At once she leaped up and grabbed her sword's hilt. Before she could draw the blade, another serpopard leaped onto her, knocking her back down. The claws lashed at her, reaching between her plates of armor, cutting her chest.
"Til!" her brother screamed.
Panic rose in her. Her blood spurted as her heart lashed. She tried to draw the sword, but the creature's paws pinned down her right wrist. The campfire blazed at her side, spraying sparks onto her clothes, drenching her with heat. The serpopard's neck rose skyward, six feet long, and then the head plunged down, jaws opening to rip out Til's throat.
With her left hand, Til reached into the campfire and grabbed a burning log.
She screamed as the flames burned her, but she wouldn't let go. She swung the torch into the serpopard's striking head, knocking it aside an instant before the fangs tore into her. Those fangs now scraped across her armor, and the head thumped into the snow at her side, its fur kindled.
When Til leaped to her feet, she saw Bim firing arrow after arrow, knocking back serpopards. Several lay dead around the campfire, but more kept emerging from between the trees. Their eyes gleamed in the shadows, and their growls rose all around. A hundred or more were advancing.
Another one leaped at Til's side. She swung her sword, knocking it back. At once she spun the other way, thrusting the blade into another pouncing creature. Claws tore at her leg, and she cried out and fell to one knee.
"Can we shift now?" Bim cried as more serpopards raced among the trees. Their eyes and growls filled the shadows, and the sun vanished behind the horizon, leaving only the campfire to light the darkness.
Til cursed. She hated shifting into a dragon. But any hope of remaining silent here was long gone, and with the serpopard corpses burning, the smoke and light would be filling the sky.
"Shift!" she cried and summoned her magic.
With a clatter like the armor of a racing army, their scales rose across them. Fangs and claws slammed into the hardened plates. Two dragons moved in circles around the campfire, blowing flames in a ring.
The dragonfire roared. Ice melted across the trees, and the serpopards burned. Their fur and flesh crackled, giving out a foul stench, but more kept racing forth. They leaped between the trees, and three serpopards slammed into Til, clawing at her orange scales. She spun around madly, struggling to shake them off. One managed to tear off a scale, and its teeth sank into her, and she bellowed. Several more of the creatures covered Bim—a black dragon, only half her size. Their claws drove under his dark scales like splinters under fingernails, and he swung his tail, struggling to knock them off. Their dragonfire kept spurting, but more creatures kept racing through the forest.
"Fly, Bim!" she cried.
"I can't!" He fell, overcome with more serpopards, their weight pinning him down. As a young dragon, he wasn't much larger than the bristly, long-necked felines.
Til roared, forsaking all promises to remain silent in this forest. She rolled onto her back, crushing a serpopard who clung to her. She spurted fire across the camp. The trees blazed. She whipped her tail, knocking more beasts aside, then leaped up toward her brother.
She grabbed one of the creatures attacking him. She dug her teeth past fur and flesh, ripping out a chunk of its back. She spat out its backbone and roared, then swiped her claws, knocking another creature off her brother. With a lash of her tail, she sliced through the necks of the last serpopards clinging to the black dragon.
"Now fly!"
They soared, blasting fire, an inferno that washed across the forest and spurted into the sky. More serpopards leaped at them from the treetops, clawing at their scales, falling to the blazing forest. With a few more flaps of their wings, the two dragons smashed through the canopy and rose into the night sky.
Smoke hid the sky, and only Issari's Star still shone, the eye of the dragon, and then it too vanished. The forest below swarmed with black felines leaping in the shadows, and the trees below still burned. Black smoke, both of charred trees and flesh, unfurled and washed across the dragons.
They flew through the inferno, holding their breath, until they emerged from the smoke.
We're safe up here, Til thought. We're safe so long as no seraphim are near, and—
And then she saw them.
Chariots of fire.
The flaming horses thundered across the sky, and seraphim raised bows in their chariots. The missiles flew through the sky, and Til cried out and soared higher. An arrow slammed into her horn and embedded there. Another grazed Bim's flank.
