Dragons Lost

by Daniel Arenson

  Domi nodded, and when he leaned in to kiss her, she kissed him back, her hands cupping the back of his head.

  He took her into his bed that night, and for the first time, he undressed her, hands gentle. And he made love to her—not a rough, mechanical thing like she'd seen him perform with the other women. Gemini loved her with softness and passion, with hesitation and firm desire. He loved her, and Domi hated herself.

  I betray Requiem, she thought, tears in her eyes, as she gasped with her pleasure. But I love him, stars of Requiem. I love him and I hate myself.

  He slept holding her in his arms that night, but Domi could not sleep. She kept thinking about it again and again—the village burnt, Cade crying out in grief, the library fallen, her family hunted, her homeland forgotten. Gemini mumbled in his sleep, and his arms tightened around her, and Domi felt that she couldn't breathe.

  She lay awake until dawn, and when the sun rose, she heard the bird's song. She looked outside the window and saw the cardinal there, red and free. It flew off into the morning.

  AMITY

  Amity stumbled across the desert, the rope running from her wrists to the horse. Sharp stones cut her soles. The sun blazed overhead, and a thousand men cheered and jeered around her. Her head swam. She swayed. She fell, banging her knees against the rocky, cracked earth.

  The crowd around her roared with laughter.

  The horse before her kept walking, yanking at her ropes, and Amity dragged behind it. A rock tore open the skin on her arm, and blood smeared the earth.

  "Up, you maggot!" shouted a guard, a smirking woman with olive skin, blazing green eyes, and a shaved head. "The Behemoth likes his meat live. Up! You're not dying here on my watch."

  A whip cracked, slamming against Amity's back. She yelped, ground her teeth, and rose to her feet. She stumbled along, nearly tripping again.

  "I'm going to kill you all!" Amity shouted, voice hoarse, throat torn. "I'm going to cut out your guts and feed them to you! I'm going to chop off your fingers and stuff them into your eye sockets! Abina! Abina Kahan! I'm going to shove my hand so deep down your throat I'll crush your bollocks. Let me go!"

  Riding the horse that dragged her, the bearded king burst out with laughter. He twisted around in the saddle to stare at her. Golden threads were woven through his beard, and gilt shone upon his scale armor. Many jeweled rings squeezed his fleshy fingers.

  "Still a lot of life to that one!" Kahan said to his men. "The Behemoth likes them feisty." He laughed again and drank deeply from his mug of ale.

  "Amity, save your strength!" Korvin called out. His voice was just as raspy as hers. His wrists too were bound, a rope running between them to a horse. He too stumbled after the animal. Blood dripped down his knees and elbows from a recent fall, and his white stubble was thickening into a beard. Dust coated his shaggy black hair, making it look just as pale.

  "Silence!" shouted a guard of the Horde, a towering man with long platinum hair, a bronze breastplate, and cruel blue eyes. He swung his whip, slamming the throng against Korvin's back.

  Korvin tossed back his head and howled, the cry of a wounded animal. Blood dripped down his back. Korvin was a large man, taller and wider than all but the largest warriors, and with his thick black eyebrows, shaggy long hair, and jagged face like a boulder, he made an imposing figure even while tied and whipped, a bound beast likely to break free any moment. Some in the crowd—the men, women, and children of the Horde—stumbled back, faces blanching. But as Korvin limped along, and as his chin dropped down to his chest, they drew near again, laughing and tossing pebbles at the prisoner stumbling after the horse.

  So this is our fate, Amity thought as she walked along, her feet bleeding, her throat so dry she thought it would crack. They had flown here to summon an army to fly north to the Commonwealth . . . now they lumbered south with this army, bound and bleeding, to be fed to the beast.

  A gust of wind blew dust up from the desert. It invaded Amity's nostrils and eyes, and she coughed and blinked, almost falling again. When her eyes cleared, she gazed around her. The landscape seemed to sway, to fade into haze, only to reappear whenever she blinked. Here was not a desert of golden dunes or fields of sand; it was a rocky, barren, ugly place, the ground cracked and strewn with many rocks ranging from pebbles to boulders the size of houses. The dry land seemed to stretch forever, fading into horizons that swayed with heat waves.

