Pillars of Dragonfire (15 page)

She did not reach the
border of the empire here, for that empire now spread across the sea too. But in
her mind, this coast, this edge of a continent—here the heartland ended, and
there across the sea, Requiem began.

"Beyond the water
it waits," she whispered. "Requiem."

Around Meliora, the
other dragons cried out in joy and hope.

"The coast!"
rose a voice.

"The edge of
Saraph!"

"Requiem is
near!"

They called out with
joy. Old dragons wept. Young dragons spun in circles, whooping. On the dragons'
backs, those who rode in human form played drums and timbrels, and their voices
rose in song.

Yet as the camp
celebrated, Meliora remained silent. Again Leyleet's words returned to her.

You
will never see Requiem, daughter of dragons. With my dying breath I curse you:
You will never see Requiem.

Meliora
narrowed her eyes. She would ignore those words. There was no use for them now.
So long as she could fly, she could fight, she could lead. That was all that
mattered now.

"My lady!"
The high voice rose from the south. "My lady Meliora!"

Meliora turned in the
sky to see a slender black dragon flying over the camp.

Kira.

Meliora's former
handmaiden, now her scout, wobbled as she flew over the thousands of other
dragons. Smoke spurted from her nostrils in short blasts. The young dragon was
exhausted, but Kira still flew fast, streaming over the other dragons, calling
out to her.

"Lady
Meliora!"

Kira shot across the
last mile, then descended to hover by Meliora at the head of the camp. The
young black dragon panted, puffing out great clouds of smoke, barely able to
speak.

"Ride on my back,
Kira." Meliora dipped to fly beneath her. "Rest and speak."

The dark dragon
gratefully thumped down onto Meliora's back, releasing her magic, becoming a
slender woman with black hair and dark eyes. Kira crawled onto Meliora's neck
and lay on her belly, limbs dangling, probably looking to the world like a
monkey slung across a branch.

"My lady, he grows
closer!" Kira said, still breathing heavily. "Ishtafel and many
harpies. They're flying faster than before, and a stench of blood rises from
them, and blood stains their mouths and talons. I was barely able to fly back
faster than they chased." Kira shuddered. "They'll be upon us within
hours."

Meliora clenched her
jaw. Harpies flew faster than most dragons. Kira perhaps was young and quick,
but most in Requiem were larger, older, slower dragons. Since leaving Tofet,
Meliora had relied not on speed but on uninterrupted flight. Ishtafel's harpies
still needed rest every day, but Vir Requis could fly in shifts, the dragons
bearing those in human forms, taking turns flying and sleeping. Hope had begun
to rise in Meliora that, if they only kept flying, they would flee Terra and
leave Ishtafel's forces behind.

Yet now, at the coast, would
their short days of freedom end?

She turned to look
toward that northern coast. It still lay thirty leagues away. Only moments ago
it had seemed close to Meliora, but now every mile seemed the length of an
empire. As she stared north, she saw another dragon flying toward her, this one
red.

"Talana!" she
cried.

The red dragon,
Meliora's second handmaiden-turned-scout, came to fly before her. She too
panted, spurting out smoke, and her eyes were wide with fear.

"My lady
Meliora!" Talana said, hovering before her. "Great armies muster on
the northern coast! Thousands of seraphim, my lady! And . . ." The dragon
shuddered, scales rattling. "The Seven fly with them."

Meliora hissed.
"Impossible. The Seven died thousands of years ago."

Talana would not stop
shaking. She glanced back toward the coast, then looked back at Meliora.
"I saw them!" she whispered. "Great figures of light. Towering.
Burning. Hurting my eyes. Seven suns. Like in the stories. They are here."

Meliora's heart sank
into her belly. Ice seemed to encase her bones and lungs.

No. It can't be. Not
them. They died. They died millennia ago, back in the rebellion against the
gods.

"Kira, Talana, go
rest." Meliora had to force the words past her stiff lips. "Go to the
center of the camp. Regain what strength you can before we reach the coast."

The pair nodded and
flew off, leaving Meliora with her fear. She stared ahead toward the coast. It
was closer now, close enough to see its cities, great settlements of stone that
rose before the water. And there, even in the searing daylight, shone beacons
of light, clustered together.

