Pillars of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  Bleeding, grieving for their lost, the dragons of Requiem flew into the north. Just beyond the southern horizon, just out of the dragons' sight, the foul army followed.

  VALE

  We were a nation in the dust,Vale thought as he flew. We've become a nation of the sky.

  He looked across his people. Hundreds of thousands flew around him, dragons in every color. On their backs rode others in human forms, living out their lives in the air. Mothers nursed their babes. Elders sang old songs. Healers changed bandages and chanted prayers. Every once in a while, dragons would spot a herd of animals below—wild deer or sheep sweeping across the land, sometimes merely a stray rabbit—and then dragons would swoop, capture the prey, rise with it again. On scaly backs, men and women lit braziers and cooked the meat. All life—eating, sleeping, praying, singing, dreaming—all in the sky.

  Vale rose higher, ascending until the air thinned and he could barely breathe, until he flew above all other dragons. Then he turned to look behind him.

  From up here, the horizon spread farther, and he could just see them. Just a hint. A dark stain across the miles, its details invisible. If he hadn't known better, he'd have called it a dark cloud.

  But Vale knew what that distant, southern darkness was.

  "Harpies," he muttered. "A million harpies following a twisted king."

  He looked below at the dragons gliding northward, seeking their homeland—a home that still lay days, maybe weeks, maybe even months away. He might never know how many dragons the thousand harpies had slain. Some estimated—those good at counting great numbers—that ten thousand Vir Requis had fallen to the ice and talons.

  If only a thousand harpies slew a myriad of dragons, Vale thought, this southern army will kill us all.

  He dipped lower in the sky, beat his wings, and darted forward. He flew over the other dragons—this flying city spread for miles—until he reached the head of the camp.

  Meliora flew there, her scales silvery-white, touched with gold when the sun hit them right. Every few miles, she raised a pillar of white fire that soared like the fabled King's Column in the north, a beacon for her people to follow.

  Can Ishtafel see that beacon from the south? Vale wondered.

  He descended until he flew by his sister.

  "He's still following," Vale said. "I can now see him when I fly high enough. I flew as high as I could, higher than any bird, so high I could barely breathe and the air was cold even under the sun. The horizon must be a hundred leagues away from up there, and Ishtafel is just on its edge."

  "Too close," Meliora said.

  Vale nodded. "We must prepare for meeting him, Meliora."

  She spun her head toward him, and her eyes narrowed. Smoke plumed from her nostrils. "No. We will not face him in battle. Not here. Not in Saraph. If we must face him, it will be in Requiem. In our homeland. If we must have a final stand, let it be in our holy sky, fighting beneath our sacred stars."

  Vale closed his eyes for a moment, remembering that day—that day of more horror and awe than any other. The day he had beheld Issari Seran, the Priestess in White, the Eye of the Dragon. The day he had died.

  Ishtafel had nailed him to the top of the ziggurat, driving the spikes deep into Vale's hands and feet, leaving him to die in the sun. As his last breath fled his lungs, as his heart stilled, Vale had seen her.

  Issari.

  A woman woven of starlight.

  Thousands of years ago, Issari had fought alongside King Aeternum himself to found the kingdom of Requiem. She had risen then to the sky, forming the eye of the fabled Draco constellation, the stars they said shone upon Requiem—the stars one could not see here in the south. For millennia, they say that Issari gazed down upon Requiem, and she had decended to heal Vale, to return him to life.

  As he flew here, Issari's words to him echoed in his mind.

  A great battle awaits you, son of Requiem, she had said, placing her luminous hands upon him, healing his wounds, returning his soul into his body. Live, child of Aeternum. Your war has not yet ended.

  Vale opened his eyes, looking again across the kingdom of dragons in the sky. He had thought his life's battle had been in Tofet. Yet now it seemed a greater war awaited. Had Issari meant that his great battle—the reason for his rebirth—was his battle with the army of harpies, a battle for Requiem's own rebirth?

  "Meliora, sooner or later, we'll have to face him again." Vale looked into her eyes. "Either in our sky or here in his. This is a battle we cannot escape, and a battle that, right now, we would lose. Requiem can no longer rely on impromptu defense, nor can we rely on ghosts or erevim to save us. We need an army. Not just a horde but a true, trained military like Requiem's Royal Army of old."

