A Day of Dragon Blood (32 page)

She ignored them. She skirted a pool of acid and approached the shaft the Starlit Demon had carved last year. Wyverns fluttered up and down the chasm. Solina placed her fingers into her mouth—they tasted like sweet blood—and gave a loud, long shriek of a whistle.

A screech above answered her. Wings blasted air, each flap a thunderbolt rank with death. Baal, the King of Wyverns, dived down the tunnel and faced her. The beast hovered before the collapsed wall. Acid dripped between his teeth. Solina leaped through the opening, swung around Baal's neck, and climbed into his saddle.

"Grab those bodies," she told the beast. "Grab them and fly."

The wyvern reached into the collapsing cavern. He grabbed the body of Adia with one clawed foot, the body of Deramon with another. The beast licked his lips and looked over his shoulder at Solina.

"No, Baal," she said and stroked him. "You will not feast upon these ones. Not yet. We will first flaunt them before the city." She kneed him. "Fly! Into the sky!"

They soared.

Walls of stone blurred at their sides. They rose from underground into a city of ruin, then into a sky of smoke, ash, and fire. Twenty thousand wyverns screeched and spat their acid. Twenty thousand dragons flew around them—children, old toothless beasts, and cripples missing limbs. The mob of Requiem, an untrained mass, bustled and roared fire and slashed claws. Solina inhaled sharply.

It's beautiful
, she thought.
A great tapestry of glory.
She had never seen so many beasts flying and killing under one sky; it seemed to her like the great stories of old, the ones where griffins toppled the mythical halls of Requiem's golden age.

Blood rained. Blood coated her. She licked blood off her lips and sword, savoring its coppery taste, the taste of her might. It was a day of dragon blood, a day of sunfire, a day of triumph. When she looked across the battle, she saw him there—her king, her love, the jewel she sought.

"Elethor!" she cried and flew toward him.

 
 
MORI

The battle was lost. Mori could see that. She shot through the chaos, eyes burning. Blood and acid rained. Everywhere she looked, clouds of wyverns and dragons fought above the fallen city. Bodies crashed down into the ruins, and their blood flowed across the strewn bricks, smashed mosaics, and shattered columns of her home. Wind roared and clouds of ash roiled above her.

Only a single column rose from the devastation, a great pillar of white marble, three hundred feet tall and kissed with a beam of sunlight: King's Column, raised by King Aeternum himself millennia ago. Swarms of wyverns were attacking it, lashing their claws and tails, but could not break it. Mori knew the legends. The old scrolls wrote that so long as a single Vir Requis lived, King's Column would not fall. Looking around the battle, Mori realized with a chill: the column might fall this day.

The wyverns were everywhere. Two swooped toward her, the sun at their backs. Mori screamed, dodged their streams of acid, and soared above them. She roasted their riders with fire. The Tirans screamed and burned, and the wyverns crashed down. Three more wyverns flew to her right, and Mori shouted and dived under them, then spun and blazed them. She had always been so fast, the fastest dragon in Requiem; these burly wyverns were clumsy around her. Yet other dragons were faring less well. So many were elderly, wounded, or young. Dozens were mere toddlers, no larger than ponies, their wings weak and their fire mere sparks. They fell around Mori, burning with acid and peppered with crossbow bolts. When they hit the ruins below, they returned to human forms and lay dead—slashed, burned, torn apart.

Mori growled. She flamed another wyvern. Acid splashed her tail and she howled. She soared higher, crashing through wyverns and dragons, and surveyed the battle. Barely any soldiers of Requiem now flew; their army was now comprised of the old, the weak, the frightened. The wyverns were tearing through them like a pack of wolves in a chicken coop.

She looked around for Elethor, Bayrin, and Lyana, but could not see them. Had they fallen too? Did she now lead these ragged, dying remains of her people? She growled, eyes stinging, fear an inferno in her belly.

We cannot win,
Mori thought.
We must flee.

"Dragons of Requiem!" she cried to the battle. "Flee! Flee into the forests! Flee to the east and west. Leave this city!"

When she looked below her, she saw a group of young dragons flying over the ruins of the temple. Wings batting madly, they cried out for their mothers. A wyvern shrieked and shot toward them. Acid streamed, crashed against one young dragon, and the child fell dead and twisted. Three more wyverns charged, their own projectiles spraying. The young dragons wailed and another fell, the acid eating through her scales like a swarm of ants on meat.

