Pillars of Dragonfire (10 page)

"Good," he
said. "It's my turn to ride you. Into a dragon with you."

She blinked and rubbed
her eyes. "No. Not a chance. I didn't sleep nearly long enough."

Lucem snorted and
released his magic.

He tumbled down in
human form. Elory fell, squealed, and shifted. Soon she flew as a one-eared
dragon, scales gleaming violent in the sunlight, the spikes on her tail white
as milk.

"Lucem, you bloody
pest!" she cried.

He shifted back into a
dragon and rose to fly beside her. "Best way to wake up."

She groaned and slapped
him with her tail. "Best way to get me to clobber you."

He winced as her tail
kept thumping him. "All right, all right! I'm sorry." He reached his
own tail around to his sides, rubbing the sore areas her spikes had left.
"I suppose I deserved that."

Elory's eyes still
flashed with rage. "I forget sometimes that you spent ten years in the
wilderness. Probably raised by monkeys, you were. No idea how to behave among
us dragons."

He grinned and puffed
out smoke. "I'm a wild beast in need of taming."

The violet dragon
obviously struggled to remain mad, to keep glaring at him, but when Lucem
reared and gave out a squeaky little roar—something that sounded a lot more
like a puppy yapping than a dragon bellowing—she relented and laughed.

"I don't know whether to hate you or laugh at you, Lucem."

"Definitely laugh
at me." He winked. "Laughter is always better than hatred."

She sighed and moved to
fly closer to him, so close their cheeks touched, and their wings flapped one
atop the other. Lucem's smile then turned sad, and he closed his eyes, basking
in her warmth and presence.

"I'm so happy
here, Lucem," she said. "And yet I'm so scared. I'm so scared this
dream will end."

"Dreams are never
everlasting things. They always end. That does not diminish their beauty. That
does not make them less important."

"I know, but I
want ours to last for more than a few days! Stars, Lucem. We spent five hundred
years in captivity. Will we die before we ever reach Requiem?"

He looked at her, their
cheeks still pressed together, their eyes only inches apart.

"This
is
Requiem,"
Lucem said. "Even if we cannot reach our homeland in the north, even if we
never see our stars—this here, right now, this nation in the wilderness, this
is Requiem reborn. And I will savor every moment I have with this nation. Every
moment that I have with you, Elory. Because I love Requiem, but even more, I
love you."

She sighed. "Oh
you silly thing. Such a silly, wild beast to tame." She slapped him again
with her tail. "You make me love you, don't you? You make me hate you, you
make me slap you, you make me laugh at you . . . and you make me love you. Wild
beast indeed."

He grinned. "So
now can I ride you?"

She rolled her eyes.
"Fine! But be careful, or I'm likely to fly upside down as you sleep,
sending your slumbering backside down to its death."

As Lucem released his
magic above her, landing on her back in human form, he turned to look south.
Beyond the horizon, he knew that they were still flying. Ishtafel. A million
harpies, a force to slay every last dragon.

I won't die by
falling off Elory,
he thought.
But we might die before the sun sets and
rises again. All of us. Here, far from our homeland.

He lay on his stomach
and draped his arms across Elory, caressing her lavender scales.

I will do whatever I
can. I will fight. Kill. Fly to the end of the world and back. Only to spend
another moment with you, Elory. Only to live this dream a while longer.

The white pillar of
fire rose in the north, and the dragons of Requiem followed. Lucem closed his
eyes and slept.

 
 
ISHTAFEL

The harpies shrieked,
storming across the sky, their rot dripping across the plains, their eyes
blazing white under the shadows of the clouds that forever shadowed their
flight. A million strong, they had languished for millennia in their
prisons—the gods' first, failed attempts at life, older siblings to the
seraphim, deformed and cruel, nursing their hatred through the eras.

Yet now they were free
from the prison cells of Edinnu. Now they flew here in Saraph, this new realm
of godly light Ishtafel had forged. Their talons gleamed. Their feathers
churned their stench. Their withered faces, covered in boils and hair, twisted
in hatred—the faces of crones, bloated to obscene size, the mouths full of
teeth, the throats thirsty for the blood of dragons. Onward they flew, foul
life, beasts who knew nothing but hatred.

