A Dawn of Dragonfire

ELETHOR



He ran down the tunnel, eyes stinging, heart pounding, searching for Lyana in the darkness. He saw nothing but black mist, craggy walls, and shadows. His boots thudded against soft ground, as if running over moss. Or over corpses, he thought.

"Lyana!" he cried, and his voice echoed, taunting him, twisting through endless caverns. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, and his clothes clung to him, damp with sweat.

The image still burned against his eyes—Nedath the Guardian, a rotting girl with the body of a centipede, lifting Lyana in her arms. Licking her. Biting her. Elethor had tried to stop the demon, but Nedath moved too quickly. She had vanished into the bowels of the Abyss with her meal—with Lyana.

"Lyana!" he called again, and again his voice echoed like a hundred ghosts. Was she still alive?

As he ran, shadows swirled. Feet clattered all around. He could not tell if they moved near him or echoed from a distance. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, slapping against him.

"Elllethorrrrr…"

The voice rose ahead, high-pitched as wind between canyons, mocking him. Laughter rolled.

"Nedath, come and face your king!" he cried again. "Bring back Lyana or I will kill you."

Somewhere ahead, Nedath laughed and sang. Her voice echoed from countless tunnels, a symphony of chaos. "Again the humans run… again their sweet stench rises… again Nedath shall feed!"

Elethor ran, slapping cobwebs aside, trying to find the demon. The tunnels branched, a labyrinth of them. Whenever he thought he heard footsteps or laughter, he headed that way, but then heard the sounds from behind him.

The cobwebs flapped against him, heavy and thick. Moans and pleading whispers rose from them. Elethor raised his lamp… and felt nausea swell.

Some cobwebs held severed arms with fingers that still moved. Others held ruined bodies stripped down to bones; the spines ended with withered heads whose mouths gasped, whose eyes spun, whose voices begged for death.

"Boy… boy, are you a skeley, are you skeley yet?" whispered one creature, an upside down, mummified thing, no thicker than Elethor's arm, its head shrunken and its lips smacking, its gums toothless. "Boy, it's skeley good, do you think?"

Elethor screamed and shoved past the hanging, mummified creatures. They gasped around him, eyes spinning and fingers twitching, swinging wildly on the cobwebs that bound them. Stars, what are these things? Elethor's head spun and he tasted bile. Were they humans once? Will Nedath turn Lyana into one of them?

In the shadows, the demon's laughter rolled.

"Poor poor humans, yes, Nedath. See how they cower! See how their fear fills the air, so sweet. Soon they will rot, and shrink, and hang, and lick, and smack, and whisper, and weep, and beg, and we will eat them slowly, yes Nedath, we will suck their juices dry, and the marrow from their bones, and their eyeballs, and their sweet innards, as they rot, and shrink, and hang, and…"

"Silence!" Elethor shouted, spinning around, seeking her, seeing only mist and cobwebs. He wanted to rage, to find this creature and fight, to be strong and proud and a warrior like Orin. But he felt close to tears. His legs shook. He gritted his teeth, and would have crumbled and wept had Lyana not needed him. Around him the withered, hanging creatures swung on their cobwebs, sucking the air and whispering madness.

Be strong, Elethor told himself. For Lyana. You must find her. You can't let her turn into one of these hanging things.

"Nedath!" he shouted, hoarse, close to panic. He swung his sword, cutting cobwebs. "Nedath, come and face me!"

Mist rose, cobwebs parted, and the demon emerged.

She was more hideous than Elethor remembered. Her centipede body rose, each segment bristling with black fur. Mounted atop the last segment, the torso, arms, and head of the rotting girl were slick with drool and blood. The girl's mouth opened, revealing chewed flesh. With a screech, she vomited, spraying meat and broken bones and fingers.

"Elethor!" she screamed, a sound that shook the tunnels. "King Elethor of Requiem, fell lord of lizards!"

With a shout, Elethor swung his sword.

The blade sliced Nedath's top half, cutting into the rotten girl's belly. Snakes spilled like entrails, bloody and hissing.

Nedath screeched, a sound like shattering bones. Cobwebs tore and the bodies within them burst, spraying white ooze.

Elethor swung his sword again, aiming for Nedath's head, the head of a rotting girl. The demon raised her arm, and the blade halved her hand, cutting down to the wrist. Her spider legs lashed. Two slammed into Elethor, cutting him, shoving him down. He struggled to rise, but more legs hit him.

Nedath leaned over him, snarling. Drool dripped down her chin. Her eyes shed blood. Three tongues slipped from her mouth, fell onto Elethor, and squirmed across him like snakes. Around them, the hanging creatures twisted and smacked their withered, pursed lips, gasping for air and mumbling.

"The numbers don't line, the numbers don't line, they say, I heard them line it!" said one creature, a spine with clinging skin, its head a mere mouth with two eyeballs on stalks.

"Into my lair, boy, into my lair, we will drink somebody, boy, in here I say, listen, yes," said another, a twisting stem of a thing, its head a wilting cloth bound in iron wire.

They spun around him and Elethor screamed. He swung his blade, cutting at Nedath, but she pinned him down with her legs. She laughed, blood bubbling in her mouth.

"The new Boy King of Requiem," said the demon, voice twisting and rising. "You will be king of my withered things, and you will hurt more than them all."

