A Day of Dragon Blood

SOLINA



Outside the city the forests burned. Solina flew upon her wyvern, savoring the smell of smoke. It was a dry summer; Solina had kindled these flames only yesterday, and they now raced across Requiem, eating all in their path. She smiled thinly as she flew over the burning landscapes. Should any weredragons escape Nova Vita, they would find little sanctuary here. No places remained for them to hide. All the weredragon lands now blazed with the light of her lord, casting out the reptilian darkness.

She looked behind her. Lord Mahrdor flew there upon his own wyvern, and behind him flew fifty of his men, each armed with crossbow, spear, sword, and shield. Their wyverns screamed and their wings roiled the smoke from the blazing lands below. Behind them, Nova Vita lay as a black smudge upon the land, bustling with wyverns like flies over a carcass.

Her smile widened. You will flee that rotting carcass of your city, Elethor, she thought. You will flee into my arms.

Mahrdor flew up beside her. He pointed his ruined hand below.

"There, my queen. Three boulders by a hillside. That is where the weredragons will emerge." He licked his lips. "That is where Lyana and I will meet again."

Solina imagined what he would do to Lyana, and laughter bubbled in her throat. She had seen Mahrdor's work before. Truly, the man was an artist. She had seen the scrolls he made from human skin, the chairs of bones, the shrunken heads, the pickled hands. And she had seen worse: the sniveling, pathetic creations he kept in his deeper chambers. Those ones were his greatest treasures, living works of art that he had created—breaking and reshaping bones, sewing flesh to flesh, twisting and burning and molding his prisoners into creatures of haunted beauty.

That is what awaits you, Lyana, Solina thought. That is what awaits you, Mori.

She began spiraling her wyvern down toward the boulders. Her men descended around her, wings fanning the forest flames.

"But you, Elethor," she whispered. "You will be mine to torment. I will break you myself. I will wield the hammers that nail you to my tower, that shatter your bones, that make you scream and weep and beg. I will stand there, glorious in the light of my lord, and watch my vultures feast upon your living flesh." She clenched her fists. "The entire kingdom will watch, and the people your father orphaned will cheer!"

She landed in a patch of burnt grass and hot stones. Baal screeched at the flames that surrounded them; the wyvern was skittish, bucking and whipping his tail. Solina patted his scales.

"Hush, Baal!" she said. "The fire of our lord cannot hurt us. Hush! Lower your wing."

The beast calmed, though his eyes still blazed red and his tongue still lolled, dripping acid that burned holes into the earth. When he lowered his wing, Solina climbed down to the forest floor. Grass smoldered beneath her boots. Before her in the hillside loomed the black mouth of a tunnel.

Solina grabbed the crossbow that hung across her back. She loaded a bolt and twisted the crank, pulling the string taut.

"Load crossbows, men," she said over her shoulder. "We enter the darkness."

Mahrdor and the others were dismounting their wyverns. The firelight blazed against their armor. They grabbed their own crossbows, and the sounds of twisting cranks filled the forest. Swords hung from their waists and spears hung across their backs.

"Let us slay some dragons," Solina said.

She turned back to the tunnel, and was prepared to enter it, when she saw two weredragons emerge. A grin split her face.

The female weredragon was halfway out the tunnel when she noticed the Tirans, paled, and froze. She held a babe in her arms; the little beast began to wail. Solina loosed her crossbow into the spawn; its wails died at once.

The mother screamed. Mahrdor's crossbow thrummed. Its bolt slammed into the mother's throat, and the wench fell, gurgling, still clutching her babe as if it still lived. Solina drew her sabre and landed two blows, finishing the job.

"Where is the Weredragon Princess?" Mahrdor demanded. "Where is the Lady Lyana?"

As Solina was loading another bolt, a shadow stirred in the tunnels. Solina saw a second mother and babe crawling forward. When the mother began to flee back into darkness, Solina shot her crossbow again, hitting the creature inside the tunnel. Her men shot their crossbows too, until the wailing babe inside silenced, and blood trickled out.