Yet they were beasts
that would serve him, Ishtafel thought. For he had given them freedom. He had given
them the chance to prove their strength. The dark seraphim failed him, as they
had failed to topple his mother's reign. But the harpies knew no failure; all
they knew was to hunt, to kill, to feast upon the flesh of their enemies.

"Soon you will eat
dragons!" Ishtafel cried, standing in his chariot of fire high above the
land. "Soon the blood of Requiem will fill your bellies and stain your
lips."

His voice emerged
strangely from his golden mask, metallic, almost like the sound of the bronze
bull Malok. More metal covered his body now, a new skin, replacing the skin the
dragons had burnt off. No more feathers grew on his wings; only thin membranes
stretched across the bones, the feathers burnt off, leaving him almost like a
dark seraph, cursed and foul. And yet his halo still shone, a beacon of his
dominion and retribution.

The harpies cried out
in joy, horrible sounds, the caws of vultures, the grunts of rotting beasts,
the wails of slaughtered hogs. They were larger than him, as large as the
largest dragons. A single harpy could, perhaps, crush even him, the King of
Saraph, the mightiest of the seraphim.

They will devastate
Requiem.

For too long, he had
shown the dragons mercy. Slaying them only one by one. Allowing them to live in
their miserable huts, to reek and rot in Tofet, staining his empire with their
wretchedness. He would have to burn down and bury that entire land to cover the
stench. For too long, he had let the weredragons languish in their pathetic
excuse for life.

That mercy was over.

"You will die long
before you reach your homeland, weredragons," he said. "All but you,
Meliora. You will live. You will return to your true homeland . . . to Saraph.
To the ziggurat. To your prison cell. And there, my sweetness, in darkness and
chains, you will bear my heirs."

He grinned inside his
mask, the movement stretching his wounds, leaking blood, shooting pain through
him. Good. The pain kept him alive. The pain kept his hatred burning hot. He
stared ahead, and he could just see them on the horizon—a wake of smoke. The
trail of dragons . . . getting closer every day.

"No more slavery,
dragons," he whispered. "Only death. Only mountains of your bones."

 
 
MELIORA

"No." She shook
her head as she flew, crossing the mountains of Khalish toward the distant
valleys. "We cannot stop. We cannot land, not even for an hour. Not with
Ishtafel on our tails."

Her father flew at her
side, scales green as the fabled forests of Requiem. Jaren looked at her with
sad eyes.

"We're out of
food, my daughter. The fish and animals we hunt below are not enough to feed a
nation. The Chest of Plenty cannot duplicate food fast enough for half a
million dragon mouths. We need more flour. Fruit and vegetables. Milk and
cheese."

She narrowed her eyes,
puffing out smoke. She looked behind her at the hundreds of thousands of
dragons, then back at her father. "Then we'll tighten our belts. We can
endure a few more days of hunger."

"But can we endure
disease?" Jaren asked. "An illness runs through the camp, and fewer
dragons can fly every hour. They ride the strong, shivering in their human
forms, and the fever is spreading—even here in the sky. We need medicine.
Medicine that can be found in the city ahead."

Meliora spat out smoke.
She stared ahead. There, in the distance, she could see it on the horizon. A
great mountain rose ahead, crowned with a city of limestone, sandstone, and
bronze. Walls surrounded the mountain's base, and brick structures sprawled
across the slopes. On the mountain's crest perched a great, round fortress,
shaped as an egg.

The city of Keleshan.
Home to Saraph's largest garrison of troops outside the capital. If Shayeen was
the heart of the empire, here was its fist.

"We're not ready
to fight another battle," Meliora said. "Not here, not in Keleshan.
We veer west. We avoid this city and travel over the western deserts. I would
not approach Keleshan, not even for food and medicine. Not even our new army
can face these foes."

Jaren gazed at her with
sad eyes. "They never told you, did they?

She frowned. "Tell
me what, Father?"

He turned to stare
toward the distant city. "Why do you think there are walls around Keleshan?
The seraphim have wings and can easily fly over them, and no enemies threaten
them, not in this world they so easily conquered. Those walls are there to keep
people in. More slaves. More Vir Requis." He lowered his head. "The
people of Requiem were chained not just in Tofet. They serve in this city too,
and in the cities along the northern coast."

