Dragons Reborn (16 page)

"We'll find
allies, Felesar," he said to the beast as they flew over farmlands,
leaving the city behind. "We'll find new armor, new weapons, new soldiers,
new firedrakes. We'll return with an army."

As the sun rose, Gemini
wrapped his robe more tightly around him and considered. Aid. Where could he
find aid? From his friends, of course. He had plenty of friends left! He could
summon . . .

He tapped his fingertips
against his palm, wincing with pain as his injured finger, the one missing its
nail, brushed against his skin. He had always been close to the priests who
brought him women to breed with, but they still lived in the Cured Temple. He
could track down some of those women, he supposed; they might have brothers,
fathers, uncles, strong men who'd fight for him.

"Don't be a fool,"
Gemini told himself. He had no use for priests or peasants. He needed an
army
.
Soldiers. More firedrakes. Horses and chariots.

There had to be some
lord who'd agree to lend him his army. The lord of Castellum Luna, for example.
He had an army! He had many firedrakes and soldiers, and . . .

Gemini frowned, trying
to remember that lord's name. He could recall seeing a tall, beefy man with a
wide mustache. The brute had been close to Mercy, would often talk to her about
old battles.

Gemini groaned. "I
can't enlist that fool." He spat across the saddle. "If he's friends
with Mercy, he's an enemy of mine, and I will slay him too."

He tried to bring to
mind all the other lords he knew across the realm, but he only remembered men
in bright armor visiting his sister, drawing swords and drilling with her,
riding firedrakes with her, fighting alongside her. Gemini had never had time
for such nonsense. He was a pureborn; he had spent his days and nights bedding
the women the priests sent him, doing his duty to the realm, not wasting time
on wars like a common soldier.

Gemini's heart sank.

Could it be true? Had
he squandered away his youth with lowborn women and wine while his sister built
a network of allies? No. There had to be someone. Gemini sneered.

"I have friends.
Powerful friends! There's Domi. She's a wild beast. She can become a great
dragon named Pyre. She . . ." He sighed. "She bedded me for money,
then tossed me into a dungeon."

With horror, Gemini
realized that Domi—this very woman who had betrayed him—was his only friend.

His eyes stung.

"Are you still my
friend, Domi?" His lips wobbled. "Oh stars, Domi, I'm sorry. I'm so
sorry. I don't know what I did." His chest shook, and he stared at the
cuts along his wrists, the cuts the shackles had left. "I need you, Domi.
I need you to forgive me. I need your help. I need to hold you again, to
protect you, to tell you everything will be all right." His damn tears
flowed again. "I need you to love me."

I need to find you.

He stood up in the
stirrups and stared down at the farmlands.

"Domi!" he
shouted. "Domi, can you hear me?"

A few birds cawed
below. A group of sheep scattered across a meadow. Gemini slumped back into his
saddle.

It was a large empire.
The search would take a while.

"Where do we look,
Felesar?" Gemini said. "You knew Pyre. Sniff her out! Follow the
scent."

The copper firedrake
snorted. Gemini answered with a snort of his own. It was just a dumb reptile,
not a bloodhound. Gemini clutched his head.

Think.

He tried to remember
the stories Domi would tell him in bed, stories of her childhood. Of wandering
from town to town, lost, a weredragon alone in a world that hunted her. Spirit,
she had spoken of so many places! Of the library in Sanctus, but Mercy had
already destroyed that place. Of time spent in the forest south of the city, but
Mercy had already burned that forest. Spirit!

Gemini closed his eyes,
trying to remember the other stories Domi would tell him. Mostly, as Domi would
speak to him in bed, Gemini would busy himself with kissing her neck, passing
his hands along her curves, and admiring her intoxicating eyes, not listening
to her tales. He tried to imagine that he lay with her again, his one hand
stroking her hair, the other exploring her body, as she prattled on.

"That tavern had
the best ale," Domi said in his memories, eyes wistful, as he kissed her
neck, moving down to her breasts, her belly, the sweet hills and valleys of her
pale, freckled body. "We used to drink there sometimes, my sister and I,
and even dance. There was an old harpist, and . . ."

Yet his memories morphed
into him kissing her, making love to her, sleeping in her arms.

