Dragons Rising

by Daniel Arenson

  The sun was low in the sky when Cade took flight, a golden dragon clad in Templer armor. He soared higher until the tavern looked like a toy, the road like a thread.

  "Faster!" Amity cried on his back. Clad in white armor, she laughed and jabbed him with her spurs. "Faster, mighty mount, or I'll whip your hide!"

  Cade twisted his head to look over his shoulder. She sat in his saddle, her visor raised. He puffed smoke from his nostrils onto her. "Silence or I'll roast you."

  "Hush! Firedrakes don't talk." She hoisted her banner, displaying its tillvine sigil. "Now fly. Fly north! To the mountains!" She spurred him again. "Fly, my mount!"

  He grumbled but he flew onward. The sun sank in the west, and darkness engulfed them. The stars emerged, and as Cade flew, he wondered if Domi, Fidelity, and the others were looking at those same stars now. He missed them. In the darkness, their faces floated in his memory, and he didn't know if he'd ever see them again.

  BEATRIX

  On a midnight of cold wind and no stars, Beatrix stepped into the graveyard of dragons.

  A few scattered oaks creaked in the wind, their bare branches reaching out like the gnarled fingers of lecherous old men. Dry leaves rustled, scuttled along the ground, and crunched underfoot. The full moon peeked between the clouds, bloated and pale like the waterlogged face of a drowned corpse, then vanished again. Boulders rose in the darkness like tombstones. There were no true tombstones in this graveyard, no true graves, no names for the fallen--yet a graveyard this was. Here underground lay buried the greatest warriors of the Cured Temple, the firedrakes who had fallen for the Spirit.

  "The firedrakes were human once, did you know?" Beatrix said. She turned toward her daughter. "They were born as human babes, cursed with the ancient disease of reptiles, able to shift into dragons."

  Mercy walked alongside her, clad as always in the pale armor of a paladin. Her hand rested on the pommel of her sword. "And you killed them."

  Beatrix raised her eyebrows. "Killed them? Yes, I suppose so. In a manner of speaking. I burned their human forms away, then collected dragon eggs from the ashes--eggs to hatch firedrakes. But firedrakes too can burn. Firedrakes do not live forever." She sucked in the cold night air. "The Vir Requis showed us that. They slew too many of our mighty reptiles. But tonight, Mercy . . . tonight we will create champions that no man or beast can kill."

  Mercy frowned. "Mother, I sank a thousand ships. I slew a hundred thousand barbarians of the Horde. I slew two weredragons--the silver beast Julian and the green beast Roen. I--"

  "You let five weredragons escape." Beatrix kept her voice calm. She kept walking over the fallen leaves, holding up the hem of her robes. "You were tasked with slaying them, and instead, you played little games of war and conquest. Sinking ships? Burning barbarians? Any brute can do these things. You wasted an army and still killed only two weredragons. The others survived. Amity, the Red Queen, the leader who almost rose to crush us. Domi, the traitor you once rode as a firedrake, too foolish to recognize the ploy. Fidelity and Cade, the sneaky worms who spread their books of Requiem across our empire. And Korvin." Beatrix tightened her fingers around her skirt, and her jaw locked. "And you let Korvin go."

  Beatrix sucked in breath and had to close her eyes.

  Korvin.

  She scoffed at herself. Funny how that name still hurt her. Funny how after all these years, thinking of him still raised that sickening mixture in her breast, a rotting potion of hatred, rage, and love.

  Korvin. A brute. A traitor. An enemy to kill. The man a young priestess had loved with all her heart. The man who perhaps, deep within this cold heart of hers, a heart hardened after years of bearing the burden of an empire, Beatrix still loved. Still loathed. Still swore to break.

  You will suffer more than them all, Korvin, she thought.

  As she walked here in darkness, Beatrix remembered herself as a young woman. By the Spirit, it had been thirty years ago! It was the curse of the old that years flew by so swiftly. In her childhood, Beatrix would measure the passage of time in days. As a young woman, a year seemed an era, two years the passage of ages, the rise and fall of empires. Now, a woman approaching fifty years of age, she marked the passage of time by decades. Often she would remember a moment--only a recent moment!--and realize it had occurred twenty, even thirty years ago, yet still felt so fresh in her mind. Thus were her memories of Korvin. Thus did he still remind her of her mortality, of the impossible speed of time, of her looming death, or her lost love, lost youth, lost innocence and joy.