Meliora inhaled
sharply.

More slaves. More Vir Requis.

And she knew: She could
not simply fly by. She would fight for Keleshan, this city on the mountain. She
would test her new army. She would kill.

She would raise more
dragons.

She spun in the sky and
flew toward her brother. Vale flew among a hundred dragon warriors, the
vanguard of the camp—all Vir Requis who had once labored in the mines.
Thousands of other warriors now flew around the camp, organized into their old
units. The brickmakers guarded the eastern flank. The bitumen diggers—Elory
among them—flew in the west. Other units—once bitumen refiners, masons,
farmers, shipwrights, and many other laborers—flew in their own formations.
The new Royal Army, formed from the strongest slaves, surrounded the weaker
Vir Requis—elders, nursing mothers, children, babes.

Now they will fly to
war,
Meliora thought.

"Vale," she
said, "ready your troops. We're about to test their mettle."

She repeated Jaren's
words to him, and while he listened, the blue dragon sneered and puffed out
smoke, staring at the city ahead.

"So we fight for
food," Vale said. "For medicine. And for freedom. The blood of Saraph
will spill today . . . and new dragonfire will rise." With a roar, the
blue dragon reared and blasted fire skyward. His voice rolled across the camp.
"Royal Army, rise, rise! Fly with me at the vanguard. Fly to war!"

With thousands of
roars, the new army of Requiem stormed to the head of the camp. Their cries shook
the sky. The sun began to set, but their fire lit the darkness.

They stormed across the
miles, and Meliora flew with them, roaring out her fury. Her family flew at her
sides: Vale, a blue dragon, commander of the Royal Army; Elory, a lavender
dragon, smaller but just as fast, her fire just as hot; Jaren, her father, his
scales green, a healer who did not hesitate to fight to save lives. Behind them
flew thousands of others. Their captivity had weakened their bodies but hardened
their souls, instilling deep wrath within them. Now this fury would wash across
their enemies of light.

From the walls and
roofs of Keleshan they rose—hosts of seraphim, bearing lances and shields. From
the oval fortress on the mountaintop rose many flaming chariots, their
firehorses storming toward the dragons, and the seraphim riders raised bows and
arrows. As the dragons flew closer across the mountains, more and more seraphim
kept emerging, an erupting volcano, a host that covered the sky like clouds of
red and orange and flaring white. Thousands soared, prepared for battle, flying
in formations, spears glinting, halos burning, chariots thundering like a
storm.

"Hear me,
Requiem!" Meliora cried. "We fight to free our brothers and sisters.
We fight for our freedom. To war! To war! For stars and column, fly!"

"For stars and
column!" they answered her call. "For Requiem!"

Thousands of their
roars sounded together. Thousands of flaming pillars rose in a blazing forest.
The dragons stormed forth, howling with rage, no longer slaves, no longer
broken and afraid. Here were no refugees, no broken souls.

Here was an army of
dragons, an army like the great hosts of Old Requiem, charging for glory.

Ahead of them, the
seraphim stormed across the sky. Their wings spread wide. The light of their
halos flared out. The setting sun gleamed on their gilded breastplates, and
their chariots rose above, forming a great canopy, a sky of fire. The distance
shrank between the two hosts. The earth itself seemed to shake, the heavens to
burn. Only a league separated the forces, then a mile.

"Blow your fire,
Requiem!" Vale shouted, rearing at Meliora's side. "Burn them
down!"

Arrows flew.

Lances thrust.

Dragonfire washed
across the sky.

 
 
VALE

A great
battle awaits you, son of Requiem.

As he stormed across
the sky to the wall of fire, words of starlight echoed inside him.

Live, son of
Aeternum. Your war has not yet ended.

As he flew to blood,
pain, killing, maybe death upon the plains, Vale thought of Issari. A priestess
of starlight. A mother of Requiem. A kind, guiding light, the woman who had
given him life, who had birthed Requiem thousands of years ago.

I fight for my
family,
he thought.
I fight for my people. But I also fight for you,
Lady in White.