Requiem's Song (Book 1)

REQUIEM'S SONG

DAWN OF DRAGONS, BOOK ONE

by

Daniel Arenson

Copyright © 2014 by Daniel Arenson

All rights reserved.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either
the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic
or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the
author.

• CHAPTER ONE: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER TWO: RAEM
  
• CHAPTER THREE: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER FOUR: JEID
  
• CHAPTER FIVE: RAEM
  
• CHAPTER SIX: TANIN
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER NINE: MAEV
  
• CHAPTER TEN: ANGEL
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN: JEID
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN: SENA
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN: JEID
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: ANGEL
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: TANIN
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: TANIN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: RAEM
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: TANIN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: TANIN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY: JEID
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: JEID
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: MAEV
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: SENA
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: JEID
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: RAEM
  
• AFTERWORD
  
• NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON
  
• KEEP IN TOUCH
  

 
 
LAIRA

On
Laira's tenth birthday, the crone dragged her outside to see her
mother burned at the stake.

Laira
blinked in the weak morning sun. She had not seen daylight in so
long. For five days they had kept her in her tent, alone in shadows,
alone in fear, the sounds of the trial—shouting, pleading,
weeping—rising outside. Now silence filled the camp. Now, finally in
daylight, Laira only wanted to return to the darkness.

Other
tents rose across the yellow grass, similar to hers, their
animal-skin covers stretched across cedar poles. In the distance
rolled a red forest, a place of berries and the whispers of secret
men, and beyond the trees rose the faded blue mountains where the elk
roamed. A murder of crows circled above, cawing, and Laira felt her
head spin and she nearly fell. She clutched her doll, a wooden little
thing she had named Mustardseed. The crone's talon-like hand
tightened around Laira's arm, dragging her forward; Laira felt like a
doll herself, helpless and small.

"Keep
walking and don't close your eyes," said the crone, a shaman
named Shedah. Her arms were knobby like old carob branches, and her
fingers ended with sharp, yellow nails that nicked Laira's flesh.
Other fingers—torn off the hands of dead men—hung around Shedah's
neck in a lurid necklace of bone and dried flesh, charms to ward off
evil spirits. The crone was ancient beyond measure—some claimed her
two hundred winters old—and so wizened her eyes all but disappeared
into nests of wrinkles. Her gums were toothless, her nose beaked, her
body withered, and yet she was still so strong, strong enough that
Laira thought the crone could snap her arm in two. All Laira could do
was keep walking, guided by the old woman.

"I
won't close my eyes," Laira whispered.

Shedah
cackled. "If you do, I'll rip off your eyelids and make you
watch. So be a good little maggot."

They
kept moving through the camp. The tribe's totem pole rose ahead—the
great bole of an ancient cedar, carved with images of bison, eagles,
and leaping fish. Near its crest flared a gilded mammoth tusk, long
as a boat, attached to the pole with rawhide thongs. The cross of
wood and ivory towered above the tents—the god Ka'altei, a deity of
meat and fire. Wherever they set down this pole marked their
territory, a beacon for all other tribes to fear.

Around
the pillar brooded its guardians—the rocs, fetid birds the size of
mammoths. Oil dripped down their black feathers, and their long,
naked necks turned as Laira approached. Their cruel beaks—large
enough to swallow men—clacked open and shut, and their talons, which
were longer than human arms, dug into the soil. Their eyes watched
Laira, gleaming orbs like circles of bronze. Were they not tethered
to the totem, Laira thought they'd leap toward her, tear out her
entrails, and feast.

The
tribesmen stood everywhere, dour, staring, clad in fur and leather
and holding spears. Some stared at Laira balefully. One hunter, a
burly man with a scraggly red beard, spat at her. Others gazed in
pity. Clad in a robe of patches, a druid woman whispered ancient
prayers, reaching toward Laira but daring not approach. In Laira's
old home across the sea, men now wove wool and cotton, built houses
of stone, and shaved their beards, yet here in the north—in the
Goldtusk tribe—lived an older, prouder, rougher people, warriors of
fur and stone and hair. War paint covered their leathery skin, and
tattoos of totem animals coiled around their arms.

The
crone kept tugging her forward, and Laira wanted to use her
curse—the secret disease of her family, the power that would let her
escape this tribe, let her free her mother, let her kill them all.
Yet she dared not. Mother had used the dark magic; now the woman
would burn.

Past
campfires, the totem pole, and a mammoth carcass buzzing with flies
it rose—the pyre.

Upon
the pile of wood and kindling she stood tied to the stake—Laira's
mother.

For
five days in her tent, Laira had shed many tears, yet none would now
flow. The crone who dragged her forward paused, and Laira stood in
the dead grass, staring, feeling dead herself, feeling empty.

Mother
wept.

Her
face was so beaten Laira barely recognized her. It looked less like a
face and more like a slab of bloodied meat. Tears poured from
bruised, bloodshot eyes to flow down lacerated cheeks. When Mother
spoke, her voice was slurred, thick with blood and shattered teeth.

"Don't
make her watch. Turn her aside. Please . . . Laira, my sweetness,
please, close your eyes."

