Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

Sargatanas paused and Lilith realized that, from that moment on, she would not be able to look at him without seeing that true, angelic core, no matter how awful he made himself.

"Lilith, until you came to Adamantinarx, this ... this place was my heart."

She could not avoid looking into the glowing hole in his chest as he spoke and realized for the first time what it must mean for there to be nothing within. The loss must have been nearly impossible to bear.

"Don't," he said quietly, wiping away the tears that again welled from her eyes. "Your being here fills both places," he said, indicating the room and then his chest.

Lilith smiled through the curtain of tears and realized that she, too, felt a sense of completion. She swung her legs off the bier and stood shakily.

"Now," she said, pulling him slowly at first toward the vestibule, "tell me again, from the beginning. About Heaven."

THE FIELDS OF ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON

The hot wind, hotter than any desert wind he had ever known, blew across the plain, burning his unprotected face, unnoticed. Standing upon a hillock, his back to the Acheron and the city beyond, Hannibal surveyed the massed troops—his troops—and felt drained. It seemed hopeless. The exuberance that had been building steadily within him as he had assembled his army was dissipating just as quickly as he began to realize what it would take to get them battle ready.

What was I thinking? Adamantinarx is not Qart Hadasht; its buildings are still made of souls! And I cannot have the pick of the finest mercenaries money can buy. I have these

instead.

Twenty thousand souls stood upon the field's gray skin, the fruits of his recruitment, an army that even the term "ragtag" would elevate. Hannibal had never anticipated the problems that would arise in trying to form units when no two souls shared any apparent strengths. He had been forced to make his officers break down individuals into categories. Those whose arms were dominant or even possessed two were either handed weapons or, more often, adapted to bear them by demons specially attached to Hannibal's retinue by Sargatanas. But those adaptations were rarely completely successful.

Mago and he had been lucky in finding souls with any significant military background, and those they appointed as officers. Upon his order, he watched them begin to train the souls, and shortly he turned away from the scene, chin down in disgust. It really was hopeless. But other challenges had seemed hopeless before. And he had prevailed. He turned back, and this time his keen eyes studied the figures below, appraising and quantifying them. Slowly, as he shifted his gaze from cohorts of swordsmen to spear-bearers to mace-wielders, patterns of movement began to appear and he saw the glimmer of possibility emerge. It would be hard, but he would not give up and melt away into the crowds of the city he had sworn allegiance to. He would see it through if for nothing less than his oath to Sargatanas. Or wind up a brick, trying.

Chapter Twenty

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