Pillars of Dragonfire (26 page)

He fell as a man.

Terror pulsed through
him, but relief too. It was over. It was over . . .

His eyes darkened. He
caught just a glimpse of lavender scales, of sputtering fire, heard Elory
calling him . . . but then the harpies flowed across her, and she vanished in
their cloud of feathers. And then Lucem saw and heard nothing more.

I love you, Elory. I
love you more than Requiem and more than the sky.

He could no longer
summon his magic. He could no longer fly. But he had found the sky of Requiem.
He had flown in his kingdom for a day, flown with a woman he loved.

I will see you
again, Elory, I know that I—

 
 
JAREN

Around him, they fell.

In the sky of their
home, they died. The children of Requiem. Thousands falling like the rain.

Jaren flew through the
battle, an old green dragon, scarred, weary, an old soul who had seen too much.
Too much loss. Too much pain. Too much grief.

I was a healer, but
how can I heal this? How can I heal a breaking nation?

The dragons fought
around him, calling out hoarsely, sputtering their last sparks of fire. They
fell around him, more and more. On the trees below they lay—butchered men,
women, children. Babies, dead in the snow. Eyes staring skyward.

Lost.

Gone.

"I'm sorry,"
Jaren whispered. "I'm sorry I led you here. I'm sorry for
everything."

They should have
waited. They should have languished longer in chains. They could have lived.
They had chased Requiem, and they had found their homeland—but only to die.
Only a cursed victory. Only to perish so soon, to fall as bones onto the
forest.

Live,
Queen
Gloriae had told him in his dream.
Live, son of Aeternum.

Jaren reared in the
sky, clawing at a harpy. He swiped his tail at another beast, suffering a gash
to his side. More dragons fell around him, not soldiers now, mere children.

"What did I live
for?" Jaren cried. "Why did you guide us here, stars? Only for death?"

He stared up at the
sky, seeking those stars, but could see nothing but the harpies, their burning
white eyes, their rotted wings, their hair of serpents. The sky was lost.

Jaren sneered and bared
his fangs.

Then we will fight
without our sky. We must survive.

"Requiem!" he
bellowed. "Requiem, into the tunnels! The sky is lost. Fly down, fly down,
into the underground!"

Around Jaren, they
began to descend. Cut, frozen, some of them dying, thousands of dragons glided
toward the forest. During the long night, waiting for the harpies, the Vir
Requis had discovered three entrances to the catacombs beneath Requiem. Jaren
now flew toward one opening—a stone archway half-hidden in soil, shaped as two
rearing dragons, their top claws touching. Through the archway, a tunnel
plunged underground. He landed, remained in dragon form, and cried out to the
others.

"Vir Requis, into
the tunnels! We fight underground. Soldiers—help the women and children in!"

Armored dragons roared
above, blasting fire toward the setting sun, holding back the harpies. They
formed a corridor of steel and scale, allowing the civilians—the older or
younger dragons, no armor on them—to glide down to the forest.

The first dragon
swooped toward the archway. Only yards away, a harpy burst between the trees,
slammed into the dragon, and tore him apart. The dragon crashed onto the forest
floor and returned to human form—an old greybeard. The harpy feasted on his
flesh. Jaren plowed forward and blasted his fire, slamming the flames against
the harpy, knocking the creature back, burning it until it fell.

"Requiem, to the
tunnels!" he cried.

More dragons descended.
A pair of young ones—no larger than horses—reached the forest floor and
shifted into a boy and girl. They ran toward the archway.

Another harpy swooped.
Jaren roared and shot upward, beating his wings, and knocked into the beast.
Its hair of serpents bit him. Its teeth sank into his shoulder. Jaren blasted dragonfire,
burning the creature, burning himself, shoving it back. He glanced down to see
the boy and girl race into the tunnels, and more dragons kept diving.

Many nights among the
huts of Tofet, Jaren had guided souls into death. Now he stood in a new land,
guiding his people to life. One by one they descended. Broken. Limbs missing.
Bleeding. Some nearly frozen, pierced with icicles, skin white with frost. They
stumbled into the tunnels beneath Requiem, seeking shelter from the storm.

