Pillars of Dragonfire (9 page)

"I'm not queen of
Requiem," she told them. "I am her beacon, her voice in the
wilderness. Never mind my wounds. Tell me what you saw."

They rose, eyes
darting.

"We saw an
army," Kira whispered, her black eyes wide. "A great army that darkened
the sky, with more warriors then grains of sand in the desert."

Talana shivered, even
more pale than usual. "Ishtafel leads them, my que—I mean, my lady. But
he's no longer fair. He's all clad in steel and gold—not just armor but new
skin, even covering his face, and his wings are now featherless like the wings
of a bat. But the creatures he leads are even fouler." She hugged herself.
"They . . . They . . ."

"They look like
this," Meliora finished for her, voice soft, and pointed at the steaming
corpse of a harpy.

The two scouts turned
to look and shuddered. The harpy lay only a few yards away, the size of a
dragon. Gray blood and maggots seeped from its wounds, and its tongue hung from
its mouth, long and white and bustling with ants. A few snakes still lived on
its head, hissing and spitting venom.

Kira and Talana nodded.

"Harpies,"
they whispered together, for they too—once slaves in the palace of Saraph—had
heard the tales of these creatures.

Meliora stepped closer
to her scouts and placed her hands on their shoulders. She looked into their
eyes, one after the other.

"How many were
there?" she asked. "By your best estimate, how many?"

Kira gulped. "More
than the seraphim who flew against us in Tofet. I'm good at counting. I always
used to count seraphim from the window of the palace. But here is a greater
army than I've ever seen, ten times the size of the greatest garrisons of
Saraph. A million harpies fly toward us, moving fast. As fast as dragons."

Talana nodded, lips
trembling. "A million."

Frost seemed to flow
across Meliora again. She stared into the bulging, bloodshot eyes of the harpy
corpse. Her wounds flared with pain, and the voices of the dead Vir Requis
seemed to cry out to her.

You promised us
freedom! You promised us a home. Now we die. Now we all die.

Meliora turned away and
closed her eyes.

A thousand harpies
ravaged our ranks,
she thought.
A thousand nearly tore through our
defenders, nearly reached our children, nearly crushed our hope. A million will
kill every last dragon.

"We must
rise," she whispered, opening her eyes. "Jaren! Vale! Raise the dragons.
Let the wounded ride on those dragons strong enough to fly. Rise, dragons of
Requiem! Fly! Fly with all your speed. Leave the dead."

Meliora tried to shift
into a dragon, tried to fly with them, but she was too weak. Her magic petered
away. Elory rushed forth to grab Meliora as she wavered.

"Ride me,
sister," Elory said, turning into a dragon. "Ride me until you're well
enough to fly."

A few dragons began to
rise. Others were digging quick graves—with dragon claws and sandy soil, the
work didn't take long—and soon they too rose.

Perhaps Meliora would
never know how many had died here—thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. But as
the dragons of Requiem flew onward, she knew one thing: If Ishtafel caught them,
none of them would survive.

Bleeding, grieving for
their lost, the dragons of Requiem flew into the north. Just beyond the
southern horizon, just out of the dragons' sight, the foul army followed.

 
 
VALE

We were a
nation in the dust,
Vale thought as he flew.
We've
become a nation of the sky.

He looked across his
people. Hundreds of thousands flew around him, dragons in every color. On their
backs rode others in human forms, living out their lives in the air. Mothers
nursed their babes. Elders sang old songs. Healers changed bandages and chanted
prayers. Every once in a while, dragons would spot a herd of animals
below—wild deer or sheep sweeping across the land, sometimes merely a stray
rabbit—and then dragons would swoop, capture the prey, rise with it again. On
scaly backs, men and women lit braziers and cooked the meat. All life—eating,
sleeping, praying, singing, dreaming—all in the sky.

Vale rose higher,
ascending until the air thinned and he could barely breathe, until he flew
above all other dragons. Then he turned to look behind him.

From up here, the
horizon spread farther, and he could just see them. Just a hint. A dark stain
across the miles, its details invisible. If he hadn't known better, he'd have
called it a dark cloud.

But Vale knew what that
distant, southern darkness was.

