She was close enough.
She blew flame.
The giants leaped behind boulders. Her flames rained against the mountain. The giants screamed.
Terra blew his own fire. The flames hit the mountainside and cascaded like a river of lava. A giant burst out from behind the boulders, hair blazing, a club in his hands.
For an instant, Memoria faltered. It was the first giant she had seen up close. He's hideous. The giant stood thirty feet tall, each foot covered in boils and coarse white hair. He wore only a ragged loincloth, and a stench of stale sweat rose from him. His nose was bulbous and red, sprouting white hair from the nostrils. Crooked teeth, each the size of a sword, grew from his mouth. His eyes were small and mean, the color of dried blood.
Howling, the giant swung his club at her.
Memoria flew backwards and blew flame.
The inferno hit the giant. He screamed and fell back, skin crackling.
"Watch out!" Terra said, grabbed her, and pulled her down. They landed on the mountainside. A boulder flew overhead, missing them by an inch.
Terra shot a jet of flame. A giant screamed behind Memoria. Three more giants ran ahead, boulders raised in their hands.
Memoria bathed them with fire. Two dropped their boulders. A third tossed his. Memoria leaped aside, and the missile grazed her shoulder. She grunted with pain. Her leg still throbbed.
"I don't like this," Terra said. Memoria whipped her head from side to side. A hundred giants were emerging from holes, tunnels, and the cover of stone outcrops. They bore clubs studded with bones, boulders that crackled with fire, and gleaming stone daggers. They climbed from below, from above, from each side.
"Fly!" Memoria said and leaped into the air. She flapped her wings as fast as she could. "Over the mountaintop."
Terra flew beside her. Boulders shot after them. One hit Terra's wing. He howled.
"Terra!" Memoria cried. She spat fire down at the giants and flew to her brother. He was wincing, but still flying. She held him and helped him fly higher. All around them, the barrage of stone continued. Memoria swerved, dodging most of the boulders. One slammed into her side, knocking the breath out of her. Pain bloomed. She could not breathe. She could not see.
No, don't kill me! the boy had cried. I beg you, please. I have parents and a sister. Please. Please....
Only a boy. No older than fifteen. A boy with scared eyes, with soft cheeks that had never grown stubble. A boy in armor. A boy riding a griffin. A boy who flew for Dies Irae, who killed and destroyed.
He is old enough to die.
She burned him.
He screamed. He screamed for what seemed like eternity.
Die already, stop screaming and die! Memoria wanted to cry, but she only watched him burn, until finally he screamed no more. A boy. With parents, with a sister. Silenced.
"Memoria!"
She wept. "I had to do it. I had to."
"Memoria! Fly! Fly!"
Her eyes snapped open. Terra was shaking her, struggling to fly with one hurt wing. Boulders still flew around them, and giants howled. Memoria gritted her teeth and flew.
They soared up the mountainside. Their reflections raced along the smooth, black stones—one green dragon, one bronze. More giants emerged from holes and behind rocks. There were thousands.
Blue sky burst before her. They reached the mountaintop, flew over it, and saw the city of giants.
Memoria's breath died.
LACRIMOSA
"No more tears," she whispered to herself. "Now is my turn to be strong. To lead. For our children, Ben. For you."
She stood under the orphaned archway, above the ruins of the fort where they made their home. The wind streamed her hair, kissed her cheeks with snow, and whispered of the growing threat in the east. There will be war, she knew. Dies Irae knew they were here; she did not doubt that now. Hundreds of mimics would march here. Blood would spill.
"Mother," Agnus Dei said. She came to stand beside her. Her mop of curls was white with snow. Her clothes were tattered, and bandages covered her wounds. Shadows filled her eyes, and she looked too thin to Lacrimosa, too weary, too haunted.
"Are you eating, Agnus Dei? You look thin."
She narrowed her eyes. "We're mustering forces for war, and that's what you worry about? That I'm not eating?" She sighed. "Mothers will be mothers."
The snow flurried. Lacrimosa shielded her eyes with her palm and stared down the mountainsides. Their forces seemed too few. They cannot stop the tide, she thought. Am I mad to stay here? Am I mad to make a stand? Will this be another Lanburg Fields?
"We used every Animating Stone we have," Lacrimosa said. "One hundred and twenty. Will it be enough?"
