This is the ninth chapter of Diabolical Ascension, the saga of Zeraga Baal'khal, the Doomfire. Discretion is advised due to graphic content.
The eighth chapter, Into the Mountain of Ik'kthatch, can be found here: https://talesofvalorandwoe.wixsite.com/zeragabaalkhal/post/diabolical-ascension-viii-into-the-mountain-of-ik-kthatch
The first chapter, Awakening, can be found here: https://talesofvalorandwoe.wixsite.com/zeragabaalkhal/post/diabolical-ascension-i-awakening
Image credits (in order of appearance): Petr Joura
“Slaughter!” Hellscythe’s blade opened a demon’s belly; meaty ropes spilled out as a bounty of crimson mist flowed into the weapon. Zeraga cleaved another demon in two with Suffering, gore clinging to the chaos-axe’s blade. The truncheon known as Affliction shattered the face of a third demon; the gems upon it glistened with morbid beauty in the light of the hellfire all around, emanating from Zeraga’s effulgent shield and the kuurzanaal Churvômbhel, the hellish horse of shadow and flame upon which the Doomfire rode.
The hulking glayruk barbarian Maalik, mounted on the kuurzanaal Drahligar, was only a few feet away, carving into the demonic horde with great sweeps of his sword of solidified flame as he repulsed more foes with the spider legs sprouting from his back and shoulders, the limbs cracking like whips.
All the while, the kuurzanaals added to the fury of their riders’ assaults. A fiery hoof imploded a chest; backward kicks broke necks, shoulders, and arms; brutal headbutts reduced brutish skulls to gravel. Sanguinary fluids of all colors flowed. The scions of the Thirteen Hells gave a display that would have had any mortal host running, for they were the most malevolent of mortal nightmares made manifest. So, too, were the ones they faced.
“Slaughter!” The vigor of Zeraga’s blood-rage amplified his scream, as though it had the force of four lungs behind it rather than two. It rose above the din of bones being snapped and crushed and flesh being burned and mangled. All six of the Doomfire’s arms were whirlwinds of death, and the devil’s body grew larger and more muscular. Spines sprouted upon his forearms while patches of red scales now armored his face, shoulders, and hands, the alchemy of his hatred made manifest. His vision was an undulating mirage of dark crimson; he could make out the forms of his foes by the fact that they were darker than everyone else, almost black.
Slaughter! Hellscythe screamed back, its voice a shriller reflection of Zeraga’s.
The cavern through which the Doomfire and his cohorts butchered their way forward was cyclopean in scope with weirdly fluted stalagmites and stalactites serving as the jagged, twisted teeth of the colossal earthen maw, the press of Ag’graaza’s denizens granting it flesh. Hot knives ran through Zeraga’s veins as he called upon more hellfire; a gout of radiant orange-white flames leaped from his hand like a pack of hunting hounds set free from their leashes, immolating his next foes. Beyond the ashes, the Doomfire could make out the outline of a hulking, stationary form with nimbuses of eldritch light flashing around it. An altar. The key to victory.
Churvômbhel. Zeraga growled telepathically.
What would you ask of me, Lord Zeraga? the kuurzanaal replied with a mixture of reverence and enthusiasm.
Take me there. Zeraga pointed at the altar as he continued to slaughter, his limbs like metronomes all out of time with one another. With barely a sliver of his will, chaos-flame exploded into existence about Suffering’s blade and the eight-pointed star that crowned Affliction.
As you command, lord. Churvômbhel leaped into the air with the wingless flight inherent to his kind.
Immediately, flying demons confronted Zeraga and the kuurzanaal; these foes were dispatched with the same fury that the Doomfire unleashed upon all others, their broken bodies falling away to reveal the chaos-altar. It was a statue twice as tall as Zeraga wrought from milk white stone in the form of an adonic man. Its legs were those of a wolf, and it had splayed scorpion tails in place of arms, their tips curled upward and ensorcelled with prismatic light from which new demons leaped and loped and flew. The star of chaos upon the statue’s chest throbbed with vibrant black light, the same vibrant black light that gave its pupilless eyes a semblance of life. Had Zeraga been in a more lucid state of mind, he might have drawn a comparison to the nemihr, the stone guardians of Arkynathos that were powered by the souls of the city’s ancestors.
But there was no room in the Doomfire’s mind for such erudition. He saw only an aberrant edifice of chaos that needed to be razed. Now. Churvômbhel crashed down upon a cluster of demons that were gibbering masses of atrophied flesh, bloated with tumors and replete with maws of blackened teeth; unblinking eyes both rheumy and multifaceted; and horns that spiraled at grotesque angles. In an instant, the abominations were pulverized into noxious paste, releasing fluids and fumes that were greasy and rancid.
It almost reminds me of Domentior. Churvômbhel gave a sardonic chuckle. Do you remember Beelzebub’s realm, lord?
