Pillars of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  The Overlord swung his shield toward her. The metal disk, wider than a man's arm span, flashed with light, its sharp edge stained with blood.

  Til screamed and swerved, trying to dodge the blow, but she was too slow. The shield scraped across her front leg, cutting a deep gash. She screamed. She nearly lost her magic. She forced herself to beat her wings, and her dragonfire burst forth, washing across the Overlord again, but seemingly not harming the seraph.

  His shield swung again, slamming into her side, cracking her scales.

  Til lost her magic.

  She fell, blood spilling from her side, eyes rolling.

  The battle spun around her. The sky and sea whirled. Above her the light shone, and he laughed.

  No.

  Still in human form, Til gripped the hilt of her sword.

  "Goodbye, Til!" the Overlord called above her, laughing. "Goodbye, my darling."

  No.

  The dragons all flew around her and above her. The lost dragons of Requiem, come to rebuild their homeland.

  No. No. I will not die now. Not so close to Requiem's rebirth.

  She shifted. She soared, an orange dragon. Bleeding. Burnt. Haunted by countless deaths, countless days and nights of running and hiding. A broken woman, perhaps one too hurt to ever heal. But a woman who would still fight. A dragon who would still roar.

  She rose toward him through the battle, washed him with flames, and soared higher.

  He spun beneath her, raising his lance.

  Til kept ascending, rising high above all other seraphim, high toward the stars of her people. The Draco constellation shone above her, strands of starlight connecting its stars, a great silvery dragon watching over her.

  Below her he roared, a twisted creature, burning in his own sunlight, his halo flaring and sputtering. His lance rose toward her, prepared to cut out her heart.

  Til swooped and released her magic.

  She plunged down as a human.

  His wings beat and his lance rose

  Til drew her longsword.

  The lance scraped across her side, cracking a plate of armor, and she thrust her sword downward.

  The blade—a weapon of the bellators, Requiem's ancient order of knighthood—crashed into the Overlord's halo.

  Light.

  Sound.

  Fury.

  The halo shattered, exploded, cast out thousands of burning white shards. Til screamed as they burned her. She tried to summon her magic again, to lash into him with claws, but the light was too great, the sound washing across her.

  As he fell, the Overlord reached out and grabbed her throat.

  "So . . . there's some bite to the bitch," he hissed, his voice no longer melodious but ugly, raspy. Broken shards of his halo still sputtered over his head. Other shards, like broken metal forged of light, had lacerated his head, his face, his eye. The luminous blades thrust out from him, leaking golden ichor that flowed down his skin, burning rivulets into the flesh.

  Til tried to shift again, but when scales began to rise across her, and when her body grew, his grip tightened around her throat, constricting her, and she lost her magic like a collared slave. The Overlord's wings still beat, holding them high above the ruined city and beach. He sneered, licking the ichor.

  "You . . ." Til struggled for breath, rasping out each word. "You . . . lost. Requiem . . . rises."

  "No, my little sweetling." He tightened his grip. "Requiem falls now between my host and the harpies flying from the south. And you will die now, at my moment of greatest glory, in the battle where we eradicate all weredragons. Die now, girl. Die. Die."

  She couldn't breathe. Her neck creaked. Blackness closed in around her, until she saw only him, only his lacerated face, only his burning golden eyes, the pupils like sunbursts, his bloody teeth. Then stars flowed over her vision—stars like those of Requiem, floating everywhere, rising in columns. Caught in his grip, she floundered, trying to slap him, to kick him, until her limbs lost all strength and hung loosely.

  The Overlord screamed.

  Horns burst out from his chest, sizzling with ichor, then pulled back.

  His shriek tore across Til, leaving only ringing in her ears. His grip loosened and she gulped down breath.

  The Overlord thrashed in the sky, clutching at his wounds, beating his wings, wailing in agony and rage. Behind him flew a small black dragon, horns bloody.

  "Bim," Til whispered hoarsely.

  She shifted into a dragon.

  She lashed her claws, ripping into the Overlord's chest, shattering his armor and lacerating the skin. She lashed her tail, driving the spikes deep into his side. She blasted out fire, burning one of his wings.

