A Dawn of Dragonfire

SOLINA



She was flying with her troops, a phoenix in the night, when the demon burst from underground.

It looked like a great scarab made of stone, larger than a whale. Its claws tore through the earth, and its eyes blazed, two stars shooting beams of light. The earth crumbled around it, a sinkhole falling into darkness. Vir Requis screamed and fell from their burrows, now revealed to the night.

It looks, Solina thought in a moment of incredulity, like a gopher bursting from an anthill.

She spread out her wings of fire and shrieked. Considering its girth, she had expected this stone demon to crawl upon the earth, but it came soaring into the sky. Wingless, it flew toward her and her phoenixes. Its eyes nearly blinded her, and its roars thudded against her, fanning her flames.

"Kill the beast!" she shrieked, her voice emerging from her beak like typhoons of sound. "Sunspear Phalanx! Dragonbone! Bring it down!"

The two phalanxes swooped in formation, each a terror of fifty phoenixes. One fell upon the stone demon from the right, the other from its left. Their beaks and talons thrashed its hide.

They crashed against the beast like flaming paper against a cliff.

Solina watched, shrieking, the flames crackling with fury across her. The phoenixes attacked the stone demon again, wave after wave of them, only to crash against it. The demon's eyes blazed with starlight. Its claws lashed and its teeth bit, tearing phoenixes apart. Their flames filled its maw, ran down its throat, and blazed through the fissures along its belly. The demon seemed like a great, flying furnace.

And my men are stoking its fire, Solina realized. She howled, a sound that could shatter walls. Elethor had found a demon in the depths, a creature to eat the flames of her wrath. As she flew above, she saw the beast swallow three phoenixes. Other firebirds slashed at its body, only to die at its claws and fall, shredded, like burning leaves.

Solina narrowed her eyes and swooped, claws outstretched.

You think yourself clever, Elethor. But you have only doomed yourself.

Where the stone demon had burst from the ground, a chasm loomed, its rims crumbling into darkness. Alongside the cavern walls, Solina saw openings to a dozen burrows. Inside each burrow the weredragons still cowered, fragile humans not daring to fly, even now. She saw only several dragons flying behind the stony demon; the rest were too cowardly to shift and emerge to battle.

But I will bring the battle to them, Solina thought. I spent a moon trying to break into these places… and now, Elethor, you have opened a dozen doors.

She snarled, skirted around the feasting demon of stone, and swooped into the gaping chasm. A dozen burrows surrounded her, running from the chasm walls into darkness. Weredragons wept in their human forms and tried to flee deeper, but their burrows were packed tight; they could either become dragons and fly into the phoenix sky, or die as humans underground.

Men with swords were rushing to each tunnel's entrance, pushing back the women and children. But in one tunnel, a crumbly burrow like a wormhole, only children wept, torn from their mothers' grasps when the demon had crashed through their hideout. Shrieking, her flames crackling, Solina flew toward that tunnel.

The children screamed. Across the crater, men howled inside their own tunnels. A ball of fire, Solina shifted in midair, becoming a woman again. As she flew, she drew her twin blades. She tumbled into the children's tunnel, swords swinging.

Aknur, her left blade of nightfire, halved a young boy's face. Raem, her right blade of dawn, cut a girl from collarbone to navel. The other children were fleeing deeper, tripping over one another, wailing in fear. Solina grinned and walked deeper, blades swinging, showering blood and cutting down the vermin.

I will not let these creatures grow and breed, she thought as she sliced two girls who embraced and wept. I will clear the world of their darkness, Sun God, for your wrath and glory.

She stepped deeper into the tunnel, over bodies and severed limbs, leaving a trail of blood and sunlight.

I will kill them all.

Howls rose behind her. Flames crackled. Solina spun to see a brass dragon fly toward the tunnel she stood in. Solina's grin widened, her heart pounded, and she licked blood off her lips.

"Elethor!" she cried and raised her dripping swords. "You have come to me at last."