Requiem's Song (Book 1) (19 page)

You
will break!

You
are broken!

You
will never rise!

Help,
mercy, stop, take it back!

Yes,
Angel hungered. Forever hunger lived inside her. Hunger for an end to
those voices. Hunger for blood, for flesh, for power, for freedom.
Hunger for a child.

She
placed her hand against her belly, aching for spawn, for the rustle
of unholy life within her. The ravenous lust blazed through her loins
with dark fire.

She
grabbed Raem's shoulders again.

"I
hunger for you. Take me."

He
grabbed onto her hard, stone body that leaked smoke and flame. She
sneered, turned her back to him, and dropped to her hands and knees.
She howled as he took her, head tossed back, her flames blasting out
from her eyes, her claws digging into the floor.

The
fire consumed her.

For
a precious few moments, the voices fell silent.

For
now her craving was sated, but as he took her, Angel swore:
I
will slay all his weredragons, and I will feast upon the flesh of his
people, and when he has placed a child within my womb, I will feast
upon Raem too.

She
welcomed his seed into her, and she smiled.

 
 
TANIN

Whenever
Tanin slept, he remembered.

Even
here in the forest, his sister sleeping beside him, he thrashed,
half-awake, the memories clawing at him, dragging him down to that
dark place eleven years ago.

"We
have to run," Jeid had said, bursting into the smithy with wild
hair and flushed cheeks. "We have to fly."

Tanin
had stood at the forge that day, fourteen years old, an apprentice to
his father. The brick walls of the smithy rose around him. Upon hooks
hung hammers, tongs, pokers, and all the other tools of the trade. A
cauldron of bronze bubbled beside Tanin, drenching him with heat, and
sweat dampened his hair. He had the mold ready—a sickle for Farmer
Gam who grew rye outside the town—and was just about the pour the
liquid metal.

"What
do you mean?" he asked his father.

He
had never seen the old man look like this. Jeid Blacksmith—Grizzly
to his children—was always a little disheveled, what with his shaggy
hair, wild beard, and rough cloak of fur and leather. But today, for
the first time, Tanin saw his father look scared. Tanin had seen
Grizzly knock out malevolent drunkards, fight an invasion of a
roaming tribe, and even battle a saber-toothed cat with only a simple
dagger. But Jeid had never looked
scared
,
and that fear now seeped into Tanin.

"They
saw me fly," Jeid said, voice low. "They know. We have to
run."

Tanin
froze, unable to breathe. He grabbed his hammer.

They
know.

From
outside rose the townsfolk's cries. "Weredragons! The curse has
come to Oldforge. Burn the Blacksmiths!"

Tanin
could remember little of what happened next, only the heat of flames,
the bite of an arrow in his thigh, the mad faces dancing around him,
hundreds of men come to slay him. Maev flew above, a green dragon
roaring fire, pelted with arrows. Mother tried to stop the mob; Zerra
clubbed her, knocking her down, and the villagers stomped her,
dragged her body through the village behind a horse. And blood.
Everywhere the blood of men and dragons. A burning child ran between
the huts, screaming as the flames engulfed him.

"Fly,
Tanin!" Jeid called.

"Tanin,
where are you going?" Maev shouted. "Fly!"

But
he would not fly. He ran through the village. The arrow protruded
from his thigh, and behind him, he heard his own uncle—Zerra, twin
to his father—shouting to kill the creatures. But Tanin kept
running, limping now, until he reached her home.

"Ciana!"
he cried, barging into the hut. "Ciana, where are you?"

She
emerged from shadows, dressed in her white gown. A girl of fourteen,
she had long, dark hair and large gray eyes that he thought very
beautiful.

"Tanin,"
she whispered. A haunted sound. The sound of old ghosts. A sound of
old pain. Even then, Tanin knew that the sound—that soft utterance,
that whisper of his name—would forever echo through his mind.

"Flee
with me." He panted and reached out to her. "I must leave
now. Flee with me to the mountains. We can marry in the wilderness.
We can live together far from this place." The cries of the mob
rose from the fields; they would be here soon. "I love you."

Ciana—his
beloved, the girl he had kissed upon the hill just last night, the
girl he had vowed to marry someday—stared at him silently, and
something filled her eyes. Not love. Not fear. Slowly Tanin
recognized it.

