God's Demon

Chapter Twenty-One

It was a dream that had begun when he regained himself, a dream that echoed his life before Hell. He knew that he was dreaming, but it did not help; his legs and arms, so heavy bearing the light, squirming burden, moved as if they were made of bronze. But when he looked down into the infant’s eyes so bright, something he always did to find succor in the innocence he saw there, his heart raced and the hatred he felt swelled. Not for her. Never. But for him up there. And his gaze, as cold as the blue heavens themselves, reached skyward. How can I do this thing? It goes against everything: humanity, fatherhood… nature. They, the hated people of Roma, do not even do this. The privations those people had imposed on his city after the war, that was why he was here today. That and the merciless summer.

The acrid smell of smoke wafted into his nose, and hatred filled his mouth.

His daughter made that gurgling, cooing noise he loved so much, and he faltered and thought of breaking and running but could not. His feet kept moving and the rows of people on either side, somber and quiet, nodded as he passed them. As he drew near the smoldering Tophet, the warring emotions of hate and love, so powerful in their strength and opposition, twisted something primal deep inside him and he knew, someday, many would suffer because he did this on this day. Now, today, he, a noble Barca, would set the example and they, like the stupid, believing sheep that they were, would follow with their own firstborns.

The cooing had stopped, and after a brief silence it was replaced by her crying, softly at first and then louder.

Shreds of smoke stung his eyes, and the tears it created mingled with those that had formed as he walked. Around him the air began to waver with the intense heat. This is Hell.

He stepped to the edge of the burning pit, taking in the pointed pillars, the mounds of ash, the tiny charred and broken bones and heat-split urns, and the sudden din of drums and sistrums made him flinch imperceptibly. He had to forcibly will his arms to extend, the crying, flailing bundle now, oddly, unheard against the riot of sound. He was a powerful man and she was light and when, upon a signal from the priest, he threw her she went farther than he expected. And as he did, through his uncontrollable tears and the overwhelming hatred, he cursed the god who had given his people this ritual of death, who had convinced them that only the most precious of all gifts would expiate their sins. As the clammy fingers of the dream released him he was still cursing the hungry god named Moloch.

With half-closed, tingling eyes he smelled the salt of the Acheron caught on the wind, mixed with the brimstone-scent of the city’s far-off fires. Wrapped in an Abyssal-skin cloak, Hannibal, Soul-General of the Souls’ Army of Hell, lay alongside his new army and thought, not for the first time, of Imilce. It was the usual pattern—first the dream about their daughter and then Imilce. In his half-slumbering mind’s eye he saw her strong, beautiful face as it had looked perhaps thousands of years earlier, and he hoped that she was not somewhere in Hell. Not her, not in this place, he thought. But he could never be sure; she had been born of warriors after all.

The sound of distant horns from the city caused him to open his eyes. He stood, pulling the ash-covered hood down, adjusting the darkly iridescent cloak about himself, and smiled faintly. It was almost funny, he thought, how the demons had not understood, at first, why he would not, himself, have a soul-skin cloak or allow anyone in his army to wear one. They had laughed in his face, uncomprehending, but when he had remained firm they had simply shrugged and given the souls the scaled cloaks. Imilce would have liked his steadfastness; it was so like her own. But the cloak he wore now, tough and protective, could hardly have been better than the tear-dampened one she had given him before he left her life forever.

Looking toward Adamantinarx, Hannibal watched its domes and towers growing indistinct, vanishing altogether save for their fires, and reappearing with the passing waves of clouds that surrounded it. Tiny, distant sparks that he knew to be flying demons rose and fell between the buildings, some gathering into cubelike formations, some into flying pyramids. It was odd, he reflected, that he could regard such a place as home and yet his brief years in Qart Hadasht were as nothing compared to his stay in Sargatanas’ city. Hannibal saw the approaching herald, his head aflame, long before he heard his slow wing beats. Dropping down to stand before the Soul-General, he tucked his long horn under one arm and bowed his fiery head.

“The Great Lord Sargatanas bids you and your army greeting. Lord Sargatanas wishes you to assemble just before the Fifth Gate, where he and his staff will meet you. He issues to you this baton as an official symbol of your commission in his Great Army of the Ascension.”