Zeraga didn’t reply; Churvômbhel’s words were distant and ethereal; the chaos-altar was right there. Even amid his blood rage, Zeraga could see the strange statue clearly, as though he had descended so deep into his visceral need for destruction and carnage that he had come back out the other end and been granted an eerie lucidity, the center point between serenity and rage, the knowing of what he had to do next. With a howl upon his lips, the Doomfire swung Hellscythe and Suffering, the weapons closing upon the chao-altar like an enormous metallic pincer. As they carved through the air, the eyes and star upon the altar fulgurated and spat torrents of gleaming black lightning at Zeraga. The devil threw up his hellfire shield as his weapons hit home, new flames roaring into existence about their blades. Explosions chained together as sorcery collided with sorcery and enchanted weapons gouged into enchanted stone. Smoke and heat wash distorted everything in view; the air reeked of smoke, grit, and electricity.
From the sides and rear came more demons, frenetically hurtling forward to defend the locus of their power. Churvômbhel’s hooves became flashes of wrathful flame as they caved in skulls and chests, leaving charred masses of meat in their wake. Zeraga lashed out with Affliction, his arm snapping to and fro to mete out death.
The altar’s arms swept toward Zeraga as the statue animated, its eyes and star more effulgent than before. The statue’s right arm slammed into Zeraga and threw him from Churvômbhel, pain flooding into the devil as he hit the ground; the statue’s left arm changed direction with preternatural agility, the stinger upon it now streaking toward Zeraga’s heart. The Doomfire rolled to the side as he threw up his hellfire shield, the flames snarling as the stinger punched into them, breaking through but not reaching Zeraga’s chest. As the statue wrenched its stinger arm free, Zeraga conjured a hellfire whip and snapped it forward. The whip’s three thongs reared up like the great serpents of so many mortal mythologies and darted toward the statue’s throat. Black lightning bolts streaked from the chaos-altar’s eyes and smote the hellfire whip; where once had been three lashing tongues of hellfire were now three tendrils of smoke. Another torrent of black lightning slashed through the smoke, raging toward Zeraga.
The Doomfire leaped to his feet; the black lightning was faster. It ravaged Zeraga’s bare chest, leaving a chaotic morass of throbbing wounds as resplendently black as the sorcery that had inflicted them. The onslaught filled the devil with a weird, gelid pain that made his flesh feel both brittle and wet; it was a pain that he had felt before in past lives. The statue wielded the power of the Eternal Darkness.
“Slaughter!” Zeraga demanded more vigor from Hellscythe as he swung the weapon.
And Hellscythe granted its wielder’s desire. Slaughter! New might, born from the sanguine feast that the weapon had reaped from the demonic horde, flowed into Zeraga, banishing the unlight upon his chest and sealing his wounds. Hellscythe could feel the aura of unfettered sorcerous might writhing and pulsing about the chaos-altar. And the weapon wanted that might. The weapon wanted all of it.
The dull clash of metal against stone reverberated through the air as the statue blocked Hellscythe with one of its arms and swept the other toward Zeraga. The Doomfire blocked with Affliction as he swung Suffering. The flaming axe carved into the statue’s torso, inflicting a deep laceration that would have had the entrails of any living foe spilling out. The statue yielded only a step of ground. As it recovered, it cannoned its scorpion tail arms forward, the stingers flaring up with chaos-flame. Zeraga blocked one with his hellfire shield and the other with the gemmed truncheon of Nekros Gorethirster. Partially goaded by Hellscythe’s will, he swung that weapon next, its blade arcing toward the ever-pulsing star of chaos upon the animate altar’s chest. The statue leaped back without retaliating, showing the closest thing it had to an emotion since the fight had begun: self-preservation.
Zeraga pressed his advantage, unleashing swing after savage swing of Hellscythe and Suffering, weaving a web of lethal steel and seething flames. The statue parried each blow with one arm while counterattacking with the other; Zeraga fended off those strikes with Affliction, the opulent truncheon darting every which way, an ersatz replica of the scorpion tail with which it dueled. To any onlookers, the fight was a clash between two wrathful gods, fueled by fury beyond mortal ken.
Lord! Churvômbhel cried out from behind.
Zeraga blocked his foe’s next strikes with his hellfire shield, sparks bursting forth as it absorbed the impact of blows that would have shattered the bones of most devils. Churvômbhel’s ashen body and fiery appendages were barely visible from behind the press of demons all around, their limbs rising and falling to inflict more wounds in a weird facsimile of a religious ritual. Zeraga let out a snarl of frustration as he swept Suffering at the statue. The statue dodged; Zeraga disengaged.
Whirling around, the Doomfire spread his wings and hurled himself at the demons surrounding Churvômbhel. “Slaughter!” One of the demons, a bull-like creature with oversized fists, turned to meet Zeraga. The devil was already swinging Hellscythe; the weapon’s blade sliced open the demon’s chest, and the dark gore that spilled forth became crimson mist. Zeraga kicked the soon-to-be corpse aside as he reduced another demon’s jaw to gravel with a smash from Affliction. All of the demons around Churvômbhel had now turned upon Zeraga, lashing out with a panoply of claws, fangs, tails, and stranger limbs that had no name. A gout of hellfire screamed from Zeraga’s outstretched hand, immolating a cluster of his foes. A cleave of Hellscythe excised more of the scum from Ag’graaza; Churvômbhel was now in sight.