  And everywhere Amity saw the Horde. Here were the men, women, and children who normally camped at Hakan Teer upon the coast; they had packed their belongings, folded up their tents, and come to see the two weredragons—Amity and Korvin—fed to the king's pet. Hundreds of soldiers rode horses in a great herd, and a thousand more marched afoot. The sunlight gleamed against their armor. Each man wore different metals, pieces scavenged, stolen, cobbled together around campfires. Some men wore bronze scales, others wore iron chainmail, while some sported breastplates. Other, humbler soldiers wore mere leather armor studded with metal bolts, and one man even wore a great turtle shell as a breastplate. Their hair was long, and many men sported shaggy beards.

  Here was no organized, disciplined army like that of the Commonwealth. Here was a collection of races, from the shaggy Osannans who had once called the Eastern Commonwealth their home, to the proud Tirans from the western desert with their long bright hair and blue eyes, to the olive-skinned tribesmen descended from the ancient Terrans whose civilizations now lay beneath this very dust. Their wives, their children, their livestock all traveled with them, a great hubbub of laughter and song. Above them flew a host of griffins and salvanae, their shadows racing over the army below.

  We should be invading the Commonwealth, Amity thought, the rage and pain boiling inside her, blazing through her throat, stinging her eyes, curling her fingers. This host should be sweeping across the lands of fallen Requiem. Not this desert. I should be leading them, not dragging behind them, not—

  She stepped onto a sharp rock, howled, tried to hop on one foot, but ended up falling. Again she dragged against the ground behind the horse. Again stones cut into her arms, and she cried out with pain.

  "Stand!"

  Again the slave driver lashed her whip, cutting Amity's back. Again the crowd roared, and the king upon his horse laughed. Amity managed to push herself onto her feet, trembling, bleeding, and walked on.

  Step after step, she told herself. Think about nothing but the next step.

  Yet the pain grew with every one of those steps. Her bare soles ached for shoes. Her muscles screamed for rest. The scratches and cuts along her body cried out for healing. Her lips cracked and bled, and her tongue felt like a strip of dry leather. The sun beat down mercilessly, baking her hair, burning her shoulders and neck and face. She couldn't even summon the strength to turn her head and look at Korvin; she could only stare at her feet, putting every last drop of will toward moving each foot another step.

  Ignore the pain. Pain is irrelevant. My body will obey. My body will keep walking.

  She kept walking.

  She walked for miles.

  Through the haze of pain and sunlight, the memories rose.

  She was a girl again, struggling to keep moving, not to fall, but she did not walk in a desert; she ran in a forest, so afraid. It was twenty years ago, and she was only ten, only a child, yet already she knew all about death. Already she knew all about being hunted. Already she knew the fear of men trying to kill her, of an entire nation dedicated to ending her life, to slaying all her people, to stamping out all traces of her magic and the very name of her lost kingdom.

  "Burn the weredragons!" rose a deep howl in her memories. It was a paladin calling, a man all in white steel, a holy warrior of the Spirit. When Amity—just a little girl—glanced upward, she saw the firedrake gliding over the forest canopy, hiding the moon and stars. The beast opened its jaws, blasting out fire, burning the trees.

  "Keep running, Amity!" her mother said, tugging her along.

  "Come on, Amity, you have to kee
p moving!" said her father, his face bleeding.

  They kept running. Running through the burning forest. Running through grasslands. Running down city streets. Always running, from forest to village, from wilderness to city slums. Fleeing the wrath of the Cured Temple. Keeping their magic hidden. Keeping their secret alive.

  Until you killed them.

  Amity's breath quickened into a raging pant. Her fingernails dug into her palms. In the desert around her, she saw that memory too.

  We only shifted in darkness, only for a brief flight over the sea.

  The temptation had been too great. Too long without shifting into a dragon, and they grew restless, hungry for the sky. And so they had shifted. And they had flown.

  And we were seen.

  The firedrakes had charged from the coast, blasting fire across the water. Ten massive beasts, their scales white, paladins in steel upon nine of them . . . and a young priestess named Beatrix on the tenth.