And that storm roared
with all its fury. The harpies seemed endless. For every one felled, ten
dragons crashed down. They covered the sky. They swarmed through the forest,
shattering trees. Their rot flowed across the land, and their cries shook the
world. They danced around King's Column, hundreds of them, human limbs in their
mouths, clutching severed heads in their talons. The Royal Army crumbled before
them. Dragons crashed down, becoming men and women. Massive breastplates and
helmets, the armor of dragons, slammed onto the trees. Dragonfire faded, and
ice coated the world.

"Into the
tunnels!" Jaren cried, voice hoarse, guiding them in. One by one.
Children. Women. Wounded soldiers. A few other dragons stood with him, blasting
fire, guarding the way in.

But more harpies
attacked every moment.

They descended in the
darkness, blowing their ice. The eyes of countless snakes blazed red in the
night. The harpies flowed forth, ten emerging from the shadows for every one
slain.

"They enter their
tunnels, my harpies!" rose a voice above, and light flared through the
darkness. "They flee underground like the cowardly maggots that they are.
Shatter their hole! Slay them all."

The light grew brighter,
blinding. A sickly halo blazed. Through the frozen fog he descended, wreathed
in ice, his featherless wings spread wide. He wore a suit of gilded iron, not
mere armor but a new skin, and a golden mask hid the ruined face within. In one
hand, he held his lance, the blade bloody. In the other hand, he held a shield
emblazoned with an eye within a sunburst.

He descended toward the
tunnel, harpies dancing around him and cackling and snapping their teeth.
Dragons fled before the unholy host. Ishtafel's lance thrust as he glided down,
piercing a young dragon, then casting a girl toward the trees.

As Ishtafel landed
before the tunnel, Jaren sneered. Still in dragon form, he walked up toward the
seraph, placing the tunnel's entrance behind him.

"An aging, scarred
dragon with sad eyes." Ishtafel's eyes, visible through the holes in his
mask, crinkled with delight. "I do believe I stand before Jaren Aeternum,
Priest of Requiem, the old man I knew from Tofet. The man who bedded my whore
of a mother."

Jaren raised his head.
He barely had any more fire to breathe. He was so weary he nearly lost his
dragon form. But he let the last sparks fill his jaws, and he sneered,
revealing his fangs.

"Your rule over
Requiem has ended, Ishtafel." Jaren raised his spiked tail like a
scorpion. "You will leave this hallowed ground. Return to your banishment
across the sea, and never more set foot on our ancient land. Leave now,
accursed one! Leave or you will burn in Requiem's fire."

Ishtafel spread out his
arms, and his golden halo turned an ugly crimson color, crackling almost like
fire. "Oh, but Requiem's fire has already burned me, peeling away my skin,
my weakness, leaving me stronger, turning me into a god of gold and steel and
retribution. But yes, weredragon king. I will leave this frozen land, and I
will return to my palace in the south, but not before I cleanse my empire of
weredragons. This place you call Requiem will be renamed Harash Es, land of the
harpies. It will be their domain, and your bones will decorate their halls."

Ishtafel raised his
lance—the lance that had slain countless Vir Requis. That had slain Jaren's
wife, the kind Nala, the love of Jaren's life. With his other hand, Ishtafel
raised his shield, and the eye engraved upon it blazed with light, and the sunburst
crackled with true fire. The seraph rose several feet above the ground, and the
air stormed around him with flame and ice, and the harpies danced. Dragons fled
before the apparition.

"You have come
here to your death, Ishtafel!" Jaren shouted over the storm. The frozen
winds buffeted him. The flames burned him. But still the green dragon reared,
hind feet on the soil of Requiem, front claws raised. "I offered you
banishment. Now I will offer you only death. I am a priest, yes. And I am a
healer. But I am also a warrior of starlight, a soldier of Requiem, an heir to
a line of kings. Do not be fooled by my cracked scales, nor the grayness of my
snout, nor the weight of many years upon me. I have shed the blood of many
enemies. Now I shall spill your blood on the soil of my ancestors and my
children."

Lightning cleaved the
sky, lighting the flying harpies and dragons. Thunder boomed. Rain came
crashing down.

With a howl and blaze
of light, Ishtafel charged.

Jaren leaped up to meet
him.

