A Night of Dragon Wings

by Daniel Arenson

  His arms shook. He was tired. He had never been so tired. He turned away from the grave—it was deep enough—and knelt by the body. It was a famished, scarred thing, barely better than the worms that crawled across it. Nemes touched the body's cold cheek, closed his eyes, and thought of Lyana.

  "How sweet it would be to touch your cheek," he whispered. He licked his lips and imagined licking her skin. "Someday I will bring you here, Lyana, into this forest, and I will tear your clothes so that I can touch all of you, see all the pale flesh of your body, and know you here upon this grave."

  Eyes closed and breath fast, Nemes caressed the corpse's hair. The rain pattered around him. When a worm crawled across his fingers, he opened his eyes. The corpse stared up at him, mouth open in a toothless grin, flesh a pasty white—as white as Lyana's. This dead, decaying thing was not as beautiful as Lyana, but it was close. It was close. It could soothe him for this night.

  Nemes looked around him, a snarl on his lips. And why not? The weaklings were back at their camp—lying down to sleep, or to pray, or to hug and whisper their pathetic, weakling dreams. But he, Nemes, was strong; not of arm perhaps, but of spirit, of mind, of tooth. He was a scavenger of the night. He was a vulture, tall and dark and proud. He pulled his Iron Claw from his cloak, a curved obsidian blade. He thrust it into the body's neck and pulled down, gutting the torso. His nostrils flared, inhaling the sweet smell of death.

  The light faded, and Nemes lit his tin lamp. In the red light, he studied. He dissected. He placed organ by organ. He clutched the heart in his palm and breathed in ecstasy. This felt almost like that first time, years ago, when he'd been only a boy in the woods. Back then he would catch only squirrels, crush their heads, skin them, and study their innards. But squirrels were for boys, and Nemes was a man now, a vulture, a future lord to Lyana. He craved the humans, and he savored this human. Every piece he removed sent shivers through him.

  The others, he knew, would not understand. King Elethor had always craved the beauty of sculpture. The Princess Mori had always craved the beauty of music. Lyana, his eternal love, craved the beauty of marble columns and steel blades. Their minds were so small, their worlds so dark. This was beauty: a smell of blood, a glimmer on bone, and the secret worlds that pulsed under skin. Nemes inhaled sharply, imagining the beauty of the organs Lyana hid under her pale skin. He vowed to someday see them too, to touch them, to study them.

  He buried the man and his organs. He covered the grave in darkness. He cleaned his hands in a stream. His work was done.

  He wrapped his black cloak around him, clutched his staff, and whispered the words he had learned—the words of Lord Legion. Shadows rose from the earth like serpents of smoke. Nemes welcomed them. He let the wisps caress his legs, then rise and swirl around him, until he inhaled their clammy scent. Soon the shadows cloaked him and he vanished into the night.

  A thin smile twisted his lips. He had learned the words from the Old Books, the ones buried deep in Requiem's library. Only the noble house carried the keys to that chamber, filigreed works of art they bore on chains around their necks. Knowledge was power, Nemes knew, and he craved it—the power in corpses and the power in books. On many cold nights, he had crept into Princess Mori's chamber, watched her sleep, and gently lifted the key off her breast. He would spend the night in darkness, surrounded with books, studying the ancient scrolls of Lord Legion, the nephil whose voice still whispered in the night, the child of a demon king and his human bride.

  "Now your shadows cloak me, my lord," Nemes whispered. "Now I slither in darkness, hidden, like you."

  Nemes's fists and jaw tightened in anger. Lord Legion had fallen; he languished in a tomb, sealed from his true glory, and only his whispers crawled across the land. One day, Nemes swore, Lord Legion would rise again and spread wings in the night. One day the cruel stars of Requiem would extinguish, and their worshippers would be those crawling. Then he, Nemes, would be lord over them. He—who had emptied their chamber pots, served their wine, and swept their floors—would make them bow.

  He walked through the forest, robed in shadow, snarling.

  In the darkness, the memories rose again. He saw his grandfather, a bent old man, sweeping the halls of Requiem's kings, then returning home to his bed of straw. He saw his father, a meek sickly man, toil to wash, to mend, to clean, to finally die of the cough. And he saw himself, and that memory stung worst of all. He saw a lanky boy, the child of a long family of servants, a boy raised to sweep floors and wash outhouses and pick fleas from dogs, a boy who dreamed of the power and beauty of those above him.