Laira
bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. She wanted to run away, but how
could she? She wanted to close her eyes, but Shedah had promised to
rip off her eyelids. The crone gripped both her arms now, fingers
digging, hard as bronze, and Laira wondered if those fingers could
shatter her bones, rip off her limbs, kill her right here with the
pain. Mother wept upon the pyre and Laira wanted to do
something—
to
use her curse, to scream, even to weep, some act of defiance or
emotion . . . but she only watched.

"Behold
the reptile!"

The
voice, high-pitched and raspy, tore through the camp like a blade
through flesh. Goose bumps rose on Laira's skin. Wincing, she turned
to see him—the man who ruled the Goldtusk tribe, the man who would
sentence Mother to death, the man who filled Laira's nightmares.

"Zerra,"
she whispered.

The
chieftain limped toward them, tall and swaying like a wicker effigy
in the wind. He wore patches of fur, leather boots, and necklaces of
bone beads. His prized possession, a bronze
apa
sword, hung upon his belt. The blade was leaf-shaped, double-edged,
and as long as a man's forearm, sprouting from a semicircular
crossguard. In some of the villages across the river, men now forged
metal, plowed fields, and raised huts, but Zerra had always scorned
them. His were the old ways, the ways of hunting and gathering, of
tents and campfires, of blades taken from corpses rather than forged
in smithies.

More
than his towering height, his sword, or his mane of grizzled hair, it
was Zerra's face that frightened Laira. Half that face was gone,
burned into something wet, raw, and dripping. Mother had given him
that wound—or at least, the creature Mother had become, a monster of
scales, fangs, and fire.

The
disease,
Laira thought
and shivered.
The curse
that had us banished from Eteer, our old home across the sea. The
curse that lets my family turn into reptiles. Into monsters. Into . .
. dragons.

"Zerra,
listen to me!" Mother cried from the pyre. "Banish us.
Banish us to the escarpment. We will not hurt you. We—"

"You
will burn and scream for me," Zerra said, his left eye blazing
from his melted flesh. "You are lower than one who lies with
pigs. You will squeal."

You
screamed,
Laira
thought.
You squealed.

She
had seen it five days ago. She had dreamed it every night since. She
knew those nightmares would fill her forever. The memory pounded
through her, shaking her bones.

While
the men had hunted upon their rocs, Mother had taken Laira into the
woods to gather berries, nuts, and mushrooms. Mother's amulet gleamed
around her neck, a silver talisman bearing the sigil of Taal, a god
of their old home across the sea, a god unknown to any others in this
northern hinterland. Past a grove of birches they had found a pond, a
place of water lilies, golden leaves, and mist. It was a secret
place, a perfect place. A place for dark magic.

The
curse always itched within Laira and her mother. The disease forever
cried for release. They stepped into the pool, submerged themselves
in the water . . . and shifted.

Hidden
underwater, Laira opened her eyes, and between algae and the roots of
lilies, she saw Mother change. White scales flowed across her body,
the color of moonlight, and wings unfurled from her back. Her body
grew, becoming almost as large as a roc, slick and graceful and thin.
Laira changed too, letting the curse raise golden scales across her.
Her wings stirred the water, and she blasted sparks from her mouth.

Their
claws rested on the pool's floor. Their tails braided together. Their
heads—long, scaled, and horned—rose to the surface. Nostrils and
eyes emerged into the air. Men called it a curse, but to Laira it
felt so good. This felt more like her natural form than the scrawny,
raven-haired girl she was at their camp. Scaled and winged, a golden
dragon, Laira felt whole. She felt true. Looking around the forest,
she tried to imagine flapping her wings and flying, seeing mountains,
forests, and rivers from high above, so high nobody could hurt her.

"Why
must we hide?" she asked, sticking her snout over the water.
Lilies tangled around her teeth. "They say that other cursed
ones live at the escarpment in the north. They say it's safe. They
say Zerra's own twin brother hides there, cursed with the same
disease."

Mother
blasted smoke from her nostrils. Her eyes narrowed. As a dragon, her
voice sounded deeper, stronger, almost musical. "There are no
others, Laira. That's only a myth. The world is cold and large and
empty. The lone wolf perishes. The pack survives. The tribe of
Goldtusk is our home, and Zerra is a kind master."

"A
master who would slay us if he knew our secret!" Laira said. "I
hate hiding. I hate this curse. Why did you have to give me this
disease? You infected me." Tears burned in her eyes. "If I
must be a dragon, let me fly. Let me be free. I won't cower in the
water."

Anger
flowed through Laira, rattling her scales, and flames filled her maw.
With a cry, she beat her wings. She rose from the pool, water and
algae dripping off her scales, claws scratching at the air. Mother
gasped and stared from below. Laira knew the rule—only become a
dragon underwater, in darkness of night, or in deep caves, never in
the open. They had been caught shifting in their last home, a place
Laira could hardly remember, and they had barely escaped. But Laira
didn't care. Laira was done caring. She hated hiding and she would
fly.

She
beat her wings, rising higher, soaring between the trees until she
crashed through the forest canopy with a shower of orange leaves. The
cold wind streamed around her and Laira laughed. This was freedom.
This was who she was. They called it a disease but she felt healthier
than ever, not a monster but a noble spirit of fire.

"Laira!"

She
looked down to see Mother rising from the forest—a slim white dragon
with blue eyes.