No. No!
He ground
his teeth, forcing himself to remember. What had she told him? What tavern?

"We used to watch
the sea from the window." Domi spoke in his memory. "Sometimes when
Lynport was all silent, we'd walk along the beach, and—"

Gemini stood up in his
stirrups. "Lynport!" he shouted and laughed. "She has a favorite
tavern in Lynport! Her forest burned. Her library fell. Where else would she
go?" He pointed south. "Fly, Felesar! Fly to her. We're going to find
her. And she's going to help us."

He sat back down in the
saddle, and he found himself trembling. Spirit damn it. He had wanted to seek
Domi with rage and hatred, to find her, burn her, make her pay. But by the
Spirit . . . he missed her. He needed to kiss her again, to forgive her, to
love her.

I need your help. I
need you Domi.

They flew on, crossing
the last farms. The burnt forest spread below them, smoldering, a pile of ash
and charred wood. The whole world was burning, and he followed the memory of
green eyes.

He flew all day,
crossing the forests, until the sun fell. They landed by a farm in the evening,
and Felesar blasted down his fire, roasting several sheep. The beast ate ten of
them, and Gemini—famished after his imprisonment and flight—ate what felt
like an entire sheep himself. At only one point did the farmer emerge from his
home, see the feasting firedrake and near-naked man, and quickly rush back
inside and slam the door shut.

They slept in the
fields and flew again at dawn.

For six days, they flew
across the lands of the Commonwealth. They drank from streams. They ate what
they stole from farms, feasting on sheep, chickens, squash and corn and
turnips. Every dawn rose upon a free world, a wilderness of fields, mountains,
grasslands, forests. Every night, the stars spread above, millions of them,
bright and blessing him. Gemini wanted to fly here forever. This life—just him
and a firedrake—filled him with vigor. The fuzz that had always covered his
mind in the capital, brought on by endless wine and languor, began to lift.
Without the stream of women, booze, smoking pipes, rich feasts and sweets, a
new strength filled Gemini, a lust for life, for freedom.

Decadence chained me
as surely as chains of iron,
he thought as they flew.
I'm free now, a
free man, a warrior. I left the capital a miserable wretch. I will return a
conqueror.

On his seventh day
since leaving the capital, he soared over the vast plains south of the forests,
the warm lands north of the Tiran Sea.

"Domi!" he
shouted as he flew. "Domi, where are you?"

The sun had fallen, and
clouds hid the moon, when he saw the coast ahead. He had reached the end of the
Commonwealth; beyond lay the Tiran Sea which led to the continent of Terra
where the Horde mustered. A cluster of lights glowed on the coast—the city of
Lynport. The city Domi had spoken of in his bed.

Are you there, Domi?

"Fly on, Felesar,"
he said to his firedrake. "Let's find her."

They flew over dark
farmlands until they glided over the city. Lynport was perhaps smaller than the
capital, but with a hundred thousand souls, it was the largest city in the
southern Commonwealth. Many huts rose here, and even older homes from the Lost
Age before the Cured Temple had ruled the land—houses built not of clay but of
wood and stone. A boardwalk stretched along the coast, and several ships swayed
in the water.

"How the Abyss am
I supposed to find some piss-soaked tavern in a city this size?" Gemini
grumbled from the saddle, flying in circles above Lynport. "She could be
anywhere here, if she's even in this city at all." He leaned over the
saddle and shouted at the top of his lungs. "Domi! Domi, where are you?
Domi, come to me! I forgive you, Domi!"

He heard no reply from
below. He kept flying, rising higher, spiraling over different neighborhoods.

"Domi!" he
shouted, voice hoarse. "Domi, it's Gemini! If you're here, fly to me.
Domi!"

He kept scanning the
city, waiting for her to rise, a dragon of many colors, the old dragon he had
called Pyre, the dragon he had loved. Yet she never emerged, and he kept
flying. His firedrake glided above the boardwalk, and he kept scanning the
buildings, waiting for her to rise, seeing only shadows, only emptiness.

"Domi!" His
damn eyes kept spilling those damn tears. "Domi, please. Domi. Be here,
Domi. Be here. I love you, Domi!" He lowered his head, and his voice
dropped to a whisper. "I love you."