The kuurzanaal was lying on the ground. His mane, hooves, and tail were dim; his wounds wept blood. Slowly, he turned his gaze up toward Zeraga, his eyes brightening with recognition. Lord, behind—
Pain exploded through Zeraga as the statue’s arms slammed into his back. The all-too-familiar howl of black lightning followed, smiting Zeraga and throwing him to the ground. Just ahead, the devil could see the shadow of the statue looming over him. Its arms were already descending; the seething chaos-flame was all too near. Zeraga threw up his hellfire shield and willed it to disincorporate into a wave that surged toward his unliving foe.
The blows from the statue never came; all Zeraga heard above was the clash of flames, the unfettered energies of law and chaos raging against each other. The Doomfire leaped to his feet as he fought back more demons, each one desperate to open his throat and claim the glory of slaying him. They were denied. “Slaughter!” The demons fell like harvested wheat; more were evaporated by Zeraga’s hellfire; the devil was soon standing over Churvômbhel.
Thank you, lord. The kuurzanaal rose to his hooves. I’ll admit, it has been a while since I’ve been involved in a battle of this size.
Zeraga didn’t respond; he didn’t care for the gratitude. Churvômbhel remaining alive furthered the devil’s goals. That was all that mattered. In his left peripheral, Zeraga could vaguely make out Maalik, his sword of solidified flame rising and falling like an off-kilter pendulum, his spider legs lashing out like whips. The barbarian was still mounted on Drahligar, who fought just as fiercely as his rider. Zeraga felt a glimmer of feral respect. Maalik fought well. For a mortal.
Chaos-flame coruscated across the scorpion tail arms of the statue, and its eyes and chest throbbed with the power of the void as it stalked forward. Zeraga conjured a hellfire whip and lashed out. The statue blocked with its right arm as black lightning screamed from its chest and eyes. Zeraga replied with a howl and a torrent of hellfire, the living and unliving screams becoming an apoplectic agglutination. Slivers of orange, white, and black flew everywhere as the sorcerous onslaughts annihilated each other, and the Doomfire’s whip curled around the statue’s right arm. Drawing upon more vigor from Hellscythe, Zeraga jerked his whip back. The statue fell like a tree, crashing to the ground.
Zeraga’s whip uncoiled as he stalked forward, Hellscythe poised for the shattering blow. Had the weapon had a physical form, it would have been salivating. It could feel all of the raw power from two of the strongest planes of Xedredenaar. And now, it was but a moment away.
The statue threw up its arms; tendrils of chaos-flame leaped forward to coalesce into a maelstrom. In the blink of an eye, the swirling vortex of every-colored flame was as large as Zeraga. From the portal came nine bloated, winged demons. Their fetid flesh wept miasmas of pestilence; their too-watery eyes glared with fevered hate; their twisted horns bore a stark resemblance to the last grasps of dying men.
Zeraga’s vision swam as the heady stench of poxes beyond counting, enough to make Beelzebub’s realm seem like a garden of Edenic delights, slashed through his blood-rage. Before he could raise a weapon to defend himself, the new horrors of Ag’graaza were already upon him, lacerating his flesh with claws like rusted metal. Beyond the veil of agony, blood, and plague being woven around and through him, Zeraga could vaguely make out Churvômbhel fighting his way toward the plague demons, but the kuurzanaal was too slow. Everything was too slow. Somnolence fell upon Zeraga; he fought to keep his eyes open. It was an entirely foreign sensation to one who had never needed to sleep. The feeling of the plague demons cutting into him was ethereal, now; he registered that the statue had risen again but could not bring himself to care.
Snap out of it. Hellscythe snarled. You are stronger than this! The weapon forced more vigor, more of the blood-rage, into its wielder; it was so thoroughly glutted that even with how much it had already given, it still had plenty more. Zeraga’s muscles writhed and expanded as they accepted the unholy benison. There was a part of Hellscythe that wanted to deny the gift and relish the pleasure of watching the devil being ripped apart. The weapon perished the urge. It had bigger dragons to hunt.
The fresh pall of the blood-rage banished the somnolence upon Zeraga’s mind. He pulped the skull of one of the plague demons with Affliction; Hellscythe ripped open the belly of another, sending its tumor-laden guts spilling forth. As Zeraga dispatched the remaining seven harbingers of pestilence, Churvômbhel traded blows with the statue, hellfire clashing with chaos-flame.
Another sweep of Zeraga’s whip evaporated more demons as he stalked toward the statue, firing bolts of chaos-flame from Suffering and Affliction. One struck the statue’s waist, leaving a web of cracks just below the star of chaos; the other slammed into the statue’s face, mangling its handsome features and sending it lurching back, at which point Churvômbhel cannoned his forehooves into the statue’s chest, throwing it to the ground.
Destroy the wretched altar. Hellscythe snarled. Slaughter!
“Slaughter!” Zeraga screamed back.