The herald proffered a military baton, heavy and sculpted with a horizontal crescent and a disk, symbols of Hannibal’s long-past empire. Thin, shivering snakes of lightning played upon its upper surfaces. This was a significant gesture that spoke of acknowledgment and even respect, and it filled Hannibal with emotion.

Taking his cue from the herald, Hannibal signaled to one of the demon cornicens that had been attached to his army, and soon the air for some distance was filled with the hollow braying of war horns.

By the time he made his way to the front ranks of the soul army, the whisper of the rumor of war that had begun upon the arrival of the herald had grown into an excited murmur.

Eagerly the souls took up their arms and quickly formed ranks and files. Hannibal turned to his brother and together they gave the order to march. An hour later the well-ordered formation surged around the last corner of the ten-span-high city walls to the not-too-distant gate where, already emerging, Hannibal saw the demon general staff. He looked at the distant gate and remembered the spikes that adorned it. They call it the Fifth Gate, but we have always called it something very different… Gate of a Million Hearts. He shook his head with the memory of its hooked decorations and with the irony of it.

Marching in a tight wedge with Sargatanas at its point, the generals were the crest of a black wave of soldiers, fifteen columns of resplendent standard-bearers followed closely by heavily armored legionaries. Above them flew two full squadrons of Eligor’s Guard trailing long gonfalons from their lances, each emblazoned with their lord’s fiery seal. The splendor of the scene, the sheer visual weight of it, crushed Hannibal, who stood transfixed, trying as best as he could not to show his awe.

He had never been this close to Demons Major in all of their battle panoply and realized, then and there, that he would never get used to the impossible inhumanity of them. As they drew closer, their giant, anthropomorphic forms seemed to create an organic wall that loomed fiery and dark and wreathed in smoke. Fortunately, the debilitating influence of their proximity that he so vividly recalled when he had nearly been converted no longer seemed to influence him; he had concluded that they could exert that effect if they chose. Their thick armor, pitted and hot, was annealed into their bodies, embedded for war and impossible to remove except by uttered invocation or prying blade. Between the plates were areas of umber flesh that writhed and clawed and snapped with innumerable fanged mouths and taloned fingers and bloodshot eyes. No two demons were alike, and yet there were similarities enough to suggest their kinship. No matter the form their casquelike head-armor took, the demons’ eyes all shone silver upon black, all with equal intensity, and Hannibal found that looking into those eyes served as a touchstone, a grounding for him to avoid what must be happening upon the surface of their restless bodies.

All of the principal Demons Major and Minor were there at Sargatanas’ side: there were Andromalius and Bifrons and Minister Valefar carrying a ten-foot-long sword that Hannibal had never seen the like of, and there was Zoray, his shield emblazoned with the glowing symbol of the Foot Guard, and the gaunt and ferocious Baron Faraii, whose spare manner and differing armor bore the stamp of the Wastes, and a heavily robed demon who could only be Yen Wang strode a pace behind with fireballs circling his head and fabulous glyphs orbiting his body. Other demons, too, followed behind, some of whom Hannibal had not yet met but seemed to him to be of very high stature. Eligor, who Hannibal had heard from rumors was somehow more accessible than the rest, flew overhead at the front of his troops and dropped down to the ground as the demon lord and his retinue drew close.

Hannibal had been warned that his souls, now mobilized as an army, were not to be permitted within the walls of Adamantinarx, and so he dutifully drew them up some distance from the towering gate. There they re-formed into parade squares facing the legions of demons that poured out of the city and the Soul-General had to applaud their discipline for not breaking and running at the sight of it.

Sargatanas stepped up to Hannibal and looked up and down the front ranks of soldiers, nodding approvingly.

“So what I have heard is true, Hannibal,” he said. “It appears that you have done a fine job of assembling and organizing your army. Their numbers are far greater than I would have expected. Many said it could not be done.”

“Thank you, Lord,” Hannibal said, bowing his head. He was proud of his ability to levy such an enormous host.