The stone dragon she had animated stood on the eastern hillside, unmoving, a sentinel of stone. Kyrie and Agnus Dei had animated three more statues. The stone maiden stood to the north, the warrior to the south, the king to the west.
Between them stood over a hundred warriors carved from the smashed columns of Requiem. They were crude figures; they had only the rough shapes of men, their surfaces craggy. The four true statues had carved them, and they were ugly things, but Animating Stones pulsed within them. They lived. They would fight.
"Time for dinner," Kyrie announced, climbing out from the cellars. He held two steaming bowls. "I cooked. Gloriae helped a bit. Tonight we have a delicious, lovingly simmered stew of turnips, oats, and sausages."
Gloriae emerged from the cellars behind him, holding two more bowls. "Kyrie, have we eaten anything but turnips, oats, and sausage stew for the past month?"
He nodded, handing out bowls. "Yesterday was more of a soup, what with all the water you added."
"Soup with some Gloriae hairs added for flavor," Agnus Dei muttered. "I nearly choked on one. Sister, you might be the deadliest warrior among us, and you are also the deadliest cook."
Soon the four sat in the courtyard, wrapped in their cloaks, eating as the sunset painted the world red. Lacrimosa was glad to see them eating hungrily, even Agnus Dei. They'll need what strength they can get, she thought. More than ever.
As they ate, the statues moved across the mountainsides, arranging firewood in a ring around the ruins. Fire and stone, Lacrimosa thought, watching the statues work. This is how we fight in the ruin of the world. This is all we have left. Fire and stone.
She looked at her children, one by one. Agnus Dei, of fiery eyes, of skinned knees, of grumbles and tears and kisses and flames. She looks so much like Ben. And Gloriae... her lost daughter, finally returned. Gloriae, of icy green eyes, of pain, of fear, of hidden love and light. Finally, Lacrimosa looked at Kyrie, who was like a son to her now. Kyrie, the boy who'd survived Lanburg Fields; no, not a boy but a man now, full grown, a man who would father her grandchildren.
I will protect them, Ben, she thought and looked up to the sky. I won't let them die.
They were still eating when howls sounded in the distance.
They froze. Lacrimosa lowered her spoon, rose to her feet, and stared east.
"We can't even enjoy one good meal," Agnus Dei said. She grabbed a torch from the ground. "My stars."
The howls rose, some deep and guttural like dying boars, others high like the screeches of ghosts.
"Weredragons!" they cried. "We will eat you alive. We will have your heads."
Lacrimosa drew an arrow from her quiver, tightened the kindling around its tip, and lit it. She walked toward the eastern ruins of the fort, to war, to blood.
"Fire and stone," she whispered. "They fight for us today."
She stepped onto the remaining few bricks of the fort's wall and saw the mimic army.
She felt the blood drain from her face.
"Bloody stars," Kyrie said, coming to stand beside her, bow in hand.
Even Gloriae, always stony like a statue, seemed shaken. She gritted her teeth.
"So many," she whispered.
Agnus Dei snorted, blowing back a curl of her hair. "Come on, we can take em," she
said, but Lacrimosa noticed that the girl's fingers trembled around her bow.
She returned her eyes to the mimics. A hundred had attacked Draco Murus last time, and nearly killed them. A thousand now howled ahead, charging through the snow. Their stench carried on the wind, the stench of rot and worms and old blood. They bore swords and shields. A towering mimic ran at their lead, his legs like stilts, his arms ape-like and swinging.
"Weredragons!" this leader of mimics howled. "Your heads are mine."
Lacrimosa smiled a crooked, mirthless smile.
"Let them taste fire first," she said. "Then stone."
She loosed her arrow.
The three young Vir Requis gave wordless cries and shot three more arrows.
The flaming missiles flew through the sky, and each hit a rotting torso. Those mimics screamed, pulled the arrows out, and kept running.
"Damn," Agnus Dei said. "These ones are tougher than the last."
Lacrimosa nodded. "We'll see how much fire they can take."
She ran toward the ring of firewood, which surrounded the fort, and lit it. It crackled into life at once, flowing around the fort like a flaming serpent. The mimics screamed and kept charging.
Lacrimosa climbed onto a pile of fallen bricks. She saw the horde closer now, three hundred yards away. She shot an arrow and hit a mimic's shield. It kept running.
