Pillars of Dragonfire (21 page)

The columns of Requiem
had fallen, but great pillars of dragonfire rose.

They stormed forth—six
hundred thousand dragons, roaring, breathing fire, crashing into the enemy,
coming home.

The royal army was only
days old, but it had already fought great battles, and it fought here with its
greatest fury.

The hosts of seraphim
crashed into them. Flaming chariots drove through the dragons, casting corpses
down to the beach. The arrows of seraphim filled the air, their tips as long
and sharp as daggers. Lances cracked through scales. The seraphim flew from all
sides, and the darkness of night vanished under their light.

Yet the dragons still
stormed forth.

Warriors. Elders.
Children. They all fought this night, flying over the beaches, burning down the
seraphim before them. The immortals fell with blazing wings. The chariots
crashed down, slamming into the water and onto the ruins of an ancient city.
Towers, roofs, and walls shattered beneath them, and fires burned among the
bricks.

Vale blew his fire,
knocking the seraphim down, leading the charge into their ranks. He soared
through fire that washed across his scales. He fought with his family. He
fought with his people. He fought for Requiem and he fought for the women who
forever lit his heart, who would forever shine down upon him. For his mother,
fallen in the slave pit. For Issari, a priestess of legend. And for Tash.

For the first time in
five hundred years, the Vir Requis fought in their sky.

 
 
TIL

The sky rained blood and
fire, and Til flew, her dragonfire washing across the battle.

Requiem is real.
Her tears steamed in the fire.
Requiem returns.

Her heart soared and
she trembled as she fought the enemy over the ruins. For so many years, she had
sought others, hoping against hope to find a handful of survivors, perhaps just
one, just another sign of life in ruin. For so many years, she had feared that
she and her family were the last, that soon they too would die and all of
Requiem's light would perish with them.

But we found others
in the south.
She flew with them, with dragons who covered the sky, burning
down the seraphim.
We found a nation.

Her tears kept burning
in her eyes. It had been years since she had seen other dragons—true living
dragons, actual Vir Requis. Her people. Thousands of them—really here, not
just in her dreams. Even though war blazed around them and hundreds were dying,
pure joy filled Til, for she was no longer alone. Countless others knew her
pain, her hope, her love of Requiem. She would never more hide in shadows.

Til knew at once who
these others were. Not survivors of the ruins. Not other vagabonds like her.
Here were the ancient people of Requiem, the descendants of those first
captives. Freed slaves. Free warriors. New hope and light for their land. They
fought for their ancient, stolen homeland. They fought for their freedom. They
fought to rekindle the light of Requiem in her sky.

And I fight a second
war,
Til thought.

She stared above her,
and she saw him still there, his light nearly blinding her. The Overlord.

The tyrant of Requiem's
ruins, the seraph who had slaughtered thousands, fought in a fury. His lance
thrust again and again, piercing dragons, sending them falling to the ruins as
men and women. His shield swung, cleaving through dragons, sending scales
showering through the air. His light blasted out and his halo shone, brighter
than dragonfire. The warriors of Requiem fell before him.

"Bim, stay with
the others!" Til said. "Fly to the back line!"

Her brother fought at
her side, covered in scrapes, his black scales dented. He roared and blasted
his dragonfire against two swooping seraphim, kindling their wings. Two more
dragons—a one-eared lavender dragon and a red dragon with sliced horns—flew up
to fly around Bim. The three fought together, back to back, burning more
enemies.

Til beat her wings,
whipped her tail, and flew higher. She charged through the battle, moving
toward the light, knocking down those seraphim in her way. An arrow slammed
into her leg, and she bellowed but kept flying. A lance scraped her side, and
she whipped her tail, slicing a seraph in half. A chariot charged toward her,
and Til soared and rained down fire onto its rider. The seraph screamed, armor
and flesh melting. She flew onward, heading into the glare.

Ahead of her, the
Overlord thrust his lance, piercing a silver dragon. The dragon lost her magic,
returning to a human—a young girl, younger than Til. The Overlord swung his
lance, tossing the corpse onto another dragon. His shield swung, knocking the
second assailant down. Blood stained the great seraph's armor, but his light
still shone purely.

