Томас Рейд - The Crystal Mountain

The winged glabrezu whipped one of its huge pincered limbs out and snagged a stunned archon in its grasp. The hound warrior struggled for a moment, pulling futilely at the razor-sharp claw encircling its neck. Then the powerful appendage flexed, and the archons head separated from its body in a single snip. The hound warrior collapsed and the glabrezu smiled at Garin. It brought the pincer up and ran its long, forked tongue along the blood, savoring it.

"Let us dance, angel," the beast said, advancing with its claws extended toward him.

Garin adjusted the grip on his mace and motioned for the demon to come closer. "I have just the music for it."

Vhok levitated above his troops, glaring toward the front of the column. The scorching, acrid wind buffeted him as he hovered, and the impatient shouts and growls rising from the morass of demons grated on his ears. He could see a great archway ahead in the distance, a monolithic stone structure rising from the broken plain. Fiery red lightning spider-webbed across the surface of the stone, but in the center, where the foremost demon troops passed through it, he could see a writhing darkness that flickered with pulsing blue light.

The arch stood as one among many, a cluster of half a dozen portals arranged in a circle. Demons surrounded the clump of arcane doorways, a sea of bodies stretching all across the desiccated, gravel-strewn plain of Lord Axithar's domain.

The hordes of the balor's army marched toward the arches in fat, disorderly columns that wound through the islands of jagged stone and thorny brambles. Lord Axithar's hulking black keep loomed in the distance, and Vhok could feel the balor's eyes on the proceedings.

And this army is just one of many, Vhok mused with a grin. Mighty Orcus commands great power. The angels will fall this day.

The cambion began counting the number of legions ahead of his, but each time he started, he lost track of where one ended and another began, as the demons could not stay in coherent groups. Already, dretches in his own unit pushed and shoved one another, chafing at being forced to wait their turn.

We'll never get there! Vhok fumed. I will lose control of them if this goes on much longer.

But the line crawled relentlessly forward, and Vhok passed the time cowing his charges with threats of painful, languishing deaths if they did not behave,

When they were second in line to pass through, he began to hear a strange whistling emanating from the arch, and he got a better look as the demons stepped into it. The darkness sucked them in, yanking them forward off their feet the moment a part of their bodies grazed against its surface.

Vhok felt a momentary worry. I hope they go where Lord Axithar says they do, he thought. If not… well then, too late for us.

He was just about to return to his own troops when an imp arrived with a message. "Vhissilka would speak with you," it said in a whiny voice, then it tittered as it raced away to continue its business.

What does she want now? Vhok wondered, disgusted.

The cambion unfurled his magical cloak and surged upward. He circled around and followed the column of troops back until he spotted the marilith's vanguard and angled toward it. The snake demon towered over the rest of her forces.

The cambion settled to the ground next to Vhissilka. "You summoned me?" he asked, trying to keep his tone deferential.

"Remember," the marilith said, "you have my right flank. Do not allow your troops to advance too far ahead. I do not want to pass through the gate to find myself surrounded by angry angels. Only when I give the signal may you commence with your charge."

"Of course," Vhok said. It's only the fifth time you've told me, you bitch.

"You have the item?" she asked.

Vhok suppressed a sigh and pulled a glass rod from within a pocket in his tunic. The tube, sealed at both ends, was not much longer than his index finger, and slightly fatter than his thumb. Like the arch, the inside of the rod swirled with a darkness shot through with blue flecks of light. He held the thing up for Vhissilka to see clearly, then returned it to the safety of his tunic.

"Very good," the marilith said. "Be ready. Watch for my signal."

"Of course."

"Go," Vhissilka said. "Return to your place. Rain death upon the enemy!"

Vhok gave her a casual salute and took to the air again, returning to his own unit. They were almost to the arch. The

last ranks of the legion ahead of them were passing through the portal, drawn into the swirling black mists. He settled to the ground beside a lieutenant, a ram-headed demon corralling dretches with his polearm. The cambion was fairly certain it was the same one he had been crossing paths with lately.

"We will crush them," the demon said. "They are weak, puny things that love impotent gods."

Vhok snorted. "Do not underestimate them, fool," he said. "We fight on their lands today. They draw on powerful magic there, and if we are not careful, they will scatter us to the winds."

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.

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