Pillars of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  The city of Keleshan. Home to Saraph's largest garrison of troops outside the capital. If Shayeen was the heart of the empire, here was its fist.

  "We're not ready to fight another battle," Meliora said. "Not here, not in Keleshan. We veer west. We avoid this city and travel over the western deserts. I would not approach Keleshan, not even for food and medicine. Not even our new army can face these foes."

  Jaren gazed at her with sad eyes. "They never told you, did they?

  She frowned. "Tell me what, Father?"

  He turned to stare toward the distant city. "Why do you think there are walls around Keleshan? The seraphim have wings and can easily fly over them, and no enemies threaten them, not in this world they so easily conquered. Those walls are there to keep people in. More slaves. More Vir Requis." He lowered his head. "The people of Requiem were chained not just in Tofet. They serve in this city too, and in the cities along the northern coast."

  Meliora inhaled sharply.

  More slaves. More Vir Requis.

  And she knew: She could not simply fly by. She would fight for Keleshan, this city on the mountain. She would test her new army. She would kill.

  She would raise more dragons.

  She spun in the sky and flew toward her brother. Vale flew among a hundred dragon warriors, the vanguard of the camp—all Vir Requis who had once labored in the mines. Thousands of other warriors now flew around the camp, organized into their old units. The brickmakers guarded the eastern flank. The bitumen diggers—Elory among them—flew in the west. Other units—once bitumen refiners, masons, farmers, shipwrights, and many other laborers—flew in their own formations. The new Royal Army, formed from the strongest slaves, surrounded the weaker Vir Requis—elders, nursing mothers, children, babes.

  Now they will fly to war, Meliora thought.

  "Vale," she said, "ready your troops. We're about to test their mettle."

  She repeated Jaren's words to him, and while he listened, the blue dragon sneered and puffed out smoke, staring at the city ahead.

  "So we fight for food," Vale said. "For medicine. And for freedom. The blood of Saraph will spill today . . . and new dragonfire will rise." With a roar, the blue dragon reared and blasted fire skyward. His voice rolled across the camp. "Royal Army, rise, rise! Fly with me at the vanguard. Fly to war!"

  With thousands of roars, the new army of Requiem stormed to the head of the camp. Their cries shook the sky. The sun began to set, but their fire lit the darkness.

  They stormed across the miles, and Meliora flew with them, roaring out her fury. Her family flew at her sides: Vale, a blue dragon, commander of the Royal Army; Elory, a lavender dragon, smaller but just as fast, her fire just as hot; Jaren, her father, his scales green, a healer who did not hesitate to fight to save lives. Behind them flew thousands of others. Their captivity had weakened their bodies but hardened their souls, instilling deep wrath within them. Now this fury would wash across their enemies of light.

  From the walls and roofs of Keleshan they rose—hosts of seraphim, bearing lances and shields. From the oval fortress on the mountaintop rose many flaming chariots, their firehorses storming toward the dragons, and the seraphim riders raised bows and arrows. As the dragons flew closer across the mountains, more and more seraphim kept emerging, an erupting volcano, a host that covered the sky like clouds of red and orange and flaring white. Thousands soared, prepared for battle, flying in formations, spears glinting, halos burning, chariots thundering like a storm.

  "Hear me, Requiem!" Meliora cried. "We fight to free our brothers and sisters. We fight for our freedom. To war! To war! For stars and column, fly!"

  "For stars and column!" they answered her call. "For Requiem!"

  Thousands of their roars sounded together. Thousands of flaming pillars rose in a blazing forest. The dragons stormed forth, howling with rage, no longer slaves, no longer broken and afraid. Here were no refugees, no broken souls.

  Here was an army of dragons, an army like the great hosts of Old Requiem, charging for glory.

  Ahead of them, the seraphim stormed across the sky. Their wings spread wide. The light of their halos flared out. The setting sun gleamed on their gilded breastplates, and their chariots rose above, forming a great canopy, a sky of fire. The distance shrank between the two hosts. The earth itself seemed to shake, the heavens to burn. Only a league separated the forces, then a mile.

  "Blow your fire, Requiem!" Vale shouted, rearing at Meliora's side. "Burn them down!"

  Arrows flew.

