Requiem's Song (Book 1) (28 page)

"My father knows the art of
healing," Jeid said as he walked. "The old man's out
collecting herbs. I'll do what I can for your wounds until he gets
back." When they reached a cave's entrance, he placed her down
gently. "You'll have to crawl in. Can you do that?"

She smiled wanly. "I made
my way halfway across the world to here. I can crawl."

She climbed up a pile of
stones—they creaked beneath her—and wriggled into the cave. It was
dark and a tight fit. She wondered how Jeid, twice her size, would
enter. After crawling down a tunnel, she emerged into a wide chamber
and gasped.

This was no mere cave.

It's
a home,
she thought, her eyes dampening.
It's
the most beautiful home I've ever seen.

Murals
covered the craggy walls, depicting bison, deer, and dragons flying
under the stars.
Fur
rugs covered the floor, strings of beads curtained passageways into
other chambers, and clay pottery stood on a flat boulder. A tin
brazier crackled with embers, its smoke rising to waft out a hole in
the ceiling.

"It's not much," Jeid
said, "but it's—"

"Home," she whispered.

She wobbled and nearly fell
again, her weariness catching up with her. She sat upon a bearskin
rug and hugged her knees.

Jeid—himself much like a
bear—rummaged around, pulled herbs from pouches, and tossed them
into a pot with water. A sweet scent filled the cave, a scent of
spring, bringing vigor to Laira.

"It smells nice," she
whispered. "Nicer than I do."

He muttered something under his
breath, looking uncomfortable. He brought her a bowl of the steaming
water. "Drink."

She held the bowl, blew upon it
until it was cool, and drank. The tea flowed down her throat, sweet
and healing, filling her with warmth. Jeid clattered about and
returned with bowls of mushrooms, nuts, and wild berries. Laira's
stomach felt so weak. She could only nibble on a mushroom, feeling
too sick for more.

"Thank you," she
whispered. "I traveled for so long. For so many years, I didn't
know if others were real. I . . . I lived in a kingdom, and then a
tribe, and . . . " Her eyes stung and her tongue stumbled over
the words.

"Hush now," Jeid said,
but his voice was kind. "There will be time for tales. First we
must do something about your wounds."

She looked down at herself. Her
ragged cloak—a patchwork of rat furs—barely hid her body, revealing
many scratches and bruises. Her wrists and ankles were still a raw
mess. Her feet were the worst; the welts from the blazing pyre were
infected and turning green.

What
must I look like to him?
Laira thought, feeling ashamed. A scrawny thing barely larger than a
child, clad in filthy rags, her jaw crooked, her hair sheared short,
infected and foul—hardly the kind of weredragon he had dreamed of
someday meeting, she reckoned. She half-expected him to toss her out
into the cold.

And yet he didn't, and his eyes
remained kind, and he brought forth clay bowls of ointments. When he
smiled at her, it filled her with as much warmth as the tea, for it
was a smile of relief, of goodness.

He
likes me here.

"This should help the
infection," he said, dipping the cloth into the bowl. "It
might sting a bit, but—"

A loud voice boomed from the
cave entrance.

"Jeid Blacksmith! What in
the name of sanity do you think you're doing?"

Laira leaped up and the bowl
clattered down. She sucked in her magic, prepared to shift, to blow
fire, to attack any enemy who approached. Had Zerra found her? Had
her father's soldiers tracked her down?

When she saw the figure at the
entrance, however, she tilted her head, keeping her magic at bay, not
yet shifting.

An elderly man stood there,
glaring at Jeid. He wore blue robes and a woolen cloak and hood. His
beard was long and white, his eyes glittering blue, his eyebrows
snowy and bushy. He held a staff formed of an oak's root; the root
split at the top into wooden fingers, clutching a blue crystal.

"I am healing her—"
Jeid began.

"You were about to burn her
feet off." The elderly man scowled. "Root of blackthorn?
That's used to heal frostbite, you fool. The lass is clearly
suffering from infected burns. She needs greenroot, for stars' sake."

The old man stepped forward and
smacked Jeid on the shoulder. The big, burly bear of a man scowled
and stepped back with a grunt.

Laira gazed at the pair with
wide eyes.

