A Night of Dragon Wings

by Daniel Arenson

  "We must feast! We must drink dragon blood." The cries rolled across the sky, loud and shrill as snapping bones. "Where do dragons hide?"

  Requiem's survivors watched the skies, clung to one another, and raised their weapons.

  "Keep moving!" Elethor hissed. "Garvon, keep them moving."

  A hundred men and women served in their new army, a force Elethor had dubbed the Camp Guard; old Garvon led them. These soldiers, clad in dented armor and bearing longswords, moved along the line of survivors, rallying them forward. They kept moving through the forest. Elethor quickened his walk to a run; the others ran behind him.

  "I am Legion!" rose a cry from behind. The stench of rot blazed. "I am Prophet. I lead you to dragons! A camp, a camp! Dragons were here. Dragons are near! I smell them, brothers and sisters. I smell sweet dragon blood to drink, and bones to crack, and marrow to suck, and meat to lick, and souls to break. Dragons flee! Dragons will die."

  A shadow shot above the branches overhead. The survivors bent, wailed, and pointed. The shadow circled, then soared again, and Elethor snarled.

  Stars save us.

  He had seen illustrations of nephilim, those spawn of demons and their mortal brides, great lanky beasts with bat wings. In real life, they were more hideous than anything an artist could draw. The nephil above looked, Elethor thought, like a strip of dried meat, its fingers clawed, its mouth full of teeth like swords. A halo of flame encircled its head. The creature howled, and trees shattered, and the survivors covered their ears. The sound was so loud Elethor shouted through his clenched jaw. The scream pounded through his chest; it felt like it could snap his ribs.

  "Shapeshifters, shapeshifters!" cried the creature. More shadows shot overhead. "Humans walk, humans smell like dragons. Feast upon them! I am Legion. I am Prophet. I bring you blood and bones!"

  Three nephilim swooped, crashed between branches, and landed on the forest floor before them.

  Elethor snarled, shifted into a dragon, and blew a stream of fire. Around him, men of the Camp Guard shifted too and blew their flames. The nephilim screeched and burned, and a fourth one swooped from above. Its claws reached out, grabbed a child, and ripped her apart. Blood spattered. People wailed.

  "Shift and fly!" Elethor shouted. "Fly, Vir Requis! Into the sky."

  They screamed. They wept. They shifted into dragons—elders, mothers, youths. A few Vir Requis were mere babes or toddlers, too young to shift; their mothers carried them in their claws.

  Elethor crashed between the branches into the sky. Thousands of nephilim swarmed and howled. At his left, one swooped and grabbed a young red dragon. The nephil ripped off her head and swallowed it; the dragon's body returned to human form and crashed down. At Elethor's left, a nephil crashed into a silver dragon, slashed its claws, and gutted the dragon as easily as a fisherman gutting his catch.

  "Fly, Vir Requis!" Elethor shouted. "Fly north. Fly to the temple!"

  He could see Bar Luan perhaps a league away, rising from the forest. A few staircases, a crumbling archway, and craggy walls remained from what was once a sprawling complex; these remnants would have to serve them now. Dragons began flying toward it, blowing fire over their shoulders at pursuing nephilim. Elethor rose, blew a flaming jet at a beast, and ducked to dodge its tumbling body. Thousands of the creatures covered the southern sky, swarming forward.

  "Fly, Vir Requis!" he howled. "Hide in the temple." He roasted another nephil, a scaly beast clad in rusted armor, and rose higher. "Camp Guard, rally here! Hold them back. Battle formations, here!"

  A clanking white dragon rose ahead, horns long and eyes red—Garvon, chief of the Camp Guard. A gash ran down his side, seeping blood, but still he fought, blowing fire at nephilim above. A dozen other dragons, wearing the great dragonhelms of the Camp Guard, rose around them and blew their fire.

  "Hold them back!" Elethor shouted. "Let the others flee. Flame the beasts!"

  Behind him, the women, elders, and children were fleeing north. Before him and his fellow soldiers—less than a hundred dragons—the nephil host spread. Thousands of beasts, maybe tens of thousands, covered the horizon. They screeched to the heavens, and the trees below cracked and fell, and boulders rolled. The earth itself seemed to shake.