The enemy flew everywhere. Dozens of the chariots circled in from all sides, firing their arrows, deadlier by far than their pets.
And so we die here, Til thought. Here, two days away from King's Column. So far from the warmth of the southern coast. Here we die in snow and flame.
She looked at Bim and saw the fear in his eyes. The chariots flew closer. He stared back, panting, blood on his flanks, his wings churning the smoke.
No, Til thought. No, not yet. I promised him that there is always hope, that we will always fight on. So long as our wings can beat. So long as we can breathe fire.
"Fly with me," she said, giving him the slightest of smiles, and dived.
She plunged toward the forest. Bim flew with her. They crashed through the canopy . . . then curved their flight and flew forward.
They raced between the trees, twenty feet aboveground. The canopy rose above. The snow melted below under their heat. Between the trunks, the long-necked felines still growled and pounced, leaping from below, desperate to catch the dragons flying above them. Others leaped from the treetops, knocked aside with flaps of the dragons' spiky tails.
Til tried to curve her flight, to whip between the trees, but she was moving too fast, and the trees were too close. She slammed into a birch, cried out in pain, and shattered the trunk. The tree fell and she kept flying. Bim slammed into an oak, cracking the bole. He fell to the snow, then rose and flew again, narrowly dodging the serpopards that leaped.
They kept flying, so fast the dark forest streaked around them. They blasted their fire, lighting their way, slamming into birch after birch, uprooting the trees. Icicles hailed down, stabbing their backs. Melted snow ran in rivulets.
And above the fire still burned.
The chariots of fire descended from above, casting down fire. Arrows rained, and Til yowled as one tore through her wing. She blasted dragonfire, and the blaze crashed into the canopy and spurted upward, washing across a chariot. More covered the sky.
The dragons kept racing across the forest. The landscape now sloped downward. As much as they could, they whipped between trees, but they couldn't avoid crashes. Splinters drove into their scales and cut the thick skin on their underbellies. Trees fell and burned. And still the fire streaked across the sky.
A chariot swooped ahead, plunging between the trees. Til and Bim flew sideways, dodging it, racing onward. When the chariot tried to follow, its flashing reins wrapped around an oak, sending the chariot flying in one direction, the firehorses in another. A second chariot plunged between two pines, and Til roared out her dragonfire, roasting the seraph who stood within. She rose higher, emerged above the canopy, and plunged back downward and flew between the trees again. The forests of Requiem burned.
A voice rose above, angelic, mellifluous, a voice so kind and beautiful that Til could almost weep. The voice of a god.
"You cannot escape us, Til Eleison. Come to me, my child."
Tears filled Til's eyes. The voice was so warm, so benevolent. She wanted to obey, to seek that voice, to hear it comfort her.
He knows my name. He knows who I am, how I hurt.
Ahead, she saw it. A golden glow in the sky, as bright as the sun. She could just make him out above the trees. A heavenly figure, swan wings spread wide, a halo around his head of flowing golden hair. A man in gilded armor, beautiful, noble, all knowing, merciful.
The Overlord.
"Come to me, child," his voice rolled acro
ss the land, the voice of harps and song. "Rest your weary head in my embrace. Let me claim your life, so that you might find comfort in death."
And now Til wept. She wanted to rise from the forest. To fly to him in the sky, this god in the heavens. To let him welcome her soul. To leave her hurting, hungry body here in the forest, to forever live in that radiance.
She began to rise toward the sweet song and light.
Bim reached out and grabbed her.
"He's lying." The black dragon stared at her, gripping her with his claws, still flying between the trees. "He wants to kill you, Til. To kill you. Live. Live! Don't die like Father."
That memory now flooded Til—the Overlord thrusting his lance, a god of wrath, slamming the blade through Father, raising the corpse.
Til howled, and now she wanted to fly skyward not to join him but to slay him, to cast down this cruel god upon the burnt forests of her homeland, even if she died in that searing light.
But I made a promise. I promised to take Bim south. To the coast. I promised to live.
