The Flight to Lucifer by Harold Bloom

At noon, the Marcionites attacked. Perscors had declined both shield and javelins. He took up his stance in the center of the first of the Manichees' three battle lines. The two short swords he had brought back from the netherworld now seemed to him extensions of his own arms. Serenely self-possessed, he longed for the battle, his battle, rather than that of the Manichees.

The Marcionites came on in three lines also, but Perscors estimated the lines to be much more fully manned than the stretched-out ranks of the Manichees. As the attack was launched, the Marcionites united in a war cry, spurred on by trumpets and drums. Wave after wave of javelins were hurled against the Manichee lines, two falling just short of Perscors. Elated, Perscors did not wait for the enemy to come up to him, but charged alone into their midst. Within moments he had cut down the three men in the Marcionite front line that he could reach. His onslaught broke the second line and carried him on against a circle of men from the third line that formed around him. From then on, his battle proceeded wholly independently of the larger conflict, which rapidly turned into a rout, with the Manichees fleeing. But in the center the Marcionites became convinced that they confronted a demon, not a man. Javelins and arrows grazed Perscors, swords nicked him, but the dead piled up so thickly that he stood at last bulwarked by a mound of enemy corpses. The Marcionites fell back on all sides of him, unwilling to press another assault, but equally reluctant to permit the escape of so murderous a demon.