“It is time now, perhaps prematurely, to test them against an enemy who is both strong and bold. But I have been giving their usefulness some thought, and this I will discuss with you as we march.”

“March, my lord?”

Looking up at the demon’s shifting countenance, at his spark-nimbused head, Hannibal could feel the radiating contagious mixture of determination and excitement. “At this moment the formidable Grand General Moloch, the Imperial Mayor of Dis, is himself headed toward us with a handpicked host whose sole purpose is the destruction of me, my court, and Adamantinarx. I will not meet him here in the shadow of my city so that he may divert our efforts with his siegecraft. It is my hope to pick where and when we will meet him.”

Hannibal’s chin dropped suddenly.

“My lord…,” he said with eyes closed, a quaver in his voice, “the general’s name? What did you say his name was?”

“It is Moloch.”

The Soul-General remained still and Sargatanas looked intently at him, reading him.

“The same, Hannibal,” Sargatanas said softly. “This battle will be important for both of us.”

For a moment the demon and the soul stood facing each other, the unspoken emotions passing between them.

“We will prevail, Hannibal,” Sargatanas said. “Everything must change eventually. You, me… even Hell.”

As he spoke, Hannibal saw the legions part and a column of light mounted soul-beasts emerge from the city, padding quickly toward them. Watching the Spirits approach in precise formation, Hannibal felt a twinge of envy; leading his beloved Numidian cavalry had been a special thrill for him, and he knew that there would be no such similar joys for him in Hell. And yet as he watched the first of the cavalry pull up he saw a decurion put the reins of a smaller mount—an Abyssal—into the hands of the Spirits’ commander.

Sargatanas raised his hand acknowledging the approaching mounted demon. “Lord Karcefuge has had this mount prepared for you; he had it captured recently, thinking it inappropriate for a general not to have a proper mount in battle. I agreed.”

Tribune Karcefuge sat nearly fifteen feet above Hannibal upon a saddle of ornately carved bone that had been impaled into the huge soul’s back. He leaned down and offered Hannibal the reins.

The creature, unlike any he had seen, was half the height of the other steeds but still towered over the demon foot soldiers; Hannibal looked forward to it affording him a superior view of the battle to come.

“Thank you, my lords,” Hannibal said, beaming. “It is an unbelievable gift, a gift beyond my hopes. But what kind of creature is it?”

“We call them qirial-pe-latha… skin skippers to the Waste dwellers. It has been trained to answer to ‘Gaha.’ Its name means ‘Cub of the Wastes’ in our tongue.”

Unlike the tough-hided soul-beasts, its body was encased in the broad, almost gaudy silver-black scales characteristic of so many Infernal species, scales that Hannibal knew were both flexible and tough. Low spines adorned most of the plates’ edges, growing into a short, spiky mane around its shoulder girdle. Its front legs, more like thin arms, were considerably shorter than its rear pair but nonetheless gave it a lithe and quick look. Arching away from its narrow shoulders, its neck supported a vertically flattened, heavily beaked head equipped with two yard-long daggers, which curved downward dangerously from its bottom jaw. Four tiny red eyes stared at him, watching him warily, and when he extended his hand and said, “Gaha,” it pulled back, emitting an odd hissing chatter.

Encouraged by a nod from Sargatanas, Hannibal walked to its side, grasped the thick stirrup strap, and took hold of one of two strangely placed projections on the newly made saddle and climbed atop the creature’s back. His knees fit perfectly in front of two strangely placed projections, and he guessed that he would sit very securely if the beast reared. With a grin, Karcefuge handed him a sparking crop. Tapping the beast’s plated haunch with it, Hannibal brought Gaha around to face the demons. The smile was unmistakable upon his face; it had been so long since he had ridden. The demons were right; a general should be mounted.

“Ride him with care, Soul-General,” Karcefuge said. “Gaha may have a few surprises for you on the battlefield.”

