Then, almost in the same motion, the young champion had used a precious Item he possessed another of the bentsons he had received before setting forth on this mission. It was a Talisman of Balance, a dweomered sign that took years to fashion and fill with the proper enchantments. Gord stood upright, grasped the little token in the shape of a scales, and sent it high into the air. As the talisman came to the apex of its flight. Gord said the word of activation. Another vortex shot forth, and as it manifested itself the one created by the demonurgist's spell was negated. Down through the new vortex came a single being. The dunialdun were unaware or uncaring, but Gravestone grew pale at the approach of the single one summoned by the talisman.
The one-eyed troubador managed to snare his belt from the air, and in a trice Gellor held sword and dagger ready to face the rush of the nightmare creatures who were gleefully bounding and capering to ward him and his two chained comrades. Chert was almost free, his battleaxe within reach as the brawny hillman plied Gold's dagger to cut through the last of the bonds that held him.
Gellor began a heroic chant, a ballad reciting the deeds of great warriors who had faced and fought the most evil of foes, even at the cost of their lives. As he sang the brave words. Gellor was not otherwise idle. He met the rush of the first dumaldun with dagger point and sword edge, and the monster recoiled with a yowling cry of pain from the wounds inflicted by the enchanted steel of those blades.
As the second of the apelike dumalduns appeared from the vortex and bounded forth to do battle. Chert finished his work and stood free. One muscular arm scooped up a long length of chain while the barbarian grabbed Brool's leather-wrapped haft. Thus armed, Chert straddled the still-comatose form of Greenleaf and waited for the monster's assault. The dumaldun was there almost instantly.
The monster that charged toward the hillman was gorillalike, while the one Gellor had repulsed was a baboonlike thing. Others now appearing resembled orangutans, grizzled old chimpanzees, gibbons, mandrills, and other sorts of hideous monkeys. Each dumaldun was huge and strong, with long fangs and poisonous nails.
Stupid, lusting for blood, and maniacal by any standards, these denizens of the sphere of vile purple were indeed the perfect tool to accomplish the demonurgist's aim. Although his might had summoned far more than a dozen, that number would have been quite sufficient to dispose of Gellor, Chert, and the unconscious druid. With Gord's help they might have a chance of defeating the creatures, but that meant Gravestone would be left unmolested, free to work still more evil with his spells and magic.
The distorted visage of the gorilla dumaldun came open in a howling challenge, splitting wide to reveal a mouth big enough to encompass a man's entire skull, teeth long and sharp enough to crush bone, tusks of length so great as to meet where the teeth splintered a fang-pierced cranium.
The monster was indeed planning just that, but the hillman's battleaxe struck first. Brool sent its angry buzz all around as its deadly curve came upward at an angle. Barely grazing the dumaldun's paunch, it nevertheless left a foot long cut that was only a nail's breadth short of disemboweling. Then it clipped the lower quarter of the yawning mandible and sheared it oil. The dumaldun rushed on still, grabbed Chert, and sank its remaining lower tusk and upper fangs into the hillman's shoulder. Despite his dweomered leather and magical mail, those terrible teeth penetrated flesh.
The baboon-thing fighting the bard was likewise at close quarters. Recovering from the pain of its initial wounds, the dumaldun crouched and ran into the fray again, coming on all fours as would a dog. Then the bestial thing leapt. Dagger and sword met that attack, but the dumaldun came on heedless of the steel thrust into its throat, the long blade of Gellor's sword shining with gory wetness where it protruded from beneath its shoulder blade. The baboon-thing bowled the waiting man over and tore with nails and fangs at the frail human body. Gellor's helmet was knocked off, and his head struck the floor. A thousand stars sprang into the troubador's vision, then all was dark.
At that same moment. Chert loosed his hold on his axe and used his big hands to seize the jaws of the dumaldun. With a titanic effort that made the barbarian's muscles bunch and his veins to seem like snakes writhing across those rugged mounds of power. Chert pried the massive jaws open. Teeth were forced from flesh, then apart farther still. There was a loud crack, and the monster's Jaw dangled limply, held in place by rags of its filthy hide.
"Son of a diseased dungheap!" Chert bawled as he grabbed the monstrous dumaldun, lifted it over his head, and hurled it into the faces of the next two demoniacal things as they came at him. The corpse sent the pair back and down, but the effort was too much for the barbarian. Head spinning, muscles uncontrolled. Chert toppled backward at the mercy of whatever beast came upon him next.
Gravestone had seen Gord's action, noted the sudden cessation of his evil gateway to Tarterus, and for the tenth time cursed mentally the young champion who opposed him. There was no time for the luxury of a true and proper curse, though. Besides, the priest-wizard thought, the efficacy of such against one so filled with supernatural powers would be questionable at best. What was needed to best the little thief were strong spells and malign forces. Gravestone still had a considerable arsenal of both. Another weapon must be brought into play now, instantly.
"Hellsblades!" the demonurgist shouted triumphantly. That dark calling would not only keep his foe at bay, it would pursue him and at best embroil Gord in combat with the howling, capering dumalduns.
The champion of the Balance heard the exclamation as it sprang from the priest-wizard's lips, saw the red hot metal of the hells-spawned glaives as they came into being and began to twist and spin. Nine long knives, glowing tongues of terrible metal forged on the floor of the furnaces of the hells. They rotated with blades in varying planes so as to describe a moving sphere, a ball of grisly death for any creature caught by them. Nine feet across, nine feet high, nine deep. A devilshine called up to slash and chop a globe of red destruction from razor-edged, searing-hot falchions of diabolic making.
"You grant them to me?" Gord called to the vaunting Gravestone.
"Oh, yes, yes! Dear 'champion,' they are yours — a freely bestowed gift," the demonurgist called back, wondering why he had spoken so even as he articulated his response. There was a feeling of unease in his heart, but he shrugged it off instantly. He had not erred; he could not.
But he had. Gord knew this the moment he saw the nature of the dweomer Gravestone had brought into being before him. He knew right away what to say and do. "It is a generous present, and I freely accept!" Gord shouted the response as if responding in a ritual. "Blackheartseeker and I now take your gift!" With that the young champion thrust forth his dead-black sword, sending its length toward the center, the heart of the Hellsblades' form. The demonurgist had only a heartbeat to wonder what madness had overcome his adversary. He was throwing himself into the centrifuge of his doom, and the blur-quick blades would devour sword and champion alike in the blink of an eye, spewing both out as steely slivers and minced flesh as instantly.
"Die, dirty little..." The shout of final triumph died to a murmuring standstill as the demonurgist saw what happened next. As Gord's sword pierced the sphere, the whirling slowed. Lightless sword touched red-hot glaive, and the hell-forged metal darkened, flowed, and then became a part of the ebon blade. One after another were affected this way, until all nine had melded with the black brand.