Pillars of Dragonfire (2 page)

Other survivors. Til
did not know if any still lived in these ruins. She had not seen others for
months now, not since her mother had died. Perhaps they were all that
remained—her, her father, her brother . . . and the collared slaves in the
south. Yet if others still lived free, they would be here, she knew. Here at
this ancient heart of an ancient kingdom.

The ruins were thick
here, with countless bricks, staircases, and columns buried under the snow.
Walking was slow but they dared not fly. In human form, they would quickly leap
and hide should more chariots burn above. As dragons they would be visible for leagues.
As she walked, Til tried to imagine the great manors and temples that had risen
here, the heart of the city. In her mind's eye, she could see Requiem standing
again, beautiful in the winter, a safe home.

I pray that someday
Requiem rises again,
she thought.
If there is any holiness left in this
place, and if you can hear me, stars of my forebears, let us survive long
enough. For thousands of years, empires have risen to destroy us, only to fall.
I pray that we live long enough to see Saraph fall too, to see Requiem reborn,
but the darkness is great, and the wait is long, and I'm afraid.

She stared ahead at
King's Column, seeking solace from this ancient pillar, yet when she stepped
closer, a strangled yelp left her mouth.

Her father grunted, and
Bim covered his eyes.

Stars above,
Til
thought. She walked closer, dreading what she saw, unable to turn away.
Sickness rose inside her, and she knelt over and gagged.

In the stories, King's
Column shone like starlight, carved of purest marble, a pillar like white
dragonfire. Yet now dried blood coated the stone, flaking and rancid. Hundreds
of skeletons draped across the column, strung along chains, like a lurid
maypole from the Abyss. They were human skeletons, wingless—the skeletons of
Vir Requis.

Bim let out a strangled
yelp. Til pulled him into her arms and pressed his face against her shoulder.

Ancient magic still
protected the column, Til knew, and the seraphim could not topple it. But they
could defile it. They had turned it from a beacon of hope into a monument of
Requiem's fall.

"They're all
dead." She stared at her father with dry eyes. "We leave. There's
nobody here."

But she was wrong.

There was life here.

Cruel life. Life of
sunfire and steel.

They rose from the
ruins. They descended from the clouds. They burned the sky and melted the ice.
Hundreds of them, casting out blinding light.

The seraphim.

Some flew in chariots
of fire, pulled by winged horses of flame. Other seraphim spread their own
wings, and the firelight shone against their armor, spears, and golden hair. At
their lead flew a glittering deity, his armor gilded, a blinding halo around
his head. He was a burly figure, beautiful to behold, his blond locks flowing,
a figure who seemed woven of light. A sigil of a rampant lion glittered upon
his breastplate.

Til knew this one. The
Overlord. Commander of the north, this land that had once been Requiem.

"Run!" Til
whispered.

She raced through the
snow. Her brother and father ran with her. Til whipped her head from side to
side, seeking shelter—a cave, a fallen log, a huddle between walls. Finally
she spotted a fallen column ahead, a hollowed out space below.

But it was too late.

They saw her.

"Weredragons!"
the seraphim cried. "Weredragons below. Seize the reptiles! String them up
with the others."

For five years—five
terrible years since the doomed uprising—Til had slunk through the ruins in
human form, hiding in holes and caves, scurrying between trees and hills, her
sword and arrows her only weapons.

The time to hide was
over.

This day, in sight of
her defiled column in the heart of her stolen kingdom, Til summoned her magic.

Scales flowed across
her, rattling like a suit of armor, deep orange trimmed with yellow. Wings
burst out from her back, tipped with black claws. Her tail lashed. She took to
the sky, the color of fire, and blasted out her own flames. Her father and
brother shifted too, both rising as black dragons, and their fire pierced the
sky.

The light of Saraph
flared. The sun was setting, but the light of a thousand suns now covered the
sky and ruins, gold and white. A voice tore through the air, a voice so loud
its waves pounded against Til and cracked trees below, a voice mellifluous yet
terrible, a voice like a beautiful dirge. The voice of a god.

"Slay the
reptiles!"