“For now, have your brother assume command of your army, Hannibal,” said Sargatanas. A command-glyph blossomed above his head like a fiery flower, split apart, and sped off to ten different unit commanders. “We have much to discuss, and I want you by my side for the first leg of our march.” Whereupon the Lord of Adamantinarx wheeled his huge beast and, unsheathing the sword Lukiftias, signaled his fellow demons to mount and, amidst the shrill blaring of war horns and the hollow, rhythmic beat of kettledrums, set his army out to face the advancing legions of Moloch. The exultation that Hannibal felt at that moment was in no way dampened by his awareness that he might not return to the city he had sworn to defend. He was, and it would appear always would be, a warrior, and warriors by trade had to be pragmatists; the risks were no different in Hell than they had been during his life. He simply hoped, as he had so many times before, that if Oblivion took him it would find him with a sword in his hand. It was a simple hope, an age-old warrior’s hope.

Lilith woke suddenly to the sounds of horns and the deafening flapping of countless wings and banners mingled with shouted orders. She reached the window just in time to see Sargatanas and his lords pass beneath at the head of a large contingent of Foot Guard. They continued down the Rule and then took a turn marching out of sight toward, she guessed, the Fifth Gate. She looked up and saw the gathering formations of flying demons begin to stream in the same direction, following their lord’s command like migratory Abyssals answering the imperative of instinct. She watched this gathering of forces for some time, until something made her peer out farther into the darkness beyond the walls. There she could just discern a gathering clot of infinitely tiny figures that she knew must be another army, and she realized that this must be the Soul-General Hannibal’s army. Seeing them forming up, she was suddenly overcome with emotion; she realized that this was the army she had always en-visioned, the army she had begun with her little statues, the army for which Ardat Lili had been flayed. But notwithstanding that bitter memory, Lilith recognized that she, with Sargatanas, had given the souls something they could never have had in Hell otherwise, something she valued beyond almost everything—a semblance of free will. It was the beginning of their Infernal emancipation, and no matter whether they won or lost their battles, they were now more than they could ever have been without her efforts.

The march lasted two full days, during which Hannibal had watched his army carefully, measuring their spirits as they trekked through the umbral landscape. Yen Wang and his Behemoths had been left behind; Sargatanas deemed them too precious to use in this encounter. Well into the second day, winged scouts brought word that a suitable location for their camp had been found, the shallow valley between two long ridges that smoldered with perpetual flames known as the Flaming Cut. When Sargatanas and his staff arrived at the scouts’ favored location the demon lord appeared satisfied that the lay of the surrounding terrain favored him.

In his Life Hannibal had seen many eves of battle but only one eve of war. That war had lasted sixteen long years. Here, in Hell, it was no different; this eve of war was as pregnant with possibility, both fearful and glorious, as that one had been in his Life. He knew that conflicts had raged for eons, since Hell had been colonized, tearing away at the uneasy borders of every established feudal kingdom. But while those borders had constantly shifted no demon had ever gained anything that might threaten the hegemony; war, true war that feeds hungrily upon entire kingdoms, had not been permitted. But, Hannibal reflected, all that was about to change.

“Mago,” he said, approaching his brother, who was seated, quietly sharpening his blade. “Gather the generals. There is something I must tell them.”

Mago hesitated but, seeing that Hannibal would not offer any explanation, set about his task. The Soul-General waited, impatiently. Sargatanas’ plan came at a price, and Hannibal was almost as reluctant to relay its details as he was to disobey his new lord.

One by one the souls appeared and stood before Hannibal, anxiously awaiting word of what their roles would be in the coming battle. When he was satisfied that all were present, Hannibal cleared his dry throat.

“Generals, I will be brief. What I am about to ask of you on behalf of Lord Sargatanas will shock you and truly put to the test our mettle as leaders. Our role… that of the souls… will be essential to the outcome of this battle, but it will be seen by our soldiers as nothing short of treachery on the part of our demon allies. I ask you to listen and then go back to your officers and units and make them understand the gravity of the situation. I ask you to trust me as I trust Sargatanas. I believe in him and this plan for battle.”

Hannibal looked as his handpicked generals and remembered other reluctant generals and other difficult times and knew then that he could be convincing, that he could lay out his lord’s plan effectively. It was Hannibal’s talent to be able to persuade those around him to die for him.