  With a roar that tore across the sky, the Overlord fell.

  He plunged down like a comet, a ball of light, tearing through dragons, burning them and still crashing downward, leaving a trail of smoke. When he slammed onto the beach, the world seemed to shake, and buildings collapsed in the city.

  Til flew down, weaving her way between dragons and seraphim that still battled around her. She bled from multiple wounds. Her breath rasped. She all but crashed onto the sand and lost her magic on impact. Bim landed at her side and lost his magic too.

  For a moment, sister and brother lay in the sand, too hurt and weary to move. Beside them he moaned, twitched, smoked—the Overlord.

  Til rose to her feet. As dragons and seraphim battled in the sky, she limped toward him.

  The Overlord lay on the beach, his last strands of light flickering. His lance lay at his side. His left wing was lacerated, and shards of his halo still pierced his head and face, their light fading. His armor had cracked and melted, revealing burnt flesh. He seemed smaller this way. Almost human. Just a dying man like the countless who had died in this land.

  "Please," the Overlord whispered, voice hoarse, ichor in his mouth. "Please, Til. I only wanted to ease your pain. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Til. I—"

  With a sudden movement, the Overlord reached for his lance.

  Til kicked his hand aside, crushing his fingers, and grabbed the weapon.

  The Overlord bellowed, trying to rise from the sand. Til kicked him down and placed the tip of the lance against his neck.

  They both froze. He stared up at her, eyes wide, face pale. She stared down into those heartless eyes. Golden eyes. Sunburst eyes. The eyes that had laughed as he slew her father. Her hands trembled around the shaft of the lance.

  "Look away, Bim," she said, voice soft, never removing her eyes from the Overlord.

  Her brother stepped closer. He stared down too. "I want to see this."

  Til's legs shook, and she tightened her grip on the shaft.

  "You murdered him." She stared at the Overlord, speaking through grinding teeth. "You murdered thousands. And you murdered my brother's soul. You are not a god, Overlord. You are a monster."

  Lying in the sand beneath her, burnt and bleeding, the lance against his neck, the Overlord laughed.

  "You are like I am," the seraph said, sputtering out saliva. "You call me a murderer, yet now you threaten to murder me. You call me a monster, yet you and your brother delight in death. Look at him, Til! Only a boy and already bloodthirsty. We are the same, whore of Requiem. Just killers. Just like your father was. Just like—"

  She drove the lance into his neck.

  He gave a last sputter, and his breath died. His body loosened, and his eyes saw no more.

  "Maybe we are monsters," Til whispered. "But you made us so. We will find redemption in the halls of a rebuilt Requiem."

  She turned away from the corpse and faced Bim.

  He stared back at her, and she expected to see another blank gaze, a lifeless face, a haunted boy with a heart of stone.

  But instead Bim wept.

  "Til," he whispered.

  She fell to her knees, pulled him into her embrace, and clung to him, smoothing his hair, nearly crushing him, weeping too.

  "We did it, Bim," she whispered, shaking, her arms wrapp
ed around him as he wept against her shoulder. "We did it. It's over now. It's over."

  MELIORA

  "Requiem," she whispered, staring around her. Her body trembled and her eyes stung. "I'm in Requiem."

  Dawn rose across the land, illuminating ruin and death. The city on the coast—the fabled Lynport, the ancient jewel of Requiem's south—lay fallen, its halls collapsed under the rain of chariots. Thousands of corpses lay everywhere, both of seraphim and Vir Requis. The battle had ended, leaving the land bleeding and ravaged, blood and death upon the beach, in the water, and on the forests and hills beyond.

  And here it was. Even in ruin. Even bloodied and burnt. Here was holy ground.

  Requiem.

  Meliora knelt on the beach. She lowered her hands. And she felt it. The sand of her homeland. Each grain a miracle.

  They gathered around her on the beach. Her family. Her friends. The people Meliora had once oppressed, living as a princess in their tyrant's palace. The people she would now die for, the people who had chosen her to lead them, the people she would always love. Along the coast, the plains, the hills they gathered, the children of Requiem.