  Hovering in midair before the swarm, Elethor bared his fangs and growled. Around him, his fellow dragons beat their wings and smoke rose from their nostrils. Elethor's heart pounded, and fear and rage throbbed through him, tingling from his tail to his horns.

  "Soldiers of Requiem!" he said to the dragons around him, a mere handful of warriors before the swarm. "You will hold your ground. You will hold the beasts back. You will buy our people time to flee to safety."

  Behind him, Elethor heard the survivors of Requiem fly farther; they would soon reach the temple. Before him, the countless nephilim screeched and soared and circled in the air. They flew in no battle formations like wyverns or phoenixes; this was a mob of devilry.

  "Legion!" they howled. "Legion! Prophet of the Fallen!"

  The great nephil, their champion, rose from flame. His halo of fire screamed. His body was lanky; his ribs pushed against skin like dried parchment. He howled to the sky, teeth long and thin and white, and his wings sprayed fire as he rose. His cry was so shrill it raised boils across the nephilim around him.

  "I am Legion, I am Prophet!" he screeched. "I have led you to freedom. I lead you to dragons. Feast upon them!"

  The thousands of beasts howled, beat their wings, and shot forward.

  The dragons roared their flames.

  LYANA

  She crouched between the roots of fallen trees, stared downhill, and cursed.

  The Tiran camp sprawled a mile away, covering the scorched earth. Sooty palisades, carved from uprooted trees, encircled a mass of tents and huts and campfires. Thousands of men swarmed there. Many were soldiers, clad in breastplates of pale steel, suns upon their shields. Others were masons; they bustled across scaffolding, raising walls of stone.

  They are building a fortress here, Lyana thought. A great barracks in the heart of Requiem.

  She growled and clutched her sword Levitas. Once fields had swayed here. Once House Oldnale had plowed this land, growing barley and wheat and sweet peas. Today the farms were gone, the earth scorched. The old bricks of Oldnale Manor, where her squire Treale had lived, lay in wheelbarrows within the Tiran camp; those old stones of Requiem were now growing into the Tirans' fort.

  "I swear to you, Treale," Lyana whispered, crouched behind the roots of the fallen tree. "I will avenge you. I will return to this place someday, and I will burn those who defile your home."

  A screech rose from the camp, and Lyana winced. Even here, a league away, the sound throbbed through her chest. She pulled her cloak tighter around her, narrowed her eyes, and snarled.

  A dozen nephilim guarded the camp below, patrolling the palisades of sharpened spikes. Each stood as tall as a dragon, dwarfing the Tiran men. Their bodies were emaciated, dried flesh clinging to bones, yet their claws and teeth were long and white; Lyana could see their glint even from here. Bat wings beat against their backs, stirring ash beneath them. Lyana had been traveling across the ruins of Requiem for ten days now, and she had seen their destruction everywhere: their drool upon forest floors, corpses of animals torn apart, and trails of the rot they leaked.

  Lyana longed to fly down there. She long to test these beasts in battle—to see how fast they flew, to blow her fire upon them, to kill them upon the land they infested. Yet she could not—not here, not alone.

  We need more than dragons now. We need the men of Osanna, and the griffins of the east, and the salvanae of the west. We need aid or the world will fall.

  With a grunt, she turned away from the roots and began moving downhill, away from the camp. Her cloak fluttered in the wind, revealing the armor she wore underneath: the ancient, silvery armor of a bellator, a knight of Requiem. Her scabbard and helm bore engravings of the Draco constellation, the sigil of her order.

>   The bellators have fallen. I am the last of their number. She walked down into the wind. Dry leaves fluttered around her boots and her cloak billowed behind her. Yet I still serve my stars. Now. Forever. Until my last breath.

  She walked upon the scorched earth, moving between fallen trees and dead cattle until those stars glowed in the sunset. Smoke still blew above Requiem, hiding all but the dragon's tail above, yet still Lyana gazed upon those lights, and she prayed to them.

  "I still fight for you, stars of my fathers." She drew Levitas, ancient sword of her order. "I still fly under your light."

  As the sun dipped below the horizon, she shifted into the blue dragon and took flight. Nephilim patrolled this land; she had seen countless of the beasts while walking across Requiem, peering at them from between trees and boulders. In the darkness she could fly silently, fire in her maw, sky beneath her wings. She dived through the cold, long night.

