Pillars of Dragonfire (25 page)

"We smell the
weredragons!"

"They hide in the
forest!"

"They hide by
their column!"

"Break them, snap
them, eat them, drink them!"

The harpies cackled,
screeched, cried out for blood and meat. Above them all rose a deeper voice.
The voice of a man. Of a seraph. Of a god.

"I see you,
Meliora!" rose the voice of Ishtafel. "I've come to take you
home."

She
is
home,
Vale thought.
We all are.

He summoned his magic
and rose as a dragon.

"Arise, dragons of
Requiem!" he cried, soaring higher, emerging from the forest. "Today
we fight. Today we die. A day of dragon's blood. A day of harpies crashing
down. A day of sacrifice and victory. Requiem rises!"

And from across the
forest, they rose. Their armor, shields, and swords morphed with them, melting
into their dragon bodies; they would reappear with their human forms should the
battle move to the ground. But even as dragons, they wore armor—great spiked
helmets, massive breastplates, and heavy greaves found underground—the armor
ancient but still strong. The dragons rose. Soldiers. Elders. Even children.
Today all of Requiem was an army. Today no man, woman, or child would remain
hidden from war.

Today Requiem rose in
all her wrath.

Dragons darkened the
sky and hid the sun.

Before them they flew,
covering the south, swarming forth, a great nation of rot. A million harpies,
buzzing, shrieking, spreading back for miles, each a beast devoted to murder,
to the ripping of flesh, to the death of dragons. And before them all he flew,
his armor burning bright in the dawn, casting back beams of light—a god of
gold and steel, a god of beauty, of hatred, of death.

Ishtafel.

Here it begins,
Vale thought.
The greatest battle of our lives. Perhaps the greatest battle
in Requiem's thousands of bloody years.

And it began.

The dragons stormed
forth across the sky, soldiers in front, civilians behind, all roaring, wings
beating in a storm. The harpies howled, charging, dripping rot, beating rancid
wings.

"Fire!" Vale
roared and blasted his dragonfire.

Across the front line,
thousands of armored dragons—the vanguard, the Royal Army, the strongest in
the nation—blasted forth a great curtain of flames, more fire than had ever
burned above these woods. The great cloud of flame covered the sky, racing
forth, a sea, a storm, a burning holocaust of Requiem's rage.

The harpies changed
form, arranging themselves in a massive wall, a hundred beasts high. Their maws
opened, lined with fangs, and they spewed their ice. The icicles shot forth,
longer and sharper than lances, wreathed in fog.

Fire and ice slammed
together.

The sky seemed to
crack.

Steam blasted outward.
Fire roared and showered down. Thousands of icicles made it through the
inferno, dripping, and shrieked across the sky.

One icicle drove into a
dragon at Vale's side, piercing the beast's neck. Where a dragon had been, a
woman fell, head nearly severed. More icicles flew all around him. Dragons
roared, lost their magic, and rained toward the forest. A shard of ice, larger
than a sword, scraped across Vale's side, chipping his scales. He barely felt
the pain.

"Burn them!"
he shouted. "More fire!"

Countless icicles
stormed toward him. The frozen fog charged like a living beast.

Thousands of flaming
jets streamed forth in reply.

The sky itself burned.

Water bubbled.

Steam burned dragons
and they fell, clutching at their blazing armor. More icicles slammed into
dragons, tearing through necks, chests, heads, ripping bellies open. Frost
coated other dragons, freezing scales, eyes, hearts. The bodies rained, losing
their magic in death. Hundreds of men and women fell, cracking the frozen
trees below them.

"Fire!" Vale
shouted and blasted his flames.

Across the front line,
the soldiers of Requiem—men and women who for years had wielded pickaxes and
borne baskets of bitumen—blasted forth their dragonfire with the fury of the
southern sun. Elory, Lucem, Til, thousands of others—their fire roared with
his.

"Rise!" Vale
cried. "Form a wall!
Wall
!"

The fire and ice again
slammed together.

The dragons kept
charging, rising higher, dipping lower, forming a wall of dragons from the treetops
to the heavens. The hosts flew through the inferno of steam, smoke, fire, and
ice and slammed together like worlds colliding.

