A Day of Dragon Blood

TREALE



She had left the Royal Army two days ago and soared over the wilderness. She was young and slim and fast as roaring wind. The army had long disappeared behind her; the plains lay ahead, rolling green toward distant fires.

Oldnale Farms. Burning.

Her wings, lungs, and chest blazed with pain. She howled and blew fire. She had forced herself to sleep last night and to hunt a deer, but exhaustion still tugged on her like chains. The thought of the two graves outside Oldnale Manor—the graves of her brothers, slain fighting the phoenixes last year—rattled through her mind. She would not let her parents lie dead beside them.

The plains spread beneath her for leagues. Wild grass and reeds swayed. A river cut through them, bustling with cranes and geese. Hills rose every league, bristly with elms and beeches and maples. In the distant northwest, Treale could just make out Amarath Mountains, a white hint upon the blue sky. When she looked east, she saw red and black clouds claw the sky; her home lay there.

"Mother," she whispered, eyes stinging. "Father."

Her shadow raced across the grasslands below; she had never flown faster. Memories flowed through the mists of pain. Treale saw the great, scarred table in the manor hall where she and her brothers would play with wooden soldiers; the apple pies her maid would bake, and how Treale would sneak into the kitchens to steal a slice before dinner; the spears and arrows she would carve from fallen branches in the grove outside their home, pretending to be a warrior; and the hundreds of puppets she had sewn and placed upon a dozen shelves.

"My home," she whispered into the wind. "All my memories, my heartbeat, the sky of my wings."

Did the fires now claim it?

She flew, plains racing beneath her, wind howling across her scales. She blew fire. She flew for hours, a small black dragon in an endless world of grass and distant flame.

The sun hung low and red in the west when she saw the Tiran army.

A cry fled her throat.

Treale knew then: There was no hope for her family, for her king, for her army, for her race. Requiem would fall, and her children would burn or scatter in the wind. There would be no victory against these invaders from the south, only acid, blood, and death.

They covered the sky like a black cloud. Countless wyverns swarmed there; from this distance, they were mere specks, but Treale had seen enough up close to imagine their metallic scales, their red eyes, their chins that thrust out into blades. Upon their backs, she saw the glint of armor and streaming banners. Even from leagues away, she heard the shrieks and war drums, a song of death. Smoke unfurled above them, turning the sky black, and shadows spilled across the land like ink. Behind them fires blazed across the prairies. As Treale flew, she saw wyverns dipping from the mass, swooping to the lands below and kindling them. The fires raced across field, meadow, and forest. As every new blaze crackled to life, the wyverns shrieked with new vigor.

They did not come here to conquer, Treale thought. They did not merely come here to kill. They came to destroy the very land that bred us.

She dived down so fast her head spun and her belly lurched. She landed in swaying grass, shifted into human form, and knelt. The wild grass rose around her, five feet tall. Grasshoppers and crickets bustled. Treale pulled her knees to her chest, shivered, and whispered prayers.

"Please, stars of Requiem." She hugged herself so tightly her arms ached. "Please don't let my parents lie dead; they are all I have left. Don't let these wyverns reach our city; it is all Requiem has left. Don't let King Elethor lose his courage; he is our last hope."

She looked up at the sky. Smoke was spreading above, blocking the sun, turning blue to black. The wyvern shrieks tore across the land. She could hear men now too; they shouted orders to one another, voices as cruel as the wyvern cries. Would they fly here too? Would they burn this grass she hid in?

She sat shivering, peering between the blades of grass, until the cries of the swarm moved westward and dimmed. Treale stood, only her head rising from the tall grass. The wind streamed her hair, and when she stared west, she saw the wyverns flow into the distance.

"They're heading for Nova Vita," she whispered. "Fly fast, Elethor. Save whoever you can... and flee this land."

She leaped, shifted, and flew east. A wall of fire rose before her.

