A Night of Dragon Wings (31 page)

A growl rose in her throat.

Perhaps we fly to death,
she thought. 
But I will fight by my king.  I will never more abandon him.  I will show him that I've grown brave.

She narrowed her eyes, snarled, and flew.

They flew for a long time.

Dawn turned to noon, and the sun burned above; already it felt hotter than the sun of Requiem.  They kept flying.  Treale's wings ached and she snorted smoke.  Her lungs blazed.  She wanted to slow down—her body screamed for it—but when she looked around her, the other dragons still beat their wings mightily.  Treale growled and kept flying.

"Stop wobbling!" Jadin said on her back.  "Treale, darling, are you getting tired?"

"Tired of hearing your voice, boy," she said.  "Save it for your battle cries."

The noon sun trailed down in the sky.  When Treale looked behind her, she saw that the army's formations had loosened.  Griffins, salvanae, and Vir Requis now trailed behind her, the slower flyers dragging like a wake.  King Elethor, however, flew far ahead of her now; Treale could see his brass scales glinting hundreds of yards ahead.  By his side, she saw Lyana's blue scales, Bayrin's green ones, and Mori's gold.

I will fight by their side.

Treale snarled and flew faster.

"That's more like it," Jadin said.  "Go, little dragon, go!"

Treale's breath ached.  Her eyes stung.  Her wings screamed with pain.  The sun hung low in the sky when finally she saw rocky beaches ahead leading to a dead, golden desert.

"Tiranor," she whispered.

She drew flame into her throat, bared her fangs, and shot forward.  Soon she flew by her king.  Elethor was staring ahead with narrowed eyes, and smoke streamed from between his teeth.  She gave him a nod and a grim smile; he returned the same.

"I fly by you, Elethor," she said, fire flickering in her mouth.

He growled and stared forward, and his claws flexed.  "Be strong, Lady Treale.  Be brave.  We fly together."  He looked at her and his eyes softened, and Treale could weep, because she saw that he
did
remember, that he too had never forgotten that night.  "Stay safe, Treale.  You are among the bravest, strongest dragons in Requiem, and you will make me proud this night."

I love you, Elethor,
she wanted to say. 
I love you always; from that night upon the hill until today and every day after this one.  Always.  Always.

Yet she did not have to utter those words; in his eyes, she saw that he knew, and that though he was wed to another—though he loved Lyana with all his heart—he loved her too.  That soothed her.  That would give her strength this night.

Lyana came to fly at their side, flames snorting from her nostrils.  Bayrin and Mori joined them, flying so close their wings almost touched.  Behind them spread thousands of other dragons, the last of their kind, and as the sun fell, their flames lit the darkness.

They streamed toward the Tiran shore.

The sun dipped into the sea.

From the dunes of Tiranor, a dark host rose, and countless nephilim soared, screeched, and flew toward them.

 
 
LYANA

The sky burst with the demon horde.

The beasts swarmed from the sands, myriads like clouds of locusts.  Lyana roared, beat her wings, and drove forward.  Her fellow dragons roared at her sides, and behind them cried the griffins and salvanae.  The beasts ahead shrieked, their voices so high-pitched and deafening, the dragons' riders screamed.

Stars save us,
Lyana thought, fear chilling her. 
They knew we were coming.
 
They knew where we'd land.  These are no mere sentinels patrolling the border; this is an army bred to crush our invasion.

"Hang on tight, Wila!" Lyana shouted to the woman who rode her, a young captain of Osanna.  "This is going to get rough."

She stormed forward.  The nephilim shot toward her, eyes blazing and jaws snapping and bat wings wafting their stench.

The two armies crashed above the beach.

Dragons slammed into nephilim.  Fire exploded and rained and shot in pillars everywhere.  Claws lashed and fangs bit, and from the backs of dragons, a rain of arrows whistled, red shards in the firelight.

"Lyana, your left!" Wila cried from her back.

Lyana banked and saw a nephil swoop her way, claws outstretched.  Wila shot her bow, and an arrow slammed into the beast; it bucked and shrieked and kept swooping.  Lyana roared her fire, and the nephil blazed.

Lyana banked again, narrowing dodging the flaming beast as it fell.  Wila screamed and held out her shield, and the nephil's claw scraped against it before the beast crashed against the beach below.  Lyana soared and blew more flames.  More nephilim fell before her.  Claws and teeth shone everywhere.