  The land soon changed below, the scorched fields giving way to lush dark forests. Forts rose from the trees, their battlements alight with torches. After days of ash and soot and mud, Lyana was leaving the ruins of Requiem; she flew now over the eastern lands of Osanna, ancient realm of men. It was a vast land; Lyana had visited here before as an envoy of Requiem, but she had seen only small parts of the kingdom. Osanna stretched from northern Fidelium, mountains where the undead rose from tombs, to the southern port of Altus Mare, whose ships navigated the Tiran Sea and sailed east to Leonis, land of griffins.

  She flew for hours, crossing forests, mountains, and fields, before finally spiraling down to a silver lake under the moon. There she lay upon grass, drank from the water, and slept until the dawn.

  She awoke to see two cloaked archers pointing arrows at her.

  With a snarl, Lyana leaped up and began to draw her sword.

  "Freeze!" shouted one of the archers, voice ringing deeply from the shadows of his hood. "Release your sword or you'll die before you draw the blade."

  Lyana bared her teeth at the men. Both wore green cloaks, and beneath their hoods, brown scarves covered their faces. Leaves and vines covered them, and swords hung from their belts. One man was short and squat, his wide shoulders tugging at his cloak; the other was tall and lean. Something about them seemed familiar, though Lyana could not place them.

  She growled. "I am Lyana Eleison, Queen of Requiem, and—"

  "We know who you are," said the taller, leaner man, the one with the deep voice. "Release your sword."

  Both men drew their arrows back farther; the bowstrings creaked. With a grunt and hiss, Lyana released her sword's hilt, letting the blade fall back into its scabbard. The two men stepped forward and grabbed Lyana's arms.

  Lyana growled, tugged herself free, and shifted.

  She took flight, a blue dragon with fire in her maw.

  Below her, the two men shifted too and soared, bronze dragons with long white horns.

  "Stars!" Lyana shouted, beating her wings. The grass below swayed, and waves raced along the lake. "You're Vir Requis. How dare you threaten your queen?"

  Seeing them as dragons, she finally recognized these two. She had seen them in Requiem's northern mountains; they were brothers and miners of iron ore. The older, taller one was named Grom Miner, she remembered. The younger, squat brother was named Gar.

  "We are no longer in Requiem, Lyana Eleison," said Grom; his scales were a slightly deeper shade of copper. "And you are no longer our queen, if indeed you wed the Boy King Elethor in your exile. All titles are forsaken in the ruin of the world, and every dragon is master of himself now. We will take you to our camp, and you will answer to our new lord."

  Lyana snarled, and fire flicked between her teeth. These two dragons were burly and long, far larger than her own short, slim form, yet she knew that she could kill them. She was fast. Her fire was hot. Her claws were sharp. She had trained to fight in Castra Draco, garrison of Requiem's fabled Royal Army. These two had perhaps grown strong from digging mines and hauling ore, yet Lyana had slain phoenixes and wyverns, and she could slay these two.

  And yet… and yet they were still her kin. They were new survivors when she had thought none existed. She spat her flames into the lake.

  "You call yourselves your own masters, fellow dragons of Requiem," she said. "Yet now you speak of serving a new lord. Are you free dragons or servants?"

  Gar Miner—the younger brother—spoke for the first time. He was a shorter dragon than his brother, but burlier. He spoke in the high voice of a man just leaving his youth.

  "We are free dragons," he said. "Yet we choose to fight for the Legless Lord. You will follow us. You will answer to him, and you will have a choice to serve him too, or you may leave these lands and find your own fortune."

  Lyana growled deep in her throat. She had not come here to Osanna for this; she had flown seeking aid from the king of men, and then from the eastern griffins. And yet here hid more survivors of Requiem, perhaps many more. She could not forsake this chance to meet them, to bring them back to Elethor's camp.

  "Show me to your lord," she said.

  Grom Miner nodded and growled. "We walk. In human forms. We live in Osanna, and the cruel Queen Solina still dares not invade this land, yet we've seen her beasts fly overhead as scouts. We walk hidden. We walk quietly. We will not fly as dragons again."

  The bronze brothers descended and shifted back into human forms upon the lakeside. Lyana landed beside them and shifted too.

  "Follow," said Grom. He turned and began walking into the forest.

  Lyana snarled at him. She was Queen of Requiem; she followed no one. And yet Grom was walking among the trees already, and his younger brother Gar was caressing his bow. Growling, Lyana followed, and the three moved through the forest.