Disgust.

"You
are a weredragon." She took a step back, and her father
approached and placed an arm around her. "You . . . you are
diseased." She shuddered. "I kissed you. I let you hold
me." Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her voice rose to a
hoarse cry. "Kill him, Father! Kill the creature!"

As
her father reached for a knife, Tanin fled. He too wept. They waited
outside—the mob of townsfolk, waving torches, firing arrows. Beyond
them he saw his family: his wise grandfather, Eranor, a white dragon;
his father, Jeid, a copper dragon blowing fire; his younger sister,
Maev, a slim green dragon. They flew above the fields, arrows
whistling around them, calling for him.

Tanin
shifted.

He
too became a dragon.

Arrows
slammed into his scales, and one pierced his wing, and he flew.

They
fled over the forest. They raced across the wilderness until they
found a hidden cave and cowered, wounded, afraid, banished. And still
Ciana's words echoed in his mind.

Tanin.

You
are diseased.

Kill
him, Father!

"I
love you," he whispered, reaching out to her, seeking her
through shadows and light. "I'm not a creature. I love you. I—"

"Stars
above, Tanin! I love you too, but stop grabbing at me like a
drunkard."

He
opened his eyes.

He
blinked.

His
sister sat beside him, wrapped in furs—no longer the young girl from
that day but a grown woman, her face a mask of fading bruises, her
arms strong and her bottom lip thrust out in her permanent gesture of
disdain.

Tanin
looked around him, for a moment confused, but then remembered his
location. Of course. They had been flying for three nights since
leaving the escarpment, heading south toward the coast. Birches grew
around him, their trunks dark in the sunset, their leaves deep red.
The sun was only an orange sliver between the boles; soon it would be
gone.

"I
was dreaming." He sat up in his bed of leaves and fur pelts.

Maev
snorted. "I could tell. You kept talking about loving this and
loving that." She rolled her eyes. "What were you dreaming
about—being some hero? Saving a damsel in distress?" She shoved
him back down. "Quit dreaming and get ready to fly! We're flying
to save a prince, dear brother, not a damsel for you to bed."
She tapped her chin. "Unless you prefer princes. But in that
case, you'll have to fight me for him, because I'm claiming him for
myself."

He
groaned and rose to his feet. The evening was cold, and he shivered
and stuffed his hands under his armpits. Since leaving the
escarpment, they'd been spending the days sleeping, hiding under leaf
and fur, and flying only under cover of darkness. As Tanin hopped
around for warmth, he watched the sun disappear below the horizon,
and shadows—the best friends of a Vir Requis—fell across the
forest.

"I
hope you fly faster tonight," Maev said; he could just make out
her frown. "You fly slower than a dove against the wind."

"I'm
eating breakfast first. Or dinner. Or whatever meal it is now."
He reached into his pack, rummaged around, and found a salted
sausage. The meat was cold and damp—the rain had wet his pack
overnight—but better than an empty belly.

It
was Maev's turn to groan. She mimicked him, speaking in a deep whine.
"I want breakfast. I want to sleep longer. I want to love."
She rolled her eyes. "Bloody stars, brother! I swear you're a
princess yourself." She shoved him. "Toughen up and let's
fly."

She
snatched the rest of the sausage from him, stuffed it into her mouth,
and shifted. A green dragon, she crashed through the forest canopy
and rose into the sky. Already mourning the loss of his sausage,
Tanin grabbed a handful of nuts from his pack.

"Tanin!"
rose the dragon's cry above. "Shift or I'm going to burn down
the damn forest."

Grumbling
under his breath, Tanin stuffed the nuts into his mouth and shifted
too. A red dragon, he rose through the shattered canopy to hover
beside Maev.

"Try
to keep up this time." She slapped him with her tail, then
darted off, wings beating. With a sigh, Tanin followed.

They
flew through the night. Clouds hid the stars, and the moon was only a
pale wisp behind the veil. It began to rain again, the drops
pattering against Tanin's scales, pooling atop his wings, and
entering his nostrils. He could barely see Maev ahead, only brief
lights when sparks fled her mouth.

In
the darkness, like in sleep, it was easy to remember.

"Ciana,"
he whispered.