  Meliora shifted into a dragon and soared.

  She rose high, circling her people. They crowded below in human form, as plentiful as the grains of sand on the beach, spreading out for miles. They wore tattered burlap. They were thin, weary, wounded, but their eyes shone, and they prayed and wept and sang with joy.

  "Hear me, children of Requiem!" Meliora said, flying above as a white dragon. "For five hundred years, we cried out to the stars. Chained. Beaten. Collared. For five hundred years, we dreamed of our homeland. Through fire and rain, through death and despair, we have traveled here, defeating many enemies. And we have reached holy ground. We have reached Requiem."

  Their voices rose together, chanting for their land.

  Meliora glided on the wind, staring south. She rose higher, so high the people below faded to but distant specks, then just a blur along the coast. She flew so high the air grew cold and thin, and she could barely breathe. She stared south, and there she saw them, a gray haze on the horizon, still a hundred leagues away.

  A cloud of harpies.

  Ishtafel.

  She glided down until she flew close enough to call to her people again.

  "We have traveled for many days, through much danger, and we found our homeland. But our fight is not over, Requiem! An enemy approaches from the south, an enemy greater than any we have yet faced. Ishtafel flies toward us, leading a host of harpies, and he seeks to steal our homeland from us, so soon after we've reclaimed it."

  The people below cried out, some in dismay, others in rage.

  "We will fight him!" Meliora cried. "Not because we crave war. Not because we crave victory or glory. We will fight him because we have no choice. Because he seeks to destroy us, to slay us all. No longer will he offer us the collar, only the lance. And so we will fight him, Requiem. But not here. Not upon this coast. We fly north! We fly to the heartland of our realm. To Old Requiem, the place where our nation was born. If we must make a final stand, it will be in the light of King's Column. Arise, children of Requiem! Arise and fill your hearts with song. We fly north! We fly to our column! There we will fight this war. Not as slaves. Not as exiles. We will fight as proud Vir Requis defending our home."

  They roared. They rose as dragons.

  They flew over the ruins, over the corpses of seraphim, leaving the coast behind . . . flying north, flying over Requiem.

  ISHTAFEL

  They landed on the coast of Requiem under clouds of smoke, so weary they barely mustered the energy to feed upon the corpses of seraphim.

  Ishtafel walked across the coast, grinning savagely. His body blazed with an inferno of agony. Every step, every twitch of his muscles, every breath bathed him with the fury of collapsing suns. His muscles ached from the long flight across the sea. His throat was parched and bleeding, his belly roiling with hunger, his limbs shaking with weakness. And yet those pains vanished under the all-consuming flood of pain from his burnt flesh—the burns of dragonfire, the fire of Tash, the reptilian whore.

  But still Ishtafel walked across the coast. As around him myriads of harpies collapsed onto the sand, breathing raggedly, gasping for breath, crawling to find food, Ishtafel held his back straight. He crossed the sand onto the solid earth of Requiem. He stood in the shadow of a ruined city under a sky of raining ash.

  "Here it was," he whispered, tasting his blood as his face tore within his mask of metal. "Here we landed so long ago."

  Ahead, Ishtafel could see it again—Requiem five hundred years ago, on the first day of his invasion. In his mind, these ruins stood again as the great city the weredragons had called Lynport, their southernmost outpost. In his memories, those weredragons still filled the sky, thousands of them, clad in armor and roaring fire—not ragged refugees but soldiers in a reptilian army.

  "And we slew them, Reehan," Ishtafel whispered. "We slew them together."

  He remembered the glory of that day. He had flown with his lover in one great chariot, its flames red and gold, their eight firehorses pulling them into their first battle. Ishtafel and Reehan had fired their arrows together, felling the beasts. They had raised shields together, blocking the dragonfire, had thrust their lances as one, cracking scales. Together they had led the charge. Together they had conquered this land.

  Yet we did not fall together.

  He winced to remember her lifeless body in his arms. To remember the light, fury, and love in her eyes go dark. He had slain many weredragons then. He had captured the rest, tormenting them for centuries. And now, here in this land, his revenge could be complete. Here he would grind their bones to dust in the light of their column, and he would send that column crashing down.

