Arms stared, eyes burning. "I should join the Blood Wolves, I should. Look at you. This is your gang? A group of freaks. You with your dog teeth, and Legs with those stilts of his. It's pathetic, it is."
Legs guffawed and drooled. "Dog teeth, dog teeth! I like to see them."
Teeth growled, drew a knife from his belt, and held it at Arms's throat. Arms stiffened and his eyes shot daggers.
"You don't like it here?" Teeth hissed. His stomach churned and rage nearly blinded him. His hands shook and his heart pounded. "You want to join the Blood Wolves?"
Arms snarled, the knife at his neck.
"Yes," he hissed.
Teeth swiped the knife across his throat. Blood spurted. For an instant, Arms seemed not to notice. He merely stared, eyes narrowed. Then he grabbed his throat, trying in vain to stop the blood. He fell to his knees, and suddenly he was weeping, and trying to speak, trying to breathe, but he could do neither.
Teeth stared down at him. "There's your blood, Arms. Blood's what you wanted. Blood's what you got. And I got my body. A body with nice long arms."
He could have given Arms a better death. He could have finished the job—stabbed him in the heart, or bashed in his head. But Teeth wanted to watch. He stood over the thrashing boy until Arms merely twitched, stared up with pleading eyes, then gurgled and lay limp. For several moments he merely whimpered and his eyelids fluttered. And then Teeth had his body for the day.
The wind moaned as Teeth and Legs carried the body through the rubble. It cut through Teeth's clothes and pierced his skin. The blood was sticky on his fingers. The sun was setting when they saw Flammis Palace ahead. Two of its towers had collapsed, and several walls had crumbled. It wasn't much better off than the rest of the city, but Dies Irae still ruled there. His banners, white and gold, thudded atop the remaining towers. His guards covered the standing walls, bows in hand.
Teeth and Legs approached the front gates. The bricks were blackened from fire, and the doors were charred. The dragons had breathed most of their fire here when storming the palace. Guards stood at the gateway, clad in plate armor, swords in hand. Their skin looked sallow, and sacks hung beneath their bloodshot eyes. There wasn't much food in Confutatis anymore, and folk whispered that some of the guards had taken to eating the bodies. The stench of rot hung heavy here.
"New body for the Commander," Teeth told the guards. "Fresh, this one."
Legs nodded, holding Arms's other end. "Fresh, fresh! We like them that way. Yes sir we do."
The guards grunted. "All right, boys. Looks better than your last catch. In you go."
Teeth tugged the body, moving past the broken doors. Legs followed. They stepped into a hallway, its northern wall fallen. Bloodstains covered the floor and ash coated the ceiling. One column was smashed and stained red. Teeth knew the way. Hoisting the body, he turned left into a stairwell. The stairs wound into shadows. Torches lined the walls, but most were unlit. Teeth and Legs delved into the dungeons of Flammis Palace, the stairway leading them down and down into the cold and darkness. The palace was twice as deep as it was tall, and Teeth climbed down to its deepest chambers.
Screams, creaks, and squeals echoed through the tunnels. A man laughed. A saw grinded. Screeches rose and fell.
Teeth and Legs walked down a hallway, its floor sticky with blood, and entered a towering chamber. Torches lined the walls, flickering against rows of tables. Body parts covered the tabletops. Rows of legs covered one table, arms another, heads a third. A pile of torsos rotted in the corner. Uncarved bodies hung on walls and filled wheelbarrows.
Dies Irae stood at the back of the room.
Teeth froze. On previous visits, he had met underlings, not the Commander himself. He had not expected to meet Dies Irae here. Once emperor of a mighty realm, Dies Irae now ruled a wasteland of desolation, death, and disease. His skin was grey. Blood stained his clothes. He stood by a table, hunched over a rotten torso. Sleeves rolled back, he was gutting it.
Teeth cleared his throat, blinked, and tried to quell the shake that found his knees.
"Commander," he said. "We brought you a body. A fresh one, my lord."
Legs brayed. "Fresh, fresh, that's how we like them, yes sir we do."
Dies Irae looked up from his work. His one eye blazed blue. A patch covered his other eye. Teeth knew the story. Benedictus the weredragon had taken that eye from him, as he had taken Dies Irae's left arm; a steel arm grew there now, its fist a spiked mace head.