"Statues of Requiem!" Lacrimosa shouted. The statues stood outside the ring, unmoving. Kyrie and the twins were still firing arrows, but their missiles did not faze the mimics.
"Statues, hear me!" Lacrimosa shouted. "I am Lacrimosa, wife of King Benedictus, Queen of Requiem. Fight for Requiem. Fight the enemy, tear them apart, destroy them! Fight them now."
The statues began to move. They walked slowly, limbs creaking. The crude statues, those carved from the columns, barely moved at all.
"Charge at them!" Lacrimosa shouted. "Give them no mercy. Fight for the Draco stars, for the rebirth of your home."
They began to move faster. Soon they were running. Their feet thundered, kicked up snow and dirt, and they shouted. Their cries were like cracking stone, like weeping forests, like the pain of Requiem. It sounded almost like the deep, mournful cries of dragons.
"Fire, then stone," Lacrimosa whispered, and watched the statues crash into the army of mimics.
Blood, chips of stone, and gobbets of flesh flew. There were ten mimics for each statue. The rotting creatures hacked at the marble warriors, breaking off arms, heads, and legs. The mimics were made of flesh, but their blows bore the strength of ancient magic. The marble statues swung at them, their arms tearing through rotted flesh, scattering limbs and heads. Black blood and rot sprayed the snow.
Hope filled Lacrimosa. We can do this. We can defend our home.
Then she heard cries that chilled her blood.
"For Requiem!" Gloriae cried. She brandished her sword in one hand, a torch in the other.
"For Queen Lacrimosa!" cried Agnus Dei and Kyrie, raising their own swords and torches.
The three youths leaped over the fiery ring, howled, and charged into battle.
"No!" Lacrimosa shouted, horror clutching at her. "Stay with me. Here!"
They did not hear. Swinging their weapons, the youths crashed into the battle and began hacking at mimics.
Lacrimosa cursed and began running across the courtyard. Stupid children! They had raised warriors of stone so they would not have to fight themselves. If the mimics don't kill them, I will.
She reached the ring of fire. The flames rose around her, blocking her view. They were lower in one spot; that was where the youths had jumped out to battle. Cursing, Lacrimosa jumped over the fire and ran toward battle. The children might be dumber than doorknobs, but I must protect them.
She drew Stella Lumen, her father's sword. Its blade hissed and reflected the firelight. Two mimics rushed at her, pus oozing from the stitches that held them together. They swung jagged blades.
Lacrimosa was no soldier. She had not trained in swordplay like Gloriae. But she had fought enough battles to muster courage if not skill. She parried left and right, screaming. She swung a torch in her left hand, her blade in the right. She let them taste steel and fire. They fell back.
"Daughters!" she called. "Kyrie! Back to the fort. Do not meet them in open battle."
She could not see them. Everywhere around her, the statues and mimics fought. Severed mimic limbs crawled across the battlefield, clutching her boots. She stomped them and burned them with her torch.
"Requiem!" Kyrie called somewhere in the distance, his voice nearly drowned under the roar of battle. Lacrimosa did not know what she craved more; to kill mimics, or to clobber the boy over the head.
A mimic skirted around two statues and raced toward her. Lacrimosa cursed and raised her blade. The mimic was shaped as a monstrous centaur. Its lower half was a headless, rotting man running on all fours. Sewn onto the man's shoulders, rose the nude torso, arms, and head of a woman. Her hair was made of snakes, and her teeth were jagged metal. In each hand, the rotting woman wielded an axe.
Horror, white and burning, spread through Lacrimosa. She tightened her grip on her sword.
"Stella Lumen, burn with the light of stars," Lacrimosa whispered, holding the blade before her. "Father, be with me today."
The strange centaur charged toward her, squealed, and swung an axe.
Lacrimosa dropped to her knees and slid forward through the snow. The axe whistled over her head. As she slid, Lacrimosa swung her blade and cut the mimic's leg.
It screeched, a sound that seemed to shake the mountain. Snow cascaded. Lacrimosa leaped to her feet, and the mimic charged toward her. It swung both axes at her head. She leaped back. The centaur raced toward her.
Lacrimosa lobbed her torch. It hit the centaur's upper half, then fell into the snow. The mimic screamed. Its chest reddened and crackled. Before it could recover, Lacrimosa shouted, ran toward it, and swung her blade.
