A Night of Dragon Wings (19 page)

The land soon changed below, the scorched fields giving way to lush dark forests.  Forts rose from the trees, their battlements alight with torches.  After days of ash and soot and mud, Lyana was leaving the ruins of Requiem; she flew now over the eastern lands of Osanna, ancient realm of men.  It was a vast land; Lyana had visited here before as an envoy of Requiem, but she had seen only small parts of the kingdom.  Osanna stretched from northern Fidelium, mountains where the undead rose from tombs, to the southern port of Altus Mare, whose ships navigated the Tiran Sea and sailed east to Leonis, land of griffins.

She flew for hours, crossing forests, mountains, and fields, before finally spiraling down to a silver lake under the moon.  There she lay upon grass, drank from the water, and slept until the dawn.

She awoke to see two cloaked archers pointing arrows at her.

With a snarl, Lyana leaped up and began to draw her sword.

"Freeze!" shouted one of the archers, voice ringing deeply from the shadows of his hood.  "Release your sword or you'll die before you draw the blade."

Lyana bared her teeth at the men.  Both wore green cloaks, and beneath their hoods, brown scarves covered their faces.  Leaves and vines covered them, and swords hung from their belts.  One man was short and squat, his wide shoulders tugging at his cloak; the other was tall and lean.  Something about them seemed familiar, though Lyana could not place them.

She growled.  "I am Lyana Eleison, Queen of Requiem, and—"

"We know who you are," said the taller, leaner man, the one with the deep voice.  "Release your sword."

Both men drew their arrows back farther; the bowstrings creaked.  With a grunt and hiss, Lyana released her sword's hilt, letting the blade fall back into its scabbard.  The two men stepped forward and grabbed Lyana's arms.

Lyana growled, tugged herself free, and shifted.

She took flight, a blue dragon with fire in her maw.

Below her, the two men shifted too and soared, bronze dragons with long white horns.

"Stars!" Lyana shouted, beating her wings.  The grass below swayed, and waves raced along the lake.  "You're Vir Requis.  How dare you threaten your queen?"

Seeing them as dragons, she finally recognized these two.  She had seen them in Requiem's northern mountains; they were brothers and miners of iron ore.  The older, taller one was named Grom Miner, she remembered.  The younger, squat brother was named Gar.

"We are no longer in Requiem, Lyana Eleison," said Grom; his scales were a slightly deeper shade of copper.  "And you are no longer our queen, if indeed you wed the Boy King Elethor in your exile.  All titles are forsaken in the ruin of the world, and every dragon is master of himself now.  We will take you to our camp, and you will answer to our new lord."

Lyana snarled, and fire flicked between her teeth.  These two dragons were burly and long, far larger than her own short, slim form, yet she knew that she could kill them.  She was fast.  Her fire was hot.  Her claws were sharp.  She had trained to fight in Castra Draco, garrison of Requiem's fabled Royal Army.  These two had perhaps grown strong from digging mines and hauling ore, yet Lyana had slain phoenixes and wyverns, and she could slay these two.

And yet… and yet they were still her kin.  They were new survivors when she had thought none existed.  She spat her flames into the lake.

"You call yourselves your own masters, fellow dragons of Requiem," she said.  "Yet now you speak of serving a new lord.  Are you free dragons or servants?"

Gar Miner—the younger brother—spoke for the first time.  He was a shorter dragon than his brother, but burlier.  He spoke in the high voice of a man just leaving his youth.

"We are free dragons," he said.  "Yet we choose to fight for the Legless Lord.  You will follow us.  You will answer to him, and you will have a choice to serve him too, or you may leave these lands and find your own fortune."

Lyana growled deep in her throat.  She had not come here to Osanna for this; she had flown seeking aid from the king of men, and then from the eastern griffins.  And yet here hid more survivors of Requiem, perhaps many more.  She could not forsake this chance to meet them, to bring them back to Elethor's camp.

"Show me to your lord," she said.

Grom Miner nodded and growled.  "We walk.  In human forms.  We live in Osanna, and the cruel Queen Solina still dares not invade this land, yet we've seen her beasts fly overhead as scouts.  We walk hidden.  We walk quietly.  We will not fly as dragons again."

The bronze brothers descended and shifted back into human forms upon the lakeside.  Lyana landed beside them and shifted too.

"Follow," said Grom.  He turned and began walking into the forest.

