Dragons Lost (26 page)

We should be
invading the Commonwealth,
Amity thought, the rage and pain boiling inside
her, blazing through her throat, stinging her eyes, curling her fingers.
This
host should be sweeping across the lands of fallen Requiem. Not this desert. I
should be leading them, not dragging behind them, not—

She stepped onto a
sharp rock, howled, tried to hop on one foot, but ended up falling. Again she
dragged against the ground behind the horse. Again stones cut into her arms,
and she cried out with pain.

"Stand!"

Again the slave driver
lashed her whip, cutting Amity's back. Again the crowd roared, and the king
upon his horse laughed. Amity managed to push herself onto her feet, trembling,
bleeding, and walked on.

Step after
step,
she told herself.
Think about nothing but the next step.

Yet the pain grew
with every one of those steps. Her bare soles ached for shoes. Her muscles
screamed for rest. The scratches and cuts along her body cried out for healing.
Her lips cracked and bled, and her tongue felt like a strip of dry leather. The
sun beat down mercilessly, baking her hair, burning her shoulders and neck and face.
She couldn't even summon the strength to turn her head and look at Korvin; she
could only stare at her feet, putting every last drop of will toward moving
each foot another step.

Ignore the
pain. Pain is irrelevant. My body will obey. My body will keep walking.

She kept walking.

She walked for
miles.

Through the haze
of pain and sunlight, the memories rose.

She was a girl
again, struggling to keep moving, not to fall, but she did not walk in a
desert; she ran in a forest, so afraid. It was twenty years ago, and she was
only ten, only a child, yet already she knew all about death. Already she knew
all about being hunted. Already she knew the fear of men trying to kill her, of
an entire nation dedicated to ending her life, to slaying all her people, to stamping
out all traces of her magic and the very name of her lost kingdom.

"Burn the
weredragons!" rose a deep howl in her memories. It was a paladin calling, a man
all in white steel, a holy warrior of the Spirit. When Amity—just a little girl—glanced
upward, she saw the firedrake gliding over the forest canopy, hiding the moon
and stars. The beast opened its jaws, blasting out fire, burning the trees.

"Keep running,
Amity!" her mother said, tugging her along.

"Come on, Amity,
you have to keep moving!" said her father, his face bleeding.

They kept running.
Running through the burning forest. Running through grasslands. Running down
city streets. Always running, from forest to village, from wilderness to city
slums. Fleeing the wrath of the Cured Temple. Keeping their magic hidden.
Keeping their secret alive.

Until you
killed them.

Amity's breath
quickened into a raging pant. Her fingernails dug into her palms. In the desert
around her, she saw that memory too.

We only shifted
in darkness, only for a brief flight over the sea.

The temptation had
been too great. Too long without shifting into a dragon, and they grew
restless, hungry for the sky. And so they had shifted. And they had flown.

And we were
seen.

The firedrakes had
charged from the coast, blasting fire across the water. Ten massive beasts,
their scales white, paladins in steel upon nine of them . . . and a young
priestess named Beatrix on the tenth.

Amity grimaced,
the memory clawing at her innards. Again she saw the firedrakes blasting their
fire, digging their claws into her parents. Again she saw the blood rain down
to the dark water. Again she saw Beatrix thrusting her lance, impaling her
parents, sending them crashing down to the sea . . . down to darkness . . . to
never rise again. To sleep in the depths of that watery kingdom and the murky
shadows of Amity's memory.

Amity had fallen
that night, an arrow in her shoulder; the scar still hurt in the cold. She had
sunk under the water. She had swum, sure she would die, swum in the darkness,
under the surface, her lungs aching, her soul tearing, the ghosts of her
parents tugging at her feet, calling to her:
Join us, join us . . .

But she had swum
on. She had breached the surface, gulped air, swum again . . . until the
firedrakes flew away. Until all that remained to her world was the black ocean,
the emptiness, the grief. A girl. Only a child. Alone in the water, alone in
the world. Perhaps the last of her kind, the last survivor of Requiem.