The Seven?

A large blue dragon
came flying toward her, eyes hard, staring north.

"Who are these
Seven?" Vale rumbled, fire flicking between his teeth.

Meliora gulped.
"Thousands of years ago, when we rebelled against the gods in Edinnu,
great champions fought among the seraphim. Some called them
Amesha Spenta
.
Others called them archangels. Only seven fought with the seraphim; only seven
ever lived. Great beings of liquid light, larger, stronger than seraphim; we were
as toddlers by their glory. But nobody has seen the archangels since our
rebellion. Most seraphim assumed them dead, while others claimed that the Eight
Gods had forgiven them and welcomed them back into Edinnu. They became to us
things of myth—mere paintings on frescos, sculptures in temples, not beings of
this world." She stared ahead, teeth clenched, breath heavy. "Yet I
see bright lights ahead. And I saw truth in Talana's eyes."

Vale grunted. "We
slew Ziz. We will slay them."

She turned to look at
her brother. Vale was staring ahead, eyes hard. Many scars and wounds covered
the blue dragon—welts on his underbelly, holes in his wings, and raw patches
where his scales had fallen. Yet still he flew with bared teeth, fire in his
nostrils, the warrior of Requiem, head of her hosts, ready to spill more blood.

"Yet Ziz was still
a beast of this world," Meliora whispered, her fear not allowing her to
speak any louder. "Now we face unearthly terrors. Creatures woven not of
flesh but of light itself." She turned to look behind her, staring across
the thousands of dragons. "And in the south, they gain on us—creatures of
darkness. We are trapped between light and shadow."

Vale sneered, jaws
opening to release a short burst of fire. "We will shine our own light. We
will roar our fire. Our homeland lies beyond the water. We will shatter any who
come between us and Requiem."

The dragons of Requiem
flew onward, crossing the last miles between harpies and sea, between Ishtafel
and the light ahead, trapped between two hosts. When she looked behind her,
Meliora could see the rotted host, closer than they had ever been, a cloud of
dark specks in the distance—no more than an hour's flight away.

"Take all our
forces and put them at the vanguard," Meliora said to her brother as the
coast approached. She could now see walls and towers ahead, and she sneered.

Vale stared at her.
"Ishtafel gains on us. We might be facing a war on two fronts."

"If we are
trapped, we are dead. No, brother. We cannot fight on two fronts. We cannot.
All forces ahead! We smash through the enemy and we make to the sea."

There was no hope to
evade this enemy, Meliora knew. The entire coast of Terra was settled, and the
enemy knew they were flying this way. They had been waiting.

Meliora growled and
blasted her pillar of dragonfire skyward.

"Hear, O
Requiem!" she cried. "We near the sea! We near our home! Fight the
enemies of Requiem, fight for your stars, fight for your lives. To war!"

Around her, the Royal
Army stormed forth, thousands of dragons with fire in their mouths. "To
war, to war! Requiem rises!"

Ahead, they rose from
the coastal walls and towers. A wall of fire and light. Thousands of seraphim ascended,
some in chariots of fire, others flying fast upon their own wings. Meliora
sought those beams of light, those Seven Suns, but she didn't see them. She
prayed that Talana had been wrong, that she had just imagined the great
lights.

They're dead. They
died thousands of years ago.

"Requiem
rises!" the army called.

With dragonfire, with
flying arrows and lances, with blood and flames that filled the sky, the hosts
of Requiem and Saraph slammed together.

The skies burned. Blood
rained on the coast.

Meliora roared as she
fought. She blasted her fire, lashed her claws, bit into the flesh of seraphim.
She cried out for Requiem, and she cried out wordlessly—for death, for
victory, for her stars, for rising from ruin. Yet even under this blinding sky
before a blue sea, she was back there—in the darkness outside Tofet, fighting
the Rancid Angels, hearing the demon's words.

You will never see
Requiem.

The wings of dragons
darkened the sky. Their fire rose in great forests and columns—a rebuilt
Requiem of flame. The seraphim circled everywhere, and the firehorses plowed
through the hosts of dragons, and seraphim thrust their lances from blazing
chariots. Corpses rained onto the coastal cities and sank into the sea.