He
had not loved a woman since. He had barely
seen
women since, aside from his sister, whom Tanin was convinced was half
warthog. That had been the day everything had changed: the day Mother
died, the day they fled into exile, and the day Tanin made his vow.

I
vowed to find others,
he thought as the rain fell.
To
find people like us—exiled, afraid, alone. I vowed that they will
have a home, a place to belong, a place to feel not diseased but
blessed.

Jeid
called that home Requiem, naming it after Tanin's youngest sister
whom the villagers had poisoned. Tanin didn't care what their tribe
was called. He only cared for that person out there—a person like
him, rejected and scared.

"If
you're out there, Sena," he said into the rain, "we'll find
you, my friend. We'll bring you home."

They
flew for a long time in the darkness. Maev—damn her hide!—kept
flying so far ahead that Tanin nearly lost sight of her. The old
wound in his wing—a hole from a hunter's arrow—ached in the cold,
and air whistled through it. His breath was wheezing with a similar
sound. Every time he caught up with Maev, she only flashed him a
toothy grin, blasted a little fire his way, and darted off again,
faster than ever.

"Maev,
in the name of sanity, this isn't a race."

She
grinned over her shoulder at him. The flames between her teeth lit
her green scales. "Everything is a race, brother. We're racing
to save a prince. We're racing to forge a tribe. We're racing to
finally find you a female companion, because I swear you've been
looking funny at sheep this past year."

"Very
funny, Maev. Now I'm a heavier dragon than you, and you know I have a
hole in my left wing, so please slow dow—"

She
cut him off with a blast of smoke, turned back forward, and raced
ahead again.

Tanin
was grumbling and pounding his wings, trying to catch up, when the
shrieks rose ahead.

His
heart seemed to freeze.

He
knew those sounds. He had heard them before when hunting upon the
plains.

"Uncle's
rocs," he muttered.

Tanin
winced. That day he had fled into exile, his uncle too had left
Oldforge. Zerra—disgusted with his twin's disease—had since
dedicate his life to hunting those he called weredragons. Wandering
the wilderness with a bronze sword—a sword Jeid himself had forged
for him—Zerra had finally joined a wandering tribe of roc riders.
The Goldtusk tribe had been but a ragged, near-starved group of
barbarians, and Zerra had slain their aging chieftain with a single
blow from his blade—a blade such as these ramblers, with their
stone-tipped spears, had never seen. Since then, Zerra had swelled
their numbers, breeding the rocs from a humble dozen to a hundred
beasts, starving and tormenting the great vultures and teaching them
hatred of reptiles.

And
now those rocs flew ahead—invisible in the darkness but cawing
louder than thunder.

The
rain intensified.

Lightning
flashed and Tanin saw them: dozens of the rotted vultures, not even a
mark away, hunters upon their backs.

He
beat his wings, reached Maev, and tapped her with his wing. "They
might not have seen us," he whispered. "Swallow your fire.
We descend. We land in the forest and hide."

But
Maev—damn warthog of a sister!—howled in rage. Instead of
swallowing her fire, she blasted out a great pillar.

"Uncle!"
she roared, eyes red, wings beating. "Uncle, come face me. I
will burn you!"

The
rocs shrieked. The hunters upon them shouted battle cries. Maev tried
to fly toward them, to challenge them all, but Tanin grabbed her
tail, holding her back.

"Maev,
no! We can't fight them all."

Panting,
her wings beating, she turned toward him in the sky. Her face was a
mask of rage. "He killed Mother, Tanin." Smoke blasted out
of her nostrils. "He's probably the one who poisoned Requiem.
Now I kill him."

She
wrenched free from his grasp and shot toward the hundred rocs. Her
fire blazed across the sky. The rocs flew nearer, eyes bright yellow,
their oily wings blazing white with every bolt of lightning.

Tanin
cursed as he followed his sister. He sucked in air, filled his belly
with crackling fire, and blasted out a flaming jet.

The
stream spun, crackling, and crashed into a roc. The beast burst into
flames, stinking and blasting out smoke, but still it flew toward
him. The rider upon its back screamed, a living torch, skin peeling
and flesh melting. Feathers tore free and glided through the sky,
still burning. The flaming bird kept flapping its wings. It crashed
into Tanin, biting and clawing.