"Ignore my dolt of a son,"
said the old man. As he approached Laira, his scowl faded, and the
kindliest, warmest smile she had ever seen creased his face and
twinkled in his eyes. "Grizzly means well—that's what we call
him, you can imagine why—but he has the brains of a pebble. All
muscle and no wit, that one. Call me Eranor, my dear, or Grandpapa if
you like. I am a grandfather to any who enter my home." He
pulled a packet from his cloak and unrolled it, revealing green
paste. "This will do the job much better."

Laira
sat back down and stretched out her feet. Eranor gazed at her wounds,
clucked his tongue, and began ordering his son about. Jeid—Grizzly,
that was—though large as a great warrior, rushed about at every
command. He fetched a bowl of steaming water, a cloth, and several
needles and brushes.

"Now get outside!"
Eranor said to his son. "Go on. You know the rules. Somebody
always stands on the watchtower and guards. Go!"

Grumbling under his breath, the
shaggy man shuffled outside.

Eranor watched his son leave and
sighed. "I remember when he was a bundle I could hold in one
hand. Now look at the boy."

"He does look like a bear,"
Laira said, remembering the bear she had fought in the forest.

Smiling, Eranor got to
work—washing Laira's feet, applying ointment, and stitching up the
open wounds.

"I hope Grizzly didn't
frighten you. My son tends to do that. I've seen saber-toothed cats
flee at the sight of him. I urge him to cut his hair and beard, wear
wool instead of fur, and start to look like a proper person, but he
won't listen. Children rarely listen to their fathers."

"It's true," Laira
whispered, thinking of her own father, a cruel king who had banished
her. She wished she had a father like Eranor instead. "Thank
you, Grandpapa."

A
thought struck her, and she sucked in breath.
But
he's Zerra's father.
A chill flooded her as the realization sank in. This kindly old man
who was healing her . . . was father not only to Jeid, but also the
cruel chieftain, the brute who had abused her for so many years.
Would Eranor attack her now, tie her up, hand her over to the
chieftain?

But the man only smiled up at
her, seemingly unaware of her distress. "Good! Call me Grandpapa
from now on. I like the sound of that." He moved to her ankles,
applying more ointment to the cuts. "So, my dear, you are Vir
Requis too? I saw you flying outside in the forest. I came back here
as soon as I could. A beautiful golden dragon! Now there's a new
color."

At the talk of dragons, her fear
eased, and she was able to push Zerra to the back of her mind.

"Vir—what?" she
asked. "Are you . . . a weredragon too?"

Eranor paused for an instant,
and his eyes seemed to darken. Then he smiled again and resumed his
work. "I do not like that word, my sweetness. It's a crude word,
a word those who don't understand us use. We call this canyon
Requiem, a name my son gave it. It was my granddaughter's name. We
call ourselves Vir Requis—people of Requiem." He smiled. "And
yes, I too am proud to count myself among our number."

He produced soft, cotton strands
and began to bandage up her cleaned wounds. Laira lifted her bowl of
tea and sipped, letting the warmth flow through her. For the first
time in many days, she didn't hurt.

"But . . . proud?
Grandpapa, it's a disease. Like the one infecting in my feet."

"Nonsense!" Eranor
tossed his beard across his shoulder. "Utter rubbish. Our
enemies say such things, and perhaps you believed them. Sweetness . .
." He held her hands, kneeling before her, and gazed into her
eyes. "You are not cursed. You are not diseased. You are blessed
with a great gift from the stars. You are magic. You are wonderful."

More than the tea, the coziness
of this cave, or the healing ointments, those words changed something
in Laira. As Eranor had drawn the pus from her wounds, those words
seemed to draw out all the pain, fear, and shame from inside her. She
found herself trembling, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Oh, dear child," said
Eranor, his expression softening. He pulled her into his arms, and
she embraced him, weeping against his chest.

"Thank you," she
whispered as he smoothed her hair. "Thank you, Grandpapa."

When the sun set, and only the
light of the brazier filled the cave, Eranor stepped outside into the
night for his guard shift. Laira asked to guard too, but father and
son raised their eyebrows and told her to stop being so silly.

Jeid cooked a stew of hares,
mushrooms, and wild tubers. It was the best meal Laira had ever
eaten. She sat wrapped in a great, warm cloak of bear fur, her body
washed and rubbed with sweet-scented creams. For the first time since
her mother had died, she was clean, well fed, and clad in warmth. Her
eyes would not stop stinging.

