A Day of Dragon Blood (26 page)

You failed us, Deramon,
those eyes said to him.
You vowed to protect us. Won't you save us?

Deramon shut his eyes. The children in the tunnels would die too. They would die like Noela. But he would not bury them; he would die in acid at their side.

"Father, fly!" rose a voice. Deramon opened his eyes to see Bayrin hovering before him, his scales burnt with acid, his flank slashed and bleeding. His son slapped him with his wings. "Father, fly with me."

With a howl, Deramon flew.

The dragons of Requiem raced over the mountains.

The wyverns chased.

When Deramon looked behind him, he saw Elethor leading ragtag survivors in flight. Wyverns dived all around them, spraying them with acid, picking them off one by one. With every flap of dragon wings, another Vir Requis turned human, screamed and clutched melting skin, and tumbled into darkness.

"Fly, dragons of Requiem!" Deramon shouted. He dived back toward Elethor, roasted a wyvern, and flew by his king. The lands streamed beneath them. The wind roared. All around them, countless wyverns shrieked, and riders chanted, and acid flew, and crossbows fired, and everywhere—everywhere in the night Vir Requis fell dead. Wherever he looked, he saw them burning, saw their pleading eyes.

Deramon! You vowed to protect us!

"Fly, dragons of Requiem!" cried King Elethor. "To the city! To the tunnels!"

Deramon sought Nova Vita in the darkness. He could not see the city. Flying to battle, the flight had seemed so short, a mere dash across field, forest, and mountain. Now the miles stretched endlessly. Now the fields and forests drank the blood of dragons.

"Father!" rose a pained cry, and a blue dragon streamed toward him.

Pain drove through Deramon like a spear in his chest. His eyes stung.
Lyana!
Lyana flew there, his daughter, the light of his life. She was wounded, her scales chipped, her eyes narrowed with pain, and her body thin.

"Lyana," he whispered.

Again he held Noela's body, his youngest daughter. Again he wept over the babe.
Stars, don't let me lose Bayrin and Lyana too. If you have any mercy, stars of Draco, let me die before them.

A phalanx of wyverns, bearing banners of red swords, swooped from above. Crossbow bolts ricocheted off Deramon's back and he roared. Acid rained. He banked, knocked into Lyana, and shoved her aside. The acid streamed around them. Deramon howled, raised his neck, and flamed the beasts. Lyana soared and slashed at the wyverns' bellies, tearing saddles loose and sending riders tumbling. Yet for every Tiran they slew, three Vir Requis screamed, burned, and fell.

It seemed like hours before they saw Nova Vita ahead. The city rose from a scorched forest, crackling with torches. Deramon howled and flew as fast as he could.

"To the tunnels!" he shouted. "Flee to the tunnels, flee underground!"

He looked around him; only dozens of dragons still flew. He looked behind him; the wyvern army filled the night. Countless red eyes blazed and countless fangs glistened in the firelight.

The surviving dragons, burnt and bloody and roaring, flew over the city walls. Those dragons still on the battlements and roofs took flight, roared fire, and crashed into the wyverns. A few died. A few fled north.

"Into the tunnels!" Deramon cried. "City Guard, we fight undergrou—"

Three wyverns crashed into him, cutting off his words. Acid doused his scales and fangs bit. He howled and spewed fire, driving them back. All around him, dragons and wyverns crashed above the city, fangs biting, claws lashing. Death rained. Claws and tails lashed at buildings and walls, and bricks fell. Columns crashed. Screams filled the night as the city of Nova Vita, fair capital of Requiem, crumbled below.

 
 
SOLINA

Her hand blazed. She snarled. When she raised her fist, her glove was charred and torn. Through the rents, she could see raw, red flesh. She clenched her fist tighter.

You did this, Elethor,
she thought. She howled in rage. Ignoring the pain, she twisted her burnt fingers around her banner pole. She lifted it high, letting her standard unfurl. She flew above the battle, watching the wyverns and dragons clash above the city below.

"Level this city!" she shouted. "Leave no building standing! Bring me King Elethor alive."

Nova Vita was a small city—a backwater village compared to the glory of Irys. Her cloud of wyverns covered it entirely, a black fist from above. Barely a hundred reptile warriors still lived; more fell dead every moment. Some were landing on the streets, shifting into human form, and racing into the tunnels.

