A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) (29 page)

For the first time in almost
twenty years, both her eyes saw the same world.

 
 
FREY

He flew back into Cadport with
five hundred vermin in his claws.

His wrath spread behind him.
His thousands of claws tightened, crushing the traitors. Their blood
fell like drool. He laughed and blew fire from a forest of maws and
lit the heavens that he ruled. He spread across the land, a beast
with two hundred thousand wings, a hive of scale and steel and
everywhere the red spiral that snaked through his mind.

"We have your pets,
Relesar!" he shrieked from his golden head, letting the cry roll
across the city of ruin and death.

Behind him, his lesser heads
howled with laughter, this sea of might, this writhing cloud that
cloaked the city, and Frey laughed and blasted flame and his claws
dug into flesh.

It burned inside him, twisting,
always aflame, always bleeding.

Hail the red spiral!

It coiled around his spines,
pulsing with his blood, a parasite sucking on his marrow and organs
and essence.

Hail the worm!

"Relesar!" his jaws
cried. "Relesar, emerge from your hiding, or they will die."

He cackled, staring at the
fortress that rose upon the hill. The boy still hid there, cowering.
The fallen knight still lurked there, broken and trembling. His
daughter still huddled behind those bricks, spreading her legs for
the men he would kill.

"Relesar!" he howled.

Behind him, the many heads of
the beast roared flame and chanted his cry.

"Relesar! Relesar!"

"Purification!" the
golden head cried.

"Purification!" the
minions answered.

Frey howled, spraying drool and
flame. "Hail the red spiral!"

His heads answered the cry, and
Frey cackled. He remembered a day long ago when he was just one
body. He remembered a thin, pale youth, the son of a logger. He
remembered walking through the forests at night, desperate for
firewood, desperate to appease the father who'd beat him.

The boy hated the darkness. He
boy hated the woods and the shadows that lurked there. Things
crawled in the dark, insects and rodents and worms that broke under
his bare feet. How they stained his feet! How the crushed, coiled
things bled upon his soles, red spirals that stained him, that he
could never wash off, that tainted him anew every night.

The curse of the woods. The
worms left it on him. A curse he could never shake, that invaded
through his feet into his bones, into his heart, into his skull, that
wrapped around his spine and drove him to greatness.

It made him strong.

"Hail the red spiral!"
he cried.

Now he was many. Now he was
Legions. Now he no longer feared monsters, for he himself was a
beast, a hive of flame and steel and worship and purity.

He flew down above the roofs of
the seaside city. The ragged men all hid in their tunnels, fearing
his might. The cannons had fallen silent. The boy still had not
emerged.

"I will slay one of your
precious vermin every minute until you face me!" Frey shouted
and laughed. "I snatched them from your canyon, boy. I killed
most but not all. I will kill the rest here until you emerge."

In his lead claws, the claws of
the emperor, he held two of the townsfolk, a brother and sister. He
clutched them so tightly they could not shift into dragons, only
writhe as frail humans. He flew with them near the tower upon the
hill. They no longer shot arrows. They no longer fired guns.

Frey grinned.

"You fear to slay the
people I hold!" he shouted. "You fools. You should slay
me on sight. Now they shall die!"

Frey tossed the brother and
sister from his claws. They tumbled through the sky, bleeding and
nearly dead. Before they could shift into dragons, Frey blasted them
with flames.

They screamed.

They died.

They fell and crashed, burning,
onto the roofs below.

Now howls rose from the tower.
Now arrows whistled and cannons blasted. Frey laughed and flew
backward, dodging the fire.

"Emerge and fight me,
Relesar!" he shrieked. "Emerge or I will kill two more.
Face me in battle, coward, or they all shall die!"

The beast laughed with a hundred
thousand jaws, and its wings and scales spread into the distance.
The city below lay in shadow and desolation.

Frey smiled.

"It is pure."

 
 
TILLA

He was killing them.

Oh stars, he was killing them.

