loaded with more legionaries floated into view. They were ugly but effective vessels, and Hannibal watched with envy as the Belt was crossed quickly. Very shortly, the Fly's unopposed legionaries were clambering up the bank, charging onto the battlefield to reinforce the legions that were already fighting.
The clamor of battle, the roaring of legionaries and the clashing of weapons, rose in Hannibal's ears as the Behemoths in the front ranks crashed into the heavily armored troops of Dis' Urban Legions. Great spumes of ash blackened the air as the troops of both sides impacted and were destroyed. The advance ground to a halt and Hannibal watched the cohesion of his and Satanachia's legions disintegrate as they fell into a patchwork of enormous formations that attempted to hold off the still-gathering legions of Dis behind them as well as the already-engaged enemy legions from the front. Hannibal's plans for a battle fought in any way resembling his past exploits were over; this day would be won only by the accumulated victories of each pocket of his and Satanachia's troops—a reality that went counter to his instincts. Even with his misgivings, he knew that when a battle plan deteriorated, as this one had, the troops needed, more than ever, to see him in the fray, and with a roar he spurred his mount on into the thick of the fighting.
The sound of the two armies crashing together had been loud enough to take the breath out of Hannibal's mouth, while the souls around him had looked at one another with wide eyes and shocked grins of amazement. Most had never before seen battle—in Hell or in their lives—and the newness of it was, to the majority of them, emotionally exhilarating. But that was fated to change.
Hannibal urged Gaha on toward the denser clots of fighting. He wondered why, other than the Spirits, there were no cavalry regiments in Hell; the mobility and ferocity they would bring to the battlefield would be spectacular. Perhaps breeding Abyssals was too difficult; perhaps flyers took their place. It was a shame. The creature he rode was as fierce and well trained a battle-mount as he could have asked for, far more potent a war beast than any horse could have been. Rising off its shorter front limbs to its more bipedal fighting stance, Gaha needed only to be pointed at the enemy to create havoc. With raking sweeps of its taloned paws the nimble Abyssal cleared wide swaths, allowing its master to swing his sword and move easily from one salient of imminent disaster to an-other. In this way, and with shouts of encouragement, the Soul-General kept his troops' morale high and his own confidence from flagging.
Chaos had been created upon the battlefield, but Hannibal knew that it was a chaos deliberately orchestrated by Beelzebub. The organization of its seemingly random elements followed a logic, Hannibal recognized, that most likely only the Fly could comprehend and control.
Far off in the haze of mist and ash, during a short lull, Hannibal saw the silhouetted forms of the giant soul- beasts seemingly motionless, gaining ground one difficult footstep at a time. The Urban Legions were tough, hardened troops, he had been told, accustomed to living in a harsh city formerly under that severest of generals, Moloch; they would not be an easy obstacle to pass over.
As Hannibal resumed fighting he occasionally stole a glance toward Satanachia's position, and as time wore on he saw that the Demon Major's forces were suffering considerable losses. A large salient of Rofocale's troops was bulging deep within Satanachia's lines, and try as the Behemoths might to stop the enemy from pushing forward, they seemed too few against the seemingly limitless waves of steaming legionaries that issued from beneath the Keep. Time and again Hannibal saw their massive hammers come down amidst the carpet of enemy demons only to see the pulverized foe immediately replaced by clots of aggressive halberdiers climbing atop the rubble.
The ten nearest legions, arranged in close formation, entered the fray, packed tightly so that they seemed a solid wall. The rubble from the destroyed demons of both sides was so extensive that both armies found their legionaries climbing up steep, irregular inclines to engage each other. With the ceaseless, mounting destruction the footing was becoming extremely unstable, and he saw as much damage incurred because of masses of falling soldiers as there was from actual combat wounds.
Slowly, the Behemoths began to gain ground and what had been a standstill turned into a rout. The Summoning of legionaries from the Belt finally abated and Satanachia's legions fell upon the fleeing demons, leaving a field strewn with smoking rubble.
Briefly, Hannibal thought he saw Satanachia's sigil floating against the brightness of the Belt just where he would expect it—over the line's center. A swift flash of white might just have been his brilliant two-handed sword, but Hannibal could not be certain. A giant green glyph emerged unexpectedly from the summit of the Black Dome and with a terrible scream of energy the wall came alive. Enormous bolts sprang from it, each one targeting a different Behemoth and enveloping it in a fireball of destruction. In short, disastrous moments, only fiery pits remained where the Behemoths had stood and the crackling wall had resumed its shifting glow. And a new wave of demons seemed to be forming upon the Belt. The battle had turned for the worse, and Hannibal's spirits sank.
He looked again to the Demon Major for any commands or for Azazel. and as Hannibal picked the standard- bearer's gaudy form out of the milling legionaries a glyph rose into the sky from that embattled position and he knew without doubt that Satanachia was there. The fiery command streaked toward Hannibal, and when he had taken a moment to interpret its filigreed complexities the realization of what the Demon Major was asking of him nearly made him drop his sword.
* * * * *
Beelzebub was, Adramalik noted with some relief, in a state of rare and unexpected calm as he observed the progress of his legions. The Prime Minister, face burning from surveying the windswept battlements, stepped closer to the throne and saw something new in his Prince's hand. Stripped of its flesh undoubtedly by Husk Faraii, Lucifuge Rofocale's head had been ingeniously adapted by the Prince's own hand to serve as a lens to focus upon the events far below him on Dis' field of battle. Mounted on a short, gold staff, the once-defiant, proud head had been picked clean, broken apart, splayed out, and transformed into a dark contrivance, all inscribed bone with inlaid, functional gems and spinning glyphlets that covered its blackened length and breadth up to its gold-rimmed, circular eye sockets. Watching his Prince peering through Rofocale's empty eyes, Adramalik had to marvel at the things his master could do, things that he found at once revolting and, despite himself, inspiring.
A noise caught his attention from the throne's base. Adramalik noticed Agares for the first time, as the distorted demon tried in vain to suppress a bubbling cough. His appearance had so worsened that he seemed no longer a demon but now, wasted and raw, a detached part of the shadowed throne of flesh that he sat beneath.
'Sargatanas, my Prince?'
'The
'Where is he, my Prince?'
'I cannot tell,' he said, never taking his many eyes from the skull. 'He is clever, Adramalik. I only know that he is close.'
