inform Palvlag and gather the force to speed off to where the bull-headed Baphomet's corps was already forming for its advance. 'Victory, Emperor Graz'zt!' she cried as she departed.
'There is one whose aura is wrong,' Nergal said squarely to the six-fingered demon king. 'How is it that you allow such a one to exist?'
'She serves faithfully in all ways and counsels wisely… for a nondemon,' Graz'zt said with a little wave that dismissed any further discussion. He would not admit to any that he simply found it expedient to maintain her because that was what Vuron wished, and the albino was his most trusted henchman. Making a face at the unconscious use of a human term, the would-be master of the Abyss said as an afterthought, 'Besides, all of my nobles must soon become used to dealing with such as the dark elf. As our realm expands, more and more such servants will be needed.'
Nergal nodded but disagreed in his heart. Any territory under his heel would be depopulated quickly, save for those undead and demons whom he placed there. 'Most sagacious, majesty. Ann… Shall I now lead forth the main battle to confront the center of the enemy?'
'No, I shall do that myself when the time is ripe. Go and find Ogrijek and have him bring all of his remaining zubassu and voord too — those should total ten thousand or so. They will be assigned the place of honor before us.'
'Honor? Before us? I don't under-'
Graz'zt cut the rest off. 'What you understand, Prince Nergal, is of no matter to me. Simply fetch them!' As Nergal started to go off, the ebony demon king added. 'And, Prince of Unlife, don't forget to have several of your toughest enforcers with you, for it is quite likely that Ogrijek and his lot are in league with our foes!'
Nergal spun and stared, then bared his fanged mouth in a hideous smile. He whistled and clapped. Shadows gathered around and coalesced into massive demons. Soon Nergal and a growing throng of his own were shoving their way toward the place where the lord of zubassu was resting. Ogrijek would not like serving in the forefront, mused Graz'zt… especially when he found that neither he nor any of his kind could take wing any longer.
Not caring now about what was revealed to the enemy by his action. Graz'zt spoke a series of chest jarring words and shot upward. He mushroomed skyward as a pillar of smoke, growing less and less substantial as his height increased. At three hundred feet he was satisfied. Now he could see all that was needed. Ojukalazogadit had obligingly mounded up a ridge beneath Graz'zt, so that now the demon king was able to view the entire front of his force and the wildly surging line of the charging enemy.
Part of what Graz'zt saw was disconcerting to him. Ojukalazogadit was hungry at all times, and Demogorgon's side wasn't the only one being weakened by the gobbling undulations of the plane. But the enemy force was being weakened to a much greater degree than his own by Ojukalazogadit, almost as though the place itself was showing partiality in the struggle. Graz'zt saw that although his array had been sufficient to prevent the enemy from badly overlapping his flanks, the density of the opposing onrushing mass was about five or six times the depth of his own. He had the most powerful warriors in the conflict, by and large. But Demogorgon and his ass- kissing toadies had a great advantage in numbers. Were they two million? Three? No matter. Whatever the count. Graz'zt could see clearly that less than a million were in the horde confronting their howling onslaught.
There were the zubassu and carrion-eating voord, under the command of Ogrijek, thrust into the very first rank of the center. Demogorgon and Mandrillagon themselves would come here, and Graz'zt saw that their center had fully a million in its mass — ten to one against his force! But Graz'zt's minions, led by the forced labor of the zubassu, were stronger and more powerful than the bulk of their opposition. The zubassu were cowardly and traitorous by nature, but Graz'zt had seen to it that they would not have a chance to flee….
A shout rose forth as Ogrijek perceived what was happening just before the charge of the overpowering enemy force struck. He tried to take flight upward, but it was as if he were tethered. His followers then tried to escape likewise with the same result. Then the rush of the enemy was upon them.
When masses of demonkind fight each other, there is little or no use for magical energies. Light and fear, typical demoniacal weapons, have no effect on others of their kind under such circumstances. Most of their other magical powers are likewise of limited effect, short range, or require too much concentration. Simply put, when demons battle other demons, primitive striking weapons, fangs, claws, talons, pincers, mandibles, and the like are the most effective and immediate means of dispensing with foes.