He drove his fist up and shattered her face. Her skull cracked and cockroaches fled from it, the insects' faces almost human. Nedath laughed. She leaned down and bit Elethor's shoulder, and pain blazed—more pain than he'd ever felt. He writhed and screamed.

Darkness spread across his eyes, closing in until the world was black, and all pain dulled to throbbing cold. In the shadows he saw blue eyes, cruel and mocking, lips that kissed him, a golden face.

"Solina," he whispered hoarsely.

She leaned over him, her naked body pressed against him, and kissed him with the kisses of her mouth, and he ran his fingers through her hair of molten gold. She whispered into his ear, laughing softly, and he held her close.

"I love you, El," she whispered and laughed. "My secret prince."

He wept, clinging to her. "Don't leave, Solina, don't leave, stay here, don't go into fire, don't go into fire…"

But she burned. She burned atop him, screaming, her flesh peeling and melting, until he saw her skull, and still she screamed and clung to him.

No, he thought, shaking. No, I can't let her burn. I can't let this happen. I can't turn into one of these things, these hanging twisting things of memory and pain and madness.

He shouted Solina's name as he drove his blade upward.

Ferus, his sword forged in dragonfire, shone with starlight. It pierced through the burning apparition of his love. Blazing, it drove into the rotting, mad Guardian of the Abyss. With the howl of collapsing stars, the steel blazed into darkness, and Nedath howled too, and the world seemed to explode.

The demon's head shattered. Fragments of bone and gore flew. Behind her, her snaking body of black, furry segments burst, showering the tunnel with blood. Her scream echoed and the hanging things swung, eyes spinning and mouths gasping.

Elethor rose to his feet, breathing raggedly. He looked around him. It looked like the innards of a dead whale. Blood and entrails covered the tunnel. His lamp had fallen and set fire to cobwebs. He stamped out the flames, lifted the lamp, and surveyed the darkness.

"Lyana!" he shouted.

The withered bodies cackled around him, swinging on the cobwebs. They cried out in a mocking cacophony. "Lyana! Lyana! Lyana!"

Elethor began shoving his way between them, knocking them aside. They careened around him, some only spines and skin, others pale creatures whose hearts beat red behind transparent skin. Was Lyana hanging here too? Had she become one of them?

"Lyana, answer me!" he cried. His eyes stung. Stars, he couldn't leave her here. He couldn't let her become a creature. "Lyana!"

Coughing sounded in the distance. A muffled voice cried out. "Elethor!"

His heart leaped. He ran, boots sucking at blood, sword swinging at hanging creatures. His lamp swung and shadows swirled. Down a tunnel and around a bend, he saw a figure cloaked in webs, hanging from the ceiling.

"Lyana!"

Tears stung his eyes. He ran to her and began tearing the cobwebs off. She hung upside down, coughing and blinking. He kept ripping off webs, not knowing what he'd find. Would her body be withered, her skin clinging to bones, her heart beating behind clear skin? When the cobwebs were torn and he pulled her free, he breathed in relief. Blood covered her armor, and black ooze covered her face, but she was whole. Her drawn sword clattered to the floor.

"Lyana, talk to me, are you all right?" He wiped her face, revealing her pale skin.

She coughed, gasped for breath, looked at him silently… then crashed into his embrace. She clung to him.

"I… saw him," she whispered. "I saw Orin. He was here, Elethor!" She looked at him pleadingly. "He was hanging here from the webs, and I could see his spine, and his head looked like, like… it was just a flat piece of leather, but his eyes moved."

"It was a dream, Lyana," he said softly. He picked webs from her hair. "I saw Solina too. We see the ones we love here, I think."

She gulped and lifted her sword. Blade raised, she looked around her: at the blood on the walls, at the creatures who still hung and stared at them, at the torn segments of Nedath's body. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against Elethor's chest.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You killed the guardian. You did what I could not."

They stood silently for long moments, holding each other in the darkness. Lyana's mane of curls tickled Elethor's nose, and as he held her, he too thought of Orin. In the old days, some claimed that the souls of dead sinners landed in this place, while the pious glowed among the stars.

Elethor clenched his jaw. No. Orin was a hero. A noble son of Requiem. He dines now in our starlit halls, and his soul will never see this cursed place.

"Elethor, look!" Lyana said. She gasped and fear filled her eyes. Slowly, she stepped away from him and raised her left hand. Her fingertips were gray and withered, thinned to sticks.

Elethor's stomach churned. Cold sweat dripped down his back. He forced his fear down and spoke through a tight throat. "Adia can heal them, Lyana. She is a great healer."

Her chest rose and fell as she panted. "Stars, Elethor, stars, am… am I turning into one of them?" She gestured around her at the chamber. The shrunken, withered creatures snorted and cackled and licked their toothless gums.

"No," Elethor said and clenched his fists. "Nedath is dead now. She can no longer harm you. And your mother will heal your fingertips, I promise you." He reached out, held her good hand, and squeezed it. "Now come, Lyana. We go find the Starlit Demon. The faster we leave the Abyss, the better."

She nodded and wiped a tear off her cheek.

"Let's go," she said and raised her sword. "We delve deeper… and I pray that the worst is behind us."

As they walked deeper into the darkness, Elethor prayed too. But he knew in the pit of his stomach: The worst still lay ahead.