Solina sighed. "Oh, Elethor. You fool." She shook her head sadly and looked at Mahrdor. "The weredragons carved an escape tunnel... but send mothers and babes out, rather than their monarchs." She spat onto the body at her feet. "Noble halfwits. It will be their death."

Mahrdor cleared his throat and stared down at the bodies in distaste. "I care not for mothers and infants. I want a knight. I want a princess. I want my birds of paradise."

Solina loaded another bolt and stepped toward the tunnel. "You will have them, and I will have my king, though their feet might be a little burnt. They still cower inside as our acid flows." She entered the tunnel; it was only four feet tall, forcing her to crawl. She held her crossbow before her. "Follow, men! We slew them in the sky, and we will slay them underground."

She had crawled a dozen feet when she saw candlelight ahead. Yet another mother crawled there, clutching her wailing offspring. Solina shot them, loaded another bolt, and wriggled over their bodies. The babe was still alive and squirming; she slew it with her dagger. Every ten or twenty feet, she had to shoot another spawning beast and her get. The blood flowed across the tunnel.

She had crawled for what seemed like an hour, and she was down to only three crossbow bolts, when she saw firelight and heard screams ahead.

She grinned.

When she crawled closer, she saw a scene of ruin. A great chamber loomed ahead; in its walls, she saw passageways to other chambers. Bodies littered the floor, nearly covered with acid; most were nothing but bones now. A handful of survivors—more spawning mothers—crowded upon a mound of earth, waiting to enter the escape tunnel.

Solina licked her lips, leaped from the darkness, and landed among them.

The babes wailed. The mothers screamed. Behind her, her men began leaping from the tunnel, and crossbows fired, and mothers fell dead.

A roar echoed.

Solina spun around to see a great, coppery dragon in the chamber. She inhaled sharply. Lord Deramon! The beast stood before a wall that had collapsed. Through the gaping hole, Solina saw a shaft leading upward; she recognized the passageway the Starlit Demon had carved last year. Wyverns were flying down the shaft; Deramon was holding them back and blowing flames. Acid blazed across him, eating through his scales, but still the dragon howled, blew fire, and lashed claws. The wyverns were trying to enter the chamber, to attack the mothers and babes; the dragon flamed them.

Solina smiled, raised her crossbow, and pointed it at Deramon.

"Goodbye, old friend," she said with a crooked smile.

When she pulled the trigger, a white figure leaped forward and slammed into her. The bolt whizzed and ricocheted off a wall. Solina snarled and fell several steps, nearly crashing into the rivers of acid. She spun to see Mother Adia, the woman's eyes wild and her teeth bared.

The priestess was unarmed and still in human form, but she looked every inch a beast. Her eyes blazed with condemnation. Her hair flurried. Her fingers curled as if they bore dragon claws. She leaped again at Solina.

"Stars of Requiem!" the priestess cried and drove her fingernails toward Solina—her only weapons. "You will die here, Solina, and may your Sun God forever burn your soul."

Solina sidestepped, amused. With a snort, she drew her sabre. The curved blade flashed, arcing out of its sheath and into Adia's flesh.

The priestess froze.

Solina's smile widened.

With a snarl, Solina pulled the blade back. It emerged bloody from the priestess—a giver of hot, intoxicating blood, the blood of her enemies, the blood of her glory and triumph.

Adia stared silently, red spreading across her white goan like a field of poppies growing in snow. Her eyes were deep pools, emotionless. Her lips whispered silently.

"Weredragon," Solina said to her, disgust dripping from her voice. She spat. "Fall at my feet and beg for a quick death."

Adia held the wound that sliced her belly; she was calm, like a mother holding her babe. The priestess stared at Solina, and still no pain filled those eyes, no fear, no anger... and as Solina stared into those eyes, it seemed to her that starlight glowed inside them, not blazing and furious like the light of her lord, but soft and mysterious like the night sky. And suddenly Solina herself was afraid, for she saw a power in those staring eyes, in those pools of night—a power she could not understand or burn.