The Doomfire closed the distance to the statue, a predator falling upon his prey. Holding Hellscythe where the handle and blade met, Zeraga punched down. The sound of cracking stone split the air as Hellscythe’s blade was buried in the statue’s chest. The statue jolted one last time, a feeble attempt to stop what had already transpired. As it fell limp, kaleidoscopic mist broken by veins of black wafted up from it, flowing into Hellscythe.
There was a small part of Zeraga that recognized that Hellscythe was feeding on something other than the soul essence of fallen foes. The Doomfire couldn’t bring himself to care. Hellscythe was thrumming and glowing with new might; its ruby tip was effulgently sanguine. “Slaughter!” Zeraga raised the weapon high as he turned toward what remained of the demonic horde. “Slaughter! Slaughter! Slaughter!” His flesh was writhing and expanding; his crimson scales hardened and multiplied; the spines upon his arms lengthened as new ones sprouted; his mouth frothed with red foam, strings of it falling to the ground. A hundred memories of breaking the hordes of Ag’graaza upon a hundred different worlds as the Legion Master of the Crimson Dragons flashed across Zeraga’s mind as he hurled himself at his foes. Hellscythe gave even more of its might; Zeraga became a thrall to the blood-rage.
* * *
Arvani had heard the battle echoing through the tunnels for miles, and the she-demon had felt the presence of her home plane growing stronger. She had arrived just in time to see Zeraga Baal’khal, the infamous Doomfire, plunging his wretched, eternally hungering scythe into one of the glorious altars of the Primordial Chaos-Void. In that moment, the breath had been torn from Arvani’s lungs as all of the chaos energy spilled out like blood from a ruptured aneurysm, hemorrhaging; it had taken all of Arvani’s willpower not to be drawn back into Ag’graaza. And of course, Hellscythe had taken all of that power for itself. It was worse than a traitor. It was a parasite.
Now, the Doomfire was comatose, and Arvani sorely wanted to conjure a shadow dagger, rip open his throat, and take his weapons. Queen Qeyy’phon would surely give a great reward for such prizes. Were it not for the kuurzanaals and the glayruk that guarded Zeraga, Arvani would have followed through on her desires. She knew that if she attacked, they would wake him, and then her life would be forfeit; she could not stand toe to toe with one who had dueled against Ahriman himself, nearly to a standstill, if the legends were to be believed.
And so Arvani remained in the shadows as she kept her gaze fixed upon the Doomfire, a whispered, sibilant incantation upon her lips. As she spoke the final words, a tenebrous eye spawned above Zeraga, invisible to everyone except the she-demon. She focused upon the eye and saw as it did, saw the Doomfire with sharp clarity, every curve of every muscle, every nick upon his armor, every jewel upon his weapons. Arvani’s eyes ached with temptation.
Sighing wistfully, the she-demon melded with the shadows as her leonine lower half carried her deeper into the tunnels where she could watch and wait.
* * *
“Please, lord, I beg of you, do not take the helmet,” Zamyyr said.
“And why shouldn’t I?” replied Zeraga, contempt rising in his voice. He did not suffer timorousness in any of his sons, least of all his equerry. It was antithetical to what it meant to be a Crimson Dragon. “This is our chance to slay Ahriman once and for all. We have the opportunity to win the greatest glory that our legion, any legion, will ever know. None will be our equals.”
“And you would taint that victory with such a fell artifact upon your head?” Zamyyr’s gaze hardened as he stood up straighter. “Is it truly a victory at all if we slay the sire of chaos with his own power? I have seen you triumph thousands of times without that wretched piece of metal upon your head, father. The Legion Master of the Crimson Dragons needs only his own fury.”
Zeraga laughed mirthlessly. “Zamyyr Ôth, the Grim, ever the flatterer. I shall think upon your words. I promise you nothing else. You are dismissed.”
“As you wish, lord.”
* * *
Zeraga opened his eyes. He did not feel refreshed. Rather, he felt unexpended. His flesh bore no wounds from the previous battle, and the memories of it were a blur of carnage. His sense of purpose was lacking.
Lord, Churvômbhel said, how good it is that you have returned to us.
The kuurzanaal stood vigilantly at Zeraga’s left side; Drahligar stood at the devil’s right. Maalik was sitting a short distance away from the Doomfire, his sword laid next to him as he ate a large chunk of bloody meat.
Aye, Drahligar said, it would have been unfortunate to lose you so soon after our reunion.
Zeraga gave a ghost of a smile as he sat up.
“You are awake,” Maalik said gruffly, “I’ve never seen a devil sleep before. I thought your kind didn’t need it.”
“Was I sleeping?” Zeraga replied. Trying to pull the memory of him and Zamyyr to the front of his mind was like trying to trap air between his closed hands. “What happened?”
“After you destroyed the statue, you started screaming about the wrath of the Crimson Dragons as you slew every last demon in this cavern.” Maalik gestured to the piles of corpses all around. “Churvômbhel and Drahligar followed you, and I made sure to stay out of your way. After that, you collapsed.”
“How long was I out for?”
“Three hours.”
Zeraga’s face hardened. “Long enough that the demons have had time to gather reinforcements.” He stood up. “We need to keep moving.”