  Lances thrust.

  Dragonfire washed across the sky.

  VALE

  A great battle awaits you, son of Requiem.

  As he stormed across the sky to the wall of fire, words of starlight echoed inside him.

  Live, son of Aeternum. Your war has not yet ended.

  As he flew to blood, pain, killing, maybe death upon the plains, Vale thought of Issari. A priestess of starlight. A mother of Requiem. A kind, guiding light, the woman who had given him life, who had birthed Requiem thousands of years ago.

  I fight for my family, he thought. I fight for my people. But I also fight for you, Lady in White.

  He stared at the enemy ahead—countless seraphim, some in chariots, others flying with their own wings—and blasted his dragonfire.

  Thousands of flaming jets blasted from the dragons around him.

  Arrows flew from the enemy host, darkening the sky. The projectiles—each was longer than a human arm, tipped with blades to dwarf daggers—slammed down into the charging dragons, some snapping against scales, others driving through and finding flesh. Dragons roared and lost their magic and fell, screaming, as men and women.

  Vale kept flying, roaring his flames.

  The dragonfire washed across the first ranks of seraphim. Feathered wings kindled. Gilt melted off steel armor. Skin peeled and seraphim screamed, flesh burning, but still the immortals charged. Their lances thrust, the blades like longswords.

  Vale bellowed and swerved. A lance scraped across his side, shattering scales, and he kept flying. He swung his claws, tearing through armor, digging into a seraph's torso, tugging out the innards, and casting the man down.

  "Fight, sons and daughters of Requiem!" he cried. "You are an army! You will slay the enemy!"

  Lances drove forth all around him. The blades slammed into dragons. One lance scraped across a dragon's underbelly where no scales grew, ripping the beast open, spilling the organs. All around, men and women fell, screaming, many already dead, their magic lost. The corpses slammed against the hills below.

  More seraphim stormed toward Vale. He bucked in the sky. He whipped his tail around, driving the spikes into a seraph's side, piercing his gut. He rose higher, dodging a lance, and propelled himself forward. He closed his jaws around a seraph's head and shoulders, bit down, tore the man in two, and spat out the arms and head. Another seraph shoved his lance forward, and the blade scraped across Vale's back. Scales flew like coins from a cut purse. Vale roared, grabbed the seraph's shield in his claws, and shoved it aside. He blasted his dragonfire, washing the seraph with the flames, sending him falling down to the ground like a comet.

  Fire, godlight, smoke, scales, blood, fangs, steel—they swirled through the sky, a great dance of death. Though bodies fell, though lances thrust, though countless seraphim still swooped from above, the dragons never lost their composure, never broke formation. All their lives, these Vir Requis had danced this dance macabre. All their lives, they had toiled in the valley of death, allowing the seraphim to beat them, slay them, and still they had toiled.

  Now, in the sky, no enemy would shatter their strength.

  Still they worked together—worked not at cutting stone but cutting flesh, not at mining black bitumen but the golden ichor of immortals. They sang again—no longer their songs of slavery, songs of straw and clay and tar and sweat, but songs of Requiem, songs of pride, of marble, of starlight, of a home among the birches and in the northern sky. A song of dragon
s.

  Before them they fell—a rain of seraphim, wings ablaze, and the corpses of the immortals littered the fields of Saraph, as plentiful as the crops that grew there. The crops the Vir Requis had planted; the crops they would claim.

  The food in this city is ours, Vale thought as he lashed his claws, swung his tail, blew his fire. The medicine in the houses of healing. The bricks of the temples, fortresses, silos. The cobblestones on the roads. The wine in jugs, the water drawn from wells, the wealth and work of this city—all these were made by Vir Requis slaves. All would belong to free dragons.

  They fought through the night.

  In the darkness, the chariots of fire cast out their light. Their firehorses tore through the ranks of dragons, wings aflame, sending men and women plunging down. The seraphim riders fired their arrows, slaying warriors, breaking the lines, and storming through the ranks of elders and children, cutting them down. Nursing mothers. Babes. Elders who had survived decades of servitude. As the lines of Requiem's army crumbled, they fell to their deaths below.

  Yet even as Vale's army regrouped and charged back into battle, those they protected joined the fight.