Til didn't have to look
to know—this was the voice of the Overlord.

"Fly!" Til
shouted to her family. "Don't look back, just fly!"

The three dragons shot
forward, the fire and light blazing behind them. Flames rained, so hot even the
frozen trees kindled and burned. More seraphim kept rising, emerging from the
forest and ruins, plunging from the clouds, covering the world with their
light. Their lances rose like a second forest, their eyes were cruel stars, and
their wings shone like clouds in dawn. The hosts of heaven, wreathed in
splendor, angels of wrath and retribution—they stormed from all sides.

"Slay the beasts
of darkness! Slay the reptiles for the glory of Saraph."

And so this is how
we die,
Til thought.
Not hiding in shadows but roaring in light. We die
in fire.

The seraphim charged
toward the dragons from all sides, a luminous noose. Til reared in the air,
spread her wings wide, and blasted out her flames.

Her dragonfire roared
outward, slamming into a chariot. The firehorses scattered, and a seraph
screamed. More seraphim charged from her sides, thrusting their lances. The firehorse
hooves thundered, and the tips of lances gleamed, and Til knew that she would
join them—the skeletons on the pillar, the last free warriors of Requiem.

Two jets of flame
blasted at her sides, framing her, crashing forward, slamming into seraphim.
The immortals screamed, their armor melting, their skin peeling, their chariots
falling like comets. Two black dragons stormed forth—her father, her
brother—blasting out fire.

"For Requiem!"
Til cried.

Her dragonfire stormed
forth, shrieking, spinning, slamming into another seraph.

"Fly,
children!" Father cried. The black dragon clawed the air, spraying
dragonfire in all directions. "Don't fight. Fly! Fly!"

Roaring, Father charged
forth, barreling between seraphim. Lances slammed against him, chipping his
scales. Firehorses washed across him, burning his wings. Yet still the black
dragon flew, blasting out his fire, burning them down.

"Father!" Til
cried, flying toward him through the enemies. She swiped her tail, knocking
down a chariot. A lance sliced her wing, and she screamed, roared her fire,
burned the seraph down.

"Til, take your
brother!" Father shouted. Flames blazed across him, and blood seeped from
his cracked scales. "Take him south. Take him to the coast. Find others!
Find them in the south. Go—"

His voice died under a
shriek and blaze of blinding light.

Til rolled in the sky,
blinded, crying out.

The sun seemed to crash
onto the world. Light blasted out. Wings buffeted her. She tumbled, reached
out, managed to grab her brother. They beat their wings as a holocaust of fire
and sunlight flared. In the center of effulgence he flew, wings wide, halo
thrumming, lance bright as a falling star—the Overlord.

Father turned toward his
children.

"Go," the
black dragon whispered.

With a roar, Father
soared.

"No!" Til
cried, tears in her eyes.

She clung to her
brother as Father soared into the light, as he reached toward the Overlord, as
dragon and seraph slammed together.

She cried out as the
Overlord thrust his lance, as the blade crashed through Father's chest, as it
burst out from his back.

"Father!" Bim
cried.

Til howled. She wanted
to fly up, to save him, to slay the Overlord, to slay them all, to die. To die.
To burn in fire. Yet she couldn't release her brother. She could only watch,
weeping, as Father lost his magic upon the lance.

The overlord—a massive
seraph, eight feet tall—raised that lance. Father was skewered upon it, a man
again. The life gone from his eyes.

"Sling him up with
the others!" the Overlord cried, tossing the corpse toward a chariot.
"Peel off the flesh and string his bones up across the column."
Smiling thinly, the Overlord turned in the sky to stare at Til. "Now . . .
come to me, children. Come join your father."

Time seemed to freeze.

All the world became
just her and him. A dragon and a seraph. A grieving woman, her heart shattered,
staring into the eyes of her father's killer.

Father—gone.

Everyone—gone.

My
brother.

Her
tears streamed.

My brother lives. He
lives. He lives.

I have to fight, I
have to kill him. I have to die with Father.

"Til," her
brother whispered.

He lives. One other
lives.

The Overlord stared
into her eyes, and his smile grew. "Come to me, children." He reached
out his palm. "Come home."

