A Day of Dragon Blood (23 page)

I hold her because Solina left. I hold her because my brother died.
He looked away.

Soldiers approached them, carrying battle rations: dried meats, kippers, bread rolls, and jars of apple preserves. Elethor accepted the food gratefully, both for his hunger and the awkwardness of his embrace with Lyana. He released his betrothed, and for long moments they ate in silence.

The commanders of his phalanxes approached. Most were survivors of the old City Guard—seasoned warriors. A few were minor nobles—one an Oldnale, an uncle of Lady Treale, another a distant cousin of Bayrin and Lyana. Elethor gave them their orders:

"We sleep for five hours. Then we fly again."

Within moments, the soldiers of the Royal Army lay with closed eyes; those who had followed him to Ralora Beach, and those who had joined them from the border stretching west. Elethor lay upon the grass, looking up into the clouds. Lyana nestled in his arms, her head against his chest, her breath soft. She slept, mumbling and holding him. He kissed her cheek.

Dawn rose around them, blood red. In the northeastern horizon, distant fires glowed.

Be safe, Treale,
Elethor thought, staring to her distant home.
Come back to us.

As he held Lyana, he thought of Treale's soft hair, her dark eyes, and her warm lips against his cheek. He thought of Solina, the love of his youth, who flew from the north. He wanted to think about nobody but Lyana, nobody but this perfect woman in his arms—and she was perfect, even with her hair sheared and her body bruised. And yet his belly knotted, and his thoughts swirled like ghosts rattling in his skull. Finally he slept, Lyana warm in his arms.

 
 
TREALE

She had left the Royal Army two days ago and soared over the wilderness. She was young and slim and fast as roaring wind. The army had long disappeared behind her; the plains lay ahead, rolling green toward distant fires.

Oldnale Farms. Burning.

Her wings, lungs, and chest blazed with pain. She howled and blew fire. She had forced herself to sleep last night and to hunt a deer, but exhaustion still tugged on her like chains. The thought of the two graves outside Oldnale Manor—the graves of her brothers, slain fighting the phoenixes last year—rattled through her mind. She would not let her parents lie dead beside them.

The plains spread beneath her for leagues. Wild grass and reeds swayed. A river cut through them, bustling with cranes and geese. Hills rose every league, bristly with elms and beeches and maples. In the distant northwest, Treale could just make out Amarath Mountains, a white hint upon the blue sky. When she looked east, she saw red and black clouds claw the sky; her home lay there.

"Mother," she whispered, eyes stinging. "Father."

Her shadow raced across the grasslands below; she had never flown faster. Memories flowed through the mists of pain. Treale saw the great, scarred table in the manor hall where she and her brothers would play with wooden soldiers; the apple pies her maid would bake, and how Treale would sneak into the kitchens to steal a slice before dinner; the spears and arrows she would carve from fallen branches in the grove outside their home, pretending to be a warrior; and the hundreds of puppets she had sewn and placed upon a dozen shelves.

"My home," she whispered into the wind. "All my memories, my heartbeat, the sky of my wings."

Did the fires now claim it?

She flew, plains racing beneath her, wind howling across her scales. She blew fire. She flew for hours, a small black dragon in an endless world of grass and distant flame.

The sun hung low and red in the west when she saw the Tiran army.

A cry fled her throat.

Treale knew then: There was no hope for her family, for her king, for her army, for her race. Requiem would fall, and her children would burn or scatter in the wind. There would be no victory against these invaders from the south, only acid, blood, and death.

They covered the sky like a black cloud. Countless wyverns swarmed there; from this distance, they were mere specks, but Treale had seen enough up close to imagine their metallic scales, their red eyes, their chins that thrust out into blades. Upon their backs, she saw the glint of armor and streaming banners. Even from leagues away, she heard the shrieks and war drums, a song of death. Smoke unfurled above them, turning the sky black, and shadows spilled across the land like ink. Behind them fires blazed across the prairies. As Treale flew, she saw wyverns dipping from the mass, swooping to the lands below and kindling them. The fires raced across field, meadow, and forest. As every new blaze crackled to life, the wyverns shrieked with new vigor.

They did not come here to conquer,
Treale thought.
They did not merely come here to kill. They came to destroy the very land that bred us.