  The white dragon shook her head sadly. "Armies require months, even years of training. Armies require ranks. Structures. Units within units—flights and battalions and commanders for each. Ruthless discipline. Hardened souls."

  Vale smiled grimly. "All things that we already have."

  Meliora stared at him, frowning, and slowly her eyes widened. "Of course."

  He nodded. "The strongest among us, going back centuries, have been organized into teams and sub-teams. All our lives, we practiced ruthless discipline, hardened our souls and bodies. Every dragon here who's strong enough to lift a pickaxe or yoke already has a team. Let our old slave teams become our new military units. Let that routine—working together, wielding tools, every man and woman knowing their place—become the foundation for our army."

  "Yes." Meliora bared her teeth. "Yes, we will have an army. And you, Vale, will lead it."

  In dragon form, he had no eyebrows, but he gave his best attempt at raising one. "Surely there's a better choice for general. Somebody older, wiser, stronger."

  Meliora herself raised a scaly brow. "Who? Father? He's a priest and healer, not a warrior. Me? I am as a savior to these people, not a general. You are of royal blood, Vale. You are an Aeternum, the descendant of our great warriors of olden days—the blood of King Benedictus, of King Elethor, of the hero Relesar flows through your veins. But there's a far more important reason, Vale, why you should lead." Her eyes darkened. "You faced Ishtafel before. You're the first dragon to have defied him, to burn him. You fought Ishtafel twice and lived."

  Her words stabbed him like daggers. He grimaced and looked away. "Yes, I faced Ishtafel in battle twice. I died the first time, sister. I live now only because Father prayed to the Priestess in White to heal me. When I faced him again, I would have died if not for . . . if Tash hadn't . . ."

  He could say no more, and tears stung his eyes, and his throat tightened.

  Tash.

  He lowered his head, the pain overwhelming.

  I miss you, Tash. I love you. Always.

  It had been several days since her death, and the grief only seemed to grow. Tash—the woman who had infuriated him, the woman he had come to love. Tash—the woman who had almost betrayed him, the woman who had given her life to save his. Tash—the woman who had freed Meliora from her prison, who had found the Chest of Plenty, who had assured Requiem's escape from captivity.

  Yet you will never see Requiem, Tash, Vale thought. I will never hold you again, never kiss you again, never laugh with you, perhaps never laugh again. I love you always, Tash. Your loss is forever a hole inside me.

  Meliora seemed to notice his pain. Her eyes softened, and she flew closer and nuzzled him, her snout hot against his neck.

  "I'm sorry, Vale. Her loss pains me too. I cannot imagine how much worse it must be for you."

  He raised his eyes, looking at the sky. The sun was setting and soon the stars would emerge. The Draco constellation did not shine this far south, but Vale knew that Tash's soul would rise to that place—those celestial halls he had glimpsed upon the ziggurat.

  I know that someday, I will see you again, Tash.

  He returned his eyes to Meliora. He nodded. "Requiem will have an army again. And I will lead it."

  LUCEMr />
  The dragons of Requiem flew over the wilderness of Saraph, hundreds of thousands strong, covering the sky—a great nation of fire, tears, and blood.

  As they flew, leaving so many dead behind, many dragons shed tears. Many others still bled from their wounds. On their backs, children wept, their mothers trying to comfort them, crying too. Elders prayed. Men and women spoke in low voices, eyes darting with fear, seeking enemies on the horizon. Fear, grief, pain—they filled the exodus, spreading from the slowest dragons in the rear to Meliora's pillar of white fire which led the camp, miles in the north.

  Yet as Lucem flew here on the wind, he could feel none of that grief or fear.

  For the first time in his life, he felt joy.

  A feeling pure. Wonderful. Greater than anything he had thought possible to feel.

  He inhaled deeply, gave his wings a sturdy flap, and rose higher. At first, he had wobbled while flying, but now it felt as natural as walking. He looked across his nation, trying to count them, unable to. So many dragons—dragons that flowed from one horizon to the other, filling the sky, all flying together after that pillar of white dragonfire, that column in the north, seeking the true pillar of marble.

