Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

The demon lord looked from side to side, taking in the half-dozen scarlet-armored Knights who flanked the ex-god. With wings rippling, Valefar pulled his sword from its sheath and in one fluid, unanswerable move lopped the heads of the Knights cleanly off. Adramalik's jaw opened in disbelief as he stared at the featherlight blue-flame sword from the Above—an ancient ialpor napta! He could not begin to imagine how it had come to be in Hell, but the sight of it sent a ripple of fear through him.

Adramalik looked at Moloch and saw that he was grinning, his eyes fixed balefully upon Valefar. As if in answer to Valefar, the ex-god tore the struggling centurion in half, treading upon his smoking remains as they fell to the ground and crumbled into rock. Moloch then squared his shoulders and held his Hooks out in a beckoning gesture of defiance, the same gesture with which he had baited Adramalik, the same purely predatory look in his glittering icy-blue eyes. Covered in black ash, panting, he appeared primal, savage.

The fires of Valefar's corona flashed for an instant and he lunged and the blue flames of his sword arced in a half-circle of violet and purple. Moloch spun to one side, but not quickly enough, and Adramalik saw the long and terrible cut the ancient sword had sliced into his upper arm. A sound like the screeching blast of a dozen fumaroles split the air as the enraged ex-god countered with a clawing combination of strokes that pushed the demon backward with their ferocity into his own troops.

The harsh sound of weapons beating upon shields arose from the legions of Dis as they watched their champion and general stalk forward. The Chancellor General had never seen him so angered. Short bolts of lightning wavered in sinuous tendrils from within his body, sheathing him in a crackling net of energy.

Valefar was quick to recover, charging forward with a powerful thrust of his wings, and again the two combatants faced each other, lashing out in great sweeping attacks. Lunging, parrying, and counterattacking, they twisted around each other, the ex-god spinning nimbly upon his wing-stalks, the Demon Major diving and dodging with a constant whirring of wing beats. Evenly matched, they circled, wary at one moment and bold at the next, each inflicting small wounds upon the other, the speed of Valefar's sword matched by that of the two flashing Hooks.

A growing cry of dismay suddenly swept through the battlefield, coming. Adramalik realized, from well behind his own lines. He turned and his eyes widened as he saw the town far to the rear of his legions appearing to melt away, the buildings bending and crashing forward like the slow cresting of a wave of cooling lava. And between all of them, in the center of the town's widest avenue, Adramalik could just make out a solitary figure—a soul, it would seem—seated motionless atop a war-caparisoned Abyssal. Where the cascading bricks fell souls suddenly arose, and Adramalik could see them running purposefully to and fro, snatching up the weapons that he had seen so carelessly strewn about. He could also see that they were assuming formations and that the lone mounted figure was directing them. The Chancellor General could already see, to his dismay, that they easily equaled his remaining legionaries in numbers and not even half of the buildings had broken apart.

Shouts brought Adramalik's attention back to the duel. Moloch's focus had not wavered, but apparently Valefar had, for the briefest instant, taken his eyes from his crouching opponent. The Hooks whipped out simultaneously and one caught Valefar, raking through his left wing, shearing through the bone, and rippling membrane, and dropping the demon to the ground. Down on one knee, his wing in long tatters, Valefar counterparried another blow and slipped his sword under Moloch's guard and into the ex-god's shoulder. Both combatants pulled back, the pain unmistakable upon their faces.

Valefar rose to his feet and, seeing that Moloch could no longer wield his right-hand Hook, began to concentrate his efforts on the ex-god's weaker side.

At the periphery of his awareness, Adramalik began to sense the legions of Dis pulling back, melting away from the duel that had only moments before seemed so important to them. Now their own existence was in jeopardy as the first wave of souls attacked their flanks. The Chancellor General, himself, felt the tug of both battles but remained in place, unable to pry himself away from the unfolding duel. Valefar's wondrous, awful sword was, more and more, finding its mark, and every grunt from Moloch revealed his diminishing strength. With grim satisfaction, Adramalik watched events unfolding just as he had hoped.

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