Tilla wanted to howl. She
wanted to weep. She wanted to blow fire against the emperor. She
wanted to fly between cannonballs and arrows, to capture Rune or die
upon the roofs of their city.

He was killing them. Oh stars,
he was killing them all.

Flying a hundred yards away from
the emperor, Tilla stared, barely able to breathe, not even able to
cry. Among the five hundred prisoners, she saw her own father. The
old ropemaker was bleeding, his face pale, struggling in the grip of
a drooling dragon.

He
will kill him.
Tilla panted.
My
emperor will kill my father.

"Relesar!" the emperor
cried, laughing in the sky. His great wings beat. Flame wreathed
him. He grabbed two more townsfolk from the claws of his minions,
gripped the bodies so tight their ribs snapped, and raised them.

"Relesar!" Frey
called. "I will slay two more. Emerge and fight me, or all
will die."

Tilla knew those two in Frey's
claws, an old man and a woman. She had grown up with them. She had
bought pottery from their shop. They had looked after her when she'd
been a girl, she remembered. They had always been so kind. She
could not let them die.

She whipped her head around and
stared at Castellum Acta. The fort rose upon the hill. Cannons
lined its battlements and windows. Archers stood firing from its
arrowslits. Behind iron, steel, and stone, Rune hid.

And they were dying.

Tilla knew the price of
disobedience. Soldiers were to fly in silence, to laugh only when
the emperor laughed, to cheer only when he cheered. They were
nothing but reflections of his glory. Yet today Tilla had to risk
her life. She had to save what she still could of Cadport, her home
which lay in ruins below.

"Rune!" she called
out. "Rune, please! Come out to us. He will kill them!"

More arrows flew from the fort.
More cannons fired, tearing into imperial dragons who flew too close.

Yet he did not emerge.

"Hear them scream,
Relesar!" Frey cried, laughed, and tightened his claws.

The two potters tore apart.

They fell to the city below,
lacerated, and crashed into the rooftops.

"No…" Tilla
whispered, and tears budded in her eyes.

I
can't do this,
she thought and panted.
I
can't fly here anymore. I can't take part in this massacre. I can't
let my father die.

She
looked at Frey; he was grabbing two more prisoners in his claws. She
looked down at her hometown which lay in ruin, bodies and blood and
debris everywhere.

"How can I fight for this?"
she whispered, her voice too soft in the battle for any to hear.
"How can I serve this Regime that crushes my home?"

Tilla raged.

She raged against the Regime.

She raged against the emperor.

She wanted to fly at Frey, to
burn him, to slay the beast and tear out his heart.

I
served you, Frey,
she thought, and fire crackled in her maw.
I
served the glory of the red spiral, and now you crush my home. Now
you kill all those I've ever known.

She looked at the fortress where
the last resistors hid, bloodied and dying. She looked down at the
city where thousands lay rotting.

She lowered her head.

There was no fighting the
Cadigus family, she knew. Even with thousands of warriors, the
Resistance only crashed against the might of the Legions and died.
And the city died. And all its refugees died.

"You cannot fight him,
Rune," Tilla whispered. "He is too great. You can only
serve the red spiral. To fight him brings death to us all."
She raised her voice to a howl. "Rune, please! Emerge! I will
protect you, I promise."

Yet still he hid, and Tilla
roared, wept, and raged.

Why would he not come to her?

Did he not care that Frey was
butchering his people?

Tilla trembled, her wings
roiling smoke and fire around her.

I
serve Requiem,
she thought.
I
serve life. I serve my city.

"And you're letting it
fall, Rune. Your rebellion killed them all." Again she cried
out. "Rune!"

The Legions howled and jeered
around her. The emperor cackled and grabbed two more prisoners, mere
children.

"Relesar, two more!"
the emperor cried.

Two more bodies fell.

Two more lights went dim.

Tilla wept and roared her fire
and called his name, but he would not come.

 
 
RUNE

"Let me go," he said,
eyes burning, and tried to wrench himself free. His throat
tightened. His legs shook. He twisted and tugged, but Valien would
not release him.