  They walked for a long time, and the forest thickened. The oaks grew twisted and tall here. Moss covered the boles and mist floated between them. Back in Salvandos in the west, where Elethor ruled his camp of survivors, the autumn leaves had fallen and covered the forest floor. Here they still grew bronze and dulled gold, metallic and hard and barely rustling. Lichen hung from gnarled branches, brushing against Lyana's cheeks, and the air smelled of loam and stagnant water. She could not see the sky or sun—the canopy was thick as a roof—yet the brothers seemed to know their way. They walked assuredly, boots crunching branches and twigs.

  Lyana guessed it was near noon when a stench rose on the wind, twisting her gut. Flies buzzed. With a snarl, she drew her sword, but the brothers only snickered.

  "No need for blades here, my queen," Grom said, speaking the last word as an insult. He led them around a boulder and pointed at a thick oak. Upon its trunk, tied with ropes and chains, hung the corpse of a nephil.

  "Stars," Lyana whispered.

  Nausea rose in her. She had never seen one of the beasts so close before. Patches of dank scales covered its flesh like lesions, and its claws curved, long as sabres. Its bloated head bustled with insects; the eyes were already gone. Worms crawled upon its cleaved skull, and dried entrails hung from its slashed belly. Half the body was burnt with dragonfire, the other half lacerated with claws.

  Squat young Gar smirked. "Figured we'd leave the bastard here—a warning to his comrades. I killed this one myself." He thrust out his broad chest. "Burned him dead."

  Lyana spat in disgust. "Bury it," she said. "It stinks."

  "We want it to stink, your highness," Gar said. "Let its brothers smell it. Let them smell their death on the wind and know that more death awaits them here."

  Lyana whipped her head toward the brothers and glared. "You are a boastful couple." She growled. "You hide here in disguise, and you dare not shift and fly, yet you brag of slaying nephilim. Do you know how many of these creatures fly in Requiem, seeking us? Thousands. Tens of thousands. Armies of them muster, and more keep flowing north from the desert. You burned one? Swarms of them will fly here; they will cover the world. Do you think the stench of one will deter the rest?" She marched toward Gar, grabbed his collar,
and bared her teeth at him. "You are a foolish boy, and when this corpse's comrades arrive, you will die squealing." She twisted his collar tight, constricting his breath. "I've seen many boys like you die squealing."

  The young miner paled, and for an instant his lips shook. Then he raised his chin, shoved her off, and smoothed his tunic.

  "Be silent," he grumbled, though his voice shook slightly. "Follow. We're almost there."

  They walked past the corpse—Lyana nearly gagged as the flies buzzed near her—and moved down a leafy slope toward a stream. The water rose past their ankles, and beyond it stood a hill with trees so thick, they had to push branches aside and climb over roots and boulders. Finally, below the hill, Lyana saw the camp.

  Her heart leaped and tears dampened her eyes.

  "So many," she whispered.

  Only a thousand Vir Requis lived with Elethor in the west; Lyana had thought them the only survivors of Requiem. Yet here lived many more—this camp was twice the size of the one Elethor led, maybe larger. Children ran playing around boulders, holding dolls woven of leaf and grass. Young women whispered around campfires. An old man stood upon a boulder, leading a congregation in prayer. A palisade of spikes surrounded the camp, and men stood guarding it, armed with spears.

  A tear streamed down Lyana's cheek, and her legs trembled. "So many still live."

  The brothers tried to grab her arms and lead her. Lyana wrenched herself free and began marching toward the camp, holding her head high. She let the wind billow her cloak open, revealing her knightly armor. At times like these, Lyana missed her old mane of fiery red curls; it used to draw people's attention like a beacon of fire. Solina had sheared that hair last year, and now only a finger's length grew upon her head. Today these embers, a memory of a great flame, would have to do.

  "My lady!" Gar cried behind her. "I mean, Lyana! I mean—newcomer. Halt! We will escort you into our camp."

  Lyana ignored him and kept marching. She made toward a gateway in the palisade where two guards stood, bearing cracked shields and makeshift spears. They wore old, dented breastplates; one from the armories of Requiem, another stolen from a dead Tiran and still bearing the Golden Sun of Tiranor. When Lyana tried to march between them and into the camp, they moved closer together, making to block her way.