“Ordinarily,” Maalik replied, “I would be all for that, but I am exhausted. I do not remember the last time I slew this many demons in a single cycle.”
“Weren’t you the one bragging about how many demons you have slain before we left?”
Maalik’s gaze turned steely. “The things I said before we left Arkynathos were not mere boasts. They were statements of fact, just as you do indeed live up to the legends written about you. However, neither of those change the fact that I need to rest and recuperate, at least for a few hours, just as you did.”
Zeraga glared for a split second before working his gaze back into apathy. “It is good to know that I have the approval of a mortal.” He punctuated the reply with a short, sardonic laugh. “Take all the time you need. There is nothing that will find us that the kuurzanaals and I cannot dispatch.”
“Thank you.” Dour silence settled in between Maalik and Zeraga, broken only by the inconstant rhythm of the barbarian’s gnashing teeth as he finished eating.
You could simply slay the mortal. Hellscythe said. His life would be no great loss, and his sword would be an excellent addition to your panoply of war.
We still need him to find our way through the tunnels and, eventually, back to Arkynathos. Zeraga’s telepathic voice was stony; the suave, diplomatic tone that Hellscythe had taken set him on edge.
No, we don’t. Among other things, drinking the power of the chaos-altar showed me what we are seeking and the exact way to get to it. It was not entirely a lie. Though Hellscythe had wanted to undertake the journey in the first place because it would lead to Ôx’xâ, the Horned Helmet of Desolation, and the artifact was indeed the reason for the chaos incursions in this region of Addaduros, thinning the veil between the Fifth Hell and Ag’graaza with its presence alone, the power from the altar had also done as Hellscythe had said. The weapon had seen with its own psychic sight the exact path through the tunnels with an assiduousness that would shatter the minds of even the most strong-willed mortal wizards, as though nine times nine journeys were being taken at once seen by nine eyes from nine angles at all times. All of this had culminated in seeing Ôx’xâ in all of its obdurate glory, invisibly burning with the waxing presences of the demons within even after millennia of being forgotten by the multiverse. Millennia that would end.
Soon.
You’ll understand, Zeraga said, why I find it strange that you are wanting to help me instead of enslave me, especially after gorging yourself on the essence of the Primordial Chaos-Void.
You are young in this life, Hellscythe replied, and so your confusion is indeed understandable. In all of your incarnations, I have always tried to help you by freeing you from that which holds you back. We do not need the mortal when I already know the way, and then we will not have to stop to allow the mortal to rest.
And what of how I was incapacitated for three hours after the battle because of the blood-rage? An acidic undertone sizzled in Zeraga’s voice. What had Hellscythe done during those three hours that he didn’t know about?
That was not the blood-rage. Were it up to me, you would have been allowed to regain control of yourself as soon as the battle was over. Spare me your skepticism. I know all too well that you do not believe me; few of your incarnations ever do. Still, I stand by what I said in Zamyyr’s hut: I am bound to help you in all lives and all times. I press against the safeguards that Asmodeus put upon me by surrendering as much information as I have; they have less power here. Hellscythe gave a strained sigh. So, please, help me help you by slaying the mortal so that we can be on our way. You already know that more demons are gathering; you said as much.
It would still reflect poorly on us if we returned to Arkynathos without the guide that we were granted in good faith. They may very well demand to execute one of my companions presently in their keeping as recompence.
Then let them have one of the demons; that would be no great loss.
Agreed, but what if they demand Zamyyr instead?
Then let them. He is no great loss, either.
Zeraga frowned. He remembered the last time Hellscythe had overwhelmed his mind and forced him to fight Zamyyr. He also remembered how Zamyyr had begged for the fighting to stop. “Lord Zeraga, please! Your last living son begs to be heard by his father!” The words rang all too clearly in the devil’s mind, like bells atop a chapel, sending shudders down his spine. There was a reason he was called the Doomfire.
No. Zeraga said. Zamyyr is my greatest connection to my previous life, the one that you are not allowed to tell me about, and I refuse to slay Maalik. Even if we do not need him as a guide, he has still proven himself a good warrior.
Look at him. Hellscythe spat the words.
Zeraga turned his gaze upon Maalik’s now-comatose form. His chest rose and fell at a steady pace, and his wounds were healing. What about him?
See how his mortal flesh is so thoroughly riven. He will almost certainly die before we reach our objective.
You are only so certain of that because you wish to engineer his demise.
You are correct in stating that I do desire to do that, but because you have commanded me not to, I will not. I make my claim based on what lies ahead.
And if Maalik should fall, we will tell the people of Arkynathos that he met his end honorably, and we will be honest in doing so.
That means nothing if they do not believe us, and if they do not believe us, they will want vengeance. Mortals are vicious, short-sighted things.
Is that why Maalik didn’t try to kill me while I was unconscious?
Are you purposely forgetting that there were two kuurzanaals guarding you?
No, I simply know that Maalik would have been able to slay them, and what mortal wouldn’t want to command your kind of power?
Hellscythe gave the telepathic equivalent of a devilish grin. The more reasonable ones.