Lyana snarled at him.  She was Queen of Requiem; she followed no one.  And yet Grom was walking among the trees already, and his younger brother Gar was caressing his bow.  Growling, Lyana followed, and the three moved through the forest.

They walked for a long time, and the forest thickened.  The oaks grew twisted and tall here.  Moss covered the boles and mist floated between them.  Back in Salvandos in the west, where Elethor ruled his camp of survivors, the autumn leaves had fallen and covered the forest floor.  Here they still grew bronze and dulled gold, metallic and hard and barely rustling.  Lichen hung from gnarled branches, brushing against Lyana's cheeks, and the air smelled of loam and stagnant water.  She could not see the sky or sun—the canopy was thick as a roof—yet the brothers seemed to know their way.  They walked assuredly, boots crunching branches and twigs.

Lyana guessed it was near noon when a stench rose on the wind, twisting her gut.  Flies buzzed.  With a snarl, she drew her sword, but the brothers only snickered.

"No need for blades here, my
queen
," Grom said, speaking the last word as an insult.  He led them around a boulder and pointed at a thick oak.  Upon its trunk, tied with ropes and chains, hung the corpse of a nephil.

"Stars," Lyana whispered.

Nausea rose in her.  She had never seen one of the beasts so close before.  Patches of dank scales covered its flesh like lesions, and its claws curved, long as sabres.  Its bloated head bustled with insects; the eyes were already gone.  Worms crawled upon its cleaved skull, and dried entrails hung from its slashed belly.  Half the body was burnt with dragonfire, the other half lacerated with claws.

Squat young Gar smirked.  "Figured we'd leave the bastard here—a warning to his comrades.  I killed this one myself."  He thrust out his broad chest.  "Burned him dead."

Lyana spat in disgust.  "Bury it," she said.  "It stinks."

"We want it to stink,
your highness
," Gar said.  "Let its brothers smell it.  Let them smell their death on the wind and know that more death awaits them here."

Lyana whipped her head toward the brothers and glared.  "You are a boastful couple."  She growled.  "You hide here in disguise, and you dare not shift and fly, yet you brag of slaying nephilim.  Do you know how many of these creatures fly in Requiem, seeking us?  Thousands. 
Tens
of thousands.  Armies of them muster, and more keep flowing north from the desert.  You burned one?  Swarms of them will fly here; they will cover the world.  Do you think the stench of one will deter the rest?"  She marched toward Gar, grabbed his collar, and bared her teeth at him.  "You are a foolish boy, and when this corpse's comrades arrive, you will die squealing."  She twisted his collar tight, constricting his breath.  "I've seen many boys like you die squealing."

The young miner paled, and for an instant his lips shook.  Then he raised his chin, shoved her off, and smoothed his tunic.

"Be silent," he grumbled, though his voice shook slightly.  "Follow.  We're almost there."

They walked past the corpse—Lyana nearly gagged as the flies buzzed near her—and moved down a leafy slope toward a stream.  The water rose past their ankles, and beyond it stood a hill with trees so thick, they had to push branches aside and climb over roots and boulders.  Finally, below the hill, Lyana saw the camp.

Her heart leaped and tears dampened her eyes.

"So many," she whispered.

Only a thousand Vir Requis lived with Elethor in the west; Lyana had thought them the only survivors of Requiem.  Yet here lived many more—this camp was twice the size of the one Elethor led, maybe larger.  Children ran playing around boulders, holding dolls woven of leaf and grass.  Young women whispered around campfires.  An old man stood upon a boulder, leading a congregation in prayer.  A palisade of spikes surrounded the camp, and men stood guarding it, armed with spears.

A tear streamed down Lyana's cheek, and her legs trembled.  "So many still live."

The brothers tried to grab her arms and lead her.  Lyana wrenched herself free and began marching toward the camp, holding her head high.  She let the wind billow her cloak open, revealing her knightly armor.  At times like these, Lyana missed her old mane of fiery red curls; it used to draw people's attention like a beacon of fire.  Solina had sheared that hair last year, and now only a finger's length grew upon her head.  Today these embers, a memory of a great flame, would have to do.

"My lady!" Gar cried behind her.  "I mean, Lyana!  I mean—newcomer.  Halt!  We will escort you into our camp."

