Pillars of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  "Grab one!" Lucem said, rising again.

  Vale spread his wings wide, trapping air, and reached out to pluck a fallen lance like a raptor grabbing a fish.

  Again they soared. Their fellow dragons parted before them. The two dragons, red and black, rose with spears in their claws, heading back toward the massive sunbird that hid the sky.

  "Take the right!" Lucem cried.

  Vale grumbled. He thought he knew what Lucem was thinking. "Meet you in the middle."

  The red dragon grinned. "Not sure our lances are long enough, but I'll try."

  The dragons parted ways, Vale curving his ascent toward the right, Lucem to the left. As hundreds of dragons blew fire all around, Vale rose above Ziz's wings again. Once more, he emerged into the blue sky.

  The head of the bird shrieked above, the beak crushing more dragons. Several warriors of Requiem were flying around the head, blasting dragonfire, but none could burn the great sunbird.

  Ziz is impenetrable to claws and fangs, fireproof, impossible for dragons to cut, Vale thought. When the bird screeched again, Vale grimaced, his eardrums thrumming so madly he thought they'd rip. It hurts our ears. Time to hurt his.

  He flew closer, dodging the snapping beak. Other dragons flew all around, and streams of dragonfire crisscrossed the sky. The beak lashed again and again, fast as striking vipers, devouring dragons. In the distance, across the great feathered head, Vale could glimpse a soaring red dragon, clutching a lance.

  There! Vale stared. He saw it. When Ziz's wings blasted air, raising the feathers on the head, the hole revealed itself—no larger than a man's head.

  Its ear.

  A few hundred yards away, Lucem was charging toward the head. Vale bared his fangs and charged too.

  The great bird spun its head from side to side, finally settling on Vale. Its eyes narrowed balefully, and the bird thrust its head forward, beak snapping.

  Vale cringed.

  The beak opened wide, prepared to grab him.

  Wincing, Vale released his magic.

  He shrunk at once to human form and fell. The beak snapped shut inches away. The lance tumbled and spun through the sky.

  Before the beak could snap again, Vale shifted back into a dragon. He grabbed the spear and soared. Lucem came flying forth.

  "Now, Vale!" the red dragon cried.

  Vale whipped around in the sky, dodging the snapping beak, rose higher, ascended above the head . . . then released his magic again.

  As he fell in human form, he grabbed the lance.

  There.

  Wind gusted, raising the feathers on Ziz's head.

  There!

  Falling as a man, Vale thrust his lance.

  The blade—long and sharp as a sword—drove into the massive bird's ear. Vale pushed with all his might, feeling the blade tear through the eardrum, driving deeper, and he kept pushing until the shaft sank deep into the head.

  Across the great head, Lucem shoved forth his own lance, driving the blade and shaft into Ziz's opposite ear.

  The sunbird screamed.

  It was a sound so horrible, so loud, so anguished, that Vale covered his ears and fell, still in human form. He thumped down onto the creature's wing. Above, the massive head thrashed, the lances still embedded into it. Blood leaked. The wings trembled, struggling to beat.

  Vale rose as a dragon. He flew higher. Lucem flew with him. Below them, the great bird cried out—a sound that seemed almost afraid, almost human.

  Vale expected to feel triumph, pride in Requiem, maybe only relief—but instead he felt pity. He felt guilt.

  We slew a mythological beast. We slew a frightened animal, newly hatched.

  Below him, Ziz's head swayed, and the great bird the size of a city began to fall.

  Vale had to look away, his eyes suddenly damp.

  All across the sky, the surviving dragons cheered. Many fired down dragonfire, roasting the sunbird as it fell. The earth and sky shook as Ziz slammed against the land, its one wing draped across the city wall, the other across the fields. The animal gave one more cry, weaker, softer . . . and then fell silent.

  "Damn yeah!" Lucem cried. "That's how it's done."

  The red dragon flew in circles, hooting with joy. But Vale only lowered his head.

  A great battle awaits you, son of Requiem.

  "But it was not this battle," he whispered. "Not this slaughter far from our home."