"You cannot," said the
older man. His teeth were bared. His eyes blazed. He clutched
Rune's arms, holding him back. "Rune! Do not give him what he
wants."

Yet Rune kept struggling. He
kept staring through the hall's arrowslits. The scaly mass covered
the sky outside. Frey Cadigus cackled, claws still stained with
blood and bits of flesh. Behind the emperor, his dragons held
hundreds of other townsfolk.

"They're going to die,
Valien!" Rune called, struggling madly. He wanted to break
free, to rush up the tower, to leap from the battlements and shift
into a dragon, to fly at Frey and slay the man with all his fire and
rage.

"
If
you fly out there,
you
will die," Valien said, refusing to release Rune; the man's grip
was iron. "Rune. Look at me. Listen to me."

Rune spun away from the
arrowslit. His eyes were damp and burning, but he stared at Valien.
The leader of the Resistance stared back, eyes hard as his grasping
fingers. Behind him, the other resistors stood gazing at Rune too.
Their eyes were haunted. Their faces were somber. Even Kaelyn
stared silently, her eyes large and cold like frozen dreams of
winter.

"They will all die,"
Rune whispered.

Valien would not release him.
"Rune, if you fly out, he will kill you." Valien ground
his teeth. "But not at once, Rune. He will take you alive to
the capital. He will torture you. He will display your mangled body
to the masses and have you wail for their amusement. Years down the
line, when your mind is broken like your body, then, Rune… then he
will finally give you the mercy of death. If you fly out to meet
Frey now, that is your fate."

Rune swallowed and trembled.
Sweat drenched him. He panted, barely able to suck breath down his
throat.

"I cannot simply let them
die," he whispered. "Valien… stars. He has hundreds out
there. Did he already kill the others?"

He did not want to weep. Yet
his voice cracked, and a lump filled his throat, and he could barely
see through his burning eyes.

Tilla,
he thought.
Stars,
do you fly there too? How can you serve him? Tilla, what do we do?

Valien's
eyes softened just the slightest. His grip loosened by just a
thread.

"I don't know," he
said, his voice raspier than ever. "He might have killed them
all, yes. If he met the people of Lynport on their way to the
canyon, he might have slain all those he didn't bring here to
torture. Rune—do not let their deaths be in vain."

Rune peered back outside. Frey
grabbed two more prisoners in his claws. He rose higher,
disappearing from the arrowslit's range of view, but his voice still
rolled across the city.

"I have two more, Relesar!"
the emperor shrieked, his voice demonic, the sound of storm and
lightning. "Emerge to fight me, or they too will perish."

Rune looked back at Valien and
the others.

"I can't let them die,"
he whispered. He turned to face Kaelyn; she stared back with haunted
eyes. "Kaelyn, tell him. Tell him we can't let them die."

She stepped closer, her lips
trembled, and she touched Rune's arm. A tear streamed down her
cheek.

"They must die," she
whispered.

Behind Rune, two screams pierced
the sky.

Kaelyn lowered her head and her
tears fell. Rune started, gasped, and tried to turn around, but
Valien still held his arms, refusing to release him.

"Come, Rune," the man
said. "Into the tunnel. You do not need to hear this. It's
time to leave."

Outside the tower, the emperor's
voice roared across the sky.

"Two more dead, Relesar!
Hundreds more remain. Emerge from your hole, coward!"

Rune shook. He let Valien guide
him away from the arrowslit. They walked toward the narrow staircase
that plunged into the hill. The stairs led to a tunnel, Rune knew.
The tunnel led to the sea.

"Rune," Kaelyn said
softly, holding his arm, "you must do this for their memory.
The people of Lynport will die. But if you are captured, all hope is
lost. Millions across Requiem will suffer." Her tears fell.
"For those millions, you must live."

Rune let them walk him across
the hall.

So
here is how it ends,
he thought, eyes stinging.
Lynport
is fallen; all we tried to save here will die. And we will flee.
And we will fight on. To dream of another battle, I must let all my
memories, all my soul, all my past perish.

Yet how could he fight again
with such pain inside him?