thing a foot to a side, opened a little door. A face looked out. It was a beautiful face, like the face of his lover, though less careworn and lacking life's animation.
Impossible.
His stomach knotted again. He recalled the day that head had been struck from its body, to lie in the dust staring up at him and Lady. Her sister. It had been a blow well-earned. Soulcatcher had betrayed the Lady. Soulcatcher had meant to supplant her sister as ruler of the empire.
"I can't do anything like that."
"Of course you can. And you will. Because it will keep both of you alive. We all want to live, don't we? I want her to live because I want her to hurt. I want to live because I want to watch her hurt. You want to live because of her, because you revere the Company, because..." Gentle laughter. "Because where there's life there's hope."
Chapter Twelve
Thunder stampeded. Silver lightning lashed the wine-dark clouds, cracked the umber sky. A mold-grey horde howled across a basalt plain, toward the golden chariots of the gods.
A figure stepped from the line, ten feet tall, polished ebony, naked, lifting each foot knee-high to the side, then swinging the leg forward and stamping down. The earth shook.
The figure was female, perfection but hairless, wore a girdle of children's skulls. Her face was protean, one moment radiant dark beauty, the next a nightmare of burning eyes and vampire fangs.
The figure seized a demon and devoured him, rending, tearing, flinging entrails. Demon blood spurted and sprayed. It burned holes in the face of the plain. The figure's jaws distended. She swallowed the demon's head whole. A lump ran down her neck like a mouse bulging a snake's throat.
The horde beset her. And could do her no harm. She devoured another screaming devil, then another and another. With each she grew and waxed more terrible.