Til lashed her tail,
slamming it against her brother, spinning him around in the sky.

"Fly, Bim!"
she cried. "Fly!"

They flew, roaring out
their dragonfire. The jets shrieked, slamming into seraphim, knocking them aside.
The two dragons, orange and black, siblings, perhaps the last two free dragons
in Requiem, charged into the hosts of heaven. Their tails lashed, tearing into
chariots. Their claws ripped through armor. Lances slammed against them,
tearing off scales, yet they kept flying.

Til soared, blasted
fire, melted one seraph. Another flew from her left, and she snapped her jaws,
ripping his torso apart. She shook her head madly, scattering blood and flesh.
Her brother flew at her side, his dragonfire washing over the enemy, burning
their wings, their faces.

They flew onward.

They rose higher.

They burst into the
clouds, vanishing into swirls of snow.

Flames rose through the
clouds. Arrows and javelins flew through the shadows and light, a forest in the
sky. The flames of chariots filled the darkness.

Til and Bim flew
onward. Silent. Their fire hidden in their jaws. The clouds coiled around them,
and snowy wind buffeted them. The chariots flew everywhere, faded patches of
light like the sun behind veils. The dragons swerved, rising higher, lower,
dodging the enemy. An arrow pierced Bim's wing, but he ground his teeth and
kept flying. Silent. Tears in their eyes. Two shadows in the night.

They flew for what
seemed like hours, never leaving the clouds, pushing themselves onward until
the firelight faded, until the sounds of pursuit were a mere rumble in the
distance.

Finally they could fly
no more. They were too weary, too hurt. They glided down from the cloud cover,
emerging into a dark world. The forests of Requiem spread below, silent in the
night. The two dragons spiraled down. They all but crashed through the forest
canopy, scattering icicles and frozen branches, and thumped into the snow.

Their magic left them.

They knelt in the
darkness, shivering, weeping, humans again.

"He killed
him," Bim whispered, even as his teeth chattered. "The Overlord, he—he—"

Til pulled her brother
into her arms. She hugged him, squeezing him, nearly crushing him, and her
tears fell into his hair.

"He's with Mother
now," she whispered. "His pain has ended."

She could not see her
brother in the night, but she felt his shuddering breath against her, felt his
hands around her back.

"What do we
do?" he said.

Til stared upward.
Through the hole in the canopy, she could see the night sky. The stars of
Requiem shone above—the Draco constellation. The god of her people. The stars
that had forever blessed Requiem. The stars that, she had to believe, still
looked down upon her.

"We do what he
commanded us." Til held her brother close, wrapping him in her cloak.
"We travel south. We seek others. We seek life and hope even in this
darkness."

"There is no
hope," Bim said. "Not without him."

She gripped his
shoulders and stared at his dark face, barely visible in the night. "Even in
this night the stars shine. There is always hope, even in the darkest shadows.
So long as we draw breath, we will fight for Requiem. If not with dragonfire
then with every heartbeat, every breath in our lungs. We must stay alive. We
must keep Requiem's memory within our hearts. We must believe, Bim."

He lowered his head,
shivering. "Believe what?"

Til raised her eyes,
though tears now marred her vision, and the stars blurred. "That Requiem
can rise again."

Perhaps it's but a
dream,
she thought.
Perhaps Bim and I are the last. Perhaps all other
resistors have fallen. Perhaps the slaves in Saraph will never return, and
perhaps they too are gone. But I have to believe. I have to trust in my stars.
For you, Father, I will go on. I promise you.

The siblings held each
other close, shivering until the dawn.

 
 
MELIORA

Around her they soared.

Hundreds of thousands
rising into the sky.

Dragons.

Dragons in every color,
rising in the night. Thin. Weary. Some mere children, others elders missing
their fangs. The scars of whips still showed upon their bodies, and holes
filled their wings. They had been beaten down in human forms, and they showed
their wounds as dragons, but still they soared. Their fire blazed in countless
pillars, rising like the columns of a flaming temple. The light shone upon
their scales. Red, blue, brilliant green, gold, silver—a mosaic in the sky.