The lance thrust, and
Jaren swiped it aside with his claws. He blasted all the dragonfire that
remained in him.

The blaze slammed into
Ishtafel, white and blue in the center, flaring out to red. The flames washed
across the seraph's armor, and Ishtafel laughed. His shield swung in an arc,
ringed with light.

The metal disk slammed
into Jaren's ribs with the force of a charging chariot.

Jaren heard a rib
crack.

He fell to his side,
lost his magic for an instant, returned to a man, then shifted into a dragon
again in time to swipe aside another thrust of the lance. Above in the sky, the
harpies held back any dragons who tried to fly near. Ishtafel and Jaren, King
of Saraph and Priest of Requiem, battled in a cocoon of ice and steam.

"Already you fall,
old one!" Ishtafel laughed. "And you are the great warrior guarding
the halls of reptiles? You will die now, Aeternum, and die knowing this: the
others will follow. Your son. Your daughters. All your people. I will slay them
as I slew your wife."

Jaren roared and beat
his wings. He charged toward Ishtafel, no more fire in his maw, but his claws
lashed and teeth snapped.

And they fought.

It was not a dance, not
a thing of grace and beauty like the duels of the young. Jaren's bones were too
old, Ishtafel's flesh too raw. They were a beast of scales and a monster of
metal. Clunky. Crying out hoarsely. Claws cut at armor, peeling back the gilt
to reveal the steel within. Shield and lance slammed into scales, cracking
them, cutting skin and muscle, shedding blood. Fire spurted and light flared
and all around the harpies danced and sang and dragons died.

"She squealed like
a hog in heat when I slew her." Ishtafel swung his shield, slamming it again
into Jaren, cracking more scales, snapping another rib. "Your whore of a
wife. Are you ready to meet her?"

Jaren tried to cut
Ishtafel, but his claws only scraped against the seraph's armor, denting but
not cracking the steel. The lance thrust into a wound on Jaren's shoulder,
digging deeper into him.

Jaren lost his magic.

He fell to his knees, a
man again, clad in burlap, his hair graying. Just an old priest.

"Yes,"
Ishtafel said, gliding down to place his feet on the ground. "Kneel before
me, slave. Die like the rest of you will die."

I fly to join you
now, Nala,
he thought, burning in the glare of the unholy halo.
I rise
now to our starlit halls, where I will fly forever at your side, my wife.

Ishtafel hefted his
lance and placed the tip against Jaren's chest.

"Will you beg me
for your life, old man? Or will you simply squeal and weep as I take it?"

Jaren raised his eyes,
but he did not look at the seraph. He stared beyond the light, beyond the cloud
of harpies. In the distance, he saw them—thousands of dragons diving down,
landing outside another entrance to the tunnels, the hole in the valley Elory
had uncovered.

"Keep fighting, my
children," Jaren whispered. "Fight them always. The world is good.
The world is beautiful. Fight for it."

The lance drove forth.

The blade pierced
Jaren's chest and emerged from his back.

Above him the smoke and
ice seemed to part, and he saw them. The stars of his forebears. Not only the
Draco constellation but millions of other stars, other lights, the souls of Vir
Requis from the first king to his fallen wife. Waiting for him. Shining upon him.

Goodbye, my
children,
Jaren thought.
I love you. I love you always.

The lance pulled back,
and Jaren flew, rising, all his pain gone, until he saw nothing but starlight.

 
 
ISHTAFEL

Glory.

It was glory distilled,
pure, sweeter than wine. A song of triumph. His greatest victory.

He was glad to have let
the weredragons linger this long. He could have slain them in Tofet, but he had
let them suffer. Let them dream. Let them flee here. Let them hope, feel some
joy before the pain. What a fine place to end their race! Here, in sight of
their precious column, he finally was slaying them, and here their bones would
forever remain.

"See this death,
Meliora!" he shouted. "Do you see how they die? I slew your father!
Do you see?"

He laughed, lifted the
corpse of the priest over his head, and tossed it into the air. Harpies grabbed
the old man and ripped into the flesh, digging, feasting.

"See them tear
your father apart!" he cried, laughing. "Hear the screams of those
who still die. You will be the last, Meliora! The last weredragon. I will drag
you back to my palace, but not before you hear every last scream."