Stars damn it!
Lyana thought.  With Wila on her back, she could barely fly properly.  She could not soar straight up, or spin, or whisk like a bee between the swarming enemies; Wila would fall.  Lyana gritted her teeth and flew onward, lashing her claws and blowing her flames as Wila shot arrows.

"Crash through them!" Elethor roared somewhere above her.  "Past those cliffs—land above them!"

Lyana looked up, seeking her husband.  The sky was burning.  Dragons, salvanae, and griffins flew everywhere, crisscrossing and scattering and regrouping and all roaring their cries.  Nephilim crashed against them—some of the beasts swung curved, rusted blades—and blood splattered.  Bursts of dragonfire exploded.  When howls sounded in the south, Lyana looked to see new combatants arriving:  hordes of burly wyverns blowing acid and phoenixes crackling with fire.  They too crashed into the battle.  The sands below turned red with blood.  Bodies rained and piled up and drifted into the sea.  Lyana couldn't even see the sky, only beasts and men screaming and killing.

This should not have happened,
Lyana thought in a daze.  Her eyes blurred. 
They knew.  They were waiting for us.  They are too many.

For an instant Lyana froze, barely able to fly, barely able to breathe.  She had fought many battles.  She had slain Tirans in the Phoenix War when they first invaded her land.  She had walked through the Abyss and fought its creatures.  She had defended Nova Vita even as it crumbled under wyvern acid.  She had fought hordes of nephilim above cities and temples.  And yet this… Lyana had never seen a battle like this.  Hundreds of thousands of creatures flew and died here, spreading for a league around.  To call this a battle, she thought, diminished its magnitude; here was a great song of blood and flame and carnage.

I never knew,
she thought, eyes stinging. 
I never imagined.  We should have run.  We should have hidden.  We will burn the world from this place.

"Lyana!" Elethor shouted.  He dived toward her, blew fire over her shoulder, and a nephil shrieked behind her.

She snarled.  She soared.  She fought.

The battle raged through the night—a night of dragon wings and fire and rot.  The dead covered the beaches and cliffs.  They bobbed upon the water like thousands of fallen leaves.  When dawn rose, it rose upon a world drenched in blood.  When the battle finally ended, there were no songs of victory:  there was only weeping, screaming, and everywhere the dead and wounded.

Lyana landed upon the cliffs of Tiranor.  She shook so badly Wila nearly fell off her back.  When the woman dismounted, Lyana shifted into human form and stood trembling.

Stars save us,
she thought, looking over the beaches below.

"We won," Wila whispered.  Blood splattered the soldier's pale face, and she clutched an arm that still sizzled with acid.

"Nobody won this slaughter," Lyana replied and leaned against her, so weary she could barely stand.

The hosts of the enemy lay dead, but so many of their own lay among them.  Tens of thousands of corpses covered the beaches:  piles of nephilim bustling with gulls and crabs, men and women slashed with claws and burnt with fire, and salvanae and griffins torn apart.

Among the dead, thousands of wounded screamed and wept and begged.  Men clutched at stumps or spilling entrails, calling for their mothers.  Young women—torn from their homes into a war their brothers could no longer fight alone—lay burnt and swollen and screaming.  Healers in white robes rushed among them, trudging through puddles of blood, but there were so many hurt, so many dying; every moment, another screaming warrior fell silent, voice forever lost.

Elethor landed beside Lyana, brass scales charred and chipped.  He shifted into human form.  Blood splattered his armor and sweat dampened his hair.  He took Lyana's hand and they stood together, gazing down upon the landscape of death.

 
 
ELETHOR

He walked along the beach, blood sluicing around his boots.  The dead rose in hills around him, stinking under the pounding sun.  Crows and gulls flew everywhere, picking at the flesh.  Nephilim lay broken and burnt, their foul innards leaking from their mouths.  Griffins and salvanae lay in heaps.  Men and women too lay dead, torn apart into mere hints of humanity.

"Elethor," Lyana said softly at his side.  "Are you sure?"

He nodded.  "We'll find one here."

They kept walking—him, Lyana, and a dozen of their men.  The tide was rising, grabbing bodies and pulling them to sea, then tossing them back ashore covered with seaweed and salt.  Crabs and flies bustled across severed limbs and heads and burnt corpses.

Wounded Tirans, their armor and bodies broken, writhed in the sand among the dead.  Half were wyvern riders, their mounts dead beneath them, slashed with griffin talons or burnt with dragonfire.  The rest had flown in phoenix forms; bolts of salvana lightning had crushed their magic and charred their bodies.  Most were dying, barely able to whimper, common soldiers with no ranks upon their shattered armor.

They will know nothing,
Elethor thought.

"El," Lyana said softly.  "Should we heal them?  We can't just… just leave the wounded here to die.  We—"

"First we will find what we seek," he said.  "Then we will heal whoever we can."

They kept moving through the bloody sand, at times climbing over the corpses of beasts.  Finally Elethor found what he sought and stopped walking.

The Tiran officer lay on the beach, clutching her slashed stomach.  Blood seeped between her fingers.  Her breastplate was shattered—it showed the form of dragon claws—but upon her pauldrons Elethor could still see golden suns.  This one was of high enough rank to serve him.  He knelt by the woman.

"You are a captain," he said to her.

Blood covered her lips.  The sides of her head were shaven, revealing sun tattoos, and several rings pierced her lips and brows.  The hair that grew from her scalp spread out around her, platinum stained red, and more blood splashed her golden skin.

"I…"  She licked her lips and coughed.  "I will not talk."

Elethor tightened his lips.  Rage flared in him.  She would not talk?  He would make her talk.  He would stab at her wound.  He would stab her eyes.  He would hurt her until her bones cracked, and she screamed, and—

No.
  He clenched his jaw and looked away. 
No, I will not torture a prisoner.  I am not Solina.  I will not let that rage overcome me.

He looked back at the wounded officer.  She lay clutching her belly, and her blood kept trickling; so much of it already soaked the sand.

"We can heal you," he said.  "You need not die here, bleeding in the sand among the corpses of your comrades.  We can give you silverweed to ease the pain, bandages, and water to drink.  But you must tell me what I need to know."

She gave a weak cackle, spitting blood.  "My queen was right."  She laughed hoarsely, a hideous sound, and blood stained the rings piercing her lips.  "She told us this King Elethor was a weakling, a soft boy.  I never imagined how soft you were."  She managed a snarl.  "But we are strong, boy king.  We will never fall.  The Tiran empire rises, and Queen Solina leads her to glory.  You will
die
, weredragon, you and all your kind."

He leaned down; their faces were but inches apart.  He stared into her mocking blue eyes.

"We will die, Tiran?  We crushed you at this beach.  We claimed your shores.  We drove you out of our lands, and now we drive into yours.  Who is weak, Tiran?  I, a king who conquered, or you, a wounded soldier in the sand?"

She laughed, and more blood trickled down her chin, and her armor clanked as her chest shook.

"Drive into our lands?  Weredragon, you have seen nothing of our strength.  You fought but a drop from our ocean, and this drop ravaged half your forces.  Do you think you can move beyond these shores?"  She coughed a laugh.  "The might of Tiranor still awaits you, weredragon.  I wish only that you live to see it all, but you will be crushed too soon.  Even as you linger here, my queen breeds new hosts.  Even as I lie dying, she gives life to a million more nephilim."

He bared his teeth and glared.  "My father burned Irys to the ground and killed its monarchs; I will do the same."

The Tiran spat blood at him.  "You are not fighting Irys now, boy.  You fight the Palace of Whispers, a god of stone, a city in the mountains.  You will crash against its walls.  From within its chambers, Solina will send forth her wrath, and you will die, weredragon.  You will die screaming and begging to worship her."

He rose to his feet and wiped her blood off his cheek.  He turned to Lyana and his men.

"I've heard enough," he said.  "Fetch healers; treat her as well as you can.  If she dies, bury her with the rest."

He shifted into a dragon, took flight, and soared above the cliffs.  Before him, plains of rock and dry scrub rolled for leagues, finally giving way to dunes and distant southern mountains.  Heat rose in waves.  Even in winter, the sun pounded the Tiran landscape; it baked Elethor's scales and blinded him.

When he looked east, he could just discern a distant green line leading to a delta—the Riven Pallan and the city of Irys, capital of this land.  They still lay a day's flight away.  When he looked west, Elethor saw the desert roll to distant tan mountains against a white sky, mere hints of color from here.  Somewhere in those mountains rose the Palace of Whispers, he knew, the ruins where Solina lurked and bred her beasts.