  As he poured wine at feasts, how he had dreamed of sitting at the high table with Princess Mori, with Lord Bayrin and Lady Lyana, with the beautiful and mighty! At the Nights of Seven, how he had begged to join the nobles in their gardens, to sing with them, to watch the stars… and yet he would always enter the gardens last, to clean the mess those above him had left. He remembered one night, a night of a black moon, when he dared approach the Lady Lyana, dared ask her to a ball. How her eyes had pitied him! He never forgot that look of pity; it still burned him. He could still feel her hand on his shoulder. He could still hear her soft voice rejecting him, explaining that Prince Orin had already invited her, and how sweet and lovely Nemes was, and how many girls would someday adore him.

  Walking through the forest now, nearly a decade later, rage still flared inside Nemes. With a growl, he punched a tree so hard his knuckles tore and his blood sprayed. He snarled and watched the blood drip, imagining tearing Lyana's flesh open too, seeing her blood, ripping out her heart like she had done to his.

  "You will regret your words," he swore in the forest as he swore most nights, as he had been swearing for ten years. "You will scream for me to forgive you. And I will not, Lyana. I will not. Not until you are fully mine—your body, your organs, your very soul." His fists trembled. "You will be mine."

  He reached into his cloak and grabbed his serpent amulet, the sigil of Lord Legion. He let his blood cover the talisman. Lord Legion loved blood, he knew; Nemes was glad to give some of his.

  "With your power," he vowed, "they will all bow before you. I swear it, my lord. I will make them bow."

  The lord's shadows swirled around him with fury, and Nemes kept walking until he reached the camp. Most slept on the ground, bundled in blankets. Some had built huts of branches and leaves. Nemes walked between them, silent and dark. Some of Requiem's survivors were still awake, huddled together and whispering; they could not see through his cloak of shadow. Nemes moved between them, a ghost. As a servant in Requiem's palace, he had always been as an invisible man; Lord Legion let him have the true power, no longer a mere mockery.

  And once you are freed, Lord Legion, your true might will bless me. They will cower before us.

  The shadows danced around him, a raiment of demons. He climbed the mountainside until he reached the cave where King Elethor and Queen Lyana now ruled. A guard stood there, a young woman with golden hair, a spear and shield in her hands. Nemes walked past her; she saw nothing. He entered the cave, walked down a tunnel, and entered the chamber of his beloved.

  Lyana lay there upon a bed of fur, naked in candlelight, so pure, so pale, so fragile. Her skin like marble glimmered orange in the candlelight. Tiny scars like cobwebs covered her back; others had cut her before, but Nemes would cut her deeper. Her hair burned red and wild. Elethor lay beside her, rolled toward her, and touched her cheek.

  Nemes stood in the corner, silent and shadowy, and watched the two make love. His lips peeled back, baring his teeth, as the naked bodies moved together, as Lyana moaned, as the foul King of Requiem invaded her purity.

  You will bow before me too, Elethor, Nemes thought, fingernails digging into his palms. My family has served you for too long, but a new power will rise. You will watch me dissect Lyana, and I will dissect you next. You will both live through it; that I swear to you. You will both live to see your shiny, wet organs in my hands and mouth.

 
He watched as they made love. He watched as they fell asleep. He then turned, left the cave, and swallowed a lump in his throat. His eyes stung and his fists shook.

  No, he told himself. No. You cried too many times as a youth. You watched your father, bent and old, die of his work, and you cried. You watched Lyana marry the cruel prince, and you cried. No more tears. No more pain. You will never weep again, Nemes.

  "But you will weep, Requiem," he whispered in the night. The rain lashed his face. "You will."

  Wreathed in his lord's shadows, he shifted. He took flight as a gray dragon, his snout long and thin and sniffing, his claws pale like shattered femurs. He rose between the trees, silent as a spirit rising to the afterlife, and pumped his wings. The rain whipped him, and he flew through the night, breath pluming before him.

  He flew south.

  He flew to them.

