Dance of Demons

by Gary Gygax

  "Yeenoghu's spawn!" he shouted aloud. "This means that Graz'zt has at least released some strength to us — to me! I command! Now, you sodden lumps of petaled flowers!" he called, shaking his gnarled fist in the direction of Demogorgon's position across the broad plain, using the foulest of names he could conjure to name his foes. "You sweet-smelling butterflies! Now you will howl under my heel!"

  Clearly the pictures from Nergel's mind came to the watchers, and they relayed all just as quickly to their twin-headed master, Demogorgon. The great demon immediately had reserves brought up to be ready for the coming attack, but otherwise he remained waiting. Mandrillagon was Just striking the demon left with a corps of troops from outside the Abyss: a devil legion, a division of dreggals from Gehenna's depths, daemons and cacodaemons from Hades and Tarterus. The formation was echeloned so that it would first overlap the line Vuron had drawn, then strike it successive blows from the edge toward the middle. The legion of devils would meanwhile fall upon the flank and rear. If that succeeded, then the sudden addition to the enemy force on its right would be useless — better than useless. It would help in the destruction of the whole.

  "Desperate trouble!" That was a panicky message sent by Mandrillagon.

  Over the confused images being sent, Demogorgon sorted out what he could with one of his brains while the other head mentally asked, "What is it?"

  "Renegade filth! The devils, the whole legion of them, were caught on the flank and ran away!" The words were accompanied by Mandrillagon's images of the occurrence. Antlered cohorts, devils of red hue and black scaled, bristled, spined. Attacking them were thousands of bounding, leaping furies, the gorilloid demons called bar-lgura. "How did the sixfingered mound of perfume gather so many?" Mandrillagon referred to Graz'zt, of course, and his consternation came from the fact that most of such demons as those who had routed the devils were dwellers on the spheres ruled by himself.

  "Who cares?" his master telepathically returned with acidic thought. "I want all the picture now!"

  Mandrillagon cringed mentally and physically but managed to comply. "It was the eunuch, Vuron, with the Theorpart — Palvlag, too. The fossil leads a whole corps of fresh troops." As he said that in his mind, the baboon-headed demon allowed pictures of the horde that Palvlag led to come to the surface of his thoughts.

  "Bah! A few thousand of the babau-ogres, saucer-eyed nikomars in lesser numbers, and erhaps a thousand ssilhex. You are influenced by fear — by cowardice!"

  "And the vaunted devils, prince?" Mandrillagon queried with derision. Demons near to him shrank back for the monstrous creature's face was contorted in fury, and his small eyes flamed with hatred. "Were they too moved by such fright?"

  That made Demogorgon pause. He assessed all he had learned carefully. On the left of the enemy host, their general and strongest sub-commander were in the process of hooking around. Perhaps it was only a weak attack but it was an aggressive move. The force on the opposite end of their position was stronger, even though only Neigel was there to lead. . . . Perhaps that was a false assumption. "Withdraw slowly, cousin. Save what troops you can. Strike if possible at pursuit. When you've disengaged fully, set up a defensive position, then report here to me."

  Without waiting for a reply, Demogorgon closed his mind. He had to find out exactly what was transpiring on the right of Vuron's front. The albino one was sly and tricky. If he appeared on one side, Demogorgon suspected that he had better watch the other closely. One of the scryers was nearby. A score of powerful ahazu-demons served the two-headed demon king as officers and watchers. "What force now on our left?"

  "Rot the foe," the square-shaped demon responded, "and may your power wax over all. Great Demogorgon. Ten thousand of the fesroo newly come are at work there. We have seen the arrival of half again as many of the subjects of Yeenoghu, my Liege. More I cannot venture. . . ."

  So! Fresh troops in some numbers. If so many were apparent, then there were probably more hidden. No matter. Even if the black one had sent twice that many, and Lord Yeenoghu with them. It was too little. Vuron and Palvlag far to the left; Nergel, possibly Yeenoghu, on the far right. The long line, the center, would have only the weakling toad-kisser.

  Vastyi, to command — he and the drow bitch Eclavdra. Demogorgon began to issue orders with both heads.