  I was only a child, Korvin. I was only a child when you broke my heart.

  She no longer stood in the graveyard. In her mind, Beatrix was a young woman walking through the city of Nova Vita, idealistic and pure, dedicated to the faith of her mother. How she had prayed then! How she vowed to serve the Spirit always, to bring light to all corners of the world! If not for her faith, she would never have met Korvin, never have met the man who saved, changed, and later ruined her life.

  She had been riding through the city that day, her horse a snowy mare of splendor, seeking to preach her faith to the poorest folk of Nova Vita. She had ridden up a hill, calling for others to gather, to hear her words, when the mob attacked. For many years afterward, they haunted her nightmares--crude men, wearing only rags, their faces twisted with rage. They pelted her with rocks, and they cried out against their hunger, against the wealth of the Temple. Beatrix had tried to stop them, tried to beg, but their rocks kept flying, cutting her, breaking her--until Korvin arrived.

  The young soldier had stood tall and wild. With bloody fists he beat back the mob. He seemed to Beatrix less like a man then, more like a wild stallion, his dark mane flying in the wind, his fists like hooves pounding into the ruffians. When finally the mob retreated, he knelt above her, helped her to her feet, and she loved him, and she knew that she would always love him.

  What a summer that had been! The hottest summer the elders could remember, a summer that wilted gardens, that beat down on crops, that made her sweat on those long, sweet nights when she made love to him, riding him as if he were a true stallion, crying out in her passion for him, for Korvin, for this soldier, lowborn, who had saved her life, who gave her life its light.

  Until you took my heart in your hands and shattered it.

  She had risen in power. He had not liked that. He could not accept her zeal, her might, her army of firedrakes that hunted down weredragons. He wanted her demure, weak, a petite little damsel to save. When she grew older, grew stronger, groomed for High Priesthood, Korvin shied away. He spoke of accepting weredragons--accepting them! He even spoke the forbidden word, saying "Requiem" to her. He saw her strength as cruelty. He saw her rising power as a threat. She was no longer that young, frightened priestess he could defend but a mighty leader, and he was lowly by her great light. And so he left. And so she hunted him. And so she learned that he too was one of the beasts, a treacherous weredragon, a filthy shapeshifter who had sneaked into her bed, claiming her with lies, stealing her virginity with his secrets.

  "And so I slew your wife, Korvin,"Beatrix whispered, walking through the graveyard. "I slew the woman you chose over me. And I will slay your daughters. You will know this pain before you die too."

  Mercy pointed ahead. She raised her chin and spoke coldly like she did when afraid, a show of defiance to hide that fear. She had been doing it since her childhood. "We're here."

  Beatrix smiled thinly and tightened her robes around her. "So we are."

  The land sloped down here into a valley. The oaks crowded on the surrounding hills, creaking in the wind, as if too frightened to enter this vale of shadows. No moonlight reached this place. It could have been a hole leading to another night sky, a pit leading to the Abyss itself. But Beatrix carried the light of the Spirit within her, and it burned strong, illuminating her path. She walked into the valley of death, the Spirit her guide, even as Mercy's armor clanked with the paladin's fear.

  As Beatrix paced over the so
ft earth, she could feel the slain life below. She could hear the voices of the buried. Mighty firedrakes screeched underground, a sound like wind. Softer, faded, almost indiscernible rose the cries of the drakes' lost human forms. The weeping of babes. The screaming of the burned.

  "Yes, my precious beasts." Beatrix's smile grew. "You were children once before I burned you. You became dragons of flame. And now . . . now after your long years in the darkness, your third cycle arises. You will now become blessed warriors of light."

  She felt them scurrying below, their dark presence, their cries, their need for her. They were her true children, more loyal and strong than those she bad birthed from her womb. These creatures beneath her would no longer know the weakness of flesh, the pain of the heart. They would be pure. They would be beings of light.

  And they will hunt weredragons.

  She came to stand in the center of the shadowy valley. All around her the darkness stretched. Even Mercy dared not approach nearer. The paladin stood at the rim of the shadows, staring down, young, frightened, weak. But Beatrix was old. She was strong. She raised her arms above her head, sucking up the life from below, feeling the dark tendrils rise up her legs to kiss her skin, her sex, her bones, her very soul.

