Hoof Front

The Hoof Front was a sub-war of the Demon Spawn War. Taking place in the Aerie of Dragons, the Hoof Front was largely a conflict between the demon lord Orcus and the Covenant leader Asmodeus. Asmodeus's top general for the region was the platinum dragon Bahamut. With separate commands, they worked closely on matters of strategy.

In the Crab Advance, a battle to take back Hiznaar Goz, the two worked together on a combined assault against the hordes of the demon general Drurn-Adruk. This attack was spread across hundreds of miles and involved a pincer strategy with Bahamut's flying army attacking south from the Sands of Hell towards Krent Talaav while Asmodeus led an assault east through Enkii Mah.

In one of the great one-on-one battles of the Demon Spawn War, where a leader of one side fought the leader of the other, Tiamat squared off against an ancient demon. Legend has it that the battle was fought for ten hours and spanned the length of Krent Talaav. When Bahamut's army reached the last southern fortifications of the valley, Tiamat invoked the Rite of Challenge. This allowed her and her alone the task of taking on the enemy's leader if it accepted the challenge. Drurn-Adruk, a demon lord spawned from the Step of Foundation, gladly accepted for he knew that even if he died, Tiamat would still suffer badly from his morality undoing talons.

The battle between Tiamat and Drurn-Adruk was a pyrrhic victory for Tiamat. Her grievous wounds were chaos infused from the demon's poisonous talons. Bahamut was able to cure many of her wounds, including the chaos tainting her soul, but could not revert the warping of her body. Tiamat's body was changed from chaotic energies which turned into something akin to a primordial hydra with five dragon heads. Bahamut and Tiamat were also unaware of a demon seed that was planted in her by Drurn-Adruk's dreadful beak. This demon seed slowly turned her evil and in time led to her abandonment of Bahamut and the angelic cause of driving the demons back to the Abyss.

The Crab Advance was a success in that it cut off the head of Orcus's armies, trapping them between the army of Bahamut and those of Asmodeus. Those demons that did not go underground or find a way to sneak through the lines were cut down by the angelic forces. The demons that could fly were easing pickings for teams of dragons which prowled the skies or stood as sentinels on peaks scanning far and wide for the enemy.

In the last battle of the Hoof Front, Orcus and an elite group of maralith captured one of the three top generals serving Asmodeus. When the gates of Ghak were breached, Orcus personally decapitated general Ellumâ Orrasar and took his head back to Naratyr. This head became the skull that sits atop the Wand of Orcus.