"A fresh one?" Dies Irae asked. His voice was hoarse. Wrinkles creased his brow. "Yes. Yes, very fresh."
Teeth and Legs placed the body on a table. Teeth stifled a cough, struggling not to gag from the chamber's stench. Maggots were crawling on some of the bodies. Worms filled others.
"A fresh body, and look at its arms," Teeth said. "Look at how long they are, my lord. Long and strong, like an ape's. This one's worth two silver coins, one per arm at least, my lord. A good body. Strong and fresh."
Dies Irae examined the dead body, furrowed his brow, and touched those long arms. He smiled, his lips twisting like worms. "Yes. Yes, strong. Fresh."
Teeth didn't like this. He wanted to leave. On previous visits, underlings would examine his finds, mutter, and pay. But Dies Irae seemed... too quiet, lost in his own world. Teeth noticed that specks of blood covered the man's lips. He shivered. Had Dies Irae been eating the bodies?
"My lord?" he said. There were bite marks on the body, he saw. Now Teeth definitely wanted to flee. "My lord, two silvers would be our price, if it please you. We'll find you more bodies. We're the Rot Gang."
Dies Irae walked around the table and approached him. He was tall, Teeth saw. Not as tall as Legs, maybe, but heavier, all muscle and grit. Dies Irae stared at him with his good eye.
"Those are good teeth you have there," he said. He licked his lips, smearing blood across them. "Sharp. I bet they can just... bite into somebody." He snapped his own teeth, as if to demonstrate. "I could use teeth like that."
Beside them, Legs guffawed. "Dog teeth, dog teeth, I like to see them. Yes sir I do."
Dies Irae turned to face him, as if seeing Legs for the first time. "Well, young man, aren't you a tall one. Look at those legs you've got there. I bet they could just...." Dies Irae stamped his feet. "Run! Run like the wind, I bet they can."
Legs brayed. "They run, Legs they call me, yes sir they do."
This was all wrong. Teeth found that he no longer cared about the coins.
"My lord, if you'll excuse us, we'll be on our way," he said. He turned to face the doorway.
A mimic stood there. Not a dead body, but an animated thing, patched together, sewn from the strongest parts. A creature with worms for hair, claws on its fingers, and death in its eyes. It blocked the doorway, grinning. Insects bustled in its mouth, and its eyes blazed red.
"They are strong," Dies Irae said. "They are made from the best. The best parts. I build them myself."
He swung his mace at Legs.
It hit the boy's head, crushing it.
As Legs collapsed, Teeth ran to the wall and grabbed a torch. He held it before him as a weapon.
"Don't touch me, old man!" he warned, waving the torch.
Dies Irae's lips curled back; Teeth couldn't decide if it was a snarl or a grin.
"But I will touch you," he said. "I will make you stronger. I will give you the right parts."
Teeth lashed his torch.
Dies Irae sidestepped.
The mace swung.
Pain exploded against Teeth's chest. The mace swung and again hit his chest. His ribs snapped. He couldn't breathe. Blood filled his mouth.
He fell to his knees. The last thing he saw was Dies Irae grinning, and the mace swung again.
Light exploded. Blood and pain flowed across him... and faded. He knew nothing more.
GLORIAE
She flew over snowy trees, a golden dragon in the wind, when her magic died and she turned human.
Gloriae yelped. The forest
rushed up toward her. She tumbled. The firewood she had collected fell around her. She uselessly flapped her arms as if she still had wings. Wind howled. Gloriae gritted her teeth and tried to become a dragon again. Nothing happened. Her magic was gone.
Pain exploded.
She crashed into a snowy treetop. Branches cracked. They snapped against her breastplate, tore her leggings, and lacerated her arms. For a moment she hung between two branches, and then they too snapped. She fell ten feet, and her helmet hit another branch. White light flooded her. The pain was so intense, she couldn't even scream.
With a crack, more branches splintered, and Gloriae hit the forest floor.
She lay in the snow, moaning. Everything hurt. She dared not move, fearing the pain of broken bones.
Thank the stars for my armor, she thought. Without my helmet and breastplate, I'd be jackal food.
She moaned and took slow breaths. What happened? How could her magic fail? For thousands of years, the children of Requiem could become dragons at will, could breathe fire and soar over forest and mountain.