With a growl, Mori swooped.

She crashed between three wyverns fighting a few older, toothless dragons. With a howl, she rained fire upon the beasts that burned the children. They shrieked and turned toward her, acid sputtering. Their riders burned and screamed.

"Flee, dragons!" Mori cried down to the children. "Flee to the forests!"

Two of the wyverns began soaring toward her, their riders flaming. Several young dragons wailed and began fleeing, only for wyverns to pursue them. Crossbows fired. Another dragon fell dead.

Mori roared her fire. The flames crashed against streams of acid that rose toward her. The blasts exploded, spraying flames and acid. Mori howled, dived, and closed her jaws around a rider. She tore the man in two, then spat out his top half. It tumbled, entrails dangling like the tail of a comet. The second wyvern rose toward her, a crossbow thrummed, and a bolt slammed into Mori's shoulder. She blew her fire and swiped her tail. She knocked the rider half off the wyvern; the reins pulled taut and the wyvern banked. Mori bathed it with fire until it fell.

"Flee, dragons of Requiem!" she cried to the children. They were flying around confused, calling for their parents. Wyverns were tearing them down one by one. Mori flew, flamed a wyvern, and herded the children forward, wings spread wide. When wyverns shot toward them, she blew a ring of fire, lashed her tail, and thrust her claws.

"Together, here, with me!" Mori cried to the surviving children. Her wings opened wide, as if she could shield them all. She drove them forward, nipping at them with her teeth and goading them with her tail. "Fly! Fly into the forests and hide! I will find your parents and send them there too. Now fly!"

Wailing, tears in their eyes, the children fled. Soon they flew over the fallen walls of Nova Vita and headed toward the burning forests. Three wyverns began to chase them, and crossbows fired upon another child, sending the girl falling into the flaming trees.

Roaring, Mori flew over the crumbling walls. She crashed against the three wyverns. Fangs bit her tail. Acid blazed against her wing. She blew flames against the riders, soared higher, and swooped again, raining more fire. The wyverns fell.

"Fly!" she cried after the children; the survivors were distant now, mere specks over the blazing landscapes. "Fly and never return!"

She panted. Blood trickled down her scales, and wind roared through a hole in her wing. She turned back toward the city and grimaced. The wyverns flew like storm clouds over the ruins, raining their acid. Only a handful of dragons were fleeing over the toppled walls, wyverns in pursuit. Some dragons still fought but were falling fast. Mori growled. She began flying back to the city. Her wing ached and she wobbled. Her body burned, and she realized that acid had eaten through the scales on her back leg. A bolt thrust out from her shoulder, a demon of steel eating away at her.

Yet still Mori flew, eyes narrowed and breath blazing. She had to save whoever she still could. She had to find her brother, to find her love Bayrin, to find her dearest friend Lyana. And so she flew back to the inferno, blood and fire streaming behind her, death blazing before her.

She flew over the ruins. The battle raged around her. A great wyvern soared ahead, the largest she had seen, rising from darkness like a demon from the Abyss. Its rider glittered, a deity of gold holding a banner of a blazing sun. The rider's cry rang out above the battle, high and beautiful like the cry of a goddess.

"Elethor!"

Mori snarled.

It was Solina.

The Queen of Tiranor rose higher. Her wyvern's wings thudded, two hundred feet wide, spreading debris across the ruins below. Her gilded armor shone, a second sun in the sky. Her hair streamed behind her, a second banner of gold.

"Elethor!" she called again. "Your city is fallen, Reptile King! Fly here and beg me to spare those of your vermin that still live."

Mori wheeled her head around. Across the city she saw her brother, and tears filled Mori's eyes. Elethor rose from smoke, a great brass dragon roaring fire. Mori remembered him as a gaunt youth, a dragon barely larger than herself; now muscles rippled beneath his scales, his flames burned white-hot, and his eyes blazed with the fury of a king. Suddenly he was not merely Elethor, her sad brother, but a great king of Requiem, as powerful and noble as her father.

Wyverns surrounded him—hundreds of them—a fortress of iron scales and spraying acid. Inside the ring, two more dragons rose from smoke: Bayrin, his green scales splashed with blood and ash, and Lyana, her blue scales dented but her wings still beating strongly. The three dragons fought back to back, blowing rings of fire, holding the wyverns back.