  He looked across the coast, the city, and the hills. Thousands of seraphim lay dead here, burnt with dragonfire. The harpies were gorging themselves on the dead, gaining strength from the flesh and ichor. Their claws tore into the corpses' torsos, and their mouths dug deep into the cavities, tugging out organs. The snakes upon the harpies' heads feasted too, growing fat on the meat.

  Ishtafel beat his aching, featherless wings. He rose higher above the ruins, and he stared north across the land he had conquered, the land he would now crush. There in the distance, many leagues away, they flew.

  "The weredragons," he whispered in the hot, smoky wind. "And you, Meliora, future mother of my children. You will live. And you will envy the dead."

  He brought Meliora into his mind. Her tall, slender frame. Her terrified eyes. Her waiting womb. He would soon fill that womb, and her children would rule over this land of bones.

  He flew toward the feasting harpies. He dined with them, staining his lips, and he slept. In darkness they would fly again. For now he dreamed of burning dragons, of twisting tunnels, and in his dreams it was Meliora traveling the underground with him, not Reehan, and it was Meliora who died in his arms, and it was her corpse that he seeded, and her lifeless flesh from which emerged the glory of his dynasty.

  MELIORA

  For seven days and nights, they flew over the wilderness of Requiem, cleansing the land.

  Hundreds of thousands of dragons, they flew over the southern forests, burning the seraphim who flew toward them, casting their bodies down upon the land.

  They dived toward Castellum Luna, the fabled fortress of the south, where Princess Mori Aeternum herself had faced the phoenixes many centuries ago. Here too seraphim lurked, but the new Royal Army of Requiem slew them and burned their corpses, scouring the land of their light.

  They kept flying, traveling northward, until the great Amerath Mountains soared to their left, the ancient range where many great battles had been waged. Chariots of fire rose from those rocky crests, and many dragons fell here, but here too the seraphim crashed and burned upon the mountainsides. The host of Requiem flew onward, leaving a trail of death, of ichor, and of a purified home.

  Jaren
flew with her, leading the camp, a green dragon, a priest and healer, his prayers soothing the wounded. Vale stormed ahead at every enemy that rose, a vicious blue dragon stained with blood, leading the Royal Army in battle, slaying the enemies. Elory and Lucem flew here too, never far apart, the princess and the hero of Requiem, inspiring their people.

  And I lead them all, Meliora thought. A woman torn in two. A woman in pain. A woman returning to a home she had never known was hers.

  Countless times, Meliora had imagined this day, imagined flying over Requiem, scouring the land from the stain of Saraph, rebuilding a homeland for dragons. Yet now as she flew here, she did not feel the glow of holiness, and the stars had never felt more distant. Requiem was beautiful, a northern land of great forests, mountains, and rivers, and yet as they flew across their land, they stained it with blood.

  With the blood of seraphim, Meliora thought. The blood of my second half.

  "Daughter," Jaren said to her, gliding to fly at her side. "You do not sing with the others. You do not seem to rejoice in our victories, in our return to our land. Are you all right, daughter? There is sadness in your eyes"

  Meliora looked at her father—her true father, the father she had only met this year. The green dragon was a great priest, a holy leader of Requiem, a healer. And yet blood stained his claws, and scratches, dents, and burns marred his body. Flecks of dried ichor still stained Meliora's own claws, and she could still taste the flesh of her enemies in her mouth.

  "In my dreams," Meliora said, "I envisioned a pure Requiem. A Requiem like the celestial one beyond the stars, untouched by war, by death. Yet we found a bloodstained Requiem. Perhaps I was an innocent girl. As I had imagined Tofet to be a land of plenty, I imagined Requiem to be a land of beauty. Yet here too I found only agony, only destruction, only bloodshed."

  Jaren looked at her with soft eyes. "Requiem has never been a land of peaceful beauty, daughter. For thousands of years, since our ancestor Aeternum raised his column, it has been a land of bloodshed. A land we had to constantly defend, constantly fight for. A land that burned over and over, fell again and again. We did not come to Requiem to find peace. We came to find our home of old."