"Harpies," he
muttered. "A million harpies following a twisted king."

He looked below at the
dragons gliding northward, seeking their homeland—a home that still lay days,
maybe weeks, maybe even months away. He might never know how many dragons the
thousand harpies had slain. Some estimated—those good at counting great
numbers—that ten thousand Vir Requis had fallen to the ice and talons.

If only a thousand
harpies slew a myriad of dragons,
Vale thought,
this southern army will
kill us all.

He dipped lower in the
sky, beat his wings, and darted forward. He flew over the other dragons—this
flying city spread for miles—until he reached the head of the camp.

Meliora flew there, her
scales silvery-white, touched with gold when the sun hit them right. Every few miles,
she raised a pillar of white fire that soared like the fabled King's Column in
the north, a beacon for her people to follow.

Can Ishtafel see
that beacon from the south?
Vale wondered.

He descended until he
flew by his sister.

"He's still
following," Vale said. "I can now see him when I fly high enough. I
flew as high as I could, higher than any bird, so high I could barely breathe
and the air was cold even under the sun. The horizon must be a hundred leagues
away from up there, and Ishtafel is just on its edge."

"Too close,"
Meliora said.

Vale nodded. "We
must prepare for meeting him, Meliora."

She spun her head
toward him, and her eyes narrowed. Smoke plumed from her nostrils. "No. We
will not face him in battle. Not here. Not in Saraph. If we must face him, it
will be in Requiem. In our homeland. If we must have a final stand, let it be
in our holy sky, fighting beneath our sacred stars."

Vale closed his eyes
for a moment, remembering that day—that day of more horror and awe than any
other. The day he had beheld Issari Seran, the Priestess in White, the Eye of
the Dragon. The day he had died.

Ishtafel had nailed him
to the top of the ziggurat, driving the spikes deep into Vale's hands and feet,
leaving him to die in the sun. As his last breath fled his lungs, as his heart
stilled, Vale had seen her.

Issari.

A woman woven of
starlight.

Thousands of years ago,
Issari had fought alongside King Aeternum himself to found the kingdom of
Requiem. She had risen then to the sky, forming the eye of the fabled Draco
constellation, the stars they said shone upon Requiem—the stars one could not
see here in the south. For millennia, they say that Issari gazed down upon
Requiem, and she had decended to heal Vale, to return him to life.

As he flew here,
Issari's words to him echoed in his mind.

A great battle
awaits you, son of Requiem,
she had said, placing her luminous hands upon
him, healing his wounds, returning his soul into his body.
Live, child of
Aeternum. Your war has not yet ended.

Vale opened his eyes,
looking again across the kingdom of dragons in the sky. He had thought his
life's battle had been in Tofet. Yet now it seemed a greater war awaited. Had
Issari meant that his great battle—the reason for his rebirth—was his battle
with the army of harpies, a battle for Requiem's own rebirth?

"Meliora, sooner
or later, we'll have to face him again." Vale looked into her eyes.
"Either in our sky or here in his. This is a battle we cannot escape, and
a battle that, right now, we would lose. Requiem can no longer rely on impromptu
defense, nor can we rely on ghosts or erevim to save us. We need an army. Not
just a horde but a true, trained military like Requiem's Royal Army of
old."

The white dragon shook
her head sadly. "Armies require months, even years of training. Armies
require ranks. Structures. Units within units—flights and battalions and
commanders for each. Ruthless discipline. Hardened souls."

Vale smiled grimly.
"All things that we already have."

Meliora stared at him,
frowning, and slowly her eyes widened. "Of course."

He nodded. "The
strongest among us, going back centuries, have been organized into teams and
sub-teams. All our lives, we practiced ruthless discipline, hardened our souls
and bodies. Every dragon here who's strong enough to lift a pickaxe or yoke
already has a team. Let our old slave teams become our new military units. Let
that routine—working together, wielding tools, every man and woman knowing
their place—become the foundation for our army."

"Yes."
Meliora bared her teeth. "Yes, we will have an army. And you, Vale, will
lead it."

In dragon form, he had
no eyebrows, but he gave his best attempt at raising one. "Surely there's
a better choice for general. Somebody older, wiser, stronger."