Til snarled, dived low to the ground, and grabbed one of the leaping serpopards. She soared, crashing through the canopy, carrying the long-necked feline in her claws. She flew toward the godly light and tossed the dark creature. The serpopard tumbled toward the Overlord, neck flailing, and crashed into the light. The creature burst into flame and slammed against the Overlord, and white bursts of light blazed across the sky.
The Overlord shrieked, all his grace gone, now a being of white fury. Til blasted dragonfire his way, then dipped down and flew between the trees again. Bim flew at her side. The light still blazed above, lighting the night, melting snow and ice.
The land sloped downward, and Til knew this land, knew every curve and fold of the hills. She crashed through the last few birches, dodged charging chariots of fire that were braving the forest, and there below she saw it—a red strip in the night, halving the landscape.
The River Ranin.
"Follow me, Bim!" Til cried.
She flew downhill, whipping between the trees. She smashed into an alder, cracking the trunk, and plunged down into the dark river.
An instant later, Bim dived into the water with her.
She swam underwater, eyes open and stinging. The fire blazed above, casting orange light into the river, revealing stones and algae. Bim swam at her side, tail flailing.
"Keep swimming!" she said, bubbles rising from her mouth. "For as long as you can."
Arrows whistled into the water around them. One cracked a scale on her back, but she kept whipping her tail, driving herself onward. She plunged deeper until her belly skimmed the bottom. Bim kept swimming at her side, cheeks puffed out, his tail and wings propelling him onward.
Her lungs ached for air, but she kept moving. Finally, when she could stand it no longer, she raised her nostrils from the water and spurted up fire. Bim followed suit.
At once arrows rained.
The dragons sank back underwater.
"Come!" Til said to her brother, tapping him with her tail.
They spun around in the water and began swimming back from where they had come, diving deep, moving against the current. Above her, Til thought she could see the fire streaming in the opposite direction—the chariots following the current.
There was only one way to be sure.
Til released her magic, returning to human form underwater. Bim followed her lead, becoming again a scrawny boy, his cloak fluttering in the water.
They swam toward the riverbank and raised their heads from the water. They gulped air.
Til stared eastward down the current and saw the chariots flying there, firing arrows into the water. The Overlord flew above them, brighter than the others, wings as wide as a dragon's.
She forced herself to look away. She grabbed Bim, and they raced out of the water and back into the forest.
They ran through the shadows, silent, jaws clenched, trying to ignore the pain of their wounds. The fire still crackled in the east, and the yips of serpopards sounded in the west, but here the forest was empty, dark, a place to run and hide.
Because that is what we're best at, Til thought, smiling grimly. That is what you trained us for, seraphim. That is what five hundred years of survival gave my race. We run. We hide. She clenched her fists as she raced between the trees. But one day, Overlord . . . one day we will rise again. And that day we will fight.
They moved through the forest, crossing miles, until the sounds of pursuit faded in the distance. Finally, in a shadowy ravine, they crawled under an outcrop of stone, and they built a wall of snow to hide themselves from pursuit.
They huddled, holding each other for warmth, weak, wet, hurt, still bleeding.
"We're safe, Bim," she whispered, holding her brother, their cloaks wrapped around them. "We're safe now. We're safe."
They held each other until dawn, trembling with cold and weakness.
They kept walking south. To safety. To a dream of hope . . . a dream Til never wanted to wake from.
MELIORA
The dragons of Requiem were flying north across the plains, hundreds of thousands strong, when the rancid creatures rose like a storm cloud, shrieking for death.
They had been flying for three days now across the deserts of Saraph, moving fast, fleeing the inferno of captivity. Meliora had been driving her dragons hard, allowing no rest. They had not touched ground since her speech on the mountain outside the walls of Tofet. Thousands of dragons now flew across the sky, a shimmering veil of scales and fire. On each dragon's back rode two Vir Requis in human forms, sleeping, nursing their wounds, and feeding from their sparse supplies.
Flying at their lead, Meliora glanced at the sky. The sun had reached its zenith, casting down blinding light and heat that spun her head and baked her silver scales. She couldn't even imagine how hot the black-scaled dragons felt.