"Fight them,
seraphim!" the Overlord cried in his deep, holy voice. "Fell the
scaly beasts! Rid the world of the evil reptiles, and let the holiness of
Saraph shine here again."

Til stared at him,
growling.

He truly believes
it,
she realized.
He truly believes that he's good. That we are evil.
That he's doing holy work.

For the first time, Til
realized that perhaps good and evil did not truly exist. All her life, she had
imagined herself fighting a wicked enemy, imagined herself fighting for
goodness. Yet in the Overlord's eyes, the seraphim were holy and righteous,
while dragons were but monsters, creatures of fangs and fire.

For just that moment,
Til doubted herself, doubted her battle.

Then the Overlord slew
another dragon, and Til roared and charged, fire blazing.

Her inferno shrieked,
spinning madly, and crashed into the mighty lord of light.

The Overlord spun
toward her, the dragonfire washing across his breastplate. He screamed in the
flames, a deafening sound. He rose higher, emerging from the inferno, and gazed
down at her. Molten gold dripped off his armor, and he sneered toothily.

Til stared in horror.
Her dragonfire had melted the flesh of many seraphim, yet it had washed over
the Overlord like water around a boulder.

"There you
are," he said, pointed his lance, and charged toward her.

The blade drove forth,
coated with the blood of dragons. The blade that had killed her father.

Til roared out flame
and released her magic.

The dragonfire washed
across the Overlord again, and she plunged down through the sky, a human. The
lance thrust over her head, slicing a lock of her red hair.

She shifted back into a
dragon and soared, blasting out more flames. The fire crashed into the
Overlord, washing over his legs, and he bellowed in pain.

Til snarled.

There. I hurt him.
He can be hurt.

The Overlord swung his
shield toward her. The metal disk, wider than a man's arm span, flashed with
light, its sharp edge stained with blood.

Til screamed and
swerved, trying to dodge the blow, but she was too slow. The shield scraped
across her front leg, cutting a deep gash. She screamed. She nearly lost her
magic. She forced herself to beat her wings, and her dragonfire burst forth,
washing across the Overlord again, but seemingly not harming the seraph.

His shield swung again,
slamming into her side, cracking her scales.

Til lost her magic.

She fell, blood
spilling from her side, eyes rolling.

The battle spun around
her. The sky and sea whirled. Above her the light shone, and he laughed.

No.

Still in human form,
Til gripped the hilt of her sword.

"Goodbye,
Til!" the Overlord called above her, laughing. "Goodbye, my darling."

No.

The dragons all flew
around her and above her. The lost dragons of Requiem, come to rebuild their
homeland.

No. No. I will not
die now. Not so close to Requiem's rebirth.

She shifted. She soared,
an orange dragon. Bleeding. Burnt. Haunted by countless deaths, countless days
and nights of running and hiding. A broken woman, perhaps one too hurt to ever
heal. But a woman who would still fight. A dragon who would still roar.

She rose toward him
through the battle, washed him with flames, and soared higher.

He spun beneath her,
raising his lance.

Til kept ascending,
rising high above all other seraphim, high toward the stars of her people. The
Draco constellation shone above her, strands of starlight connecting its stars,
a great silvery dragon watching over her.

Below her he roared, a
twisted creature, burning in his own sunlight, his halo flaring and sputtering.
His lance rose toward her, prepared to cut out her heart.

Til swooped and
released her magic.

She plunged down as a
human.

His wings beat and his
lance rose

Til drew her longsword.

The lance scraped
across her side, cracking a plate of armor, and she thrust her sword downward.

The blade—a weapon of
the bellators, Requiem's ancient order of knighthood—crashed into the
Overlord's halo.

Light.

Sound.

Fury.

The halo shattered,
exploded, cast out thousands of burning white shards. Til screamed as they
burned her. She tried to summon her magic again, to lash into him with claws,
but the light was too great, the sound washing across her.