"Child," Adia whispered. Blood stained her lips. "Poor, wayward child... what have we done to you? How did we hurt you so? Why does such pain fill you?" She reached out a bloody hand. "Would you forgive us, child, for the pain we gave you?"

Solina sucked in her breath. That pain danced inside her, gripped her, and spun her head. Her eyes stung with it. Suddenly she was a youth again, frightened and lonely, seeking comfort in Elethor's arms. Suddenly the courts of Requiem seemed so large to her, the dragons so cruel, their fire so hot, their stars so beautiful and foreign to her—stars that would never bless her, a lost desert child. She wanted to weep. She wanted the priestess to embrace her, to pray for her, to be her mother too, as she was a mother to all of Requiem.

No! No.

Solina's fist trembled around her sword. No, that is not me. It was never me! She snarled. Her flesh burned with hatred. She did not need their pity. She did not need their love.

She howled in the chamber. "May your pathetic stars burn your soul, Mother of Reptiles!"

Screaming, she thrust her sword. It drove into Adia's chest. Hot blood stained Solina's fingers. When she pulled her sword free, the blood sprayed her, and Adia fell to her knees.

The priestess gave Solina one last look—a look of sadness and of love. The starlight in her eyes dimmed and she fell.

A howl rose behind Solina, deafening, filling the chamber like a storm.

Blood on her hands, lips curled back, Solina turned to see Deramon. The dragon roared—the roar of hearts rending, of forests burning, of towers crashing. It was a roar like the ghosts of a drowned city calling from the ocean depths, like a dying race that would forever cry from lost graves, like children lost in flame, like the sound her own heart had made when they tore her from Elethor. It was the roar of a man for the woman he loved, of a grief and pain too great for any mortal body to hold, too wrenching for any mind to contain. It was grief itself—primal, pure, and deeper than all the seas and tunnels in the world.

Solina froze in wonder, in fear, in awe. Tears filled her eyes.

I made him roar this sound, she thought. I had the power to create this. Here in this cave, before this dragon and this howl, it seemed to her a greater triumph than all the towers she had raised, the armies she had led, and the dragons she had slain.

I made something pure. I created this roar and it is the greatest, saddest, and most perfect thing I ever did.

The great dragon's scales blazed with light. His claws rose like swords. His fangs shone like the whetted blades of demons. The wyverns outside the cavern, freed from his flames, spewed acid. The streams crashed against Deramon, drenching him, eating away at him. His scales began to shrink and twist, revealing raw flesh beneath them. Yet he did not fall. He rose tall in the chamber until his head nearly hit the ceiling. His wings unfurled like a dark sky. And he roared his fire.

The stream crashed toward Solina.

She screamed.

She remembered Orin's fire—the fire that had scarred her body and soul, that tore her from Elethor, that placed this flame in her heart. The old pain clawed inside her. Solina leaped aside. She nearly crashed into the acid. The flames blasted the rock where she had stood.

"Your soul will burn with hers!" Solina shouted and fired her crossbow.

The bolt slammed into the dragon's flaming maw.

The dragon reared. His fire hit the ceiling and rained. With a cry, Solina drove forward. She shoved into a mother and babe, knocking them into a stream of acid. She leaped onto their bodies, sprang toward the dragon, and swung onto his leg. She scurried up the scales until she clung to the beast's back.

He bucked and roared. His wings flapped. Solina snarled and clung to him. The dragon leaped, slammed against the ceiling, and Solina screamed. If not for her armor, she'd have been crushed between scale and stone. Acid sizzled across the dragon, eating at her breastplate, her boots, and her gloves.