I
am magic. I am wonderful.

She wanted to tell Jeid about
all her pain—about how her father had exiled her, how Zerra had
burned her mother, how the chieftain had shattered her jaw and
starved her, how she had crawled through the forest for so long,
nearly dying. But she could bring none of it to her lips, and Jeid
did not probe her, only fetched her clear water to drink, more food
to eat, and even sang an old song to soothe her.

That night they lay upon soft
fur rugs. Laira watched the embers for a while, feeling warm and
safe. She had not slept in a shelter since her mother had died, only
in the dog pen, huddling and cold.

This
is safety. This is warmth. This is home.

Soon Jeid was snoring softly,
and the sound comforted Laira. She wriggled a little closer to him,
feeling the warmth of his body, and lay beside him.

Your
twin hurt me,
she thought,
but
you won't. You protect me.

Her true father was cruel.
Perhaps, she thought, Jeid and Eranor could be like the father and
grandfather she needed. She closed her eyes, smiled softly, and
slept.

In her dreams, yellow eyes
opened and black wings spread wide. Hundreds of the rocs flew,
slamming against the canyon, clattering at the caves, screeching for
her blood, and Laira screamed and cowered as their talons ripped into
her flesh.

 
 
TANIN

They flew across the city at
sundown, two dragons beating their wings and roaring fire, driving
into a cloud of demonic fury.

Aerhein Tower rose before them
from a hive of devilry, a bone rising from a wound. Hundreds of
creatures bustled around the old structure, rising like flies from a
disturbed carcass, hissing and shrieking and buzzing and flapping
their wings. The demons of the Abyss saw the dragons, and they
howled, and they drove forward with clouds of rot and fire and smoke.

"Shine your light, Issari!"
Tanin shouted, diving upon the wind, the air whistling around him.
"Scatter them!"

At his side, Maev pumped her
wings. Her green scales gleamed in the sunset, and she roared and
blasted out fire. The flaming pillar spun, crackling, and crashed
into a cloud of demons. The creatures—rotting winged horses with
hollow eye sockets—burst into flames. Tanin added his fire, torching
a cackling green creature with bat wings. Yet countless more demons
flew beyond those they slew; they covered the sky, a tapestry of
horns and scales and boils.

"Issari!" Tanin cried
to the princess who rode upon his back.

He heard her chanting above in
her tongue, speaking the name of her god. A soft light grew, pale as
a moonbeam, subdued amid so much darkness. Several demons shrieked
and scattered, but the others jeered and spat, mocking the light of
Taal. A lumbering creature dived down, a rotting bull with leathern
wings, a mockery of the city sigil. It opened its mouth and spewed
down acid.

Tanin dodged the rancid jet and
blew more fire, torching the creature. The bull shrieked, blazing,
and tumbled from the sky, only making room for a cloud of flayed
women with feathered wings, their fangs long, their eyes flaming.
Maev fought beside him, whipping her tail at swarming horseflies the
size of wolves.

"Issari, what's wrong?"
Tanin shouted. "The amulet's light is dim!"

"There are too many!"
she shouted from his back.

Tanin cursed, spat out a jet of
flame, and torched a rising cluster of eyeballs and fingers.

"Keep praying and shining
what light you can!" he shouted back at her. "Maev!"
The green dragon slew a festering cluster of rot, spat in disgust,
and flew up toward him. Tanin pointed at the tower. "Maev, you
break into that tower! Tear open the bars in the window. Issari and I
will cover you."

She growled. "I'm a
fighter. I'm going to kill them all. I—"

"Do it!" Tanin
shouted. "Go!"

With a grunt, Maev turned and
drove forward, barreling into a cloud of cackling creatures—they
looked like old men with canine faces—knocking them back with tail
and claw. Aerhein Tower rose ahead from the smoke and flame of the
creatures, its window peering like an eye. Tanin flew at his sister's
side, blowing fire, clawing, biting, slaying demons of every size and
shape.

A flying, flaming snake wrapped
around his neck, and Tanin screamed in pain. A desiccated, winged
giant of a man—ten feet tall and flapping bat wings—grabbed Tanin's
wing and tugged off the claw at its tip. Tanin howled as the claw
came free, showering blood. A rotting glob of boils drove into his
belly, its skin acidic, sticky and burnt, and Tanin bucked as he
clawed it off.