She dived down so fast her head spun and her belly lurched. She landed in swaying grass, shifted into human form, and knelt. The wild grass rose around her, five feet tall. Grasshoppers and crickets bustled. Treale pulled her knees to her chest, shivered, and whispered prayers.

"Please, stars of Requiem." She hugged herself so tightly her arms ached. "Please don't let my parents lie dead; they are all I have left. Don't let these wyverns reach our city; it is all Requiem has left. Don't let King Elethor lose his courage; he is our last hope."

She looked up at the sky. Smoke was spreading above, blocking the sun, turning blue to black. The wyvern shrieks tore across the land. She could hear men now too; they shouted orders to one another, voices as cruel as the wyvern cries. Would they fly here too? Would they burn this grass she hid in?

She sat shivering, peering between the blades of grass, until the cries of the swarm moved westward and dimmed. Treale stood, only her head rising from the tall grass. The wind streamed her hair, and when she stared west, she saw the wyverns flow into the distance.

"They're heading for Nova Vita," she whispered. "Fly fast, Elethor. Save whoever you can... and flee this land."

She leaped, shifted, and flew east. A wall of fire rose before her.

Treale dived through smoke, coughing, eyes narrowed and watering. Soon flames were racing below, baking her belly. She swerved, rose, and dipped, seeking pockets of air. The fire crackled and roared. The sky churned black and red. She felt as if she flew through a furnace, and she yowled. She wanted to rise higher, to escape the smoke, but dared not. She had to stay here near the ground, seeking her home.

Soon the land below her changed. These were no wild grasslands that burned, but ploughed fields. The wheat and barley—lush green when she had left her home—now blazed. Barns rose in flame and collapsed. Treale could not even cry; the heat seared her tears dry. She howled. She kept flying.

Finally she saw it ahead, red on black—Oldnale Manor burning.

"Mother," she whispered.

She shot between columns of smoke. She swerved between walls of fire. A blast of flame from trees below licked her claws, and she screamed and drove onward. She crashed through fire, dived toward the hill Oldnale Manor rose upon, and landed in the courtyard outside the manor gates.

Cobblestones covered the courtyard, searing hot against her claws. Three guards lay dead before her, flesh charred black; if not for their armor, the wind would have scattered them into ash. Around the hill, trees crackled and flames blazed. Before her, the doors of the manor stood burning. She saw more flames through the windows above.

"Mother!" she cried. "Father!"

Still in dragon form, she ran toward the doors and slammed through them. The wood crashed with a shower of burning splinters. Inside the main hall, tapestries and rugs burned and smoke swirled. Treale crawled, head against the floor where less smoke flowed. If she became human now, the heat would bake her flesh; even her dragon scales felt close to melting. She coughed and kept moving.

"Mother! Father!"

She could see barely a foot ahead. She reached out her claws, scratching the floor. She hit a fallen chair, shoved it aside, and kept moving. Her tail flapped behind her. She coughed and roared for her parents.

She crawled another foot through the smoke... and found herself staring at a burnt body.

Treale screamed.

The flesh had blackened and shriveled, clinging to bone. The skull gaped and the fingers thrust up like burnt twigs. Shreds of charred cloth clung to the body, and around its neck hung a talisman shaped as a sheaf of wheat.

It was her mother.

Tears filled Treale's eyes. She shivered. She froze for a moment, then with a cry, she scurried two feet away. Her throat burned. She could barely breathe. She hit something soft and hot, turned her head, and saw a second body. It too was charred black, little more than crisp flesh clinging to bones in armor. She knew the breastplate it wore; this was her father.

Treale howled. She wept. She had to take the bodies from here; she had to bury them. Weeping, she clutched her father with her claws. His body came apart in her grasp, falling from his armor like ash from a pipe, and Treale closed her eyes and trembled.

A rafter cracked above. Flames showered. The beam crashed before her and fire roared. Treale coughed and had to close her eyes against the heat. She pushed herself back, spun, and ran toward the doorway. She burst outside into the courtyard and took flight.

"I'm sorry, Mother," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Father."

She soared until she burst from smoke into clear sky. She coughed and trembled in the air. When she looked below her, she saw nothing but the inferno. A chunk from Oldnale Manor's roof collapsed, and soon nothing remained but brick walls, a shell of death and memory.