Gloriae pushed herself onto her elbows. Her head spun, and she blinked several times, trying to bring the world back into focus.
That was when she heard the growl.
Wolves, she thought. She leaped to her feet, which made her head spin more wildly. She drew Per Ignem, her sword of northern steel, and looked around. If she could not breathe fire, she could still swing her blade.
She heard the growl again. It came from somewhere between the trees ahead. It was no wolf, Gloriae realized. This growl was too deep, too... twisted, wrong, cruel. She had never heard anything like it, and despite herself, she shuddered. A stench filled the forest, like rotting bodies and sewage, so heavy Gloriae nearly gagged.
She wanted to call out, to ask "Who's there?", but forced herself to remain silent. Whatever creature growled ahead, it might not have seen her yet.
Slim chance, she thought. Anyone around would have seen her fall from the sky, but Gloriae was a warrior, and stealth was beaten into her like the folds in her blade. She narrowed her eyes. Her body still ached and the world still spun, but Gloriae could still kill if she had to.
The growl rose again, and a second growl sounded at her right, this one closer. Gloriae spun around, sword raised, and finally saw the creatures.
One stepped out to her right, one from ahead, and one from her left. She knew them at once.
Mimics.
"Damn it," Gloriae whispered.
For a moment, terror froze her.
They walked toward her, rotting, rustling with maggots. Dies Irae had sewn them together from body parts, mixing and matching. One had the torso of a woman, bare breasted and gutted, flies breeding in the cavity of its stomach. One of its legs was the bent, hairy leg of a man, while its arms were tiny, the arms of babies. Another mimic had the torso of a man, but the legs of a goat, and arms that ended with blades instead of hands. The third had two torsos of children sewn one atop the other, and its four hands held knives. Each was different, but each had long blond hair. Each stared with baleful blue eyes.
Each looked like her.
"Hello, mother," they whispered as one. "Hello, first Gloriae. Your father sends his regards."
Their voices—twisting, screeching imitations of her own—snapped Gloriae out of her paralysis. She screamed and charged.
Per Ignem swung, slicing through one mimic's neck. Its head, stitched on, fell and rolled. Black blood splashed the snow. Its body, headless, lashed at Gloriae with claws.
Gloriae stepped back and stabbed a mimic to her left. She ducked, dodging another mimic's blades. The headless creature reached out its claws. Gloriae leaped forward, drove her helmet into its chest, and swung her blade, slicing another.
Claws grabbed her shoulder, bending her steel armor as if it were mere leather. Gloriae screamed, spun, and kicked. She hit the mimic's leg, snapping it. She brought down her sword. Black blood flew. The other mimics attacked.
As she jumped, dodged, and swung her blade, Gloriae remembered. The one time she had seen mimics before, she had tried to shift into a dragon, but could not. Their magic undoes my own.
The severed mimic's head bit her boot, and Gloriae screamed and kicked it. A severed arm grabbed her leg, cutting her with fingernails like blades. She stabbed it, freed herself, and turned to run.
She could not kill these beasts with steel, she knew. She remembered. Fire kills them.
As she ran, she heard them following, grunting like rutting beasts. Gloriae reached into her leather pack and grabbed her tinderbox.
Fingers grabbed her legs, and she fell. Her face hit the snow. The tinderbox flew from her hand.
Gloriae flipped onto her back, shouted, and kicked. Her boots knocked back a mimic's head. Its mouth opened to scream, spilling maggots. She kicked again and its head caved in, spraying centipedes and blood onto Gloriae's face.
Her tinderbox lay three feet away in the snow. Gloriae scurried for it.
A second mimic kicked the tinderbox aside, then walked toward her, grinning. Her sword had split its torso in half, from shoulder to navel, but still it moved, each half of its body swaying. Gloriae drove forward, swung her blade, and halved the mimic's head like a grapefruit, ear to ear. Only its jaw remained, and it squealed. Its claws sliced her shoulder, but Gloriae ignored the pain. She leaped five feet, landed by her tinderbox, and grabbed it.
Mimics screeched behind, lurching toward her.
Gloriae opened the tinderbox, gritted her teeth, and began rubbing flint against steel. Light, damn you, light!
A mimic grabbed her helmet and pulled her to her feet. It snarled, and drool sprayed from its mouth, green and thick with small white worms.