Some aerial combat would have been taking place in this struggle, but Graz'zt had seen to it that the battle would be held down to the surface of the stratum. This he accomplished through the dark energies he had drawn from the Theorpart, and the effect would last long enough for the battle to be fought to its conclusion. His monstrous sword resting atop one mountainous shoulder, the three-hundred-foot-tall demon king watched the horde of attackers impact raggedly upon his own solid lines. The zubassu fought very well once they realized that they had no chance of escape, no opportunity to turn coat.
Parodies of bears and goats, horses and wolves, apes and gorillas and buffaloes, weasels and boars were jumbled with insect, skeletal, amphibian, bat, reptilian, fish, arachnid, bird, and human parts to form the companies and regiments of demons who fought each other. At least that is how it appeared. Toad-man bit pig-owl as the latter used taloned forearms to rend the former's flesh from its slimy back. Elephantine monstrosities trampled chimerical horrors, as little wolverine-faced demons used iron teeth to sever leg tendons and worm-bodied half- camels spewed acidic secretions over all before them. All that happened in mere seconds, and then the initial wave of the attacking horde was broken, reeling back. Graz'zt laughed, and the sound was like that of a volcano clearing its throat prior to eruption.
'Demogorgon! Come forth and face me alone!'
Naturally, the demon king named failed to come forth as demanded. In fact, although Demogorgon and his allied lords and princes heard the challenge clearly enough, they were busy trying to determine what had gone wrong. Ten thousand of their demon troops had fallen in the first rush. They outnumbered the force of Graz'zt heavily. Yet not a hundred of the ebon-hued demon king's soldiers had fallen, the zubassu had not Joined the attackers, and Graz'zt was an enormous figure daring to stand before them all without regard for dweomer or power sent against him. It was true enough that little or no magic played a part in the combat between demon hordes, but their leaders — king, prince, lord, or greatest demon — certainly had recourse to such powers, for they commanded a wide and terrible spectrum of magics and similar energies.
At Demogorgon's enraged command a barrage of lethal bolts, killer forces, and demon-shattering spells were sent to vaporize the insolent figure that rose like a colossus before their burning eyes. The forces struck, visibly and invisibly, and the smoke-black Graz'zt seemed to shake and thin and nearly disappeared under the withering power sent against it. Well it should, for enough force to destroy a small mountain had been expended. 'Again!' screeched both of the demon king's baboonlike heads. 'Finish him!' Then, suiting words to his own actions, Demogorgon released his most potent and deadly attack, beams of lambent green shooting from the eyes of one head, dull maroon from the orbs of his other. Similar powers discharged from the princes and lords of demonkind there with him, also played upon the foolishly exposed and enlarged form of their hated foe, Graz'zt.
Suddenly the figure shrank abruptly, seeming to collapse upon itself. 'Victory, Emperor Demogorgon!' Trobbo-gotath, a greatest demon of earth, rumbled in fawning fashion. 'Do I order a new assault to finish them?'
Before Demogorgon could answer, he saw the distant line of the enemy center rolling aside to left and right. Were they about to run? 'What…?' said his left head as the right turned to try to peer through the gap.
Then Graz'zt, now but a thirty-foot tall giant, strode into clear view between the parted regiments of his demon horde. In his hand he held a little figure that he tore into two parts even as the demon king watched. The huge ebony arm windmilled. A tiny speck sailed up and out, toward Demogorgon, like a stone shot from a great trebuchet. Lizard-quick, the demon king avoided the missile. Both heads bent to see what had been aimed at him. The thing was Ogrijek's head. 'We are undone….' the right head yammered, and the left was too terrified to speak.
Graz'zt was simply walking with impunity toward the horde that had but recently threatened him. With a roar composed of bellows, shouts, squeaks, yammers, and all forms of similar noises, the demon soldiers who served the black one followed with glee. They rushed forth to fall upon a force many times larger than their own. Why not? Before them was Graz'zt, invincible and triumphant! His hands shot forth blasts that blew the opposing horde into nothingness, a hundred at a time. Then the demon king was among the foe, and his massive sword played upon them as a scythe upon a field of ripe grain. Down fell lowly dretch and rutterkin, kerzow and goat-horned clobdroo. Malvachnu demons were as swine in a slaughter, and great lords of ogre size and humanoid form as impotent as