"Cut through
them!" Vale cried in the distance. "Requiem, cut through the enemy,
to the sea! To our home!"

Meliora blasted out
fire, melting a seraph who flew toward her. She soared, spinning, cutting other
seraphim down with her whipping tail. She rose higher, higher than any eagle
could fly, and stared south, and there she saw them—the harpies approaching,
darkening the sky.

She stared back down,
and the battle looked to her like a different coast—a sea of fiery waves
slamming against a land of scales. The seraphim were a terror, thousands of
them crashing into the lines of dragons, yet as Meliora stared down, the hint
of hope rose in her.

Requiem was breaking
through.

A handful of dragons
tore between the seraphim and made it across the water, only to turn back and
charge against the seraphim still attacking the hosts. Elsewhere, chariots
crashed into the water, raising pillars of smoke and steam, and dragons roared
and fought with more vigor. Below in the coastal cities, Vir Requis were racing
between the buildings in human forms, finding slaves and opening collars, and
soon a thousand new dragons rose—only just freed, already flying to battle,
slaying their masters.

We can make it
through,
Meliora thought.
We can leave this cruel land. We can cut
through them, we can cross the sea. I will see Requiem.

"I will see
Requiem!" she whispered, tears in her eyes. "I will see our
stars."

And then she saw them—the
lights rising.

White, searing lights,
burning her eyes.

Seven suns rising.

Her hope burned in their radiance.

"The archangels,"
she whispered.

 
 
LUCEM

He was flying beside Elory,
crying out for victory, when the archangels rose from beyond the city.

Lucem cringed.

"Bloody
bollocks," he muttered. "One sun's bright enough in Saraph. Damn
seven of them just rose."

He beat his wings,
hovering in place, and forced himself to stare into the light. He could barely
see past the glare of the creatures. When he squinted, he could just make out
their forms. They were humanoid and winged, slender and well-formed, but much larger
than men or seraphim, larger even than dragons. They seemed woven of pure
light, luminescence taken form. They were pure white like the noon sun in
summer, but golden eyes blazed in their heads, barely visible past the glare of
their bodies. In their right hands, each archangel held a mighty sword that
seemed forged of molten metal that did not drip. The blades were as long as the
spine of a dragon. In their left hands, they held great whips woven of fire,
each lash thrice the length of even the longest dragon tail.

"Take them head
on!" rose Vale's voice from above, and the blue dragon charged, roaring.
"Burn them down!"

Across the sky,
hundreds of dragons—the vanguard of Requiem—stormed to battle.

"For
Requiem!" Elory shouted at Lucem's side, charging forward.

"Wait!" Lucem
cried and tried to grab her tail, but she flew too quickly, racing across the
sky toward the archangels.

This won't end well,
damn it.

Lucem grunted, curbing
the urge to flee. Every fiber in his body wanted to turn around, to escape this
light, to fly to safety, to hide again in his cave.

No. I fled once. I
abandoned my people before, and they called me a hero. This time I fight.

Lucem roared and flew after
his comrades.

Ahead, the archangels
plowed through the dragons as easily as trained soldiers cutting through
toddlers.

One archangel swung his
massive whip. The flaming white thong cracked the air and sliced through a
dragon, cleanly cutting the beast in half. For an instant, both halves of the
dragon tumbled through the sky; then they shrank into human form, the arms on
one half, the legs on the other, falling toward the coast. Another archangel
lashed his sword. The blade cleaved a dragon from back to belly. The dragon too
lost his magic, falling as a lacerated woman.

The archangels' light
intensified as they fought, spinning madly, coiling and blazing, emitting a
hum. Lucem had thought them made of sunlight, but now they seemed almost like
beings of living lightning, crackling the air, their humming inferno almost
melodious, almost like the song of Malok. They stormed through the lines of
Requiem, scattering dragons, cutting them down. Vir Requis tumbled through the
air before them, falling as men and women.

Lucem stared in horror.

I have to flee. I
have to fly away. I have to hide. Oh stars, I have to hide.