A fiery trail led west, stretching from the manor across the land. The flames trailed behind the wyvern army, moving fast, moving to Nova Vita.

When they reach our city, all there will die,
Treale knew.
My friend Mori will lie charred in the ruins of the palace. Twenty thousand dragons—children, elderly, the wounded of the last war—they all will die.

Treale tossed back her head and roared, a great howl that seemed to tear the sky, a howl of rage and loss. She was but a small black dragon, a single voice in the flame, but she thought her howl could rise to the stars.

If they die, I will die with them. I will go down fighting like my brothers did.
She snarled and blew flame.
And I will take some wyverns with me.

Roaring, she flapped her wings and drove through the air, following the wyvern army. The lands burned behind her, and tears flowed from her eyes—tears of farewell for her home, her parents, and the green lands she had loved.

 
 
BAYRIN

He was flying over the eastern forests, the city walls a distant crown behind him, when he saw the shadow. Bayrin cursed and spat fire.

The darkness spread over the mountains, a hundred miles away—as far as his eyes could see. At first he thought it a cloud, but it moved too swiftly. It looked more like a great flock of ravens, but ravens would be too small to see from here. Bayrin growled deep in his throat.

Wyverns,
he thought. When he sniffed the air, he caught a hint of their stench; they stank like vinegar and sulfur.

"Damn it, Elethor, where are you?" he muttered, gliding on the wind. His king had gone south to stop these beasts from invading; now they flew from the east. A chill ran through Bayrin, rattling his scales and rippling his tail. Had these beasts skirted the Royal Army... or crushed it?

"Well, the fun begins," he said, turned around, and began flying back to Nova Vita. "El, if you're alive, you better get back here soon to join the party."

As he flew, he tossed his head back and blew blasts of diagonal fire—the shape of falling columns. Patrolling several leagues around the city, his fellow outflyers blew their own blasts and began to fall back to the walls. The walls themselves brimmed with dragons, a good five hundred of them, wearing the armor their smiths had been forging all year.

Will the acid eat through steel as through flesh?
Bayrin wondered. He growled again.
We'll soon find out.

As he approached the city, he roared the call. "Enemy at the gates! City Guard, man your posts!"

Roars and blasts of fire rose from the dragons upon the walls. The city erupted into chaos. Guards streamed out of craggy Castra Murus, shifted into dragons, and flew to perch at their posts: fifty dragons upon the palace, fifty on the Temple of Stars, and hundreds more spread across the walls. A hundred guards marched down the streets in human form, clad in breastplates and holding swords and shields. Their faces were hard as iron masks.

"People of Nova Vita!" Bayrin cried as he circled above the city. "Evacuate into the tunnels. Walk calmly in single file—like we drilled. Into the tunnels!"

Families began leaving their houses, frowning at the skies. A few children were laughing and elbowing one another; they thought this too was a drill. Others sniffed the air, seemed to detect the distant stench of the wyverns, and their eyes darkened. The people began to snake down the streets—some limping, others moving on crutches, the stronger helping the weaker. Soon they were filing into the three archways that led underground.

Bayrin looked over his shoulder toward the east. He flew too low to see the shadow now, but the acrid stench still wafted on the wind. He thought he could hear a distant buzzing like a cloud of locusts. He cursed under his breath as he flew over the city.

"Damn it, Elethor, where are you?"

As people streamed through the streets below, Bayrin flew toward the palace. He landed outside its doors, shifted into human form, and ran into the main hall. Several guards stood upon its tiles; behind them, Mori sat upon the Oak Throne.

The princess looked at him over the guards, and Bayrin's breath caught and his heart twisted.
Stars,
he thought. Her eyes seemed to drown him, gray pools of infinite depth. Mottles of sunlight kissed her pale cheeks, and her chestnut hair cascaded. Such sadness clung to her that Bayrin ached; with only a look across the hall, her eyes spoke of Orin's death, of the fall of Castellum Luna, of their kiss in the mists of northern isles, and of the wildfire that raced toward them. For the length of her stare he froze, unable to move or speak or breathe. A guard in the hall stirred and his armor creaked, drawing Bayrin's gaze. He cleared his throat and scowled.