A Day of Dragon Blood

DERAMON



He stood upon the walls, a coppery dragon spewing smoke, and growled at the distant battle. From here, he could see nothing but bursts of fire, fluttering shadows, and glints of steel. He could hear only distant screams and muffled commands. Deramon fumed and gripped the crenellations.

"It's a bloodbath," Bayrin whispered at his side, tail slapping the wall. He snorted a flicker of fire, then looked at Deramon. "Father, let us fly to them."

Deramon grumbled under his breath. He was commander of the City Guard; never had his force left Nova Vita to fight the battles beyond the walls. For three hundred years—under his father's command, and his grandfather's, and his ancestors' going back to Terra Eleison himself—the City Guard had manned its post.

"We have our orders," he said gruffly. "We protect the people of Nova Vita. We will not leave them in the tunnels."

Bayrin fumed. Smoke rose between his teeth in curtains. He shook his head wildly and slapped his tail. "Father, I can hear them screaming from here! Those are our men screaming. Stars, they're dying out there. They need us."

Deramon glared at his son, a gangly green dragon. "The people of this city need us. Twenty thousand seek shelter in the tunnels; we'll not abandon them. This is our post."

Snorting and shifting his claws, Bayrin looked back and forth between his father and the battle. A separate battle seemed to rage within him. Finally he leaped from the wall, filled his wings with air, and began flying south.

"To the Abyss with my post!" he called back to Deramon. "I'm flying to Elethor."

The young guard growled, blew fire, and soared into the night. Soon he was but a sliver of scales flying toward the storm of battle. Deramon watched from the walls, growled, and cursed. He shook his head mightily, scattering fire, and his claws dug ruts into the battlements. Finally he let out a string of curses, flapped his wings, and rose into the air.

"Stars, I'm going to regret this," he muttered. He looked over his shoulder and howled to his men. "Temple Guard! Palace Guard! Northern Wall! Barracks Guard!"

The dragons of those posts stared at him, eyes glowing in the night—three hundred warriors in all. Damn buildings are empty anyway, Deramon thought with a grumble. He raised his voice again.

"Fly—with me! We fly to war." Deramon roared fire and glared at the rest of his Guard, those who manned the remaining walls and streets. "The rest of you miserable lot—man your posts and don't let any bloody wyverns in, or I'll flay your hides!"

With that, he flapped his wings, howled to the sky, and flew into the southern darkness. Behind him, four hundred dragons roared and followed. The wheat and barley below bent under the beat of their wings, and their flames lit the darkness.

"For Requiem!" one guardsman cried behind. The others answered his call. "Requiem!"

They cut through the night. The wind roared around them. Four hundred dragons—flying toward a storm of fire, acid, and death. The fire of battle lit the night. When they drew closer, they saw thousands of wyverns—tens of thousands—surrounding the Royal Army. Their scales clattered, their claws shone, and their acid felled Vir Requis from the sky. Bodies rained and slammed into the mountains below.

Deramon growled. Ice seemed to spread through his gut like the fingers of ghosts.

My men don't know I too feel fear, he thought, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. Not I, the great Lord Deramon Eleison. And yet as he flew, his belly twisted with terror, and he howled to let his fire melt the ice.

He flew for glory. He flew for death. This would be the last battle of his life, the battle where he fell, where his son fell, where his men fell with a roar to enter legend. He sounded that roar now.

"Requiem!" he called to the sky.

The wyverns ahead spun to face the new dragons, reforming rank in the clouds. They bared teeth like swords, their eyes burned red, and their riders fired crossbows. Bolts streamed through the night, shards of lightning. Two dragons howled, turned to humans, and fell from the sky. With shrieks and battle cries, a thousand wyverns flew toward the City Guard.

The sky exploded with fire, acid, and blood. Deramon roared his flames, burning three wyverns. He lashed his tail, slamming its spikes into another's eyes. His dragons roared around him, and fire spouted and rained to the mountains below. The wyverns filled the night. Sprays of acid rose and fell around him. Deramon skirted between them, growling and beating his wings, trying to fan the acid aside.

One spray glanced off his side and he roared; it felt like spears slashing across him. He growled and swooped toward the wyvern that had burned him. The beast reared and bit the air. Deramon lashed its head, but his claws glanced off scales, raising sparks; those scales felt harder than the thickest breastplate in Requiem's armories. The wyvern shrieked, a deafening sound, and shot more acid. Deramon dropped in the sky, flew under the beast, and rose behind it. He snapped his jaws at the rider, catching the man as he spun to aim his crossbow. Deramon's teeth punched through armor and tore the Tiran in two. He spat out half a corpse, then bathed the screeching wyvern with flame.

Still the beast flew and roared. Deramon clutched its back, bit its neck, and clawed its flanks. It bucked beneath him. Deramon was among the largest dragons in Requiem; this beast made him seem like a scrawny child just learning to fly. Its tail lashed and slammed into Deramon's back, cracking scales. Shrieks sounded above, and more wyverns dived, maws opening to reveal pools of acid.

Deramon cursed, tugged sideways, and flipped the wyvern over. He held the struggling beast above him, and the acid cascaded onto its belly. It roared. Its legs kicked the air. The acid seeped through it scales, and its blood rained.

"Father!"