"Where are you, Elethor?" Solina whispered.

She dug her heels into her wyvern. With a scream, the beast swooped so fast that Solina's stomach lurched. She narrowed her eyes, snarled, and grasped her sword and banner tight. In the rushing dive, the wind lashing her, she could barely feel her burnt hand.

Wyverns parted to let her dive until she flew mere feet above the city's roofs. Below in the streets, weredragons clanked in armor, racing toward the tunnels. Solina howled, tugged her reins, and flew above them.

"Burn them, Baal!" she cried.

Her wyvern sprayed the street with acid. Weredragons screamed and fell. They tried to slap the acid off, but it seeped through their armor and began eating their flesh. One man clawed at his face; his eyes were already gone. Solina grinned, soared upon her wyvern, and flew across the city amphitheater and public baths; beyond them more weredragons were racing down the streets toward a second tunnel entrance. Solina swooped, splashed the street with acid, and soared as the men below screamed and fell. Baal's claws crashed against the tunnel archway, and its stones cascaded and crushed weredragons. The beast's wings beat, sending debris flying across the city.

Solina soared higher, seeking more dragons. She could see none. With their fire gone, the night was dark; she could barely see fleeing shadows. Her wyverns spread around her, flying in rings. Their riders held torches and howled for blood.

"Destroy these buildings!" Solina cried. "Let no column stand!"

The wyverns roared, dived, and began lashing the city buildings. A year ago, she had led ten thousand phoenixes to this place; their bodies had been woven of fire, and they had burned many trees and doors and bodies, but left the city's masonry standing. Today she had brought twenty thousand wyverns, each a behemoth of rippling muscles under metallic scales. Buildings collapsed under their blows like houses of cards.

"Level this city! Bring it down!"

Bricks tumbled and columns cracked. Dust rose in clouds that flowed across Solina. She dived toward the Temple of Stars, which rose upon a hill. She tugged the reins left, and her wyvern spun. His spiked tail—wider and stronger than a battering ram—cracked a column. He lashed the column again and again until it shattered. Soon the entire temple was collapsing. Solina soared higher and smiled as the dust flew and the bricks fell.

"You prayed here to your stars," she said. "But they cannot save you now. Not from the glory of my lord."

The weredragons cowered in their tunnels, daring not fight. Solina spat in disgust; they were vile creatures, too craven to defend their home. Truly they were shadows of the night, slinking things that wilted in the light of her lord.

She tugged the reins, directing Baal to fly over the Weredragon Palace. The edifice rose three hundred feet tall, its marble columns capped with dragon capitals. Solina snarled to see it. Eight years ago, the Weredragon Prince had burned her here. The scar blazed across her body now, a searing memory. The line of fire ran from her forehead to leg, from that year to this day. This cruel palace, disguising its evil with marble grace, was where the weredragons had torn her apart from her love, exiled her, and sealed their doom.

"You burned me here," she whispered through clenched teeth. "Now these ruins will scream for ten thousand years."

She reached into the pouch that hung across her saddle. She withdrew two clay balls wrought with red runes. A smile spread across her face.

Tiran fire.

The liquid inside these clay balls burned brighter than streams of dragonfire, than pools of acid, than the smelters of southern Iysa where her blades had been forged. For a year, a thousand men had labored in her barracks, distilling this liquid ruin and blessing it with the wrath of the Sun God. Today their work would blaze in glory.

She circled around the palace, rose high above its roof, and dropped two clay balls. As they fell, she saw the runes upon them glow red. Then they hit the palace, and her glory covered the city.

The Tiran fire exploded with blue light. The inferno burst out, great disks of white flame. Bricks shattered, columns cracked, and smoke filled the sky. Solina screamed to the Sun God, pulled out two more clay balls, and dropped them too.

The explosions rocked the city. Two columns shattered and fell, and then the roof caved in. Solina could barely see through the smoke and dust and flame. Laughing madly, she wrenched the pouch off her saddle and held it upside down. Ten more clay spheres tumbled onto the palace.

The air itself seemed to crack.

Ringing filled her ears over a sea of muffled susurration.