  "Hear me, Fallen Ones!" Beatrix cried out, fingers tingling, head tossed back. "Hear me, the fallen beings of fire and flesh! I am your mistress. I am a conduit to the Spirit's light. Rise! I am Beatrix Deus, your mistress, and I summon you! Rise and be fallen no more!"

  The earth trembled beneath her feet. Shadows swirled. Moans rose from below, mourning, crying out to her, babes desperate for milk, the dead desperate for life. Grooves opened across the valley like wet, toothy mouths, pulling down soil and fallen leaves. The sky swirled above like a second valley of shadows. Upon the hills, trees shook and branches cracked to rain down. And everywhere Beatrix felt them, caressing her, whispering, screaming, enveloping her, sucking at her skin--the spirits of the dead.

  "Rise!" she cried. "Come to me."

  And they rose.

  Ribs emerged from the soil like the columns of a cathedral. Claws, bone white and gleaming, thrust up from the ground. The earth shook madly now, dirt crumbling into pits, boulders thrusting up, and still they rose. A spine ridge slithered like a snake. The long, thin bones of wings beat against the ground, and the many segments of a tail flailed like a bony whip. With shattering stones and sinking earth, a skull emerged before Beatrix, eye sockets deep pits, fangs like swords. Another skull rose to her left, a third to her right, and the valley kept sinking, collapsing, churning. All around her they rose, the skeletons of the dead, the firedrakes of old reborn, and on their backs still rode the skeletons of paladins, buried with their mounts, linked to the beasts even in death. Behind her, Mercy gasped and fell to her knees, but Beatrix remained standing, a solid pillar in the center of the storm, as true and ancient as King's Column that rose in the center of her empire.

  These creatures will make King's Column fall.

  "I raise them for you, Spirit!" Beatrix cried out. The reptilian skeletons kept digging themselves up from the soil, raising a din of shrieks, moans, roars. Beatrix cried out above them all. "Bless them with your light, Spirit, so that I may lead them in your name!"

  She felt the light glow within her--the light of holiness. The Spirit had heard her prayer. The Spirit answered. His light grew within Beatrix, mightier than starlight, than the light of dragonfire. She held out her arms and opened her palms, and the light gathered within them, balls of luminescence.

  "I give you life!" Beatrix shouted, laughing, wreathed in the light. "I give you holiness!"

  They kept rising around her, dozens of the great skeletons, their wings beating, their jaws opened wide in roars, no flesh left to them, no hearts to beat, no lungs to breathe, no gullets to blast fire, beings of nothing but bone, nothing but pain, but she would make them great. She would make them greater than any living being.

  Beatrix stretched out her hands, and the holy light flowed through her fingertips, coiling toward them.

  The skeletons of firedrakes turned toward her, and her strands of light crawled into them, slithering like glowing serpents seeking new burrows. The skeletons gave high, yelping sounds like drops of water falling into pools, echoing against metallic walls, the eerie bugling of another world. The light spread through them, running along their bones, limning their wings, coiling along their spines. Beads of light shone in their eye sockets, jewels of the heavens gazing through the darkness. Strands of light spun, coiling together into tightly woven balls within rib cages, thrumming, beating like hearts. On their backs, the skeletons of riders--fused to the spines of their mounts--cried out to the sky, bones shedding dust.

  "Rise and live again!" Beatrix cried, the light flowing through her, thrumming in her chest, pulsing through her fingertips. "I grant you new life!"

  Around her, they kept rising, dozens, hundreds of the fallen, the bones of great dragons, hearts of light beating within their ribs, eyes of heaven lighting the darkness. They flapped their wings. Shreds of leather swung between bones. Their jaws opened wide, dangling their last strips of skin, and all cried out to Beatrix, weeping for the touch of air again, the night upon them, the holiness of life again in their bones. Their cries were deafening, rising again and again, hundreds of voices calling out together. The land vanished beneath them, and all the world was bone, sound, light, darkness, and her dominion. Her power to raise the dead. To hunt the living.