The sky cracked.

Trees shattered below.

All of Requiem shook.

Within an instant, the
front lines mashed together, each force driving into the other. Harpies crashed
through dragons. Talons drove forth, longer than swords, ripping through
scales, cracking dragon ribs, digging out innards. Wrinkled, warty heads spun
around Vale, sprouting serpents. Rotted mouths opened, and fangs dug into
dragons. The harpies laughed as they fought, tugged out organs, fed upon the
wetness, fought again, coated in blood.

Vale roared. He fought
like he had never fought. Not over the City of Kings, not in the inferno of
Tofet, not in his many battles journeying here had Vale fought with such fury,
seen such bloodshed. He bellowed, crying out to his stars, blasting
his fire. His flames washed over harpies. His tail swung into their wrinkly
gray flesh. His claws tore open their breastplates and the skin beneath, and
snakes fled their innards.

They hurt him. Their
fog washed across him, freezing his scales. Their talons scraped across his
dragon-armor, denting the steel. Their snakes bit into his belly, and their
shards of ice pierced his armor. Yet though he bled, Vale kept roaring, kept
fighting, kept burning them down.

All around him, the
multitudes fought—a great song in the sky, a song of death, of shadow, of
light, of rot, of fear, of ascension. Ice and fire danced together. Dragons and
harpies rose to the heavens and fell like rain.

And all through the
battle, he shone above, laughing, wings spread out—the god of gold and steel,
the god of light, the lord of hosts, the King of Saraph and destroyer of
Requiem. Ishtafel of the Thirteenth Dynasty. Burned. Rebuilt. His voice ringing
across the sky, rising to a shriek, inhuman, the voice of crashing empires and
drowning children, of shattering forests and shattering nations.

"Here I capture
you, dragons!" he cried. "Here I slay you. Here I shatter your
column. Here Requiem will fall, here she will fade from all memory. Slay them,
harpies! Slay them all and feed upon them."

The world trembled and
the sky wept. The forest burned. The nation of Requiem had fled here to find
new life; here they would find a rededication of their kingdom or a death in
battle. Here they all fought—from elders to children—and their fire rose
together in crackling pillars, as bright as the marble column that rose behind
them.

 
 
LUCEM

He wanted this to be a
dream.

Just a fever dream in
his cave.

He missed that cave
now. He missed his wooden friends, his drawings on the wall, the river, the
birds, the loneliness. This had to be just a nightmare. This could not be real.

And yet still they flew
around him. Countless dragons and harpies, blowing fire and ice. The faces
seemed to float around Lucem: the bloated, wrinkled faces of crones, covered in
warts, snakes on their heads, hissing at him, leering at him, mocking him.

You will dance with
us forever, Lucem. You will be as we are.

Fear—overwhelming,
all-consuming, colder than the icy fog of the creatures—washed over Lucem. His
red scales clattered as he shook. Dragons died around him. Men, women,
children—they all fell, breaking upon the trees of King's Forest. A
carpet of the dead.

Lucem tried to blow his
fire, to kill the harpies, but he could barely even breathe.

I have to run,
he
thought.
I have to land in the forest, to run between the trees, to hide, to
escape this place, to return to my cave.

A harpy streamed above
him, and Lucem ducked, cringed, blasted his fire. A dragon stormed forth,
crashing into the beast. Thousands of others fought all around him, slamming
together, blood and fire and ice surrounding them.

I'm not a hero,
Lucem thought.
I've never been a hero. All I did was escape Tofet. All I did
was flee.

Now he just wanted to
flee again.

Another harpy drove
forward, grabbed a young dragon, and tore her apart. Scaly limbs fell, becoming
human again before they hit the trees. The girl still lived, limbless and
screaming, until the harpy ripped into the torso. Three more harpies stormed
downward, and their talons thrust, piercing the chests of dragons that rose to
meet them, emerging from their scaly backs.

Lucem dipped lower in
the sky.

He flew down to hover
over the treetops.

I can run between
the trees. I can escape. I can hide.