  "Screen both of our flanks strongly. A corps of hordlings on our right should hold any advance by the enemy there. Send three divisions of dreggals to the left," the demon prince's leftmost head commanded simultaneously. "Send for my war bands of dusins, all of them. The reserve of mixed demons, too. Every daemon company and all of the remaining dumalduns as well are to advance when the iron gongs are beaten!"

  Demogorgon meant to strike the enemy now, squarely in the center of their long, thin line. Vuron's position was attenuated, the albino had put himself out of place, and both flanks were busy attacking. This was the perfect time for a counterstroke, a blow that would break the enemy in the middle and bring total defeat to them. Fifty thousand dusins, fearless and tough, with crocodile Jaws and iron weapons, his own guards, would be the point that would break the foe's front and pierce its heart. With superiority of six to one, there could be no doubt that they would triumph. To be on the safe side, though, Demogorgon decided to accompany the assault in person, bringing with him the Theorpart that Infestix had placed in his charge. The power of the relic would assure that no leader of the foe managed to interfere.

  Chapter 5

  THE CLANGOR OF IRON GONGS was rolling thunder across the field. The beating of the sixty great discs almost drowned out the tramp of demon foot and dreggal hoof. A hundred thousand feet and even more hooves: the hard ground trembled.

  As a great avalanche moves came the center of Demogorgon's horde. The twin-tailed banners above Demogorgon's own guards were of obsidian black and bright green, just as were the tabards of the thickly thewed dusin demons who marched beneath the flapping pennons. A dozen or more other flags sprouted from the blocks of soldiers flanking them: gold and maroon represented the dreggals, stark purples and plums trimmed with a rainbow of other hues showed where contingents from Hades advanced, while dull violet and somber old silver showed the strength of cacodaemon contingents recruited from Tarterus.

  When the center was well away, splayed feet with homy talons, flat elephantine feet, and a weird variety of other sorts too began to move. In ordered step and in disordered stride, a quarter of a million beings and beasts from all the nether realms went forward. Before and behind were scores of petty demon princes and nobles from the other dark planes. The pit hag Raanwil Ledli strode before the cacodaemons in all her obese splendor. Oqokashtor waddled behind the mass of dreggals, with Volophon and Meurteenz having the unenviable forefront positions. Poshban, Agadin, Zerkaar, Vloorm, and other such lordlings from the Abyss drove on their masses of demons. There would be no straggling, no shirking, no flight When the time came, these greater ones would have their work too, for each had enemy champions to fight against, from minor lord to flamewrapped raloog.

  Thus all across the entire plain the horde of Demogorgon came, rolling down upon Vuron's position so that its center would strike with the flanks refused — for there, the ape-headed demonking knew, was where the greatest strength of the enemy was clustered. Into the very heart of the albino's line went the attack with the guard dusin corps leading. Both Mandrillagon and Demogorgon were with the roaring dusins, exhorting the demons on, using the force of the Theorpart to strike the foe, to counter any magic used against the attack.

  When the wedge-shaped formation of Demogorgon's own struck the thin line opposing it, though, there was a sudden shift. The dusins struck at nothing. The enemy had been naught but illusion. Instead, the line that actually existed was a V-shaped one, and its base was packed with fesroo twenty ranks deep and stiffened by the grinning, bat-faced raloog company that served Vuron as the dusins did Demogorgon. With these greater ones of demonkind was the albino lord himself, wielding a Theorpart in counterpo
ise to that of the enemy, while nearby was the drow named Eclavdra, high priestess and bearer of the Eye of Deception.

  Even as the two forces met with a crash and roar, Demogorgon understood the depth of his own folly, from the distortion of time to the drawing forth of his army. Perhaps he did have a horde that greatly outnumbered the one he fought, but Vuron had brought up fresh troops, packed the center, and then drawn Demogorgon into it. Two or three to one was all the superiority he had here, but the Eye of Deception worked unhindered. The Theorparts wielded by him and the sexless albino cancelled each other out, Vastyi countered Mandrillagon, and the flame demons were sufficient to match all of the greater ones who led his force here. Now Palvlag could thrust into his flank from the right, and Nergel from the left, for his own wings were far back and hardly moving. Giant Jaws were about to close on half of Demogorgon's army!