  As Lucem still yipped with joy, and as the dragons cheered all around, Vale turned to look south. The gray cloud in the distance was moving closer—Ishtafel's hosts. They had fought a bloody battle here, one that had tested Vale's new army and all his resolve. But the greatest battle still awaited—one that Vale hoped he would never have to fight.

  MELIORA

  We must move fast.

  She glanced toward the south, where a shadow approached. Ishtafel and his host of harpies, a million strong. Only an hour or two away.

  Meliora pulled her wings close to her body and dived. The city of Keleshan rose below upon the mountain, the egg-shaped fortress on its crest broken, the great bird itself dead upon the walls and roofs. The last few seraphim fled from the city, scattering in all directions.

  But there was still life in Keleshan. Still many souls. Awaiting her. Awaiting salvation.

  In the dawn's light, evil rising like a tidal wave behind her, Meliora Aeternum, Mother of Requiem, descended into the city of Keleshan with a pillar of white fire. From homes, huts, fields, and refineries they emerged—the slaves of the city. Hobbled. Collared. Beaten and broken down, but singing, calling out her name.

  "Meliora the Merciful! The Queen of Requiem arrives!"

  Meliora had not known her tales had spread this far, yet these people sang for her, weeping in the city streets and on the roofs. Her people. Her children. Children of Requiem.

  Kira and Talana flew at her sides, her trusted handmaidens-turned-comrades. The two young dragons carried crates, which they shattered in their claws. Keys—thousands of keys—rained onto the city.

  "Open your chains, children of Requiem!" Meliora cried, flying above the homes and temples and fields. "Unlock your collars, Vir Requis. Summon the magic of starlight, and fly with me! Fly with your nation."

  Hundreds of thousands of dragons, freed from Tofet, flew above the city. Thousands more rose from Keleshan below—wobbling, afraid, flying for the first time in their lives. Their chains fell. Their collars lay smashed on the streets. And they rose, dragon after dragon, scales bright, fire hot, tears in their eyes and their songs filling the sky.

  "Requiem!" they sang. "May our wings forever find your sky."

  The ancient song of Requiem—the song their people had sung for thousands of years, since King Aeternum and Queen Laira had raised a column in a northern forest, since Priestess Issari had shone her light. Past the eras, the generations that had fought and fell and wept and prayed, the song of dragons remained. That song spread across the camp, filling their hearts—the prayer of a nation.

  Yet in the south, a different song rose.

  Meliora could hear it now, and she shivered.

  A demonic buzz. Shrieks. Jeers. Cackles. The song of harpies, and above it a distant voice—almost impossible to hear—deep, calling out to her. Vowing eternal pain. The voice of Ishtafel.

  Meliora sneered.

  That is one battle I will not fight, not yet, not here. This day we slew a great enemy, but Ishtafel is an enemy we cannot defeat.

  "Fly, dragons of Requiem!" she shouted, rising higher in the sky. "Fly north. Fly with me. To the coast. To the sea. To Requiem!"

  She raised her pillar of white dragonfire, a twin to King's Column in the north. The camp gathered around her beacon.

  She flew north, leaving the city of Keleshan behind, and they followed. They had lost many, and they had gained many more. Together they flew, moving as fast as they could, seeking a home, fleeing the darkness.

  ELORY

  As the dragon flew northward, leaving the
sacked city behind, Elory kept glancing over her shoulder and seeing, hearing, remembering.

  Ishtafel's host of harpies flew perhaps fifty leagues away—just close enough to cover the horizon. And they were closing the distance quickly. Every hour that Elory looked behind her, the enemy seemed a mile closer. Before fighting in Keleshan, only Requiem's scouts or highest flyers—those who dared rise until the air thinned to nearly nothing—had been able to see Ishtafel in the south. Yet now he was always there, seen even from normal altitude.

  Even with one missing ear, Elory could hear them. Cackles. Chants. Shrieks. Their stench carried on the wind, assaulting her nostrils even from here. Even with so many dragons flying around her, Elory could not feel safe. Not with that host of killers on her trail.

  Only a thousand harpies devastated us, slaying ten dragons for each one of them. Elory shuddered as she flew. Now a million of those creatures fly in pursuit, gaining on us.