She's not here,
he
thought.
I'll never find her. I—

Shadows rose in the
night.

Felesar bucked in the
sky, wings beating madly. Gemini gasped.

A dragon was soaring up
toward him—then another joined it. A third. A fourth. The dragons streamed
upward, barely visible in the darkness, no fire in their maws.

"Domi?"
Gemini whispered.

An instant later one of
the dragons slammed into Felesar's belly.

Gemini screamed as the
firedrake tumbled.

A second dragon slammed
into Felesar's flank. When Felesar opened his maw to blast out fire, a third
dragon shot forward and grabbed the beast's snout, shoving the jaws shut.

Gemini rose in his
stirrups, fear washing across him.

"Domi . . ."

A fourth dragon
descended from the darkness above, silent and almost invisible, and talons
wrapped around Gemini's body.

He cried out as the
dragon yanked him from the saddle and held him in midair.

He screamed. The dragon
lifted him higher. The claws tightened around Gemini, as hard and unyielding as
the iron chains in the dungeon. Below him, he saw the three other dragons
slamming into Felesar, biting and clawing, ripping out flesh. With a great snap
of its jaws, one dragon—a burly green beast—tore out Felesar's throat. Blood
rained in the night, and Felesar—greatest of the capital's firedrakes, an old
beast of legend—tumbled from the sky and slammed down onto the beach below.

Then the dragon clutching
Gemini flew even higher, and they vanished into the clouds. When he tried to
scream again, the claws tightened around him, and he couldn't even breathe, and
all he saw was clouds and wings and blazing dragon eyes.

 
 
DOMI

She flew through the clouds,
holding Gemini in her claws, squeezing him until his screaming died. She
narrowed her eyes, refusing to let any feelings she might have had surface.

He is my enemy. He
is a son of the Temple. And I'm a warrior of Requiem.

Fidelity flew at her
side, and Cade and Roen flew close behind. They glided lower in the sky,
leaving the city behind, and flew along the coast. The waves whispered to their
right, tipped with moonlight, while the dark cliffs of Ralora rose to their
left, a wall of stone overlooking the southern sea. In the shadows of those
cliffs, a mile out of the city, Domi glided down and tossed Gemini onto the
beach. She landed before him, and her fellow dragons landed around her, claws
sinking into the sand.

Domi had always known
Gemini to be handsome, at least in a pale, slender sort of way, but the young
paladin now looked like a drowned rat. He still wore the same housecoat Domi
had last seen him in; it was now tattered and stained with blood. Brown stubble
covered his face and the left side of his hair, and brown roots showed where
his hair was long and bleached white. He coughed, struggled to rise in the
sand, and began to run.

Still in dragon form,
Domi pounced and knocked him facedown. She placed her paw against his back. She
was careful not to nick his skin, but she placed enough weight to keep him
pinned down.

"Release me!"
Gemini shouted, thrashing. "I'm looking for Domi. Where are you, Domi?"

Domi sighed. Her scales
were still painted black to conceal her during her night flights. He did not
recognize Pyre, his dear old dragon. She turned her head toward her companions
and nodded.

Standing in the sand, the
three other dragons released their magic. They stepped forward, humans again,
and untied the ropes that served as their belts.

"Let me go!"
Gemini screamed. "Release me! I'm a paladin of the Cured Temple, and I
order you to release me, weredragons!"

Domi kept him pinned
down as Roen bound the paladin's wrists. Cade meanwhile held down Gemini's
kicking legs while Fidelity tied his ankles together. Once Gemini was securely tied
up, Domi finally removed her paw off his back and released her own magic.

She knelt beside her
poor, bound paladin.

"Gemini," she
said.

He blinked sand out of
his eyes, spat sand out of his mouth, and looked at her. At first his eyes
widened, then narrowed.

"Domi," he
whispered. "Domi!" He began to thrash madly, floundering in the sand.
"Release me! Domi, why? You whore! I'll kill you, you whore!" His
cheeks reddened, and he began to weep. "Why . . . why, Domi? I love you. I
love you. Why?" His words blended into unintelligible blubbering.

Cade knelt beside Domi
and raised an eyebrow. "Bloody bollocks, Domi, is this the man you lived
with? I've seen toddlers throw lesser tantrums."