  Before him in the clouds, he could see the smoke again. In the trees below, he could imagine the fallen columns of Requiem. He remembered standing outside the city, watching the Tirans invade, attack, destroy. They were a tall people, strong and noble. In the eyes of Vir Requis, Nemes always saw pity—pity like that which Lyana showed him. He saw haughtiness—like in the eyes of the princes when they gave him his commands. He saw tears—tears like those that had filled his own eyes in his youth. But none of those had filled the Tiran eyes. In their eyes nothing shone but cruel strength.

  "Requiem is weak," Nemes hissed as he flew, smoke rising between his teeth. "But Tiranor is strong, and I am strong, and she is the greatest among them."

  Queen Solina! He had stood in the tunnels, watching as she sliced children apart, as she gutted them and spilled their precious organs upon the floor. Their blood had splashed her, and she had licked it from her blades, and Nemes knew then, knew he had been a fool to ever worship the princes, to ever crave power in Requiem. Watching her lick the blood, he knew: Solina was the only mortal worthy of worship, the only leader of strength in this world.

  "I will find you, Solina," he spoke into the night. The rain swayed and he flew until the forest vanished below him. The southern horizon stretched dark and endless ahead. "I will find you, Solina, and I will give you King Elethor, and I will give you his people, and I will take Lyana for my own. Together we will free Lord Legion. Together we will rise."

  He blew fire. He roared. He licked his chops and snarled and dreamed of Lyana's pulsing heart in his hand.

  MORI

  She sat on the sticky floor, lowered her head to her knees, and whispered soft prayers.

  "As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as the breeze rustles the birches beyond our columns, as the sun gilds the mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you are home." Her voice trembled. "Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

  Chains bound her arms to the wall. More chains wrapped around her ankles, pinning her legs to the floor. For the first week here, they had chained her standing; now at least they loosened the chains enough for her to sit, but her limbs still ached, and whenever she leaned backward, her lashed back blazed. Three moons had passed, and they had whipped her three times in the Square of the Sun, beating her bloody and then returning her here, to darkness, to languish and shiver and weep and pray.

  And Mori prayed. She prayed to her stars. She prayed to King's Column, which she dreamed of, a pillar of marble and light rising from ruin. She prayed to the spirits of her parents, her fallen brother Orin, and all those who had died around her in Nova Vita.

  "Look after me, dragons of starlight," she whispered through cracked lips. Her voice was weak and hoarse, the voice of a ghost. "I will soon fly by your side."

  Her head spun, and she felt unconsciousness clutching at her. She had fainted so many times here in darkness as hunger twisted her belly, as blood seeped down her back to trickle around her feet. In her long dark dreams, she kept seeing it again and again: Solina slicing her brother open, Solina slaying children underground, Solina toppling the city Mori had loved. And she dreamed of Bayrin: her sweet, strong Bayrin, the love of her life, flying bloodied and scarred in battle, surrounded by wyverns.

  Do you still live, Bayrin? Do you dream of me too?

  Worse than the hunger, worse than the whips, worse than the darkness, was Mori's worry for them. Did Elethor still fly? What of her friends Lyana and Treale and all the others? Did any Vir Requis still live, or was she the last, a lingering relic of Requiem's glory, a princess shriveled into an emaciated wretch?

  She swallowed a lump in her throat, twisted her fingers, and struggled to stay conscious. Keeping her eyes open was so hard here in the dark. They gave her no light in this chamber of craggy bricks, rusted iron, and blood. Torches flickered outside the door; what red light seeped around the doorframe was all she had. It was enough for her to witness her decay. Her knees were knobby now, and her thighs, which she had once thought far too rounded for Bayrin to like, now seemed skeletal to her. She wore only a tattered rag, and through it she could see her bones thrusting against her skin.

  How many days had passed since they'd last whipped her? Mori did not know. Three? Ten? Days and nights lost all meaning here in the dark. Sometimes it seemed hours between the meals they fed her—cold gruel thrust roughly into her mouth with a splintered spoon. Sometimes it seemed days went by without food, and her head swam and her belly clenched before more gruel arrived. When the moon ended, they would drag her out again, and the sunlight would burn and blind her, and the whips would tear her skin.