  Young dragons, no larger than ponies, blasted out streams of fire. Old dragons, their teeth fallen and their scales cracked, slammed into the ranks of seraphim. Every dragon fought this day, and in the fires above the city of Keleshan, all of Requiem became an army. All fought for their nation, for a memory of their stars—a memory that had passed through the generations. None here had ever seen the stars of Requiem, and none had seen King's Column, but those lights still shone in their hearts.

  Dawn was rising when the seraphim began to fall back.

  Those chariots and seraphim that still flew retreated into the city, their light vanishing behind the walls. The dragons of Requiem cheered.

  "The city is ours!" they cried. "Requiem rises! Requiem rises!"

  A rumble rose ahead.

  The city shook.

  As the dragons cheered, Vale stared at the city with narrowed eyes, his belly churning.

  Light grew within the massive, oval fortress that crowned the city, leaking through the windows and doors and between the bricks.

  Vale sneered.

  "Hold your ranks!" he cried. "Warriors of Requiem, rally here! Hold the lines!"

  On the mountaintop, the egg-shaped fortress shook, then began to crumble. Bricks rained from its rounded facades. The arches collapsed around the base. The towers that rose upon its crest cracked and tumbled. Soon the entire structure was collapsing, casting out beams of light.

  The great stone egg was hatching, and a creature unfurled from within.

  Vale stared, hissing. His heart sank and fear thrummed through him.

  A colossal beak, large as a dragon, thrust through the disintegrating stone shell. A wet, feathered body emerged, and wings spread out, large as fields. The massive bird rose upon the mountaintop, claws the size of houses, and raised its head to the rising sun. It let out a great cry, a sound that rolled across the city, scattering stones, bending trees, cracking the walls and flattening the farms below.

  "He is Ziz!" Meliora said, darting up to fly by Vale. The silver dragon's scales were cracked and bleeding, burns spread across her wings, and blood stained her claws and mouth. "The ancient sunbird of Saraph, a great symbol of the nation. They say he sleeps for a thousand years, only to rise again. I thought it only a tale."

  Vale grumbled. "Well, that tale is taking flight before us, and he doesn't look too happy that we woke him up."

  As Ziz's wings flapped, they snapped palm trees, toppled roofs, cracked walls across the city. The wind buffeted the army of dragons, tossing them back in the sky. Ziz rose higher, and his wings spread wide like storm clouds, hiding the sun. Darkness fell across the land.

  "Ziz, Ziz!" chanted the surviving seraphim upon the walls.

  Vale sneered, puffing out smoke.

  We have no time for this. Ishtafel gains on us every hour that we delay. He glanced behind him, and in the darkness he could see a sickly smoke on the horizon—Ishtafel's troops. Coming closer.

  He looked around him. Many from his army had fallen. Hundreds of Vir Requis lay dead upon the fields and city roofs below, perhaps thousands. Those dragons that still flew hurried to form new lines in the sky, readying what flames they could muster. Most were too weary for full blasts of dragonfire; only weak puffs of smoke left their nostrils, and only sparks left their jaws.

  The sunbird shrieked again, circling above. The cry was deafening. Vale couldn't help it; he screamed in the noise, his ears thundering, feeling ready to shatter. Several dragons lost their magic and fell, covering their ears, nearly hitting the ground before rising again as dragons. Flames burst from Ziz's eyes, and the sunbird turned in the sky . . . and came swooping toward the dragons.

  "Ziz, Ziz!" the seraphim cried. "Feed upon the dragons!"

  Fear—icy, overpowering—flowed across Vale.

  The bird plunged down, covering the sky, its beak large enough to swallow dragons whole. The dragons of Requiem cried out and began to scatter. Vale stared skyward and saw his death.

  Live, son of Aeternum. Your war does not end here.

  He let starlight fill his mind.

  Vale roared, his cry rising so loudly all the Royal Army could hear, even over the shriek of the mythological beast swooping from above.

  "Fly, Requiem! Fly and burn him down!"

  Vale soared.

  Hundreds, soon thousands of dragons soared with him.

  Their dragonfire rose, and Ziz's wrath fell upon them.

