Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [140]
Albitur took wing like a dark storm, gathering the cornugons and pit fiends of his command as he went. Across a deep cavern of poisonous smoke they flew, to sweep over a ridge where rock pinnacles stood like fangs. They glided down in a deadly dive at the lone human figure, silent but for the wind whistling through their wings.
Forty devils and more against one, but no one standing with Geryon laughed or made wagers. How many, in the measure of fiends, is the aid of a goddess?
The human saw death coming. He lifted his hands to trace gestures in the air.
Devils swept down, and bolts of lightning stabbed forth from them. On the rocks around the lone wizard, flames roared. Devils conjured walls of fire.
The air above the pit fiends was suddenly full of head-sized, plummeting rocks. The rain of stone battered the devils to crash brokenly below. A stone crushed the skull of a hapless cornugon, leaving nothing but a smudge of blood atop its neck.
Halaster swayed in the heart of the devil-hurled lightning. The spasms seemed to invigorate rather than harm him.
Devils swept down with barbed whips snapping and flailing. They flew into a cloud of little silver hands that snatched and gouged and choked and punched, searing diabolic flesh.
Blinded pit fiends fell screaming to the stones. They rolled and thrashed in agony, arousing maggots to swarm over the rocks.
' Fires leaped up all around the wizard. One eruption tumbled Halaster onto his face. Through the flames swept rippling-muscled pit fiends and cornugons, plying their whips so vigorously that more than once they entangled each other and were forced to break from the tightening fray. Punching and raking and kicking, they swarmed the wizard. Red and black flesh hiding him from view.
"They must be almost done tearing him apart "muttered a pit fiend beside Lord Geryon.
Even before the Wild Beast's hairy hand swept up in a rebuking gesture, there was a flash of blinding silver light from the struggling knot below. Those few devils who weren't hurled shrieking across the sky toppled on their backs, ashen husks silent forever.
"Qarlegon," the Overduke said calmly.
The named pit fiend bounded into the sky like a hound off its leash. His cornugons sprung up from the rocks around to follow.
More than sixty strong was this second force. It swept down on Halaster from all sides, in a slowly settling net. Its commander hovered, gesturing this way and that.
Halaster looked up at the fiends approaching so carefully-and unleashed chain lightning among them. It fizzled and died, failing before the magic-quelling nature of the fiends.
Qarlegon's hand swept down, and in unison the fiends dropped.
The human wizard frantically worked spells as the devils descended, but Geryon and all the pit fiends winced long before Halaster could have unleashed anything. The very air around them trembled momentarily. Their horns and ears and fingertips tingled.
"What was that?" a devil exclaimed, shuddering his way back onto his rocky perch.
"Truly mighty magic," an old, scarred pit fiend said unnecessarily. "Belike the hand of Lord Asmodeus himself."
Some of the more junior devils bowed their heads and made warding signs at the utterance of that name. Most stared narrowly down at the human wizard and frowned.
"Not from him," one of them muttered, and others nodded.
The pounce this time was a single, united thrust of flailing and jabbing. Then all drew back to leave Halaster bloodied and staggering. They converged again, so he could not help but be overwhelmed.
When the devils drew back again, the human swayed, one arm dangling torn and useless from its shoulder.There were chuckles at his sudden barks and capering.
The third charge provoked a burst of silver fire. It was more feeble this time. Only half a dozen devils fell headless and dead. Twice that