  Amity grimaced, the memory clawing at her innards. Again she saw the firedrakes blasting their fire, digging their claws into her parents. Again she saw the blood rain down to the dark water. Again she saw Beatrix thrusting her lance, impaling her parents, sending them crashing down to the sea . . . down to darkness . . . to never rise again. To sleep in the depths of that watery kingdom and the murky shadows of Amity's memory.

  Amity had fallen that night, an arrow in her shoulder; the scar still hurt in the cold. She had sunk under the water. She had swum, sure she would die, swum in the darkness, under the surface, her lungs aching, her soul tearing, the ghosts of her parents tugging at her feet, calling to her: Join us, join us . . .

  But she had swum on. She had breached the surface, gulped air, swum again . . . until the firedrakes flew away. Until all that remained to her world was the black ocean, the emptiness, the grief. A girl. Only a child. Alone in the water, alone in the world. Perhaps the last of her kind, the last survivor of Requiem.

  She had risen from the water at dawn and flown, flown as she wept, flown until she reached the distant islands of Leonis, until she found the Horde. Found a new home.

  Found a reason to live.

  On Leonis, still only a child, she picked up her first sword, and she made a vow then. She vowed to become a warrior, to grow taller, stronger, meaner. To sear all grief from her heart, nursing instead a will for vengeance, an iron resolve. To someday return to the Commonwealth with an army, and to thrust her sword into Beatrix's heart like the priestess had thrust her lance into her parents.

  "Faster!" cried the slave driver, and the whip slammed against Amity's back. She grimaced and kept dragging her feet forward, following the king's horse, step after step across the desert, moving toward the distant mountains . . . and the beast that lurked within.

  When she finally saw the mountains ahead, Amity glared through the sweat that dripped into her eyes. The mountains of Gosh Ha'ar. The holiest ground in all the lands of Terra. Here was the place where the ancient god Adon himself, they said, had reached down his hand, forming man and woman from the clay. Here, in the bowels of these mountains, lived the Behemoth, and he was always hungry.

  Amity turned to look at Korvin. He walked at her side, covered in dust and blood, trudging after the horse that tugged him. She returned her gaze to the mountains ahead.

  "Gosh Ha'ar!" cried the men and women of the Horde. "Gosh Ha'ar! The Holy Mount! The Beast will feed!"

  No, Amity thought, sneering. No.

  She had survived the firedrakes of the north. She had survived flying alone across the sea. She had survived trudging across this desert. She would not let this creature of the mountains feast upon her flesh for the amusement of the Horde. A grin twisted her cheeks, cracking her lips, and she tasted blood.

  I will face the beast in the mountains, and I will tame it. I will return to the Commonwealth, a great queen, leading an army . . . and leading the Behemoth itself.

  CADE

  The two dragons flew through the moonless night, carrying wooden crates in their claws.

  "The damn things are heavier than an elephant's bottom!" Cade said, panting as he struggled to fly. His wings creaked and his breath rattled.

  Fidelity flew at his side in the darkness. She too carried a heavy load in her claws. "Cade, stop complaining and guide me! You know I can't see well in the night."

  He groaned. "Just follow the sound of my complaining then. I can't keep tapping you with my wing. Both my wings are about to fall off." He groaned. "Blimey, I imagined that a printing press was small, about the size of a beagle."

  Fidelity growled at him. "And I thought your brain was larger than a beagle's. Keep quiet. We don't want anyone hearing us."

  Cade thought that with his wings creaking, his breath rattling, and his claws scraping against the crates, he could be heard for miles. But he gave his voice a rest—he needed to save his breath anyway—and flew onward.

  They had bought the printing press that morning in Oldnale City, paying with the gold Fidelity had found in the forest, the coins melted into bars. As heavy as this load was, Cade was glad to be out of Oldnale. Along the narrow streets, forts and temples rising all around him, he had felt nervous, a mouse trapped in a labyrinth. Every paladin walking by had set Cade's heart racing. It felt good to be back in the open sky, far from any paladin or priest.

  But not far from danger, he thought. Firedrakes still patrolled these skies.

  Just as that thought entered his mind, he heard the screeches in the distance. He cursed.

  "Firedrakes!" he whispered to Fidelity.