Fire thrashed the sky, and columns fell, and clouds of smoke rose; she could hear nothing but the ringing, a song of angels. She laughed, though she could not hear her own voice, and soared higher. Wind blew, kissed her cheeks, and streamed her hair. Below, the dust rolled across the city, burying the houses, the amphitheater, the barracks, and the collapsing temple. When the dust settled, Solina howled and laughed.

The Weredragon Palace was gone. Only a single column remained standing, rising from rubble.

"There is only one monarch of Requiem, Elethor!" she cried, her voice but a dim, distant whisper under the ringing in her ears. "I am queen of this land. You are but a cowering reptile. Emerge from your hole and face me!"

Thousands of wyverns howled below her, flying across the city and tearing it down. A hundred of the beasts slammed into the towers of Castra Draco, garrison of the Royal Army; the towers tumbled. Claws tore down homes. The walls crumbled, and beyond them in the farms, acid poured across the crops, until nothing but scorched earth remained.

"Tear down every last wall!" Solina howled. "I want to see nothing but rubble!"

All night the wyverns flew, screeching and destroying. Their riders chanted and laughed and sang the songs of their phalanxes. The weredragons remained hidden underground, if any still lived. It was a night to banish all nights, a battle to end all darkness.

When the sun rose, it rose upon glory. Its beams lit a world cleansed of evil. Solina raised her sword to the light and cried to the Sun God, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

"We bring your light to the world, Sun God!" she cried. "Hail the Light of Tiranor!"

Her army roared the prayer. Sunlight glinted on bright armor, spears, and swords. Their banners streamed in victory. Below them, where a city had stood, a single column rose from a ruin of rubble, dust, and bones.

 
 
TREALE

As she flew toward the city, she watched it fall.

Her eyes stung, her lungs ached, and a cough still lingered in her throat. Her scales and wings were singed, and it was all she could do to keep flying. The lands of Requiem burned around her in the night: farms, grasslands, forests, all crackling and raising red pillars in the night. Before her, across the leagues, she saw Nova Vita, and she saw its towers fall.

The cloud of wyverns clutched Aeternum's City, a black claw from the south. The beasts kept swooping and knocking down homes. A great wyvern, bearing the banner of Queen Solina, unleashed balls of fire that rocked the city. As Treale flew, she watched the Temple of Stars shatter—the place where she'd been born. She watched the palace crumble until only one of its columns remained. She watched the walls themselves—the fabled white walls of Nova Vita, which Queen Gloriae herself had raised to defend her city—collapse.

"Requiem," Treale whispered. "Land of dragons. Realm of Aeternum. I watched your towers fall, and I shed tears, and I cried to the stars for your glory lost."

In her old books, King Benedictus had spoken those words—centuries ago when the griffins had toppled their forest halls. King Benedictus had borne the rare, black scales Treale too possessed. She was descended from him through his daughter, Agnus Dei, who had survived the slaughter.

And now I fly here, and now I watch the slaughter, and now I watch your towers fall, Requiem.

Treale flew closer to the city, then paused and hovered. Tears stung her eyes. The shrieks, war cries, and booms of shattering stone rose ahead. They slammed into her. The smell of acid burned her nostrils.

"What do I do?" she whispered, head spinning. Her breath quickened into a pant. Her chest ached. The cries slammed against her: the roars of wyverns, the chants of Tiran men, and beneath them... could she hear screams of pain, of her dying brothers and sisters?

What do I do?

Dawn began to rise around her, red and gray, and her eyes blurred. Hovering in midair, she looked aside. What would her ancestor Agnus Dei have done? In all the stories, Agnus Dei was a great warrior, a fiery dragon who charged recklessly into the hordes of the enemy. In old paintings and statues, she looked like Treale too—with dark fiery eyes and black hair.

"She would not run," Treale whispered. "She would roar her fury, blow her fire, and charge at the enemy. She would kill many wyverns until they finally tore her down."

And she would have died,
whispered a voice inside her.
She would have died and never given birth to her son Ben, and House Oldnale would never have been. I would never have been.

Treale turned and began flying north, heading toward the distant forests beyond fire and death. She could hide there. She could try to find other survivors. She could continue the battle from the wilderness. Her throat tightened as she flew, and tears flowed from her eyes.