Dragons Rising (11 page)

Shrieks rose in the distance.

"Oh stars," Cade muttered. "Oh stars. Amity, you fool!
Fly!"

He spun and began to fly north, heart thrashing. Amity fell silent
and flew with him, eyes wide, smoke blasting out from her nostrils.

"You just had to shout!" Cade said. He looked over his
shoulder and saw them there--fifty bonedrakes or more diving into the
canyon, casting forth their beams of light.

"Shut up and fly!" Amity cried.

The
beams of light blasted outward, blazing across the canyon. They
slammed into cliffs, sending boulders tumbling down. Trees collapsed.
Cade yowled as a beam nicked his tail. He flew higher, only for
another beam to sear his horns. He darted from side to side, moving
up and down between the rays of freezing light. Another pillar of
stone rose ahead from the gorge, thousands of feet tall, topped with
trees.

"Fly behind that stone!" Cade shouted. "Put it between
us and the beams!"

Amity yowled as a beam grazed her side. She rose higher. The
bonedrake cries rolled across the landscape. Cade looked over his
shoulder to see the light blazing in the bonedrakes' eye sockets,
coil madly in their rib cages, then blast out from their jaws. He
turned back forward and flew from side to side, dodging the rays, and
skirted around the massive stone monolith. Amity flew at his side.
For a moment they were safe from the beams.

A great, shattering sound roared across the canyon, slamming against
Cade's ears like fists. Dust flew. Rocks tumbled. Light blasted out.
Cade looked over his shoulder to see the obelisk of stone, wide as a
palace and tall as a mountain, snap in two. The light of bonedrakes
blasted through the crack, sending boulders flying. With a hailstorm
of shattering stones, the pillar tilted and came roaring down toward
the gorge.

"Amity, fly!" Cade cried.

"Really?" she shouted back, beating her wings. "I
thought I'd dance a little jig!"

They streamed across the gorge as the stone pillar collapsed behind
them. Cade cried out as a boulder buffeted him, cracking scales on
his shoulder. Dust and pebbles slammed against his wings. A pine flew
through the air and snapped against his back. Leafy branches landed
on him, then slid down to the gorge. When Cade looked behind him, he
saw the pillar arcing down toward him, and he flew as fast as he
could, knowing he wouldn’t make it, knowing the pillar would
crush him. The tip of the tower roared downward, and Cade stormed
forward, curling his tail close to his body.

The pillar fell past him, scraped across his folded tail, chipping
scales . . . then tumbled down to the gorge below. It crashed against
the trees in the pit, cracked, and shattered into many pieces.

A foot or two closer, Cade knew, and it would have tugged him down
and snapped his bones.

"Good flying, kid!" Amity laughed, pebbles raining off her
wings with every flap.

"We're not in the clear yet!" Cade shouted back. The fallen
pillar had only revealed the horror behind it. The fifty bonedrakes
were now heading over the devastation, blasting their light again.

The gorge curved ahead. Cade and Amity barely made the turn. The
beams of light hit the cliff behind them, shattering more rocks.
Boulders tumbled in a landslide. More pines rained into the depths.

Ahead across the gorge, Cade saw a dozen more bonedrakes flying their
way. In the sky, twenty more came swooping down.

"We're trapped!" Amity shouted. "Ready to kill more
bonedrakes?"

Cade shuddered. "We can't kill them all. Bloody Abyss!"

His breath shuddered. The bonedrakes shrieked from every direction.
Their sickly light blasted out, filling the gorge in a great network
like cobwebs--cobwebs that could burn him down. Cade was wincing,
prepared to die, when he saw the cave ahead.

"Amity!" he shouted, a flicker of hope rising in him. "The
cave on the cliff! Make for the cave!"

She growled. "I'm not going to hide in darkness!" She
roared and blasted out dragonfire. "Fight with me, Cade! For
glory! For Requiem!" She made to charge against the bonedrakes.
"For--ow!"

He cuffed her hard on the snout, then slapped her with his tail. "To
the cave! We'll fight them in darkness. Fly!"

She yowled but followed him. She flew up and down, skirting the beams
of light. A bonedrake rose toward them, and the dragons' tails
lashed, knocking it down. The two dragons, burnt and howling, shot
toward the cliff wall. The cave entrance was just large enough to let
a single dragon fly inside. Cade entered first, and Amity followed
close behind.