  For so many years, Lucem had languished in his cave. Alone. Afraid. The hero of Requiem, the only one who had ever escaped Tofet—only to become an exile, nearly mad with loneliness. For so many years, hiding in the wilderness, he had dreamed of this. Dreamed of the rest of his nation escaping, rising together as dragons, flying as one.

  "Enemies may fly in pursuit," Lucem said. "And many enemies may await us in our fallen homeland. But right now, here, in this sky—we are free. We are dragons."

  A high voice spoke on his back. "Not me! And stop talking to yourself. You woke me up."

  Lucem looked over his shoulder to see Elory stretching and yawning with all the glorious grace of her human form. She wore a cotton tunic, and her brown hair was growing longer—it was now almost long enough to cover her missing ear, the mark Leyleet had left on her. Several days of flight had been kind to Elory, he thought. She no longer seemed as gaunt as before, and a rosy hue tinted her cheeks.

  "Good," he said. "It's my turn to ride you. Into a dragon with you."

  She blinked and rubbed her eyes. "No. Not a chance. I didn't sleep nearly long enough."

  Lucem snorted and released his magic.

  He tumbled down in human form. Elory fell, squealed, and shifted. Soon she flew as a one-eared dragon, scales gleaming violent in the sunlight, the spikes on her tail white as milk.

  "Lucem, you bloody pest!" she cried.

  He shifted back into a dragon and rose to fly beside her. "Best way to wake up."

  She groaned and slapped him with her tail. "Best way to get me to clobber you."

  He winced as her tail kept thumping him. "All right, all right! I'm sorry." He reached his own tail around to his sides, rubbing the sore areas her spikes had left. "I suppose I deserved that."

  Elory's eyes still flashed with rage. "I forget sometimes that you spent ten years in the wilderness. Probably raised by monkeys, you were. No idea how to behave among us dragons."

  He grinned and puffed out smoke. "I'm a wild beast in need of taming."

  The violet dragon obviously struggled to remain mad, to keep glaring at him, but when Lucem reared and gave out a squeaky little roar—something that sounded a lot more like a puppy yapping than a dragon bellowing—she relented and laughed.

  "I don't know whether to hate you or laugh at you, Lucem."

  "Definitely laugh at me." He winked. "Laughter is always better than hatred."

  She sighed and moved to fly closer to him, so close their cheeks touched, and their wings flapped one atop the other. Lucem's smile then turned sad, and he closed his eyes, basking in her warmth and presence.

  "I'm so happy here, Lucem," she said. "And yet I'm so scared. I'm so scared this dream will end."

  "Dreams are never everlasting things. They always end. That does not diminish their beauty. That does not make them less important."

  "I know, but I want ours to last for more than a few days! Stars, Lucem. We spent five hundred years in captivity. Will we die before we ever reach Requiem?"

  He looked at her, their cheeks still pressed together, their eyes only inches apart.

  "This is Requiem," Lucem said. "Even if we cannot reach our homeland in the north, even if we never see our stars—this here, right now, this nation in the wilderness, this is Requiem reborn. And I will savor every moment I have with this nation. Every moment that I have with you, Elory. Because I love Requiem, but even more, I love you."

  She sighed. "Oh you silly thing. Such a silly, wild beast to tame." She slapped him again with her tail. "You make me love you, don't you? You make me hate you, you make me slap you, you make me laugh at you . . . and you make me love you. Wild beast indeed."

  He grinned. "So now can I ride you?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Fine! But be careful, or I'm likely to fly upside down as you sleep, sending your slumbering backside down to its death."

  As Lucem released his magic above her, landing on her back in human form, he turned to look south. Beyond the horizon, he knew that they were still flying. Ishtafel. A million harpies, a force to slay every last dragon.

  I won't die by falling off Elory, he thought. But we might die before the sun sets and rises again. All of us. Here, far from our homeland.

  He lay on his stomach and draped his arms across Elory, caressing her lavender scales.

  I will do whatever I can. I will fight. Kill. Fly to the end of the world and back. Only to spend another moment with you, Elory. Only to live this dream a while longer.