Bayrin's voice rose through the battle. The green dragon shot through fire and smoke, roared, and slammed into the wyverns above Deramon. They howled. More dragons flew into them, showering them with fire.

Cursing, Deramon tossed off the mewling wyvern he clutched; it tumbled from the sky. He flew up and joined Bayrin, and they lashed their claws, felling another beast. When Deramon looked around him, he saw a sea of wyverns; thousands encircled him, his son, and what remained of the dragons he had led to battle. Perhaps fifty still flew; the rest lay dead on the mountainside.

"Elethor!" Deramon howled. He stared south over thousands of wyverns and dragons, clouds of fire and acid, and spraying blood. "Elethor, get your dragons out of here! We fight underground!"

A brass dragon rose from fire, perhaps a mile away—Elethor Aeternum, King of Requiem. Blood stained his muzzle, and he spat a legless Tiran rider from his mouth. He nodded at Deramon and shouted to those of his dragons who still lived.

"Royal Army!" he cried. "To the city! Fall back to Nova Vita. To the tunnels!"

Dragons began rising from the fray and flying north. Deramon cursed and felt those old, icy fingers reach through him. Four thousand dragons had flown south with the Royal Army; he saw several hundred who still lived.

It's a massacre, he thought. His innards burned and shook. He saw the images again: his men dead underground, his king burnt, the bodies of children strewn around him—children he had vowed to protect. Beyond those shadows, he saw an older ghost: the body of Noela in her crib, a mere babe. He had shaken her, pleaded with her, raised her above his head and howled in grief. He had buried her. He had wept for days, mourned for years.

How much death can we endure? he thought in a haze. He could barely hear the battle anymore. The screams were muted. The acid and fire gave no heat. The bodies on the mountains below gazed up at him—young eyes, scared, the eyes of sons and daughters, husbands, wives.

You failed us, Deramon, those eyes said to him. You vowed to protect us. Won't you save us?

Deramon shut his eyes. The children in the tunnels would die too. They would die like Noela. But he would not bury them; he would die in acid at their side.

"Father, fly!" rose a voice. Deramon opened his eyes to see Bayrin hovering before him, his scales burnt with acid, his flank slashed and bleeding. His son slapped him with his wings. "Father, fly with me."

With a howl, Deramon flew.

The dragons of Requiem raced over the mountains.

The wyverns chased.

When Deramon looked behind him, he saw Elethor leading ragtag survivors in flight. Wyverns dived all around them, spraying them with acid, picking them off one by one. With every flap of dragon wings, another Vir Requis turned human, screamed and clutched melting skin, and tumbled into darkness.

"Fly, dragons of Requiem!" Deramon shouted. He dived back toward Elethor, roasted a wyvern, and flew by his king. The lands streamed beneath them. The wind roared. All around them, countless wyverns shrieked, and riders chanted, and acid flew, and crossbows fired, and everywhere—everywhere in the night Vir Requis fell dead. Wherever he looked, he saw them burning, saw their pleading eyes.

Deramon! You vowed to protect us!

"Fly, dragons of Requiem!" cried King Elethor. "To the city! To the tunnels!"

Deramon sought Nova Vita in the darkness. He could not see the city. Flying to battle, the flight had seemed so short, a mere dash across field, forest, and mountain. Now the miles stretched endlessly. Now the fields and forests drank the blood of dragons.

"Father!" rose a pained cry, and a blue dragon streamed toward him.

Pain drove through Deramon like a spear in his chest. His eyes stung. Lyana! Lyana flew there, his daughter, the light of his life. She was wounded, her scales chipped, her eyes narrowed with pain, and her body thin.

"Lyana," he whispered.

Again he held Noela's body, his youngest daughter. Again he wept over the babe. Stars, don't let me lose Bayrin and Lyana too. If you have any mercy, stars of Draco, let me die before them.

A phalanx of wyverns, bearing banners of red swords, swooped from above. Crossbow bolts ricocheted off Deramon's back and he roared. Acid rained. He banked, knocked into Lyana, and shoved her aside. The acid streamed around them. Deramon howled, raised his neck, and flamed the beasts. Lyana soared and slashed at the wyverns' bellies, tearing saddles loose and sending riders tumbling. Yet for every Tiran they slew, three Vir Requis screamed, burned, and fell.

It seemed like hours before they saw Nova Vita ahead. The city rose from a scorched forest, crackling with torches. Deramon howled and flew as fast as he could.

"To the tunnels!" he shouted. "Flee to the tunnels, flee underground!"

He looked around him; only dozens of dragons still flew. He looked behind him; the wyvern army filled the night. Countless red eyes blazed and countless fangs glistened in the firelight.

The surviving dragons, burnt and bloody and roaring, flew over the city walls. Those dragons still on the battlements and roofs took flight, roared fire, and crashed into the wyverns. A few died. A few fled north.

"Into the tunnels!" Deramon cried. "City Guard, we fight undergrou—"

Three wyverns crashed into him, cutting off his words. Acid doused his scales and fangs bit. He howled and spewed fire, driving them back. All around him, dragons and wyverns crashed above the city, fangs biting, claws lashing. Death rained. Claws and tails lashed at buildings and walls, and bricks fell. Columns crashed. Screams filled the night as the city of Nova Vita, fair capital of Requiem, crumbled below.