The cave delved into the rock, wide as a temple nave. They flew
deeper, leaving the sunlight behind, but found that light still shone
here. Countless azure beads glowed upon the black ceiling and walls.
Strands of light hung everywhere like lichen, illuminating black
stalagmites and stalactites. There were more lights here than stars
in the sky, Cade thought. The blue beads reflected in a stream that
coiled below into the depths.

"Glowworms,"
he whispered in awe. "Glowworm homes. Millions of them."

"And
about a million bonedrakes on our tail!" Amity cried, beating
her wings and flying deeper into the cave.

Flying
with her, Cade looked behind him and winced. The bonedrakes were
flying into the caves, jaws snapping. The lights in their ribcages
blazed out, overpowering the gentle blue glowworms.

"You led us to our grave, kid!" Amity shouted.

"Keep
flying!"

They
rounded a corner, skimming across the wall. Cade's scales brushed
against the cave, knocking down a stalactite. Glowworms rained from
the ceiling, little beads of gliding light. Amity growled, slammed
against the wall, and kept flying. Just as they made the turn, two
bonedrakes slammed into the curving wall, their bones shattering.
Stalactites plunged down, and one drove between the ribs of a
bonedrake and shattered its luminous heart. But several other
bonedrakes made the turn and kept flying in pursuit of the dragons.
Beams of light shot from their jaws.

Cade
and Amity dived. The beams shot over their heads, slammed into the
cave walls, and knocked down more limestone pillars. The dragons rose
higher, scraping against the ceiling. More glowworms fell.

"Turn
ahead!" Cade cried.

They
barely made this turn too, cracking the wall. More bonedrakes slammed
into the rock and shattered, but others kept flying in pursuit.

Dodging
the beams of light, Cade and Amity flew into a wide cavern, nearly as
wide and deep as the gorge outside. Hundreds of stalactites hung from
the ceiling, covered in blue glowworms.

Bonedrakes
burst into the chamber behind them.

"You
wanted to kill bonedrakes?" Cade shouted to Amity. "Fly
with me! And whip your tail!"

He
rose to fly just under the stalactites, raised his tail like a
scorpion, and began whipping it around.

Stalactites
cracked and fell.

Bonedrakes
screeched.

Cade
looked over his shoulder to see the falling stalactites slam into the
pursuing beasts, snapping their spines, shattering the glowing
essence within them. Amity laughed and flew with Cade, whipping her
tail around, shattering more stalactites. The stone daggers showered
down, wreathed in glowworms, to slam into the bonedrakes. More of the
undead creatures fell to the floor, impaling themselves on jutting
stalagmites.

"Come
on, bonies!" Amity shouted, laughing as she flew, as more
bonedrakes kept emerging into this great, glowing cathedral in the
mountains. "Come on and chase me, you boney-arsed bastards!"

More
of the creatures kept emerging, screeching, the skeletal riders on
their backs crying out. The two dragons kept racing forward, tails
flailing, sending stalactites crashing down onto the undead. More and
more explosions rocked the cave as the bonedrakes collapsed, spilling
out their blazing light. With every blast, more stalactites crashed
down, only to kill more bonedrakes who in turn burst apart, creating
a chain reaction. The caves shook. Cracks raced along the walls. Soon
not only stalactites were falling but chunks of the ceiling. The
water churned below.

"The
whole damn cave's collapsing!" said Amity.

Cade
pointed his claws ahead. "Keep flying! I see daylight."

The
sunlight was distant, almost invisible in the glare of the
bonedrakes, but Cade kept pumping his wings, shooting forward. He
whipped his tail a few more times, knocking down more stalactites.
The whole ceiling began crumbling behind him. When he glanced back,
he saw the cave imploding, raining down onto the bonedrakes. Every
second, another rock crushed another skeleton, shoving the creature
down toward the floor.

Cade
looked forward. He saw it there--an exit into another gorge. He
smelled the fresh air and saw the pines. He beat his wings. He was
almost there.

The
exit began to crumble, the walls cracking around it.

Cade
and Amity roared and shot forward.

The
cave gave a last groan, and then the walls crashed down.

Two
dragons plowed through a hailstorm of boulders and burst out into the
gorge.