He trembled. He had
survived one tragedy before. He had been the only Vir Requis to have fled the
seraphim, to have found safety, found life. Here was just more death, more
disaster, and he could flee this time too, he could again be the one who made
it out. He could find a new cave here, maybe make his way south and return to
his old cave, or—

A cry above, high and
pained, tore through his thoughts.

He stared above and saw
her there, fighting above him, a slender lavender dragon blowing yellow fire.

Elory.

And she was hurt.

A harpy talon had
scratched her leg, and her blood dripped. Several of the rancid beasts
surrounded Elory now, reaching out more talons. The lavender dragon spurted her
fire and swung her tail, struggling to hold them back.

Lucem's fear vanished
under a wave of guilt.

I abandoned my
people ten years ago. I will not do it again. I will never more leave those I
love.

He howled and soared.

His fire blazed
skyward.

Several harpies dived
down to meet him. Their wings spread wide, dripping disease. They had no arms, but
their talons stretched down, massive and gleaming. Their shrieks tore at his
ears.

I fought dark
seraphim. I slew archangels and a massive bird the size of a mountain. And I
will slay these beasts.

His dragonfire slammed
into one harpy, igniting the foul creature's feathers. Lucem curved his flight,
dodging reaching talons. One harpy managed to slam into him, and her teeth dug
into Lucem's shoulder. The snakes on her head bit too. Lucem roared and clawed
at the wrinkled, feathered skin, tore the creature off, and blasted his fire.

The harpy fell, and
Lucem kept rising. His tail whipped around him, knocking back other harpies;
each of the creatures was larger than him.

"Elory!" he
cried.

She still fought two
harpies, and several of her scales were missing. Lucem roared out dragonfire,
torching one of the creatures attacking her. The massive beast, half crone and
half vulture, blazed and screeched, a great firebird. Elory blew her own
flames, burning the second harpy. Their tails whipped side by side, knocking
the creatures through the sky.

Harpies fell around
them, and the two dragons roared, back to back. Around them, countless harpies
and dragons still flew.

"Elory, are you
all right?" he shouted, looking over his shoulder at her.

"You mean besides
facing a million harpies? Yes, splendid!"

I love that dragon
more than life,
Lucem thought.
I will never leave her. I would die for
her.

"Ready to kill
those million harpies?" he said. "Just you and me! It'll be
romantic."

Elory blasted out fire
at one of the creatures, knocking it back in the sky. "Shouldn't we leave
some for the others?"

"To the Abyss with
them." Lucem raised his claws, and his wings beat back clouds of icy fog.
"Half a million for me, half a million for you. Let's keep score!"

They roared and flew
together, charging into the enemy.

Dragons fell around
them. Countless harpies hid the sky, driving toward them, flying in from all
sides, shattering the forest, shattering the sky.

And Lucem knew that he
would die here.

He knew that this was
real, not a nightmare, but that Requiem herself had always been a dream, a
brief moment of wonder, a reality they could never claim.

Requiem lived for a
day,
he thought.
And I am proud to die for her. A single day here in our
land, fighting by Elory, is worth ten thousand days in a cave.

The icicles slammed
into him. The fog froze his wings, and the leathern membranes tore when he
tried to flap them. Talons tore at his dragon armor, and more harpies kept
attacking, and more dragons kept falling. Elory cried out at his side, overcome
by the creatures, her fire down to sparks, her claws bloody, her armor cracked.

"I love you,
Elory," he said, blood on his scales, tears in his eyes.

"I love you,
Lucem." She wept as she fought. "Always. In this Requiem and the
Requiem beyond the stars."

The harpies slammed
into Lucem, laughing, ripping at his scales, at his flesh, eating, drinking
him. Great jaws closed around his leg, and pain washed over him. A dozen more
harpies crashed into him, and he tried to claw them, and the teeth sank deeper
into his leg.

It's here.

He convulsed, crying
out.

This is the end. My
death.

"Elory!" he
cried. "Elory, look away. I love you. I lo—"

The jaws snapped shut
tightly around his leg, tugging back, ripping off the limb, exposing and
snapping the bone.

Lucem screamed.