Meliora herself raised
a scaly brow. "Who? Father? He's a priest and healer, not a warrior. Me? I
am as a savior to these people, not a general. You are of royal blood, Vale.
You are an Aeternum, the descendant of our great warriors of olden days—the
blood of King Benedictus, of King Elethor, of the hero Relesar flows through
your veins. But there's a far more important reason, Vale, why you should
lead." Her eyes darkened. "You faced Ishtafel before. You're the
first dragon to have defied him, to burn him. You fought Ishtafel twice and
lived."

Her words stabbed him
like daggers. He grimaced and looked away. "Yes, I faced Ishtafel in
battle twice. I died the first time, sister. I live now only because Father
prayed to the Priestess in White to heal me. When I faced him again, I would
have died if not for . . . if Tash hadn't . . ."

He could say no more,
and tears stung his eyes, and his throat tightened.

Tash.

He lowered his head,
the pain overwhelming.

I miss you, Tash. I
love you. Always.

It had been several
days since her death, and the grief only seemed to grow. Tash—the woman who
had infuriated him, the woman he had come to love. Tash—the woman who had
almost betrayed him, the woman who had given her life to save his. Tash—the
woman who had freed Meliora from her prison, who had found the Chest of Plenty,
who had assured Requiem's escape from captivity.

Yet you will never
see Requiem, Tash,
Vale thought.
I will never hold you again, never kiss
you again, never laugh with you, perhaps never laugh again. I love you always,
Tash. Your loss is forever a hole inside me.

Meliora seemed to
notice his pain. Her eyes softened, and she flew closer and nuzzled him, her
snout hot against his neck.

"I'm sorry, Vale.
Her loss pains me too. I cannot imagine how much worse it must be for
you."

He raised his eyes,
looking at the sky. The sun was setting and soon the stars would emerge. The
Draco constellation did not shine this far south, but Vale knew that Tash's
soul would rise to that place—those celestial halls he had glimpsed upon the
ziggurat.

I know that someday,
I will see you again, Tash.

He returned his eyes to
Meliora. He nodded. "Requiem will have an army again. And I will lead
it."

 
 
LUCEM

The dragons of Requiem flew
over the wilderness of Saraph, hundreds of thousands strong, covering the sky—a
great nation of fire, tears, and blood.

As they flew, leaving
so many dead behind, many dragons shed tears. Many others still bled from their
wounds. On their backs, children wept, their mothers trying to comfort them,
crying too. Elders prayed. Men and women spoke in low voices, eyes darting with
fear, seeking enemies on the horizon. Fear, grief, pain—they filled the
exodus, spreading from the slowest dragons in the rear to Meliora's pillar of
white fire which led the camp, miles in the north.

Yet as Lucem flew here
on the wind, he could feel none of that grief or fear.

For the first time in
his life, he felt joy.

A feeling pure.
Wonderful. Greater than anything he had thought possible to feel.

He inhaled deeply, gave
his wings a sturdy flap, and rose higher. At first, he had wobbled while flying,
but now it felt as natural as walking. He looked across his nation, trying to
count them, unable to. So many dragons—dragons that flowed from one horizon to
the other, filling the sky, all flying together after that pillar of white
dragonfire, that column in the north, seeking the true pillar of marble.

For so many years,
Lucem had languished in his cave. Alone. Afraid. The hero of Requiem, the only
one who had ever escaped Tofet—only to become an exile, nearly mad with
loneliness. For so many years, hiding in the wilderness, he had dreamed of
this. Dreamed of the rest of his nation escaping, rising together as dragons,
flying as one.

"Enemies may fly
in pursuit," Lucem said. "And many enemies may await us in our
fallen homeland. But right now, here, in this sky—we are free. We are
dragons."

A high voice spoke on
his back. "Not me! And stop talking to yourself. You woke me up."

Lucem looked over his
shoulder to see Elory stretching and yawning with all the glorious grace of her
human form. She wore a cotton tunic, and her brown hair was growing longer—it
was now almost long enough to cover her missing ear, the mark Leyleet had left on
her. Several days of flight had been kind to Elory, he thought. She no longer
seemed as gaunt as before, and a rosy hue tinted her cheeks.