  Pillars of dragonfire slammed into the bird's wings and rained, showering back onto the dragons. Claws tore at feathered flesh. Yet Ziz did not burn, and his blood did not spill. His talons swung, as large as dragons, plowing through the hosts of Requiem. Their blows knocked the magic out of Requiem's warriors; they fell as men and women. The wind stormed, slamming into dragons, sending them tumbling through the sky, crashing against one another. The sunbird screeched again, and more men and women fell, eardrums pierced and bleeding.

  "We can't hurt it!" Meliora cried, flying by Vale as the wings beat above them, and the storm buffeted them. "None can slay Ziz."

  Vale roared and flew higher.

  A great battle awaits you, son of Requiem.

  "We will slay him!" he cried.

  He flew higher, rising among falling dragons, until he flew before the head of the beast. Above the span of its wings, the sun shone brilliantly, nearly blinding him. Ziz cried out, beak opened wide, large as a temple's nave.

  Head spinning, barely clinging to his magic, Vale blew his dragonfire.

  He had been breathing fire all night, and he had to reach deep inside him, to summon all his pain, the pain of his captivity, his torture in Saraph, to reach for all his grief over the loss of Tash, the loss of thousands, to raise all his pride, his honor, his love of Requiem and her stars. With mourning, fear, nobility, and fury, he cast out a great jet of dragonfire, hotter and brighter than any he had blown.

  The inferno shrieked across the sky and crashed into the great bird's eyes.

  Ziz tossed back his head and cried out again, but this time it was a cry of pain.

  Vale stormed forth and lashed his claws at the great bird's neck.

  It felt like clawing a granite cliff. Vale roared, feeling like his claws would snap off. He barely dented the beast, and the beak plunged down. Vale flew backward, blasted fire again. The beak snapped shut, missing him by inches. The talons rose, lashing at Vale. He tried to fly backward again, but he was too slow.

  The talons slammed against him.

  Each of those sharp, yellow nails was as large as a dragon. Thankfully, the sharp end missed Vale, but the polished surface of the talons crashed against him like the columns of a crumbling temple.

  The pain seemed to shatter every scale across him.

  Vale lost his magic.

  He fell as a man.

  He tumbled between dozens of soarin
g dragons, their fire rising around him. Dozens of other Vir Requis fell with him, dead or dying.

  "Vale!" With a flash of red scales, Lucem soared and caught Vale in his claws. "Vale, old boy! You all right?"

  Vale groaned and shook his head, hanging in the red dragon's grip, still in human form. "Just stunned a bit."

  Dipping to avoid another lash of the great talons, Lucem snorted. "That's what you get for trying to be a hero like me. There's only one legendary hero in Requiem, old boy, and that's Lucem the Red. But come, let's be heroes together." The red dragon grinned toothily. "I'm the only one who ever scaled the walls of Tofet. What's killing a giant bird the size of a mountain?"

  Vale took a deep breath, clearing the pain, and shifted back into a dragon, tugging himself free from Lucem's grip. They were now flying below Ziz. The massive bird's wings hid the sun again, casting darkness across them. Hundreds of dragons were rising around them, blowing fire, trying to burn the beast, but Ziz kept flying. The talons kept lashing, and Vale grimaced to see the bird's beak close around a dragon and swallow.

  "Fly with me," Lucem said and began diving, moving away from the great bird.

  Vale growled. "Do you flee from battle?"

  The red dragon snorted and looked over his shoulder at Vale. "Dive as a hero or soar and die as a martyr."

  With a grunt, Vale followed. The two dragons plunged downward, weaving between their comrades. The other warriors of Requiem, all rising to attack the bird above, cried out in rage and fear.

  "Vale the commander and Lucem the hero flee from battle!" one dragon cried.

  "Our prince and hero are cowards!" said another dragon.

  Across the battlefield, dragons looked around in dismay. Some began to flee the battle.

  "Lucem—" Vale began.

  "Trust me!" said the red dragon.

  Eyes narrowed, smoke blasting between his teeth, Lucem kept swooping. The ground rushed up toward them, littered with corpses of both Vir Requis and seraphim, cloaked in shadows under the veil of wings. An instant before he could hit the ground, Lucem curved his flight, reached out his claws, and grabbed a lance from a fallen seraph.