Mori wanted to fly to them. They were the people she loved most; without them, there was no reason to live. She wanted to fight by them, to die by them if she must. She took a deep breath, flapped her wings, and prepared to charge and fall with them in the ring of iron and acid.

Before she could flap her wings again, she saw from the corner of her eye that Solina's wyvern clutched two bodies.

Mori's breath died.

She looked closer and felt her world collapse.

Solina's wyvern held the bloodied bodies of Adia and Deramon.

A mewl left Mori's throat, a cry of pain soon rising to a roar. Tears filled her eyes. Fire blazed in her maw. Mother Adia—her greatest teacher, her guiding star, the Mother of Requiem and like a mother to her. Lord Deramon—greatest warrior of Requiem, the bright blade of her people. Fallen. Their lights dimmed.

That day returned to her, that day worse than any other, a cold day in a far southern fort. She again saw Solina smile as Orin lay burnt at her feet, again saw the queen slash her blade, slice Orin open, savor his screams. Again Mori lay upon that table as Lord Acribus invaded her, and again Solina watched and laughed as Mori's body and soul and innocence shattered. That had been over a year ago, but now it bloomed within her, and rage filled Mori, a rage hotter than dragonfire, a rage that spun her head and overflowed her grief.

I was a child then, Solina,
she thought.
I was scared, young, and alone. But now you will find my fire bright and my soul hardened. You gave me this pain. You gave me this strength.
Her dragon roar pealed across the city.
Now you will die in my flames.

She drove through smoke and over ruin toward the Queen of Tiranor.

Solina spun toward her. "Mori!" the queen cried in delight. "My sweet little bird!"

The queen's crossbow thrummed.

Mori snarled and banked. The bolt grazed her leg, and she kept flying. The devastation blurred below her. Wyverns flew at her; Mori shot above, beneath, and around them.

Orin always said I could fly like a bee,
she thought.
He always said nobody could catch me. You killed him, Solina. Now you will die here—in the city where he lies buried.

She soared over the shattered Temple of Requiem and roared her fire.

Solina's wyvern, the great beast Baal, howled and reared. A sizzling jet spewed from his mouth. Acid crashed against flame. The streams exploded and rained upon the ruins.

Mori beat her wings madly. The left one throbbed, holes spreading through it, but Mori ignored the pain and growled. She shot over the crashing inferno and rained her fire upon Solina.

The queen raised her shield. The flames engulfed her, exploding around the shield and cascading upon her wyvern. The beast screeched and bucked, and more acid spouted, a geyser of heat and stench. Mori banked, dodging the stream. Drops splashed her and she roared, swooped, and lashed her tail.

Solina still lived, clasping her charred shield. With a howl, Mori slammed her tail down.

Light flashed. Solina's blade rose. Steel slashed Mori's tail and blood sprayed.

She screamed. The pain leaped through her, a striking asp. She blew more fire, but Solina flew beneath her, and her wyvern rose higher, a wall of scales and claws. The beast dwarfed Mori, twice her size. Its maw opened and its cry shook her, and its maw boiled like a smelter. Acid spewed toward her.

Mori soared. Acid splashed her back legs. She cried. She tried to blow more flame, but only sparks left her maw. The pain tugged at her magic like hands trying to rip off a gown; she struggled to stay in dragon form.

No! Don't fall. Fight her! Kill her! For Orin. For your people who lie dead beneath you.

Mori drove toward Solina and lashed her claws.

One claw slammed against the queen's shield and shattered it. Splinters showered. Mori's second claw slammed against Solina's blade. Steel rang and Mori howled. She leaned down to bite the queen.

Solina rose in her saddle and thrust up her sword.

The steel sliced across Mori's cheek, screeching and shedding sparks.

Mori screamed, pulled back, and heard wyverns swoop behind her.

She spun to see them. Their claws reached out and their riders shot crossbows. Bolts slammed into her.

"Take her alive!" Solina screamed somewhere below. "Chain the beast!"

Mori could barely see. For an instant she lost her magic, tumbled as a woman, then regained her dragon form and flew again. Smoke and fire and cloud swirled around her. Her wounds blazed. She tried to flap her wings, but a spear shot through the left one, where a hole already spread from the acid. She spun and did not know up from down. Blood flowed into her left eye.