The Devil's Armor — John Marco

AN ANCIENT EVIL AWAKES

Akeela the Mad, King of Liiria, is dead. His once great kingdom lies in ruins: its army decimated, its capital city of Koth ransacked, its people demoralized by poverty and crime. Akeela's great library, the Cathedral of Knowledge, still stands, and holed up in its fortresslike structure the remaining soldiers of the Royal Chargers, Liiria's elite fighting troop, make their final stand, desperately defending their land against usurpers. For Jazana Carr, the Diamond Queen, whose wealth has bought her the world's most powerful mercenary army, is now poised at Liiria's border.

Lukien, the Bronze Knight of Liiria, was once the kingdom's greatest champion. Consumed by guilt over his betrayal of Akeela, he now lives in self-imposed exile in the far southern desert. As penance for his past actions, Lukien has devoted himself to the protection of the mountain fortress of Grimhold, and now wears one of the magical amulets known as the Eyes of God.

But Grimhold itself harbors a threat that could far outweigh all others. Deep in the lowest levels of this ancient mountain stronghold, behind locked doors and magical seals, stands a suit of armor unlike any other. For millennia it has stood erect on its dais as if filled by an invisible body, pulsing with preternatural dark light, huge, black, horned and spiked, with a death's head helmet and rings of black chain mail. Indestructible, beautiful in its monstrous power, this armor is the greatest and most infamous creation of a sorcerer who has been dead for thousands of years. Dead, and yet his murderous spirit lives on in the Devil's Armor, waiting for the proper time to lure an innocent victim into its evil sway....