  The white pillar of fire rose in the north, and the dragons of Requiem followed. Lucem closed his eyes and slept.

  ISHTAFEL

  The harpies shrieked, storming across the sky, their rot dripping across the plains, their eyes blazing white under the shadows of the clouds that forever shadowed their flight. A million strong, they had languished for millennia in their prisons—the gods' first, failed attempts at life, older siblings to the seraphim, deformed and cruel, nursing their hatred through the eras.

  Yet now they were free from the prison cells of Edinnu. Now they flew here in Saraph, this new realm of godly light Ishtafel had forged. Their talons gleamed. Their feathers churned their stench. Their withered faces, covered in boils and hair, twisted in hatred—the faces of crones, bloated to obscene size, the mouths full of teeth, the throats thirsty for the blood of dragons. Onward they flew, foul life, beasts who knew nothing but hatred.

  Yet they were beasts that would serve him, Ishtafel thought. For he had given them freedom. He had given them the chance to prove their strength. The dark seraphim failed him, as they had failed to topple his mother's reign. But the harpies knew no failure; all they knew was to hunt, to kill, to feast upon the flesh of their enemies.

  "Soon you will eat dragons!" Ishtafel cried, standing in his chariot of fire high above the land. "Soon the blood of Requiem will fill your bellies and stain your lips."

  His voice emerged strangely from his golden mask, metallic, almost like the sound of the bronze bull Malok. More metal covered his body now, a new skin, replacing the skin the dragons had burnt off. No more feathers grew on his wings; only thin membranes stretched across the bones, the feathers burnt off, leaving him almost like a dark seraph, cursed and foul. And yet his halo still shone, a beacon of his dominion and retribution.

  The harpies cried out in joy, horrible sounds, the caws of vultures, the grunts of rotting beasts, the wails of slaughtered hogs. They were larger than him, as large as the largest dragons. A single harpy could, perhaps, crush even him, the King of Saraph, the mightiest of the seraphim.

  They will devastate Requiem.

  For too long, he had shown the dragons mercy. Slaying them only one by one. Allowing them to live in their miserable huts, to reek and rot in Tofet, staining his empire with their wretchedness. He would have to
burn down and bury that entire land to cover the stench. For too long, he had let the weredragons languish in their pathetic excuse for life.

  That mercy was over.

  "You will die long before you reach your homeland, weredragons," he said. "All but you, Meliora. You will live. You will return to your true homeland . . . to Saraph. To the ziggurat. To your prison cell. And there, my sweetness, in darkness and chains, you will bear my heirs."

  He grinned inside his mask, the movement stretching his wounds, leaking blood, shooting pain through him. Good. The pain kept him alive. The pain kept his hatred burning hot. He stared ahead, and he could just see them on the horizon—a wake of smoke. The trail of dragons . . . getting closer every day.

  "No more slavery, dragons," he whispered. "Only death. Only mountains of your bones."

  MELIORA

  "No." She shook her head as she flew, crossing the mountains of Khalish toward the distant valleys. "We cannot stop. We cannot land, not even for an hour. Not with Ishtafel on our tails."

  Her father flew at her side, scales green as the fabled forests of Requiem. Jaren looked at her with sad eyes.

  "We're out of food, my daughter. The fish and animals we hunt below are not enough to feed a nation. The Chest of Plenty cannot duplicate food fast enough for half a million dragon mouths. We need more flour. Fruit and vegetables. Milk and cheese."

  She narrowed her eyes, puffing out smoke. She looked behind her at the hundreds of thousands of dragons, then back at her father. "Then we'll tighten our belts. We can endure a few more days of hunger."

  "But can we endure disease?" Jaren asked. "An illness runs through the camp, and fewer dragons can fly every hour. They ride the strong, shivering in their human forms, and the fever is spreading—even here in the sky. We need medicine. Medicine that can be found in the city ahead."

  Meliora spat out smoke. She stared ahead. There, in the distance, she could see it on the horizon. A great mountain rose ahead, crowned with a city of limestone, sandstone, and bronze. Walls surrounded the mountain's base, and brick structures sprawled across the slopes. On the mountain's crest perched a great, round fortress, shaped as an egg.