  She forced herself to look away, to gaze around at her fellow Vir Requis. The dragons flew in a great camp, a kingdom in the air. About a third of them flew as dragons; the others rode their comrades, resting in human forms. The new arrivals from Keleshan had swelled their numbers. The Royal Army surrounded the weaker dragons, and at the head of the column flew Meliora, raising her white flames into the sky, a beacon that even the southernmost dragons—several miles behind—could see and follow.

  And Ishtafel can see it too, Elory thought.

  Worse than the sight of that distant cloud, than the noise, the stench, the fear—were the memories.

  The images kept flashing before Elory—when she stared into the distance, when she slept, sometimes surprising her, creeping up on her. Whether they pounced, lurked, cut, taunted her, the memories were always there.

  Ishtafel tossing down the bruised, ravaged body of Mayana, the young laborer from Tofet, Elory's dearest friend. Ishtafel's lance thrusting into Mother, slaying the dragon who had only been trying to protect her daughter. And Ishtafel dragging Elory into the ziggurat, promising to invade her body once her training in the pleasure pits was complete.

  I don't know how to forget, Elory thought. I know how to fight an enemy who flies in this sky, but how do I fight an enemy inside me?

  She craned her neck around to look at her back. Upon her violet scales they slept: three young children, their parents slain in this war. The eldest was barely a youth, the youngest a babe.

  There will be many more orphans before we reach our homeland, Elory thought. I promise you, children, that I will fight, kill, even die to build you a home. A place where you can be free, safe, where you can grow up like the Vir Requis of old, proud and strong.

  She flapped her wings and flew faster, gliding over thousands of dragons below, until Elory reached the head of the camp. Meliora still flew there—she hadn't slept for days, it seemed. Farther back glided a long, green dragon—Jaren, Priest of Requiem.

  "Father," Elory said, coming to glide at his side.

  He seemed to hear the hurt in her voice. He turned toward her, eyes soft, and caressed her with the tip of his wing. "My daughter."

  Elory had been strong through her battles. She had faced the lashes of the overseers and stayed standing. She had fought in the most cursed of days, the decimation in Shayeen. She had battled the seraphim over Tofet, she had faced the Rancid Angels in the darkness, and she had slain harpies and battled a bird the size of the sky. Throughout her wars, she had roared in fury and pride, and she had fought as a warrior. Yet now, with these children sleeping on her back, with her memories free to fill her in the clear sky, tears filled Elory's eyes.

  "Father," she said, "can you tell me the story again? The one I always loved the most? About Queen Laira?"

  The green dragon nuzzled her with his snout, smiled sadly, and nodded. "Of course."

  Again, Jaren told her that tale—a tale over five thousand years old. The tale of Laira, the Mother of Requiem, the kingdom's founder and first queen.

  "Laira grew up in a tribe of hunters who roamed the northern plains," Father said. "She was a frightened girl, blessed with the magic of starlight, magic she had to hide. The other tribesmen tormented her, starved her, beat her, slew her mother, slew all others with her magic—the magic to become a dragon. Laira escaped her tribe of nomads, and for many days, she wandered the wilderness. She was cold. She was hungry. She was wounded. The nights were dark and she thought that dawn could never shine."

  Elory nodded, her tears falling. "But she found something."

  "She found something." Jared smiled. "A hidden canyon in an escarpment. A waterfall. And a group of others—others hunted, exiled, others the world called 'weredragons.' People who could grow wings and scales, breathe fire, rise as dragons. They fought a great war, those early outcasts hiding in the canyon. King Aeternum led them to battles against the demons of the Abyss. Issari, the Priestess in White, healed their wounds, then rose into the sky, becoming the eye of the Draco constellation. And it was Laira, first queen and great mother to our family, who prayed to our column, who blessed that pillar that still calls us home."

  Elory now repeated that prayer. Laira's Prayer. The prayer that now belonged to all of Requiem.

  "As the leaves fall upon our marble tiles, as the breeze rustles the birches beyond our columns, as the sun gilds the mountains above our halls—know, young child of the woods, you are home, you are home. Requiem! May our wings forever find your sky."