Treale dived through smoke, coughing, eyes narrowed and watering. Soon flames were racing below, baking her belly. She swerved, rose, and dipped, seeking pockets of air. The fire crackled and roared. The sky churned black and red. She felt as if she flew through a furnace, and she yowled. She wanted to rise higher, to escape the smoke, but dared not. She had to stay here near the ground, seeking her home.

Soon the land below her changed. These were no wild grasslands that burned, but ploughed fields. The wheat and barley—lush green when she had left her home—now blazed. Barns rose in flame and collapsed. Treale could not even cry; the heat seared her tears dry. She howled. She kept flying.

Finally she saw it ahead, red on black—Oldnale Manor burning.

"Mother," she whispered.

She shot between columns of smoke. She swerved between walls of fire. A blast of flame from trees below licked her claws, and she screamed and drove onward. She crashed through fire, dived toward the hill Oldnale Manor rose upon, and landed in the courtyard outside the manor gates.

Cobblestones covered the courtyard, searing hot against her claws. Three guards lay dead before her, flesh charred black; if not for their armor, the wind would have scattered them into ash. Around the hill, trees crackled and flames blazed. Before her, the doors of the manor stood burning. She saw more flames through the windows above.

"Mother!" she cried. "Father!"

Still in dragon form, she ran toward the doors and slammed through them. The wood crashed with a shower of burning splinters. Inside the main hall, tapestries and rugs burned and smoke swirled. Treale crawled, head against the floor where less smoke flowed. If she became human now, the heat would bake her flesh; even her dragon scales felt close to melting. She coughed and kept moving.

"Mother! Father!"

She could see barely a foot ahead. She reached out her claws, scratching the floor. She hit a fallen chair, shoved it aside, and kept moving. Her tail flapped behind her. She coughed and roared for her parents.

She crawled another foot through the smoke... and found herself staring at a burnt body.

Treale screamed.

The flesh had blackened and shriveled, clinging to bone. The skull gaped and the fingers thrust up like burnt twigs. Shreds of charred cloth clung to the body, and around its neck hung a talisman shaped as a sheaf of wheat.

It was her mother.

Tears filled Treale's eyes. She shivered. She froze for a moment, then with a cry, she scurried two feet away. Her throat burned. She could barely breathe. She hit something soft and hot, turned her head, and saw a second body. It too was charred black, little more than crisp flesh clinging to bones in armor. She knew the breastplate it wore; this was her father.

Treale howled. She wept. She had to take the bodies from here; she had to bury them. Weeping, she clutched her father with her claws. His body came apart in her grasp, falling from his armor like ash from a pipe, and Treale closed her eyes and trembled.

A rafter cracked above. Flames showered. The beam crashed before her and fire roared. Treale coughed and had to close her eyes against the heat. She pushed herself back, spun, and ran toward the doorway. She burst outside into the courtyard and took flight.

"I'm sorry, Mother," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Father."

She soared until she burst from smoke into clear sky. She coughed and trembled in the air. When she looked below her, she saw nothing but the inferno. A chunk from Oldnale Manor's roof collapsed, and soon nothing remained but brick walls, a shell of death and memory.

A fiery trail led west, stretching from the manor across the land. The flames trailed behind the wyvern army, moving fast, moving to Nova Vita.

When they reach our city, all there will die, Treale knew. My friend Mori will lie charred in the ruins of the palace. Twenty thousand dragons—children, elderly, the wounded of the last war—they all will die.

Treale tossed back her head and roared, a great howl that seemed to tear the sky, a howl of rage and loss. She was but a small black dragon, a single voice in the flame, but she thought her howl could rise to the stars.

If they die, I will die with them. I will go down fighting like my brothers did. She snarled and blew flame. And I will take some wyverns with me.

Roaring, she flapped her wings and drove through the air, following the wyvern army. The lands burned behind her, and tears flowed from her eyes—tears of farewell for her home, her parents, and the green lands she had loved.