But soon we'll be in the north, she thought. In the cool air of Requiem, flying in a gentler sky. Soon we'll fly over forests, not rocks and sand. Soon we'll be home.
Her foot still throbbed, pierced by Ishtafel's spear. She tried to let the pain motivate her, keep her flying, keep her strong. Jaren had prayed over the wound, and it had closed and was healing fast, yet the pain still blazed up her leg with every flap of her wings.
She reared in the sky, raised her head, and blasted up a pillar of fire. Most dragons, born of two Vir Requis parents, blasted crackling red dragonfire. But Meliora, born to a seraph mother, blew white flames like a pillar of starlight. The column rose high, a beacon for her people.
She turned to face them—thousands of dragons bearing riders. They were children of Requiem, an ancient nation, but they were also her children. Hers to protect, to lead across the miles to their lost home.
I was born of both Requiem and Saraph, she thought, but I left the ichor of seraphim in Tofet. Here let me be woven of pure starlight, a mother of Requiem.
The dragons were weary, Meliora knew. Puffs of smoke rose from their nostrils. Their eyes were glazed. They began to dip in the sky. But Meliora would not let her people camp. There was nothing below but sand and rock, and Ishtafel was following them. Meliora could not see her brother's hosts from here, but she knew that Ishtafel would never let them flee. He would be flying over the horizon, even now, determined to slay them. Meliora would not let him catch her.
"Children of Requiem!" Meliora cried. "A new shift begins. Rest now, dragons, and rise, riders!"
Across the cloud of dragons, the human riders rose. Wings burst out from their backs. Scales flowed across them. The number of dragons now doubled in the sky. The newer dragons flew with fresh vigor, their eyes brighter, fire in their jaws. They glided downward, flying below the wearier dragons, those who had been flying since dawn. Those weary dragons lowered themselves so their bellies skimmed the backs of the new flyers, then released their magic. The Vir Requis lay down on their comrades in human form, ready for rest.
Like this we can fly forever, Meliora t
hought. At least until hunger kills us.
They had taken their meager supplies from Tofet—some dry oatmeal, some bags of flour, a few gourds of water. Not enough. Constantly, the dragons were duplicating the food in the Chest of Plenty, but with only one chest, it was slow work—too slow to feed half a million souls. Soon they would have to find more food and lots of it, or they wouldn't have to worry about pursuit.
Lavender scales flashed in the sun, and a slim, one-eared dragon came flying toward Meliora. Elory was smaller than most dragons, but Meliora knew that her sister was just as fierce. She had seen the violet dragon slaying many enemies with her flames.
"Do you think that tonight we can sleep on solid ground?" Elory asked. "The people need time to build fires, to bake bread from our flour, to feel earth below us."
Meliora shook her head, her pearly scales chinking. "No. We will not rest. We will dip down only to drink from the river, only to hunt any wild animals we see across the riverbanks. But we will not place our feet on solid earth. Not until we reach Requiem."
She looked ahead toward the north. Requiem—if truly that fabled land existed—still lay across countless miles. Past deserts, plains, mountains, seas, and forests—impossibly distant. The ancient homeland. The prayer of her people, their beacon, their heart. The only place where they could be free, rebuild their kingdom.
A memory stabbed Meliora like a spear. Once more, she stood in darkness before Leyleet, queen of the Rancid Angels, a cursed seraph with bat wings and cruel white eyes. Once more, Leyleet's demonic voice echoed in her mind.
You will never see Requiem, daughter of dragons. With my dying breath I curse you.
Meliora grimaced, the horror of that night returning to her. She had slain Leyleet in the shadows, ridding the world of her malice. But did the dark queen's final words truly carry power?
Will I truly die on this journey? Meliora thought. Am I truly cursed to lead my people to freedom, only to fall before entering our homeland myself? Or will Ishtafel and his hosts reach us in the wilderness of Saraph, slaying us all in these hot southern lands?
Pillars of Dragonfire Page 5