Tharizdun lashed out with his bare fist. Despite his armor, Gord was struck so hard by the unexpected blow that he actually flew backward in a somersault "You will die!" the darkest of Evil howled as he threw himself bodily upon his smaller opponent and proceeded to beat and strike Gord with fists, elbows, knees and any other striking surface that could be brought to bear. The awful energies that were housed within the archfiend were sufficient to destroy the dweomer of shadow plate, break the enchanted links of elfin mail, and to bruise flesh, break bones.
His own stature relative to Tharizdun's great size, and the trained responses of nerve and muscle, saved Gord from being slain. He managed to twist, scramble, and get free of the being who was intent upon grappling and beating him to death in a furious melee. Courflamme remained in his hand, and as he got loose and rolled. Gord managed to stab the archfiend. Tharizdun sought to seize his foe and drag him back into an embrace of destruction, but Gord ran the point of his sword through the reaching hand, and Tharizdun howled and jerked his injured member free. That allowed the champion opportunity to regain the initiative.
The demon onlookers had given voice to a babble of cheering sounds when their chief attacker had been stopped and punished by the little human's ferocious and daring assault. The far more numerous mass of devils and other enemies of the demons had been instantly hushed or sent into hissing exclamations of alarm at the sight of the unstoppable and invincible archfiend battered thus. Upon this sudden turn of events the demons were sent reeling back in fear, Gord seemed vanquished, and their own fate thus sealed. At that moment the maelvis ululated horrid triumph, devils cheered, and a general cacophony of noise erupted from the million throats of the motley horde of evil viewing the life-and-death duel between their leader and his only remaining adversary. Naturally, even the dimmest of those evil creatures was aware that Tharizdun could be slain only by the appointed champion.
Then Gord spun free of the melee, and the diamond and dark length of Courflamme again played havoc upon the Master of Malevolence. Tharizdun was stabbed and slashed a half-dozen times before he could regain a fighting stance. Even then, the archfiend was pressed back and wounded again and again, for the blue radiance from the small mortal who fought seemed to be now nearly impregnable to bolt or blow from the greatest of Evil, while the sword appeared unstoppable by any device Tharizdun could muster.
Back moved the daemons and imps, fiends and dreggals. Not far, slowly, but back. A few hundred turncoat demons now scuttled away to stand beside the few of their ilk who still fought against the hordes of Tharizdun. A trickle of deserters too began to thicken the ranks of defenders who viewed the match. And a match it was. Tharizdun somehow managed to recover something of his form, as it were. The Ultimate Expression of Wickedness appeared to have drawn from deep down in the cesspool of vile power and stood his ground.
The recoiling of his massed legions gave the pair of gladiators space in which to maneuver and counterattack The archfiend wielded various forms of magical attacks as if they were hand-held weapons. Gord, with Courflamme, relied on actual physical assaults mainly, but the pure essence of altruistic weal bound within his adamantite and sapphire band also provided him with means of dweomered defense and attack as well. Despite disparity of size and the leeching of evil powers from the nether realms, it soon became evident that Tharizdun, not the champion, was destined to wear down sooner. As the formerly allied demons began to skulk in growing numbers, slipping away into the enemy line, the archfiend realized his dilemma of inability to break free from the contest and the certain result of remaining locked in battle with Gord. While seeming to use even greater efforts to counter his adversary's successes. Tharizdun began to surreptitiously cast out a web to summon his last trump in the game.
It was as if on cue. Tharizdun gave a great shout, and suddenly his pack of a hundred monstrous yeth hounds were there to join in the fight. Just as quickly. Gellor was at Gord's right hand, deadly sword and golden ring set to keep the horrible dogs of hellish from making off with his comrade. To the champion's left stood the little dark elf, her silvery band also generating a wall of force from the spheres of Weal, while in her hand she held the deadly dagger before her. The yeth bayed and yammered, but they could not close upon Gord.
"Mephisto!" the archfiend cried, and the devilheaded hound charged the steady Gellor. "Thrax!" the darkest one of Evil then commanded, and that ghastly yeth was bounding toward Leda.
"Hold them off, comrades, or the whole pack will close!" Gord warned. He could have saved his breath. Both of his friends were staunch, and the two greatest of the horrid pack were met and sent back with magic and steel.
"Again!" Tharizdun ordered. Snarling hatred, as much for master as for foes, the two monsters returned to the fray. "Pack!" the archfiend called, but the remainder of the big hounds with chimerical heads were unable to force their way through the fields of energy that surrounded the contestants. All the expression of malign destlny had accomplished in his machinations was to engage two more foes with his chief slaves. Tharizdun cursed, knowing that because his power was incomplete, that he himself was also lacking, he and the yeth were not going to prevail. Had he only the third greatest monster, the one from demonium, then the force of his pack would be double. Instead of having to cringe before their opponents, the two could have snapped the humans in twain with slavering Jaws. He too could have his foe in his hand, squeezing the very brains out of the champion's head, had the Abyss been Tharizdun's from which to draw strength. Realizing that that would have already occurred had he devoured the skull of the stupid boy-Tharizdun, the archfiend yammered in maddened fury.
The enemy was literally dancing in rage. Gord struck him while thus distracted. "To the void, fiend!" he cried as he laid both hands upon his longsword and scythed toward his adversary. The force of the blow sent Tharizdun back, down, as the archfiend's curses changed to a howling shriek of pain and fear.
Had Entropy been there, the entity would have long ago intervened. He was fully occupied in his own contest, however — the struggle against the howling madness that was Ojukalazogadit. Aware of the desperate situation. Entropy could do nothing. The demon-brute too knew of what was occurring, insane and near incoherent as Ojukalazogadit was; it sought to hold the entity and draw Entropy into itself, to bring both into a void from which there would be no return. Entropy condensed yet more of itself, putting all of its ponderous inertia into the contest, for unless it triumphed, the demon-brute would surely change the entity into something else ... or nothing. Conscious of the potential failure of all his plans, Entropy was for once powerless to act.
Both the greater yeth hounds were also in dire difficulty. The strength of their adversaries' rings enabled the two mortals to withstand the monsters' assaults. Both hounds, in turn, were not so protected as to avoid their foes' blades. Devilish Mephisto was sorely wounded, Thrax less so, but in no sense sound, for the dagger Leda plied had punctured his stinking hide repeatedly if not mortally. Perhaps the demonlords watching the duel thought Gord's mighty stroke was the decisive one. Certainly a great chorus of cheering came roaring from the throats of their onlooking warriors.
And Graz'zt chose that moment to work his own stratagem. "I'll have that!" the tall demonking said, snatching the Eye of Deception from Elazalag's unwary grasp. Although Graz'zt held his massive sword in his other hand, one was sufficient to grab and tear free the sphere. The demoness had been so wrapped up in the struggle that she was taken completely unawares.