  She glanced around, blinking, seeking them in the darkness. "Where?"

  Cade stared east. He could see their light there. The firedrakes flew carelessly, blasting out random sparks of flame; luckily, in the night, that meant Cade could see them miles away.

  "Still far but coming closer." He scanned the land below. "I see a little clearing in the forest, and we're far enough from the city. This is as good a place as any. Let's land."

  Fidelity nodded. As the firedrakes shrieked in the distance, the two Vir Requis glided down. They filled their wings with air and, as gently as they could, placed the crates down in the clearing. As soon as Cade landed, he returned to human form, fell onto his back, and groaned.

  "Everything hurts." He moaned. "Those crates almost yanked my claws out."

  Fidelity returned to human form too. She pushed her spectacles up her nose, then began to work at weaving her hair back into a braid. "I hate wearing my hair down. It gets in the way, and it's not much of a disguise anyway." She looked around her at the dark clearing. "Nice place, but we'll have to move between the trees. We're too exposed out here."

  "Said the sailor to his lady," Cade quipped, then bit his tongue at the harsh look Fidelity gave him.

  They dragged the crates between the trees and cracked them open. Inside lay the parts of the printing press: boxes of metal letters, wooden slats, sheets of metal, springs, screws, boxes of ink, and levers.

  "It's either a printing press or an ancient torture device," Cade said. "Do you remember how to put it together?"

  "No," Fidelity confessed. "But let's try anyway."

  They lit their tin lanterns, hung them from the branch of a tree, and got to work.

  Dawn was rising by the time the printing press stood in the forest, a mechanical beast larger than either of them.

  "It's a bloody dragon," Cade said, tapping it. "A dragon of metal."

  "And its weapon is more dangerous than dragonfire." Fidelity passed her hand through a box of metal letters the size of dice. They chinked. "It will fight our war with books. Books are the greatest weapon in the world."

  Suddenly she yawned, a great yawn that stretched out her limbs. Cade yawned too. They had not slept all night. But they were too eager to begin their work. They opened the first page of The Book of Requiem and began to arrange the metallic letters in a sheet, forming the book's first page.

  "What now?" Cade said when the template was ready.r />
  "We print." Fidelity lifted a sheet of paper. "We print it a hundred times for a hundred books. Then we go to the next page. And the next."

  Cade's eyes widened and he groaned. "There are over a thousand pages in The Book of Requiem! Fidelity! How are we going to print so many sheets?"

  She frowned. "Would you rather copy them by hand? A hundred times?"

  He sighed. "I suppose not. Are a hundred copies of this book even going to be enough, though? The Commonwealth is large, and, well . . . a hundred copies seem so few."

  Fidelity sighed too. "I agree. But it's all the paper we have, probably all the paper we could even buy in town. And we might not even have enough ink as it is. But, Cade . . ." Her eyes lit up, and she touched his arm. "Imagine it! Back in the library, we had only a few copies of the book. Now only one is left. A hundred copies, all over the Commonwealth—we'll drop them in taverns, in temples, in bookshops . . . and more people will know. They'll know that our magic is a gift, not a curse. They'll know about Requiem."

  Her eyes sparkled, and her hand on his arm shot warmth through him; that arm felt more alive than all the rest of his body. Cade wanted to feel her infectious joy, but instead, he found himself thinking of Old Hollow: how Fidelity had walked into the forest with Roen, returning with her clothes rumpled; how the two had snuck looks and secret glances; how she had left Roen with a kiss on his cheek, a kiss that hinted at underlying passion she barely tried to hide.

  Cade turned away from her. Foolish thoughts. He had no reason to be jealous. He did not like Fidelity that way . . . did he?

  He glanced at her; she had returned her attention to the printing press, applying ink and loading a sheet of paper. He watched her work for a moment. She had doffed her burlap tunic, and she wore the same outfit she had worn in her library: tan trousers and a blue vest with brass buttons. Her braid fell across her shoulder, and her spectacles kept slipping down her nose. She was beautiful, Cade thought. She was wise and strong and brave, and she stirred feelings in him that confused him, that made his blood heat, that made him fumble and feel so nervous around her.