Laromendis had heard this all before, from the first moment they had spied the demons over the rise, but asked, “Perhaps if you outline, one more time.”

“To what end?” asked his brother, now showing his frustration. “Everything I know of demons is wrong, or at least flawed. Both that human Warlock, Amirantha, and I lost our ability to trust our conjurations. The rise of the Demon King made it uncertain we could trust any creature we summoned to not turn on us. Or to vanish back to their realm and report what we saw.

“More, until we got here, our experience with the demons has been that if they were not confined by magic they were out of control. The attacks on our people on every world taught us they were a horde of monsters, unrelenting, unforgiving, but without any sort of strategy save to assault, assault, assault.”

“We saw those captains on Andcardia,” reminded his brother. “They were giving orders.”

“It looked like they were herding livestock, directing the flow of a stampede, not directing a coordinated attack.” He sighed. “But that camp…” He shrugged in resignation. “I can’t explain it. I have no idea who is commanding them, but they are unlike any group of demons I have ever heard of, let alone come in contact with.”

His brother said, “I understand. Someone has changed the governing laws of your art, without bothering to tell you.” Starting to rise, he said, “Let’s get something to drink and then we can decide if we want to watch the demons do nothing tonight.” As he started to rise, the ground suddenly heaved beneath them as a loud explosion echoed outside.

Laromendis was knocked back on his rump while his brother said, “What was that?”

Both looked up at the ceiling of the dark cave, barely illuminated by the light coming through the entrance, fifty feet away, as dirt came showering down on them. “Get out!” shouted Gulamendis. “This thing is collapsing.”

They staggered as the ground under their feet shook and reached the entrance amid a shower of dirt and loose rocks. Once outside they looked around, as Laromendis said, “Earthquake?”

Another distant boom, followed by another lurch in the ground, and Gulamendis said, “I don’t think so.”

They could see nothing, but quickly realized all the noise was coming from the other side of the ridge. Motioning for his brother to follow him, Gulamendis tried to half climb, half crawl up the shaking hillside. As they neared the crest, they could hear the sounds of battle ringing in the distance, punctuated by more ground-shaking explosions.

Peering over they could see only chaos.

Smoke and dust filled the air as thousands of demons were roiling out of their encampments to meet the onslaught of…more demons.