Lyana ignored him and kept marching.  She made toward a gateway in the palisade where two guards stood, bearing cracked shields and makeshift spears.  They wore old, dented breastplates; one from the armories of Requiem, another stolen from a dead Tiran and still bearing the Golden Sun of Tiranor.  When Lyana tried to march between them and into the camp, they moved closer together, making to block her way.

"Move!" Lyana barked and shoved them back.  When they tried to grab her, she glared and bared her teeth at them.  "I am Lyana Eleison, Queen of Requiem, your mistress.  If you touch me, I will cut off your hands."

She gripped her sword's hilt and drew a foot of steel; it gleamed and the guards hesitated.  Not wasting another moment, Lyana strode into the camp.

"Who leads this place?" she called out.  "Bring him before me."

All around her, people abandoned gardens, wheelbarrows, toys, harps, and weapons.  They began to gather around her, staring and whispering to one another.  She heard her name spoken in awe.  She knew these faces; she had seen them labor in Requiem's fields, dig in her mines, and forge steel in her smithies.  She saw no nobles; the last lords and ladies of Requiem had fallen.  Here were the commoners of Aeternum's Kingdom.

"Who leads you?" she repeated.  She stepped onto a tree stump and wheeled her head around, seeking a ruler.  "Bring him to speak with me."

Grom approached her, tall and grim, his ill-fitting armor clanking beneath his cloak.  He cleared his throat and smirked.

"It will be… difficult to bring the Legless Lord here.  I think you will find it easier if we took you to him."

Lyana gripped her sword tight and frowned.  She was queen to these people; would she approach this Legless Lord, a son of Requiem, as an ambassador?  She grinded her teeth.

"Very well," she said.  "If truly this
lord
of yours— and I use the term lightly—has no legs and cannot approach me, take me to him."

She did not like this.  These people had missed her coronation in the wilderness of Salvandos, yet they still knew her as the Lady Lyana, a knight betrothed to their king.  And yet they did not bow before her.

I will find no loyalty here,
she thought. 
Titles still mean something in the west, where King Elethor protects his people; here they are forgotten.

The brothers led her down a dirt path between gardens, tree stumps, and rows of game hanging from poles.  A hall rose ahead, built of boles still rough with bark and the stumps of felled branches.  Those branches, still leafy, formed a rough roof.  The structure looked long enough to house a dragon.

They stepped through its makeshift doors, which were carved of branches and rope, and into a shadowy chamber.  The air outside was cold and wet; inside the hall was hot and stuffy and scented of pine.  A campfire burned upon the earthen floor, its smoke rising through a hole in the roof.

"My lord!" called Grom, standing at Lyana's side.  "We have found another survivor.  She is Lyana Eleison, once a lady of Requiem's courts; we found her by the eastern lake."

A cough sounded behind the campfire; a man sat there, hidden behind the flames.  The coughing went on for a long moment, then ended with a wheeze.  Finally the man behind the fire spoke, voice raspy.

"Bring her closer, Grom.  Let me see her."

Grom and Gar grabbed Lyana's arms yet again.  She tried to shake herself free, but the brothers gripped her firmly, and they pulled her forward.  She grunted but walked with them; she was more curious to see this man than to fight his minions.  They walked down the hall and around the fire, and there she saw the Legless Lord.

He was an older man; she guessed him sixty years old, maybe older.  His cheeks were stubbly, his long hair grizzled.  He wore a brown leather tunic and sat in a chair of twisting oak roots—a mockery of Requiem's old throne which had stood in its palace.  Upon his knees, the man held a sword with a dragonclaw pommel; forged in dragonfire in Requiem's Castra Draco, Lyana thought.  His legs ended below those knees, and cloth wrapped the stumps.

"Lyana," he rasped.  Coughs seized him again, and he brought a handkerchief to his mouth.  It was a moment before he could speak again.  "Lyana Eleison, once a lady of Requiem; I am glad to see you survived the carnage.  Welcome to our camp."

"Dorin Blacksmith," Lyana said, eyes narrowed.  She recognized this one.  He had forged steel in Nova Vita smithies, and he had served in the City Guard during the war, though last time she had seen him, he had walked on two legs.  "I too am glad to see you live; I fought with you against the wyverns.  I saw you slay two.  You fought well, my friend."

The blacksmith hacked a laugh, then coughed again.  "Yes, I slew more than two.  The last one did this."  He swept his hand across his stumps.  "You have emerged unscathed, I see, though perhaps with less hair."