  Two heads, two brains have their advantages. Demogorgon used that edge now. While his left continued to grasp and manipulate the flow of energies from the portion of the relic he held, his right sent a command back to the handful of lieutenants still behind. "Every reserve to me in the center, now! Then have the wings charge. Do you hear? Charge!"

  "We hear and obey. Great Demogorgon," came a chorus of responses from the ahazu-demons.

  Forgetting that, the twin-headed master of demons began a mental search for his ally, Infestix. Perhaps he had managed to extricate his forces from the trap, perhaps not. Only hard fighting over a long period would answer the question. Demogorgon wished to take no such chance, even at the cost of his pride.

  Not now, not with the other Theorpart so close! If the wretched, puling daemon could be of use, why not? Infestix had promised much more than he had delivered so far. Let the rotting scum provide what was needed now.

  "Lord of Hades. Master of the Pits, Nerull-Death, daemon Infestix," the right brain sent forth the call. "You must come now, now. I have locked the foe into an iron grasp, and they cannot flee." That was true, although it admitted nothing about the reverse. Demogorgon could not escape either from this duel to destruction. "Bring all force available, and the Theorpart of Graz'zt is ours!"

  Demons and others of the lower realms shouted and snarled, screamed and howled as they struck and were struck killed and were slain in a terrible melee that soon stretched for miles across the featureless plain on this unnamed tier of the Abyssal microcosm. The two lines swayed back and forth, clotted, thinned, bulged one way or the other. Windrows of dead marked the changing positions. Fluid ran — bloodlike stuff, pale ichor, glowing phlogiston. Weapons glittered with those substances, the ground underfoot became a mire from the liquid. The attackers were decimating their foes, but in turn the forces under Demogorgon's command were being doubly killed. To the right and the left there was a bloody standoff. In the middle portion of the field, the mass of dusins and the other soldiers of the nether planes was being slowly compacted. The two arms were circling, mandibles closing. It was becoming more and more difficult to move within the cauldron there. Then reinforcements pressed in from behind, and the press was too great to manage.

  Now the troops that had so proudly marched under the black and green flags began to die in waves of a hundred at a time, and so tightly packed were they that no return blow could be struck Demogorgon had no choice. He turned the force of his Theorpart outward, so that the battalions to either hand could force the jaws back gain fighting room. With his second brain, the great lord of demons sent forth energy to counter the Eye of Deception too, for that instrument was making it impossible for his lieutenants to find and counter the nobles of the enemy, and in the resulting confusion Vuron's powerful ones were slaying the lesser demons, dreggals, and cacodaemons by companies.

  The shift he accomplished was so sudden and unexpected that Vuron was caught unawares. By the time the pale demon lord was able to switch the energies of his own artifact to attack Demogorgon personalty, it was too late. The trap had been forced open, and the attackers were able to gain room to defend themselves again. The battle resumed its former character, one of slow and terrible attrition. Vuron's army had inflicted appalling losses upon its foes. Demogorgon's horde now numbered no more than twice the smaller force, and many of his leaders and champions were dead. In the process, Vuron had used the Theorpart he wielded to deal great punishment to his two-headed antagonist.

  "You will pay," Demogorgon snarled telepathically as he dampened the albino's attack with the power of his own relic.

  "Will I?" Vuron shot back across the wild battleground. "We shall see, little monkey-heads. Soon now there will be none of your soldiers between us, and then I will come for you with my raloogs."

  "Shoat! That would be like you. Too weak and sniveling to face me alone!"

  "You fled from King Graz'zt, as I recall," Vuron jibed mentally.

  "Eat honey!" Demogorgon spat, then returned his attention to matters at hand. He wouldn't be duped easily again by the albino. Even that brief exchange had been too dear. The Eye was working again, and the losses inflicted by it and the enemy troops had reduced his superiority by more than a trifle. At the rate the battle was going, when the enemy army was cut to half its original number, there would be scarcely more troops left in his own force.