She had risen from
the water at dawn and flown, flown as she wept, flown until she reached the
distant islands of Leonis, until she found the Horde. Found a new home.

Found a reason to
live.

On Leonis, still
only a child, she picked up her first sword, and she made a vow then. She vowed
to become a warrior, to grow taller, stronger, meaner. To sear all grief from
her heart, nursing instead a will for vengeance, an iron resolve. To someday
return to the Commonwealth with an army, and to thrust her sword into Beatrix's
heart like the priestess had thrust her lance into her parents.

"Faster!" cried
the slave driver, and the whip slammed against Amity's back. She grimaced and
kept dragging her feet forward, following the king's horse, step after step
across the desert, moving toward the distant mountains . . . and the beast that
lurked within.

When she finally
saw the mountains ahead, Amity glared through the sweat that dripped into her
eyes. The mountains of Gosh Ha'ar. The holiest ground in all the lands of
Terra. Here was the place where the ancient god Adon himself, they said, had
reached down his hand, forming man and woman from the clay. Here, in the bowels
of these mountains, lived the Behemoth, and he was always hungry.

Amity turned to
look at Korvin. He walked at her side, covered in dust and blood, trudging
after the horse that tugged him. She returned her gaze to the mountains ahead.

"Gosh Ha'ar!"
cried the men and women of the Horde. "Gosh Ha'ar! The Holy Mount! The Beast
will feed!"

No,
Amity
thought, sneering.
No.

She had survived
the firedrakes of the north. She had survived flying alone across the sea. She
had survived trudging across this desert. She would not let this creature of
the mountains feast upon her flesh for the amusement of the Horde. A grin
twisted her cheeks, cracking her lips, and she tasted blood.

I will face the
beast in the mountains, and I will tame it. I will return to the Commonwealth,
a great queen, leading an army . . . and leading the Behemoth itself.

 
 
CADE

The two dragons flew through the
moonless night, carrying wooden crates in their claws.

"The damn things are
heavier than an elephant's bottom!" Cade said, panting as he struggled to fly.
His wings creaked and his breath rattled.

Fidelity flew at his
side in the darkness. She too carried a heavy load in her claws. "Cade, stop complaining
and guide me! You know I can't see well in the night."

He groaned. "Just
follow the sound of my complaining then. I can't keep tapping you with my wing.
Both my wings are about to fall off." He groaned. "Blimey, I imagined that a
printing press was small, about the size of a beagle."

Fidelity growled at
him. "And I thought your brain was larger than a beagle's. Keep quiet. We don't
want anyone hearing us."

Cade thought that with
his wings creaking, his breath rattling, and his claws scraping against the
crates, he could be heard for miles. But he gave his voice a rest—he needed to
save his breath anyway—and flew onward.

They had bought the printing press that morning in Oldnale
City, paying with the gold Fidelity had found in the forest, the coins melted
into bars. As heavy as this load was, Cade was glad to be out of Oldnale. Along
the narrow streets, forts and temples rising all around him, he had felt
nervous, a mouse trapped in a labyrinth. Every paladin walking by had set Cade's
heart racing. It felt good to be back in the open sky, far from any paladin or
priest.

But not far from
danger,
he thought. Firedrakes still patrolled these skies.

Just as that thought
entered his mind, he heard the screeches in the distance. He cursed.

"Firedrakes!" he
whispered to Fidelity.

She glanced around,
blinking, seeking them in the darkness. "Where?"

Cade stared east. He
could see their light there. The firedrakes flew carelessly, blasting out
random sparks of flame; luckily, in the night, that meant Cade could see them miles
away.

"Still far but coming
closer." He scanned the land below. "I see a little clearing in the forest, and
we're far enough from the city. This is as good a place as any. Let's land."

Fidelity nodded. As the
firedrakes shrieked in the distance, the two Vir Requis glided down. They
filled their wings with air and, as gently as they could, placed the crates
down in the clearing. As soon as Cade landed, he returned to human form, fell
onto his back, and groaned.

"Everything hurts." He
moaned. "Those crates almost yanked my claws out."