  Footsteps thumped outside the door. Shadows stirred. Keys rattled in the lock, and when the door creaked open, torchlight flared. Mori whimpered and looked away, the light blinding her. How long had she sat here in darkness, alone? It felt like ages.

  "Meal time," rumbled her jailor. "You no spit up this time, lizard whore, or Sharik cram it back into your mouth."

  Mori blinked, raised her head, and winced in the torchlight. Sharik, the brutish jailor, stood above her. He looked more troll than man, wide and pasty and lumpy like a bag of spoiled milk. He wore but a canvas tunic, barely better than her own rags, and carried a ring of keys on his belt. He held a club in one hand, a wooden bowl in the other.

  Mori did not want to eat. The gray slop he fed her, full of lumps and hairs, left her stomach churning and her limbs shaking.

  "I'm… I'm not hungry," she whispered.

  Sharik grumbled and raised his club. "Club or spoon. Your choice, weredragon."

  He slammed down that club now, rapping her hard on the shoulder. Mori winced, pain pounding through her. Sharik knelt, dug his spoon into the gruel, and held it out. The slop trembled, gelatinous and sludgy. Sharik glared at her above the bowl. His eyes were beady and red, moles covered his face, and stench wafted between his rotting teeth. Hairs filled his red, veined nose.

  "I—" Mori began.

  With a grumble, Sharik dropped his club and grabbed her jaw. His fingers, fat and pale as raw sausages, dug into her, forcing her mouth open. She gasped and sputtered. He shoved the bowl forward, slamming its edge against her teeth, and tilted it. The gruel began spilling into her mouth, and Mori coughed and sputtered.

  "No spilling!" Sharik grumbled. "For every drop you spill, Sharik break one of your fingers."

  Mori could barely swallow fast enough. The slime rolled down her throat, and she coughed but forced herself to keep swallowing. His fingers dug into her jaw so painfully, she thought he would snap it off. Her throat kept working. She spat out a bit, whimpering. Sharik growled and she kept swallowing, letting the sludge keep pouring. She could barely breathe and her belly roiled.

  Finally the bowl was empty. Sharik pulled it back and Mori swallowed, gasped, and coughed. Her limbs, still chained to floor and wall, trembled.

  "Hope you enjoyed meal," Sharik rumbled and smirked. "Sharik cook. Special recipe."

  He chuckled, a deep sound, then slapped her face. Pain flared, and Mori felt her lip split. She tasted blood.

  "Next time you eat silent," Sh
arik said and growled. "No more coughing. No more choking. Or Sharik hurt you more. Sharik cut your fingers and feed you them."

  With that, he left the chamber and slammed the door behind him. Mori heard the keys jangle in the lock, Sharik chuckle, and his boots thump away.

  For long moments, she could think of nothing but breathing; every breath that entered and left her lungs was a struggle. Her belly ached and her limbs would not stop shaking. But whatever foul concoction he fed her, it had kept her alive thus far; Mori tried to draw comfort from that.

  Food gives me strength. Strength will let me escape. Strength will let me kill him.

  Her hands were too weak to form fists, but she curled her fingers as far as they'd go.

  "I will escape," she whispered. "I will kill him. I will find Solina and I will kill her too."

  She kept inhaling deeply, struggling to calm the shaking of her limbs. She breathed in and out, focusing on the flow of air—rancid as it was—into her lungs, into her fingertips, into every part of her. She thought of the leaves on the birch trees back home. She thought of her friends and family. She thought of harps playing in Requiem's marble temples and of her stars. She nodded.

  "All right, Mori," she whispered to herself. "It's time to try again."

  Pain flared in her belly and spun her head. Every time she tried to shift in these chains, she ended up weaker, her wrists and ankles bleeding. She had come to dread these attempts, but she tightened her lips, inhaled sharply, and nodded again.

  I must keep trying. I must. If I give up hope, I can only wait to die. Even if escape is impossible, even if my magic will forever fail me, I will keep trying. I will keep hope alive. Even a fool's hope is better than no hope at all.

  With a deep breath, she summoned her magic.

  It rose tingling inside her, bright as starlight, warm as mulled wine. She let it flow through her chest, into her limbs, and into her head, smooth and soothing like her breathing.