Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

As one of the two force commanders, Eligor flew well above the main flights. In an effort to remain unseen no sigil was lit, making the formations hard to see even for the sharp-eyed Captain. Sargatanas, his pale wings spread like fans, soared just above him issuing unobtrusive command-glyphs that the Guard Captain and Barbatos had to pass on with equal stealth to the lesser officers.

Looking down between the dense pyramidal flights of flyers, Eligor saw landmarks that he knew from his infrequent land journeys to the capital. Even from this altitude, he could see the myriad roads and paths that were obviously converging on the sprawling city from all points in the Prince's empire. Along one of these, Eligor finally saw the rear guard of his lord's army.

Sargatanas had waited until the two great land armies were engaged before leaving the palace with his flying troops. Far below, Eligor now began to see the orderly battle formations at the rear edge of the Second Army of the Ascension wheeling into position according to their generals' needs. He knew that they were still very far from the front lines and he looked forward and, not seeing the distant battlefield, saw only the great glow that surrounded the Keep. As high as he was, the Black Dome atop the Keep reared higher and, for all of its size, he only saw it in fragmentary glimpses far ahead and behind the luminous clouds. Is this not a truly mad plan? How can such a mountain of a building possibly be breached and then occupied? We will all be destroyed before our feet touch the dome, let alone the Rotunda floor! And then, as he shifted his lance uneasily in his hands, the echoes of tales of Abaddon's realm and eternities of ice and darkness and shredding claws filled his mind and he clamped his jaws a little tighter. He had rarely thought of those stories before and especially not during his countless battles, but now, as he approached Dis, they seemed more threatening, more of a fearsome possibility.

Sargatanas sent down a glyph ordering them to gain even more altitude. Strangely, the wind seemed to be dying down, and Eligor noticed that the air was not only thicker but also foul smelling. Whether by his lord's presence or his design or by some protective counterinvocation of the Fly's, the gale's lessening would more easily facilitate their landing. They rose quickly on well-rested wings, entering a thick bank of red-tinged clouds and steering through the heavy, disorienting mists only on the strength of Sargatanas' certainty.

As Eligor soared upward, he tried to picture the chaos of the battlefield far beneath them, wondering about the fortunes, good or bad, of Satanachia, of Yen Wang, and of that resourceful soul Hannibal. For all Eligor or any of the other demons flying with him knew, the battle had turned one way or the other and glorious victory or utter defeat was already written upon the rubble-strewn fields of Dis.

On he flew with a diminishing sense of time and distance. The cloud-bank was an enervating environment, its passing billows slow and hypnotic. The sere wind-current they had sailed upon had left him and the flyers more than enough strength for this final dash to the dome. Over the sound of his own now-moistened wings, he could hear the cloud-muffled flapping of the nearest demons below him, their breaths coming in short but unstrained huffs that matched their wing beats. Above, Sargatanas flew silently, and Eligor could only imagine what must be going through his lord's mind. Not only did the Demon Major have the innumerable concerns of the battlefield to address but also the fraught possibilities stemming from his army's success or failure. Eligor found himself actually grateful that his only concerns were his duties as the commander of many hundreds of demons.

Closer to the Black Dome the flights began to encounter luckless patrols of demons patrolling the night sky. These were easily overwhelmed, their ash dissipating on the wind, erasing any trace of their presence and any evidence of their demise.

The huge formation leveled off at an altitude high enough to allow Sargatanas to issue command-glyphs without fear of being detected. This, Eligor knew, was essential to the final approach to the dome. Many of his lord's spies had been destroyed ascertaining even the smallest structural weaknesses in the Black Dome. It would remain to be seen whether they had been sacrificed for naught.

ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON