Dragons Reborn (11 page)

Is
Korvin right?
she thought.
When combined with the forces waiting in
Hakan Teel in the north, will it be enough to crush the Commonwealth?

"Do
not let your pride lead you to insanity," Korvin said as they glided over
those troops who had abandoned her. "I have seen what obsession can do,
Amity. Do not risk your life."

She
whipped her head toward him, glared, and spat smoke his way. "I am not
Beatrix. I am not a madwoman. I do what I do for Requiem. I would fight for
her. I would die for her." She snarled. "I will swarm onto the shores
of Old Requiem with all the might of the south—of
all
the south—and my
roar will send the Temple crashing down."

She
beat her wings and flew faster, leaving him behind.

"Shafel!"
she shouted. "Shafel, come face me, coward! We're no longer above holy
ground." She blasted fire his way, and sparks rained down onto the hosts
below. "I challenge you!"

The
griffins were flying over the grasslands ahead. At the sound of her challenge,
they turned as one, a hundred beasts, and all came flying toward her.

"Damn
it, Amity!" Korvin said. He turned his head northward. "Salvanae,
fly! Salvanae, to us—"

Amity
slapped him with her tail. "No. I need no aid." She narrowed her
eyes, growling, staring at the approaching griffins. "I'll slay them all
myself."

With
a roar, she charged forth and blasted out her fire.

The
griffins scattered, rose higher, then swooped toward her. Their talons reached
out, and their riders fired arrows.

Amity
howled and blasted her dragonfire every which way. Arrows caught fire and
burned. She soared and crashed into the griffins.

Talons
slammed against her, scraping across her red scales. A beak drove down into her
shoulder, drawing blood. Amity ignored the pain. She roared, blasting out
flame, and the inferno cascaded around her, an exploding star in the sky. She
whipped her tail, lashed her claws, snapped her jaws, and cried out as arrows
slammed into her.

The
griffins surrounded her, a ring of fur and feathers. Their beaks slammed into
her. Their talons cut her. She roared, burning them. Fur ignited and feathers
burned. A rider screamed, bathed in fire. Amity rose higher, closed her jaws
around another rider, and cut the man in half. She tugged her head back, the
rider's upper torso in her mouth, and spat it out. She swung her tail, slamming
its spikes into a griffin, digging deep into its hide.

"Face
me alone, Shafel!" Amity shouted, blood and organs in her mouth. "Are
you a coward? Face me without your brutes!"

She
rose higher, crashing between griffins and their riders, and saw him ahead. He
flew on the largest griffin, a massive beast almost twice a dragon's size.
Black armor covered the creature, and its yellow eyes blazed through holes in
its helmet. On its back, Shafel wore a bronze breastplate, and he held a shield
and a lance longer than two men.

"Move
aside, warriors!" Shafel shouted. "Make way."

The
other griffins swerved, and Shafel swooped toward Amity, lance gleaming.

Amity
soared, shaking off blood, and blew her fire.

The
jet blasted forth, screaming like a storm, blue in its center, exploding out
with white and red.

The
griffin before her screeched and reared in the sky. The fire crashed against
its jeweled breastplate and blazed out in every direction, raining back down
against Amity. She kept rising, crying out, jaws opened wide and claws
outstretched.

Shafel
stood in his saddle and thrust his lance.

Amity
swerved.

The
blade—long as a human arm—sliced along her flank, tearing out scales, digging
a gash across her from shoulder to hip. Scales and blood rained, and Amity
screamed.

The
griffin flew past her, then spun around and prepared to charge again. A ring of
other griffins closed all around Amity, above and below, hiding the world.
Their eyes blazed, and their riders leered.

As
Amity spun to face Shafel and his griffin again, fear flooded her.

Was
Korvin right?

Pain
blazed across her, and her blood kept dripping. Shafel readied his spear, and
his griffin charged again.

Amity
sneered.

No
fear.

She
charged forward.

Fire
and blood.

She
roared, soared higher, and blew her fire. The inferno rained down onto the
griffin's back.

Shafel
raised his shield, screaming as the fire cascaded across the metal disk. Amity
kept spewing down her flame. The fire reached around the griffin's armor and
ignited its wings. Feathers blazed. Amity let her fire die, grabbed Shafel's
shield, and tugged it free, exposing the man beneath. She lashed down her jaws,
prepared to rip him apart.

His
griffin swooped, then soared again. Shafel's lance drove into Amity's wing.

She
cried out in pain, in fear, in rage. She swiped her claws and shattered the
spear's shaft, but its top half still pierced her. She tried to beat her wings.
She could barely fly.

Shafel's
griffin burned, wings ablaze, but would not fall. The beast rose higher and
slammed into Amity.

She
yowled and tumbled through the sky, spinning madly. The hundred other griffins
spun around her, a sea of endless wings and beaks and talons. They grabbed at
her. They scratched her. They bit her. Their riders laughed and fired their
arrows, and Amity knew she was going to die.

Fire
blazed.

Gray
scales flashed.

With
a roar like thunder, Korvin soared into the sky, leading a host of salvanae.

The
true dragons bugled, a cry like stones falling into subterranean pools, like
silver trumpets, like ancient songs. Their crystal eyes shone, large as human
heads and topped with long lashes. Their beards streamed like banners, and
their scales glimmered, bright as polished coins. Lightning bolts blasted out
from their jaws to slam into the griffins attacking Amity.

Korvin
flew at their lead, blowing fire. His flames slammed into Shafel and his
griffin.

"He's
mine!" Amity roared. She was bleeding, hurt, maybe dying, but still she
swooped. "Back off, Korvin!"

His
dragonfire kept blazing across Shafel and the griffin. Amity dived right
through the flames, reached out her claws, and plucked Shafel out from the
inferno.

She
soared, crashing through griffins and salvanae, clutching the burnt Shafel in
her jaws. She rose higher and higher, emerging from the smoke and flame, then
flew over the battle until she glided above the army below.

She
spat out Shafel and caught him in her claws. He was still alive, his face
melted away, his molten armor dripping over his red flesh. He was nothing but a
chunk of metal molded with skin and muscle and burning blood, his ruin of a
mouth gasping, his charred fingers twitching.

Amity
tossed back her head and roared.

"See
me, Horde!" she cried out. The lance still pierced her wing, and her flank
still bled, but still she cried out to the people below, to the griffins who
still flew behind her. "Hear me! I am Amity, Queen of the Horde! I hold
the dying ruin of Shafel who defied me. So shall be the fate of any who
challenge the Queen of the Horde!"

With
that, she tossed Shafel into the air and blew out dragonfire. The jet slammed
into Shafel, melting what remained of his armor, burning what remained of his
flesh, extinguishing what remained of his life. The burning corpse fell like a
comet. People rushed aside below, and the charred ruin slammed into the ground.

"Kneel
before me!" Amity shouted, scattering flame all around. "Worship me!"

Below
her, the deserters knelt. A chant rose among them.

"Queen
Amity! Queen Amity!"

Smoke
rising from her jaws and nostrils, she spun in the sky toward the surviving
griffins and salvanae. The flying beasts stared at her, many burnt and
bleeding.

"Lead
the people back to the mountains," Amity said, blasting out sparks of
fire. "We travel north. Across the desert. To the coast, then across the
sea." She sneered. "To the Commonwealth."

She
spun around, the lance still in her wing, and flew until she reached the
mountains again. She landed on the mountaintop, a dragon wreathed in fire and
light, and resumed human form.

She
collapsed onto the stone, shivering, bleeding.

I
did it,
she thought, trembling, her blood staining the stone.
They're
mine. The Horde is mine.

The
sun set around her, its light gilding the army below. Her army.

Wings
beat and Korvin landed beside her. Healers leaped off his back, three women
clad in the red robes of their order. They rushed toward Amity with bandages
and ointment and prayer beads.

As
they tended to her wounds, Korvin knelt beside her. At first his eyes were
hard, but then they softened and he touched her hair.

"That
was foolish, Amity. But I'm glad you're alive. Stars, don't do anything so
foolish again."

"You
shouldn't have helped me," she whispered, then grimaced as the healers
rubbed ointment onto her wounds. She managed a grin. "I'd have looked
stronger defeating him myself."

"You'd
have been a corpse for Shafel to parade to his troops." He held her hand. "You
must learn wisdom."

She
cried out in pain as the healers splashed ointments into a wound, then managed
another shaky smile and wink. "I'll leave wisdom to you, old man. I'll
take the guts and glory."

As
they wrapped bandages around her, the sun vanished and darkness cloaked the
mountain. Holding Korvin's hand against her breast, Amity slept.

 
 
ROEN

He held Fidelity close as the world
burned around them.

Ash rained from the
sky, and trees burned on the horizons. Smoke churned above like clouds, and the
smell of the fallen forest filled their nostrils. As Roen held Fidelity against
him, he lowered his head, consumed with his love for her, with his grief for
his father, with his grief for the forest.

Old Hollow, the most
ancient oak in the woods, had burned. All the trees around it, millions of souls,
had fallen in the fire. The maples he had tended to since they were saplings.
The pine he had nursed back to health after a lightning strike. The coiling
network of mossy roots, fallen logs, boulders rising from piles of fallen
leaves—all living things to him, beings as wise as men. The animals of the
forest—the swift hawks and falcons, the deer, the scurrying mice, the
dragonflies and fireflies, all dearer to him than humans. All fallen to the
fire. All gone. The forest that had been his home had been a nation to him, a
nation as real as Requiem.

That nation is gone.

"I will no
longer hear the birds," he whispered, voice hoarse. "I will never
more watch dapples of sunlight dance upon fallen leaves. I will never more hear
the rustle of branches, never more see the beauty of mist floating through
autumn foliage, never more smell the fresh green spring, never more feel the
crumbly soil beneath my fingers and the smooth trunk of Old Hollow." He
rested his chin on Fidelity's head, squeezing her against him. "But I have
you, Fidelity, and I promise to always protect you. To defend you like I could
not defend the forest."

She placed her hand
against his cheek. She stared at him through her battered spectacles; one of
the lenses had smashed in the mad flight. Her golden braid hung across her
shoulder, its tip seared. Burn marks spread across her clothes.

"I'm so sorry,
Roen. I'm so sorry." She held him close and whispered into his ear. "You
never wanted to fight this war. You wanted to remain in Old Hollow. With your
forest. With your father. I came into your life, and now . . . now both are
lost, and I cannot tell you how sorry I am, how much I grieve." She looked
up at him again. "How much I love you."

He held her hands and
squeezed them. "For a long time, I didn't understand. I didn't know why
you cared so much for Requiem, for a fallen kingdom. But I know now. I
understand. Requiem to you is like the forest, a memory of something precious,
something lost. Something that meant the world, that meant countless lives all
woven together into something beautiful. And you lost Requiem as I lost the
forest. But we'll keep fighting, Fidelity. Always. To remember them. To keep
the memory alive of both Requiem and its woods."

"And we'll plant
saplings," she said. "In the ashes of the burnt forest. And we'll
plant the seeds of Requiem and her memory across the Commonwealth. We'll
regrow, rebuild, remember. I promise you. Together."

Her leg was cut and
bandaged, and Roen lifted her in his arms. He carried her through the charred
remains of the land as ash rained. She was a precious, broken doll to him,
bandaged, burnt, her spectacles smashed, her eyes pained, her heart shattered.
He could no longer save his father, could no longer save his forest, but he
could save Fidelity. He could cherish her, heal her, keep fighting with her.

Roen carried her until
they reached rolling grasslands and the fire was but a light on the horizon, a
smell of smoke on the wind. The sun set but smoke still hid the moon and constellations.
He could see only Issari's Star between the smoky strands, the eye of the
dragon, named after an ancient priestess of Requiem. He lay Fidelity down by a
stream in the darkness.

Their clothes were
charred, torn, caked with ash and soaked with smoke. They undressed, wincing as
the fabric brushed against their wounds, and stepped naked into the stream. It
was only a foot deep, and they lay down together, letting the water stream
across them. Their hands clasped together, and Roen closed his eyes as he lay
in the water, smooth stones against his back, the cold stream flowing across
him. He tried to let the stream clear away all his pain, all his grief, all his
anger, to let all thoughts and memories flow away with the water. Fidelity
squeezed his hand, lying naked beside him, almost invisible in the darkness.