  If only the dogs like Var-Az-Hloo and Bulumuz hadn't gone over to Orcus! The big-gutted one and Iuz together. ... It was Demogorgon's alliance with Infestix that had brought that pairing about. Even demons have loyalty of a sort, and Demogorgon had made common cause with Infestix's force, the hated foes of demonkind, in order to gain parity with Graz'zt. Iuz, Orcus, and the others accused him of selling out the Abyss for the Theorpart. Well, let them! With the one he held, he would gain the second portion, and the two would bring him the last third. Then would Graz'zt be expunged, Orcus annihilated, and Infestix and all the daemons and devils too laid low. Tharizdun arise? Never! He, Demogorgon, would emerge as triumphant lord of darkness — a darkness that would cloak all. "Infestix!" he shouted telepathically.

  "The moment is at hand!"

  * * *

  Something was certainly at hand. Leda sensed it. "We have beaten them, I think," she ventured to the nearby albino.

  "No. Not quite. Demogorgon is sly and quick, I'll give him that. He managed to slip open the trap, so now the struggle will be long and very costly. We have better fighters, yet his horde is still more numerous. He is attempting something more," Vuron added, "but I can't pierce his screening energies. I can't tell what ploy he works on."

  "Our left and right both stand firm. I use the force of the Eye there," Leda informed the albino, "so that the enemy wastes strength against phantoms while our own kill them in droves. We cannot lose now!"

  "Can't? The Eye is worth a division, two perhaps. Yet I think you may be right in your assessment. Something impends. Let us trust it is the victory you speak of." He turned a corner of his mind to the others who commanded. "Palvlag. have you any reserve to spare?" The response was negative. The ancient protodemon had every demon committed to the fight on the left. The same reply came from Nergel, who was pressing ahead, grinding down the foe, but had no reserves. "Ah, if our liege only had a little more strength to spare us," Vuron sighed to himself. With a single fresh division he could have shattered Demogorgon's center. But it was not to be. There was a single company in reserve, rutterkin at that.

  "Eclavdra," he sent, using the dark elven priestess's known name. "Cease work on the wings. Summon a raloog — any of the flaming ones will do. It will command the company of its fellows there when they follow me as I confront the two-headed one."

  Leda looked to where Vuron had indicated. She saw the sneer-visaged rutterkin trying to conceal their fear with blustering and poses of bravery. She almost questioned the albino then, nearly asked if he was mistaken or perhaps losing his mind under the pressure of the dweomers sent by the enemy. Then she understood, for Vuron had preceded his statement by ordering her to stop spending force on the flanks. That meant she was to use the Eye of Deception els
ewhere.

  "I hear and obey. General," she sent. Then she located a towering raloog, ordered it close, and set her mind on the rutterkin. "Yes, commander?" the sooty demon growled a moment later. Leda nodded toward her right. The raloog saw a force of fifty of its kind standing there, glowering toward the battle. "Take them into the fight," she told the monster. "Stay with Lord General Vuron no matter what, or you shall feel the terror of Graz'zt's displeasure." The raloog nodded, then struck its head in salute. A few moments later Vuron strode forward. His soldiers forced an opening in the enemy front, made an aisle, and the albino strode into the carnage.

  Mandrillagon saw him first and sent a warning toward Demogorgon. It was sufficient to cause the great demon prince to quail. Vuron had told him before that he would come with his personal troop of raloogs to fight when the battle was nearly finished. The implication was evident. In fact, Demogorgon's demons and the other troops from the netherspheres shrank back at the sight of the alabaster-fleshed demon lord leading a half-hundred flame-demons forth to fight. Was the contest decided in favor of Graz'zt's dogs, then? If so, Demogorgon would not stay to die with the useless dunghills who had failed him! But no, the time to retire and re-form a new horde was not quite at hand. There was still an interval, still hope.

  "Attack them!" the twin-headed demon king ordered, speaking to the demon who commanded the companies of dusins that formed a square around their master. The demon looked pale but did as ordered. As the square, heavy dusins fought the dusky, flame-limned raloogs, Demogorgon shouted loudly, "Come on, Vuron the Lily! Here I am awaiting you personally!"