  "You will seek the life of weredragons!" Beatrix cried out, laughing now, her hair crackling, her robes storming. "You will sniff out their pulsing hearts like bloodhounds. Find the weredragons! Find them and kill them and bring their corpses to me. Fly! Fly!" She pointed to the midnight sky. "Fly and crush the flesh of dragons."

  With echoing cries, the skeletons beat their creaky old wings. Old bones snapped. Joints shattered. Shreds of skin tore. Maggots and worms rained from them, shed from burrows in bones. But still they rose. Their wings beat, pounding the air, and their claws kicked off the earth, and their spines rattled like primordial snakes. Within their rib cages, their hearts of light thrummed madly, spinning, coiling, pulsing out light that blazed out of their eye sockets. They rose. They lived. They ascended.

  "Fly!" she cried, laughing.

  And they flew. A storm of bones. A maelstrom of rot, of wonder, of miracles. Life reborn, transfigured, holy. Blessed, beautiful children of the Spirit. The skeletal firedrakes rose, and on their backs, their old paladins raised rusty lances and chipped shields, their bones creaking within their crumbling armor. Their eyes too blazed with light, each rider fused to its mount, great centaurs of glory. They filled the sky. Their light beamed against the clouds, and they swirled above in a whirlpool, countless flying beasts.

  "My bonedrakes," Beatrix whispered. "My children."

  "What are they?" Mercy asked, voice shaky, finally coming to stand at Beatrix's side.

  "Our champions," Beatrix said. "Our holy warriors. Those who will do what you could not." She raised her voice to the sky. "Fly out! Fly now! For the glory of the Spirit, for the death of weredragons, for the Falling! Fly!"

  And they flew. Coiling out in great rivers of bone and dry shreds of skin, of streaming light, they soared out from the valley, spreading across all horizons, vanishing into the darkness. All that remained were the echoes of their cries and their lingering aroma of rot and divinity.

  KORVIN

  The first snows of winter fell as Korvin and his daughter walked across the wilderness. It was too cold to be traveling. Too cold to be without a home, lost in a world with but a flicker of hope.

  "We must seek shelter for the night," he said. "A burrow or a cave if we can't find a village or farmhouse."

  Fidelity looked up at the sky. She walked beside him, wrapped in a green cloak. It was an old cloak, tattered, its hems burnt, bought from a farmer for a copper coin. They had spent more money on food, and they both carried packs full of turnips, sausages, apples, a
nd bread, perhaps enough for a few days--not enough to reach the mountains of Dair Ranin. Like Korvin, Fidelity wore the armor of the Horde under her cloak, and a curved saber hung at her side, its hilt shaped like a falcon's head.

  "It's only noon." She squinted up at the veiled sun. "I think. We should find a place to hide and sleep until nightfall."

  She was always squinting these days, struggling to see. Her spectacles were in even worse condition than her cloak. One lens was missing, the other cracked, and a string held the frame together.

  We need to buy her new spectacles, Korvin thought, looking at her. But the only coins they had left were old Requiem gold, worth a fortune and a barrelful of questions. And Korvin dared not enter a city where new lenses might be found. Not with soldiers patrolling every street.

  "We'll keep walking for a while longer," he said. "We'll find some shelter. We can't rest out here in the snow."

  He looked around at the snowy landscape. It was strange to think that, only several days ago, they had been in the hot southern lands, delivering the survivors of the Horde to a new home on the Terran coast. Now they were traveling across the Commonwealth, a different world. Gone were the cypress trees, twisting pines, clear waters, and yellow sun of the south. Here was a land of rolling hills, a pale sun veiled behind gray clouds, and only a few scattered aspens and oaks. Crows circled under the clouds and the wind moaned. The snowfall was light--they were still too far south for the great gales that could bury villages--but it would get colder as they traveled farther north, the snows deeper, the food scarcer.

  Fidelity sighed and lowered her head. "I'm sorry, Father. In the heat of battle, I didn't know what other meeting place to name. Lynport in the south burned. Altus Mare is a bastion of Templer might. So I shouted out Draco Murus, the ancient ruins I read about so often in my books, the ruins where the great old heroes fought." She looked at him, eyes full of guilt and fear. "I didn't pause to think that it's so far north, ruins across a landscape Beatrix controls, a landscape now falling to winter. I'm sorry. I don't know if I’ve doomed us all to death, if we'll ever see Domi and the others again."