You prove my point. Maalik will remain with us.
If that is truly what you wish. What Hellscythe did not tell Zeraga was that he had not remained motionless during his unconsciousness, nor that he had not been entirely unconscious. The Doomfire had still been raging and flailing, trapped in a battle from the past, and it had taken much of Hellscythe’s power to keep Zeraga from slaying his companions. Maalik had been standing with his sword brandished the whole time, wondering if he would have to slay the Doomfire, Arkynathos’s greatest hope for freedom from the demonic invasions.
No, Hellscythe would let Maalik reveal that when the time was right.
* * *
More than ten thousand serpents hissed at once as Zeraga and his companions entered the next cavern. Everywhere the devil, the glayruk, and their mounts could see, there were serpents of every size, color, and breed rooted in rich, ox-blood colored earth and swaying like trees caught in a hurricane. Zeraga’s chest tensed with déjà-vu. Had he been to this part of Addaduros before? Was he still in Addaduros at all?
We charge into glorious battle on your order, lord. Churvômbhel said. Let us visit death upon this fell place.
Aye. Drahligar agreed grimly.
Zeraga’s gaze panned from left to right.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Maalik was already brandishing his sword, its blade of solidified flame seemingly more effulgent with anticipation.
“I have.” Zeraga’s voice was hollow.
“What did you do?”
“I killed everything in sight. I killed until there was nothing left to kill.” Zeraga did not know if his words were true or not. They felt true; that was what mattered. He spurred Churvômbhel forward and called upon the power within Hellscythe. Suffering and Affliction lit up with chaos-flame.
For the legion! Churvômbhel picked up his pace until he was charging; Drahligar echoed the cry and the actions.
Together, Zeraga riding Churvômbhel and Maalik riding Drahligar carved through the forest of serpents with their panoply of blades, hooves, and flames, leaving piles of charred, mangled meat in their wake. The serpents retaliated in crashing waves of scaled flesh, dagger-like fangs, and caustic venom, fueled only by the instinct to repulse the intruders in their realm. They succeeded only in becoming like wheat before the harvesting scythe that was the Doomfire and his cohorts.
The cavern yawned open wider in all directions as the devil, the glayruk, and the two kuurzanaals pressed forward; it was like the gullet of a god-predator, and the serpents were its teeth. Zeraga’s vision was ringed thickly in crimson as Hellscythe drank in the never-ending tides of blood and souls; the blood-rage was trying to smother the Doomfire’s mind, embracing him like an overeager lover. He did not give in. This chattel before him was unworthy of it.
Ahead, the tops of the spires of a baroque cathedral emerged, spearing through the serpent forest. Fluted columns framed demoniac gargoyles, rising until they culminated in a panoply of blades that all pointed straight up. The feeling of déjà-vu within Zeraga gnawed harder.
What is this place? he thought, keeping it to himself as he continued to kill.
The serpent forest yielded to fully reveal the cathedral. It dwarfed the opulent bastion that was Asmodeus’s seat of power. More fluted columns encasing weird gargoyles were stacked upon and beside each other with maddening certainty, yielding only to jaw-like ramparts that were halfway up the sword-crowned spires. The cathedral’s windows were not windows at all, but rather mouths of raw, dark red flesh and alien teeth. The front portcullis, twice the height of Zeraga and just as wide, was a lattice of bones.
In front of the cathedral, frozen in a gallant charge, were nine skeletons, each the size of a devil and bearing the bestial posture that Zeraga took on during his blood-rage. Their armor, too, was made from the same copper metal as Zeraga’s, albeit trimmed in red rather than green. Crimson dragons were ostentatiously rendered upon their left pauldrons while their right ones bore inverted pentagrams of a similar sanguinary hue. Crimson cloaks flowed from between their shoulders and down their backs like waterfalls of blood. All of their weapons were raised, a panoply of adamantine swords adorned with runes, rubies, and dark red scales pointed toward the cathedral.
If only Lord Zamyyr were here… Churvômbhel said.
Aye. Drahligar agreed.
Zeraga’s gaze softened, and his mouth twisted into a melancholic smile.
“Who are they?” Maalik asked.
“They were once my sons,” the Doomfire replied softly, “and this place was one of the fortresses we stormed during our final crusade to Ag’graaza…” He paused. “But why would it be here on Addaduros?” The chunk of lead forming in the devil’s gut told him the answer that he didn’t want to believe. If he and his companions were not on Addaduros anymore, how were they going to get back to Arkynathos? He quelled the thought. “Let’s keep moving.”
The kuurzanaals carried their riders forward; the skeletons animated. The unliving Crimson Dragons turned toward the newcomers, their fleshless eye sockets glowing red with the same malevolence they had possessed in life, their blades howling as hellfire manifested about them. And Zeraga knew their names.
They were Chaazedorael; Zaddadar; Bel-Kepheros; Agzaamos; Kelzhenaar; Urj; Badozar; Duzas; and Karkaxas, all members of the Crimsonblessed, those Crimson Dragons who were closest to their father. A torrent of disjointed images crashed through Zeraga’s mind as he remembered fighting alongside each of his sons on worlds and planes he no longer knew, mirages of color spinning upon a fulcrum of red, copper, black, and orange. The sadness within Zeraga grew.