Their
wings beat, and they shot skyward, leaving the gorge into open sky.
When they stared down, they saw the cliff crumble. A landslide of
boulders and pines drove down into the chasm. The forest sank,
sinkholes greedily swallowing trees and hills, burying the bonedrakes
within. Dust flew in a cloud, then settled back upon a silent land.

The
two dragons glided above, covered in scrapes and bruises, bleeding
from many cuts.

"I
killed more than you, kid," Amity said. "I counted."

Cade
ignored her, flew past the gorge, and landed on a hill between pines.
There he released his magic, fell to his knees, and stared down at
the gorge. A new visitor to this land would not have noticed any
destruction. Within moments, the landscape had rearranged itself into
a new formation, and the birds sang again.

Cade
lowered his head.

Amity
flew down, a red dragon wreathed in smoke, and released her magic
too. She landed on her feet beside Cade and mussed his hair.

"What's
wrong, kid?"

He
kept staring at the landscape. His wounds ached but worse was the
pain inside him. "The cave. All those beautiful formations of
stone. All those glowworms--millions of them. An ancient cathedral
full of light, a kingdom as glorious as Requiem . . . gone."

Amity
raised an eyebrow. "Cade! Did you get hit too hard on the head?
It was a cave full of worms.
Worms
, kid."

He
nodded. "I know. But they were beautiful. And we killed them. We
killed them all."

She
nodded. "And all the bonedrakes too. I'd say the tradeoff was
worth it." She tugged him. "Stand up! Stand up and look at
me."

Cade
rose to his feet and turned toward her. Amity stared at him, covered
in dust and specks of blood.

"I'm looking," he said.

"What
do you see?"

"A
crazy woman who almost died with me."

Amity
nodded. "I would have died. Without you, I'd have died in some
roadside battle, killing one or two bonedrakes before they took me
down. But I'm alive now. Thanks to . . well, thanks to you. I'm only
going to admit this once, so soak it up now. You're all right, kid.
You killed some worms, yes, but you also saved my arse. Maybe that'll
comfort you." She growled. "Unless you like the worms
better."

He
sighed. "All right, Amity. Your arse is worth more than worms."

"Gosh,
but don't you know how to make a girl feel special!" She rolled
her eyes, then sighed and grabbed him. She squeezed him in a crushing
embrace, then pinched his cheek. "Now will you stop moping?"

His
legs crumbled as surely as the cave. He landed on the ground and lay
on his back. "I'm going to lie down for a bit. Everything
hurts."

Amity
lay down at his side, pressing against him. The pine branches swayed
above, and birds sang. Only a lingering chill filled the air, then
faded as the sun rose higher. Amity was soon snoring softly, but
exhausted as he was, Cade could not fall asleep.

Those
things were hunting Vir Requis,
he thought and shivered.
Did
they find the others? Korvin and Fidelity and Domi?

He
closed his eyes, shivered, and prayed to the stars to look after his
friends.

 
 
FIDELITY

At
dawn, Fidelity and Korvin beheld the glimmering city in the distance.

"New
Confutatis," Fidelity whispered in awe. She turned toward her
father. "This was once the capital of Osanna, a nation destroyed
and scattered. They say the ghosts of Osannans still dwell here,
millions of them crying out from the ground, tormenting the priests
of the Cured Temple who now live here." She sighed wistfully.
"I've read so many books about this place."

Korvin
began descending toward the fields. "I hope you enjoyed the
little view, because we're landing and walking from here. Daylight is
coming. We'll skirt around the city and keep making north to the
mountains."

Fidelity
looked at her father--a gruff charcoal dragon puffing out smoke like
a chimney--and back at the distant white city. New Confutatis was
famous not only for its sordid history and ghosts, but for the most
wonderful place Fidelity had ever heard of: the White Library. She
sighed again, trying to catch a glimpse of that silvery dome and pale
towers, the building that housed the world's largest collection of
books. But she could see only smudges from here, not even individual
buildings. As a dragon, she wore no spectacles, and even as a human,
her spectacles were now broken.

I
suppose I'll never see this city of wonder,
she thought,
never
visit the fabled library, never read those books. I'll probably never
see much of anything again, what with one lens of my spectacles
smashed, the other cracked. I--