Fidelity returned to
human form too. She pushed her spectacles up her nose, then began to work at
weaving her hair back into a braid. "I hate wearing my hair down. It gets in
the way, and it's not much of a disguise anyway." She looked around her at the dark
clearing. "Nice place, but we'll have to move between the trees. We're too
exposed out here."

"Said the sailor to his
lady," Cade quipped, then bit his tongue at the harsh look Fidelity gave him.

They dragged the crates
between the trees and cracked them open. Inside lay the parts of the printing
press: boxes of metal letters, wooden slats, sheets of metal, springs, screws,
boxes of ink, and levers.

"It's either a printing
press or an ancient torture device," Cade said. "Do you remember how to put it
together?"

"No," Fidelity
confessed. "But let's try anyway."

They lit their tin
lanterns, hung them from the branch of a tree, and got to work.

Dawn was rising
by the time the printing press stood in the forest, a mechanical beast larger
than either of them.

"It's a bloody dragon,"
Cade said, tapping it. "A dragon of metal."

"And its weapon is more
dangerous than dragonfire." Fidelity passed her hand through a box of metal
letters the size of dice. They chinked. "It will fight our war with books.
Books are the greatest weapon in the world."

Suddenly she yawned, a
great yawn that stretched out her limbs. Cade yawned too. They had not slept
all night. But they were too eager to begin their work. They opened the first
page of
The Book of Requiem
and began to arrange the metallic letters in
a sheet, forming the book's first page.

"What now?" Cade said
when the template was ready.

"We print." Fidelity
lifted a sheet of paper. "We print it a hundred times for a hundred books. Then
we go to the next page. And the next."

Cade's eyes widened and
he groaned. "There are over a thousand pages in
The Book of Requiem
!
Fidelity! How are we going to print so many sheets?"

She frowned. "Would you
rather copy them by hand? A hundred times?"

He sighed. "I suppose
not. Are a hundred copies of this book even going to be enough, though? The
Commonwealth is large, and, well . . . a hundred copies seem so few."

Fidelity sighed too. "I
agree. But it's all the paper we have, probably all the paper we could even buy
in town. And we might not even have enough ink as it is. But, Cade . . ." Her
eyes lit up, and she touched his arm. "Imagine it! Back in the library, we had
only a few copies of the book. Now only one is left. A hundred copies, all over
the Commonwealth—we'll drop them in taverns, in temples, in bookshops . . . and
more people will know. They'll know that our magic is a gift, not a curse. They'll
know about Requiem."

Her eyes sparkled, and
her hand on his arm shot warmth through him; that arm felt more alive than all
the rest of his body. Cade wanted to feel her infectious joy, but instead, he
found himself thinking of Old Hollow: how Fidelity had walked into the forest
with Roen, returning with her clothes rumpled; how the two had snuck looks and
secret glances; how she had left Roen with a kiss on his cheek, a kiss that
hinted at underlying passion she barely tried to hide.

Cade turned away from
her. Foolish thoughts. He had no reason to be jealous. He did not like Fidelity
that way . . . did he?

He glanced at her; she
had returned her attention to the printing press, applying ink and loading a
sheet of paper. He watched her work for a moment. She had doffed her burlap
tunic, and she wore the same outfit she had worn in her library: tan trousers
and a blue vest with brass buttons. Her braid fell across her shoulder, and her
spectacles kept slipping down her nose. She was beautiful, Cade thought. She
was wise and strong and brave, and she stirred feelings in him that confused
him, that made his blood heat, that made him fumble and feel so nervous around
her.

She loves Roen,
he thought.
That wild, bearded woodsman.

Cade looked away. So
what? What did he care? He was here to work with Fidelity, to spread the word
of Requiem, not to fall in love. She was too old for him besides—twenty-one
already, a full three years older than him. He was just a boy to her, he knew.
Just a foolish boy to help her on her quest.

He thought of Domi next.
He had been thinking about her a lot. He had only met Domi briefly, but he had
never forgotten those green eyes peering between strands of red hair, how her
body had pressed against him, how her lips had touched his ear as she
whispered, "Requiem."