As he fell, the
Overlord reached out and grabbed her throat.

"So . . . there's
some bite to the bitch," he hissed, his voice no longer melodious but
ugly, raspy. Broken shards of his halo still sputtered over his head. Other
shards, like broken metal forged of light, had lacerated his head, his face,
his eye. The luminous blades thrust out from him, leaking golden ichor that
flowed down his skin, burning rivulets into the flesh.

Til tried to shift
again, but when scales began to rise across her, and when her body grew, his
grip tightened around her throat, constricting her, and she lost her magic like
a collared slave. The Overlord's wings still beat, holding them high above the
ruined city and beach. He sneered, licking the ichor.

"You . . ."
Til struggled for breath, rasping out each word. "You . . . lost. Requiem
. . . rises."

"No, my little sweetling."
He tightened his grip. "Requiem falls now between my host and the harpies
flying from the south. And you will die now, at my moment of greatest glory, in
the battle where we eradicate all weredragons. Die now, girl. Die. Die."

She couldn't breathe.
Her neck creaked. Blackness closed in around her, until she saw only him, only
his lacerated face, only his burning golden eyes, the pupils like sunbursts,
his bloody teeth. Then stars flowed over her vision—stars like those of
Requiem, floating everywhere, rising in columns. Caught in his grip, she floundered,
trying to slap him, to kick him, until her limbs lost all strength and hung
loosely.

The Overlord screamed.

Horns burst out from
his chest, sizzling with ichor, then pulled back.

His shriek tore across
Til, leaving only ringing in her ears. His grip loosened and she gulped down
breath.

The Overlord thrashed
in the sky, clutching at his wounds, beating his wings, wailing in agony and
rage. Behind him flew a small black dragon, horns bloody.

"Bim," Til
whispered hoarsely.

She shifted into a
dragon.

She lashed her claws,
ripping into the Overlord's chest, shattering his armor and lacerating the
skin. She lashed her tail, driving the spikes deep into his side. She blasted
out fire, burning one of his wings.

With a roar that tore
across the sky, the Overlord fell.

He plunged down like a
comet, a ball of light, tearing through dragons, burning them and still
crashing downward, leaving a trail of smoke. When he slammed onto the beach,
the world seemed to shake, and buildings collapsed in the city.

Til flew down, weaving
her way between dragons and seraphim that still battled around her. She bled
from multiple wounds. Her breath rasped. She all but crashed onto the sand and
lost her magic on impact. Bim landed at her side and lost his magic too.

For a moment, sister
and brother lay in the sand, too hurt and weary to move. Beside them he moaned,
twitched, smoked—the Overlord.

Til rose to her feet.
As dragons and seraphim battled in the sky, she limped toward him.

The Overlord lay on the
beach, his last strands of light flickering. His lance lay at his side. His
left wing was lacerated, and shards of his halo still pierced his head and
face, their light fading. His armor had cracked and melted, revealing burnt
flesh. He seemed smaller this way. Almost human. Just a dying man like the
countless who had died in this land.

"Please," the
Overlord whispered, voice hoarse, ichor in his mouth. "Please, Til. I only
wanted to ease your pain. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Til. I—"

With a sudden movement,
the Overlord reached for his lance.

Til kicked his hand
aside, crushing his fingers, and grabbed the weapon.

The Overlord bellowed,
trying to rise from the sand. Til kicked him down and placed the tip of the
lance against his neck.

They both froze. He
stared up at her, eyes wide, face pale. She stared down into those heartless
eyes. Golden eyes. Sunburst eyes. The eyes that had laughed as he slew her
father. Her hands trembled around the shaft of the lance.

"Look away,
Bim," she said, voice soft, never removing her eyes from the Overlord.

Her brother stepped
closer. He stared down too. "I want to see this."

Til's legs shook, and
she tightened her grip on the shaft.

"You murdered him."
She stared at the Overlord, speaking through grinding teeth. "You murdered
thousands. And you murdered my brother's soul. You are not a god, Overlord. You
are a monster."