Gloriae frantically slashed flint on steel.
The mimic leaned in to bite.
Her tinderbox crackled with fire.
Gloriae drove it forward, shattering it against the mimic's face. The tinder spilled onto the creature, and its hair caught fire. It blazed.
She leaped back, watching the mimic burn. Cockroaches screeched and fled from it. The mimic tried to run toward her, but stumbled and fell.
The other mimics lunged at her.
Gloriae kicked the burning mimic's arm. It came loose and burned in the snow. She grabbed the arm, as if it were a torch, and swung it. The mimics cried like slaughtered pigs. Gloriae swung the arm into one's head, and its hair—blond locks like her own—caught fire. Soon its whole head burned.
One mimic remained. Gloriae stared at it, and though her wounds ached, she managed a small, crooked smile.
"Let's play," she said.
She swung her sword in one hand, the burning arm in the other. She dealt steel and fire. Black blood and maggots flew. Body parts fell, burned, screamed, and twisted.
"Gloriae," the last mimic hissed, a mere head with spilling brains, its body burning five feet away. "Gloriae, your father wants your head, and your arms, and your guts, and your—"
Gloriae stabbed it through the face, burned it, and watched it die. The stench of rotting meat and burning grease filled the forest.
She tossed the burning arm aside, disgusted. She breathed deeply, sword still in hand, blood covering her.
Mimics. Stars.
Gloriae looked around for more, and when none arrived, she examined her wounds. A finger had punched a hole through her armor, cutting her under her shoulder blade. More cuts ran along her calf. The fall onto the treetops had covered her with scratches and bumps; tomorrow bruises would cover her.
"Damn you, Irae," she whispered, staring at the burning bodies. She had killed three mimics a moon ago in the dungeons under Flammis Palace. She had never imagined Dies Irae would create more. How many mimics crawled the world now? Were more heading here, into the northwest, toward Requiem?
She had to warn the others.
She had to fly.
When she stepped far enough from the dead mimics, she found her magic. Wings sprouted from her back, scales
covered her, and soon she roared as a golden dragon. She flew, crashed through the treetops, and found the sky.
She looked around, and in the distance, she saw trees sway and creak. She narrowed her eyes. Figures moved between those trees, many of them. Soon they moved into a clearing, black and red under the sun, and then disappeared into more trees.
Mimics. A hundred or more—an army of perverted humanity created by the man she had called Father. And they were heading home, to Requiem.
Gloriae cursed and flew.
KYRIE ELEISON
Kyrie was on guard duty, and he was freezing.
Snow fell, flurried in the wind, and covered his world. Kyrie saw no end to the horrible stuff. A blue dragon, he perched atop an orphaned archway, the walls around it long fallen. Below the mountaintop where the archway stood, ruins spread into the horizons: toppled walls and smashed columns and burned trees, the snow covering them all. Winter had come to the ruins of Requiem.
Kyrie shivered and wrapped his wings around him, but found no warmth.
"Stars, I hate guard duty," he muttered and spat. Snow covered him, and he shook it off, but more soon coated him.
He looked north to a valley between a cliff and mountain. Boulders rose from it like teeth, and a frozen river snaked through it. Benedictus was buried there—Kyrie's king, mentor, and brother-in-arms.
"I miss you, old friend," Kyrie whispered. "I wish you could have lived to see this, to see us back in Requiem." A lump filled his throat. "Our home still lies in ruins, but we're back, Benedictus. We've defeated the griffins, and we've defeated the nightshades, and we'll rebuild our home. The home you died to give us."
His eyes stung, and Kyrie shook his head, swallowed, and looked away. Thinking about Benedictus was too painful. I'm the only male left. I must be strong. I'll be like him.
Kyrie turned and looked down from his perch. A courtyard covered the mountaintop below him. Once a fortress had stood here, and warriors of Requiem had manned it. Draco Murus, they had called this place; the center of Requiem's military might. It had withstood Dies Irae's griffins longer than any other fort... but it had fallen too. Today only this archway still stood, a hundred feet tall. The rest of Draco Murus lay shattered across the mountain, buried in snow. The skeletons of a thousand Vir Requis lay buried there too.
Song of Dragons: The Complete Trilogy Page 51