  Elory was descended of Laira and Aeternum, they said—the many generations running unbroken from those early founders to her. To Vale. To Meliora. And Elory whispered a prayer of her own.

  "May we find that home again," she whispered. "May we see those birches, those golden mountains. May we pray again in the light of our column, and may our wings again find the sky of Requiem."

  "We will find Requiem," Jaren said. "I promise you, Elory. Our road is long and strewn with thorns. Like Laira, we are in darkness, but we are not lost. Our homeland awaits us, and we will raise her halls again."

  The sun was setting. The children on her back awoke, and Lucem flew up to carry them onward. Elory released her magic for the first time in a night and day. She lay on her father's scaly back, closed her eyes, and slept. For the first time in many nights, Elory did not dream of the horrors of Tofet; she dreamed of a lost girl, wandering a dark forest in the north, seeking a home, moving by the light of the stars.

  BIM

  Claws reached out from the darkness, grabbed him, shook him, cut him.

  "No," he mumbled in the shadows. "No. Release me. Stop!"

  But the creature kept shaking him, a beast in the darkness.

  "Up, Bim!" the troll said. "Up. Run!"

  Bim's eyes fluttered open. Shadows spread around him, and orange light crackled in the distance. The trees swayed, branches creaking and scattering snow. His sister knelt above him, gripping his shoulders and shaking him.

  "Up, Bim! We have to run."

  Bim moaned. He didn't want to run again. He wanted to return to sleep. He wanted to sink into the snow, to let them burn him. To finally die, finally rest.

  But groggily he rose. He rose like he did every hour or two. And he ran through the darkness with his sister, fleeing the fire.

  He didn't look over his shoulder. He never looked anymore. But Bim heard them. Thunderous hooves in the sky, beating wings of fire, and the voices of seraphim, calling to him, calling for his blood, vowing to bugger him and his sister with their spears, to snap their bones, to tug out their entrails. He smelled them too—the smell of burning wood, of brimstone, of sulfur, of dried blood. The light of their chariots painted the forest red, and still Bim and Til ran.

  "Here!" Til whispered.

  Her hair was red as the flames, and snow dusted her cloak. Her pieces of armor, collected from many corpses, lay strapped across patches of fur, silent as they ran. She pointed toward a fallen tree, its roots rising like a wooden fairy fort. Below the roots, under the trunk, gaped a black burrow. The firelight
grew closer behind, the chariots closing the distance.

  His sister all but shoved him into the burrow. He crouched in the den, the icy trunk above him, the roots rising like the bars of a cage. Til crawled in next and huddled beside him, pushing herself deeper.

  The chariots stormed above.

  Ash fell outside the burrow like gliding snow.

  The wooden burrow creaked, and the seraphim laughed above. Bim cringed, hugging his sister. Her arms nearly crushed him. He screwed his eyes shut, the smell of them filling his nostrils.

  "Find the weredragons!" cried a voice above.

  "Skin them alive!"

  "We'll make coats from their skin and flutes from their bones!"

  Bim huddled deeper, pressing his back against the tree. Til squeezed him so tightly he could barely breathe.

  "It's all right," she whispered into his ear. "They'll fly by. Count with me. One . . . two . . . three . . ."

  Shuddering, he counted with her, forcing the words out in a hoarse whisper. He had to just think of the numbers. Just numbers and nothing else. Not the blades peeling off his skin. Not the hooks cutting into his belly, pulling out his insides. Just numbers, that was all. He pretended that he was counting dragons.

  His heartbeat slowed. Til's grip relaxed and he forced himself to breathe.

  "Twenty-three . . . twenty-four . . ."

  Moments until life or death. The number of breaths before torture or another hour of dreams.

  "Twenty-seven . . ."

  And their sounds faded. The firelight died down. The seraphim flew onward, leaving only ash, shadows, and echoes in their wake.

  Bim relaxed, closed his eyes, and slept in his sister's arms.

  Again he dreamed, the troll lurking in the shadows, circling him, sniffing. Again its claws grabbed him, tugging him, the fangs biting.