"Die with your whore, reptile," she said. Tears stung her eyes and she could not breathe. "You tore me from Elethor. You told your cruel king of our love." Suddenly she was that youth again—afraid, angry, and weak. Her tears streamed and she roared, her own roar of pain and fury and loss. "You drove me to this, Deramon! You brought this death upon your land! Look around you. Look at the dead. Look at the corpse of your wife. Die knowing that you did this, beast! Die knowing that you killed her!"

Blinded with tears, strong with her fury, Solina reached around the dragon's neck. She swiped her sword. His scales were weakened with acid; her blade tore through them and into the flesh.

His roar died upon her steel.

The beast fell.

With a shower of blood, fire, and acid, the great Deramon Eleison—Guard of Requiem, slayer of many Tirans, Lord of Dragons—fell in darkness and light. His head hit the floor, and his wings fell limp, and the fire drained from him. Bloodied, he returned to his human form—a grizzled man clad in armor, body scarred and eyes dim.

Solina stood and stared down at the man. In her youth, he had always seemed so frightening to her, a mountain of hair and muscle and steel, all booming shouts and clanking weapons, twice her size and ten times as loud. Now he seemed so small to her—too thin in his armor, his beard more white than red, his booming voice silenced. He was still alive. He crawled across the mound of earth and stone. He reached out to the body of his wife.

His hand, bloodied and scarred, clasped the hand of Mother Adia. The priestess's hand, pale and lifeless, seemed so small and fair in Deramon's grip, a white flower in the paw of a lion.

"Adia," he whispered, voice hoarse, nearly silent. "Adia, my love. Do you see them? Do you see the white columns, the starlit halls of our fathers?" He clasped her hand, his eyes dampened, and a smile trembled on his lips. "We fly there together; we will dance and sing there always, my love. We will see our Noela again."

Solina drove her blade down into his back.

He gave a last gasp.

His eyes closed and he lay still, holding the hand of his wife.

Solina stared down at their bodies. Her lips curled back in disgust. When she looked up, she saw her men staring, silent. The last bodies of mothers and babes lay strewn at their feet, pierced with bolts. When fighting above Nova Vita, her men had cheered and howled for every dragon slain. Now they only stared.

She ignored them. She skirted a pool of acid and approached the shaft the Starlit Demon had carved last year. Wyverns fluttered up and down the chasm. Solina placed her fingers into her mouth—they tasted like sweet blood—and gave a loud, long shriek of a whistle.

A screech above answered her. Wings blasted air, each flap a thunderbolt rank with death. Baal, the King of Wyverns, dived down the tunnel and faced her. The beast hovered before the collapsed wall. Acid dripped between his teeth. Solina leaped through the opening, swung around Baal's neck, and climbed into his saddle.

"Grab those bodies," she told the beast. "Grab them and fly."

The wyvern reached into the collapsing cavern. He grabbed the body of Adia with one clawed foot, the body of Deramon with another. The beast licked his lips and looked over his shoulder at Solina.

"No, Baal," she said and stroked him. "You will not feast upon these ones. Not yet. We will first flaunt them before the city." She kneed him. "Fly! Into the sky!"

They soared.

Walls of stone blurred at their sides. They rose from underground into a city of ruin, then into a sky of smoke, ash, and fire. Twenty thousand wyverns screeched and spat their acid. Twenty thousand dragons flew around them—children, old toothless beasts, and cripples missing limbs. The mob of Requiem, an untrained mass, bustled and roared fire and slashed claws. Solina inhaled sharply.

It's beautiful, she thought. A great tapestry of glory. She had never seen so many beasts flying and killing under one sky; it seemed to her like the great stories of old, the ones where griffins toppled the mythical halls of Requiem's golden age.

Blood rained. Blood coated her. She licked blood off her lips and sword, savoring its coppery taste, the taste of her might. It was a day of dragon blood, a day of sunfire, a day of triumph. When she looked across the battle, she saw him there—her king, her love, the jewel she sought.

"Elethor!" she cried and flew toward him.