Look on the bright side. Hellscythe erupted with hellfire of its own volition. Suffering and Affliction mimicked the act. You’ll have a new breastplate once this is all over. You could even grant your mortal companion a new suit of armor and a new weapon since you seem to favor him so much.
Zeraga scowled. He couldn’t steal from his sons. Sons who were now firing hellfire bolts at their former Legion Master and his companions.
Nine hellfire rays streaked from Hellscythe, annihilating the oncoming barrage in midair. Now is not the time for pity. They are your sons no longer. They must be destroyed. Hellscythe flooded Zeraga’s mind and body with its power.
Red ringed Zeraga’s vision, and his flesh writhed with new growth. By muscle memory, a hellfire axe roared into existence in his grasp. The Doomfire welcomed it all because it banished the sadness. “Shatter their skulls and grind their ribs to dust! Slaughter! Slaughter! Slaughter!” He spread his wings and threw himself into the air; his companions charged.
More hellfire bolts howled from the swords of the undead legionnaires as they formed into a wedge-like shape with six of them in the front and three of them in the back. Zeraga conjured a hellfire shield and blocked the bolts that were directed at him as he descended upon the back three undead like a wrathful spear. As he crashed down in front of them, his weapons were already carving through the air. The undead parried and riposted, their hellfire-wreathed blades seeking Zeraga’s vital organs.
Again and again, the web of steel and flame woven by the Doomfire clashed with those who had once been his sons, their fighting styles mirroring each other. The melancholy threatened to pierce the crimson pall; Zeraga drew upon more vigor from Hellscythe to bury the emotion. Hard red scales formed upon the devil’s shoulders, chest, forearms, shins, and ankles, followed by clusters of spines. His fangs elongated and became serrated. The weight behind the undead legionnaires’ blows seemed to lessen, and Zeraga wielded his weapons frenetically, viciously, unrelentingly. A crack split the air as Hellscythe shattered the skull of one of the former Crimson Dragons; the undead fell to the ground with an unceremonious thud. Zeraga beat back the strikes of the other two with Affliction; another cacophony of sharp cracks and seething flames followed as Suffering and Zeraga’s hellfire axe felled them.
The Doomfire whirled around and stalked toward the remaining six undead legionnaires. They were circled around Maalik, Drahligar, and Churvômbhel, their swords rising and falling upon the glayruk and the two kuurzanaals as they retaliated with blade and hoof and flame. “Slaughter!” A cleave of Hellscythe split the spine of one foe. “Slaughter!” The jeweled upper portion of Affliction mangled the helmet and cracked the skull of another; a sweep of Zeraga’s hellfire axe finished the job.
Maalik barked out in pain as a strike from one of the legionnaires took him to the ground, hellfire raking across him. Another of the legionnaires was about to follow up with a killing thrust only to be stopped by a thundering headbutt from Drahligar that sent the undead staggering back. Zeraga immolated that same foe with a torrent of hellfire; ashes rained from the empty husk that the legionnaire’s armor now was as it clattered to the ground.
With the kuurzanaals serving as the anvil and the Doomfire serving as the hammer, the remaining three legionnaires fell amid another storm of roaring flames, hate-fueled blades, and pounding hooves. Wet, gurgling sounds followed; what remained of the legionnaires’ armor and weapons were now writhing and bubbling as they shed their metallic skins like molting insects, revealing masses of raw flesh with bubbles of blood undulating upon them. Teeth started to push themselves up from beneath the pink and red as the flesh-masses moved toward each other. Maalik still had not risen.
Hellscythe descended upon the nearest of the flesh-things like an executioner’s axe, sickly ripping following as the weapon’s blade perforated its target. A geyser of sanguinary fluids shot forth, soon becoming the dark essence upon which Hellscythe fed. Slaughter…
“Slaughter!” Zeraga slashed another of the flesh-things apart. The others moved faster now, agglutinating, rising, incubating. Churvômbhel and Drahligar pulped more of the aberrations with their hooves, wet popping noises filling the air.
The amalgamated mass of flesh, blood, and teeth was now as tall as Zeraga and taking on a burly humanoid form. The only feature upon its face was a too wide mouth with far too many teeth. It became a blur as it leaped toward Zeraga, crashing down in front of the devil and powering a fist toward his chest. The Doomfire blocked with his hellfire shield, acrid smoke laden with the stench of burning flesh filling the air as it absorbed the impact. Hellscythe was already careening down upon the amalgamation; the hooves of Churvômbhel and Drahligar pounded the ground as they hurtled toward their latest foe.
