on one of the thick pincer arms, and it cracked.
He drew his mace back for another strike, but the demon vanished and his weapon thunked into the mud.
Garin spun and swung, expecting to find the fiend there, but it had not reappeared nearby.
It wants no part of me, the angel thought with no small amount of relief.
He surveyed the battle for a moment while catching his breath. The archons had inflicted unbelievable casualties upon the demons, but they were so badly outnumbered that they had begun to succumb to the overwhelming numbers of the fiends. In many places, the hound warriors had been reduced to isolated pockets of defenders surrounded by a sea of demons.
The reinforcements! Garin thought with a panic. Nilsa!
Garin turned to find his companion. He spotted her halfway to him, her forces already on their way.
Garin sighed in relief and smiled at her as she reached him.
'I couldn't wait any longer,' she said apologetically as she landed beside him. 'If I didn't order the charge, all would have been lost.'
'I was a fool to get so caught up with that glabrezu. Keep an eye out for him. He's tricky and bound to be lurking nearby.'