Stella Lumen opened the creature's stomach. Snakes spilled from it like entrails. They squirmed around Lacrimosa's feet, hissing.
An axe swung. Lacrimosa parried and sparks flew. She thrust her sword and hit the mimic's neck.
Blood showered. The mimic screamed. Lacrimosa slashed again, and the mimic fell. She stabbed it again and again, but still it kicked and squealed.
Fire. Lacrimosa thought. I need fire.
Her torch had extinguished in the snow. She grabbed it, looked up, and saw Agnus Dei fighting beside her. A mimic with four arms was attacking her. Lacrimosa ran and touched her torch to her daughter's. It crackled back into flame.
"Agnus Dei, you are the most numbskulled girl I've ever seen!" Lacrimosa shouted.
Agnus Dei grunted. "Not now, Mother. I'm busy."
The centaur mimic, lacerated and burned, was struggling to rise. Worms squirmed across it. Lacrimosa ran and shoved the torch against its head. The snakes of its hair caught fire, and soon the entire creature burned. It twisted and screeched in the snow.
Lacrimosa did not stay to watch it die. She ran back toward Agnus Dei, and found that the girl had slain the four-armed mimic. Statues and mimics still battled around them.
"Where's your sister?" she cried. "Where's Kyrie?"
Agnus Dei pointed. "There."
The two were fighting back to back, five mimics surrounding them. Beyond them, dozens of mimics and statues lay smashed and burned. Dozens more still fought in every direction.
"Gloriae! Kyrie!" Lacrimosa called. "Back to the fort."
She ran toward them. Agnus Dei ran too. With swords and torches, they slew mimics that clawed and bit from each side.
"Back to safety," Lacrimosa commanded, her head pounding, her limbs shaking. "The statues will finish our work here."
Cuts and scrapes covered the youths. They nodded, panting, and began heading back uphill.
A thundering howl rose before them.
Snow cascaded.
A great mimic came running downhill toward them, sh
oving aside statues and other mimics. It towered over the others on freakishly long legs, and had hairy arms that rippled with muscles. When it opened its mouth to scream, it revealed sharp teeth like a wolf's. It seemed sewn from three bodies—the legs of one, the arms of another, and the torso and head of a third. In each hand, it held a flanged mace.
The mimic's leader, Lacrimosa remembered.
"Kyrie! Agnus Dei!" she yelled. "Attack it from its right. Gloriae! We'll take its left side."
The mimic grinned. Drool dripped down its chin and steamed when it hit the snow. With a mocking howl, it swung its maces.
Lacrimosa leaped back, but Gloriae charged and swung her sword. A mace hit her breastplate and dented it. Gloriae cried and fell.
"Gloriae!" Lacrimosa cried. She ran and swung Stella Lumen at the mimic.
It swung its mace, and Lacrimosa ducked and raised her arm to protect her face. The mace hit her vambrace, and she screamed. One flange dented the steel and bit her arm.
"Mother!" Agnus Dei cried and attacked at the mimic's other side. She swung her torch at it, but it lashed its mace, holding her back.
"Lacrimosa, down!" Kyrie said, nocking a flaming arrow.
She fell to her knees, and the arrow flew over her head. It slammed into the mimic, plunged through its chest, and extinguished. The mimic grinned and ran toward Kyrie, swinging its maces.
Kyrie shot another arrow. He hit the mimic, but the creature only grunted and kept charging. Lacrimosa and Agnus Dei slammed their swords against its back, but the cuts did not slow it.
Was Gloriae alive? Lacrimosa had no time to check. The mimic reached Kyrie and swung a mace. Kyrie ducked, and the mace glanced off his helmet. He fell into the snow and his eyes closed.
"Pup!" Agnus Dei screamed, eyes widening. She jumped onto the mimic's back and pushed it into the snow. She began slamming her sword's pommel into its head. The mimic thrashed and howled.
Lacrimosa ran. The mimic rose to its feet and shook Agnus Dei off. It dropped one mace, clutched Agnus Dei's throat, and began to squeeze.
"Let her go," Lacrimosa said, snarled, and swung her blade. Stella Lumen severed the mimic's arm with a shower of blood and starlight.
Song of Dragons: The Complete Trilogy Page 59