With preternatural agility, the amalgamation whirled out of the way; Hellscythe and both kuurzanaals’ forehooves met only open air. More squishing and tearing, thick with blood, followed as the amalgamation’s arms absorbed its hands and gave birth to long blades of bone crowned by vicious hooks. A barrage of fiery bolts screamed from Zeraga’s weapons, seething and radiant. The amalgamation danced an eerie ballet as it dodged all of the bolts, one after the other, each time coming closer to Zeraga before finally bringing its blades down upon the devil. The Doomfire’s jewel-encrusted chaos-weapons darted up to parry the strikes, and both the axe and the truncheon spat torrents of chromatic fire that surged through the amalgamation’s head, neck, shoulders, and chest. At the same time, Churvômbhel and Drahligar cannoned their hooves into their foe. The amalgamation crashed to the ground under the fury of the onslaught, and its face started bubbling and shifting, soon settling into the sharp, patrician features that had once belonged to Chaazedorael.
Zeraga’s foot was already planted on the amalgamation’s chest, and his weapons hung in the air, poised to come crashing down in a barrage of mortal wounds. “Please, father, have mercy,” said the amalgamation that now wore Chaazedorael’s face. “Do you not recognize your son?”
It was a trick. Zeraga knew that it was a trick, and the blood-rage demanded that he finish the fight, ticking, clawing, gnawing. And still, the Doomfire was like a statue, frozen in place save for the eldritch flames of his weapons. The face upon which he looked was truly one of his sons.
“Father,” Chaazedorael’s face said, “please…”
An image flashed across the eye of Zeraga’s mind. He sat upon an ornate golden throne meticulously stylized with a dragon motif; the sides were sculpted to appear like folded, scaled wings crowned by talons wrought from ruby and ivory. The throne was mounted upon a dais, and the rest of the hall seemed to expand out from it. Banners of red and black and metallic colors of every hue bedecked the black adamantine walls, and lines of red Nyrrakhân runes upon the banners themselves and parchments hanging from them told the tales of the many victories of the Crimson Dragons across the multiverse.
Rising from the floor were many long, rectangular tables that were just as ostentatious as the Doomfire’s throne. Each one was set with a feast of meat piled upon great platters, roasted and dripping with blood, as well as gallons of wine within large urns fashioned from horned skulls. The entirety of the Crimson Dragons legion filled the rows of chairs, and each devil was clad in war-plate of the same colors as the banners and adorned with similar inscriptions of battle honors. The eyes of every son looked reverently upon their father.
And then the image was gone.
Zeraga’s vision was no longer ringed in red; lamentation had cleansed the devil’s mind of the blood-rage. All too clearly, he saw in Chaazedorael’s face a reflection of his own, a fleshly link to the past life that he knew too little about. How could he bring himself to destroy that? Already, his body was shrinking to its normal size, and his flesh was reabsorbing the scales and spines.
Maalik’s screaming split the air; Zeraga threw his head over his shoulder and saw the glayruk impaled upon one of the amalgamation’s bone blades, gore spurting from his chest. Snarling, Zeraga’s gaze snapped back toward the amalgamation. It no longer had any arms or legs; it was only a torso of raw flesh that wore Chaazedorael’s face.
“Slaughter!” Zeraga cannoned Hellscythe’s blade into the replica of his son’s face. Blood sprayed and gushed from the shattered flesh, becoming crimson mist; what remained of the amalgamation quickly shriveled into a husk. Tearing Hellscythe free, Zeraga turned and ran toward Maalik.
The bone-blade descended back into the earth; the glayruk’s chest hemorrhaged blood. His eyes met Zeraga’s. He coughed up a mouthful of gore as he tried to speak.
“No,” Zeraga whispered.
Pathetic. Hellscythe hissed. I already knew that the mortal was going to die, but I did not expect it to be this egregious.
Tell me how to heal him. Zeraga demanded. Now.
Hellscythe laughed sardonically. That is something I cannot do, and even if I could, I still wouldn’t. You are better off without the mortal. He only holds you back.
Useless scythe! Zeraga hurled Hellscythe away from him. The sound of it hitting the ground was made tinny by the distance.
Aren’t you going to save him, lord? Churvômbhel asked.
If I knew how, Zeraga replied bitterly, I would.
You do not remember the necromantic rejuvenation so often wielded by the Bloodkeepers of our legion to keep our brethren fighting?
If you know the spell, tell me now. We have no time to waste. The feeling of helplessness within Zeraga grew as Maalik’s eyes started to glaze over.
Of course, lord. Arcane words started flowing from Churvômbhel’s mind into Zeraga’s. With them came an eerie sense of familiarity, as though he had heard them before in a dream. He started to recite them, and then—
* * *
She struck, her shadow dagger effortlessly perforating the Doomfire’s throat, stopping his incantation in its tracks as he fell to the ground with a gurgled cry, his hands clamped around a wound that bled and bled and bled. The glayruk next to him fell limp. The kuurzanaals brayed as they threw themselves at her, as loyal to their masters as mortal horses were on mortal worlds.
Arvani darted away, evading the fiery hooves. She wanted to take Hellscythe with her, especially after having watched the Doomfire so stupidly discard it. She couldn’t; it was too far away; the kuurzanaals were hurtling toward her. Besides, the real job was already done; her shadow dagger would last a few minutes longer without her to sustain it. She cloaked herself in darkness and fled.
The End
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Next Chapter: Fast to Madness
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