A Day of Dragon Blood

by Daniel Arenson

  Mori stood frozen for an instant. In her mind, she saw everyone in these chambers—thousands of them—melting and burning, screaming, pawing at her, weeping as they died around her. For that instant, her heart froze and no breath found her lips.

  She clutched her luck finger.

  Panic later, Mori. Fight now.

  She ran toward the shelves of supplies. "Grab sacks of grain!" she cried. "Pile them at the door! Soak up the acid!"

  She grabbed a sack of wheat, dragged it toward the doors, and tossed it down. She drew her sword, slashed the sack open, and grain spilled. The wheat began to soak up the flowing acid. Some sluiced around her shoes, and her soles began to steam.

  "Grab the grain!" she cried. "Stop the acid!"

  Around her, some people wept and shivered, curled up into balls. Others began to pull more sacks of grain, slash them open, and spill their contents onto the acid that trickled from above. As they worked, more guards began running into the chambers. Some were so burnt, they were unrecognizable; they were but living wounds. Others suffered milder burns; they too began slashing open sacks of grain.

  Stars, where is Elethor? Where are Bayrin and Lyana and Deramon?

  Mori growled and kept working. Why had they not foreseen this? Why had they not carved drainage holes into the tunnels? She winced, cursing herself but knowing she could not change the past. Fight now. Save these people now.

  The acid flow strengthened from trickle to stream. Mori dragged more sacks, slashed them open, and spilled more grain. People wailed around her. Some acid flowed around the grain and began eating at people's boots.

  Elethor, where are you?

  As she dragged a sack forward, she saw Adia dragging the dead man away, the one who had first burst into the chambers. His flesh dangled through his armor, and sudden horror pulsed through Mori. Was that... was that Elethor? Was that wounded, wreck of a person Bayrin or Lyana?

  No. No! It can't be. Tears stung her eyes and she slashed another sack open. The acid was pouring more powerfully now. People were screaming. Several children shifted into dragons—they were but the size of horses—and clung to the ceiling.

  "Do not shift!" Mori shouted. If they all became dragons, they would crush one another and breathe all the air. "Move into the deeper chambers. Go!"

  They began to move through the network of chambers, pushing deeper, but acid kept pouring. More and more grain spilled. The acid began to eat through Mori's shoes; they were falling apart. She grimaced and kept working even as her soles began to blaze.

  "Mori!"

  She looked up and tears filled her eyes. Bayrin came running through the doorway. Behind him ran Lyana, Elethor, and Deramon. Acid was steaming on their boots and armor, but their skin was still smooth. Mori cried out to them, a tremble seizing her.

  They leaped over the sacks of grain, which were still soaking up the acid, and began kicking off boots, unclasping armor, and removing gloves. They tossed the steaming leather and steel aside, then began slapping at their bodies.

  "Merciful stars, this stuff is hot!" Bayrin cried. He pulled his tunic off and tossed it aside, remaining bare-chested. He slapped at his torso, searching for droplets of acid.

  Mori rushed toward him. "Bayrin! The Tirans! Are—"

  Eyes dark, he spat. "They haven't entered the tunnels, but they've got every last bloody wyvern flooding us with acid, I reckon."

  Lips tightened, Mori turned to look at her brother. Elethor's shoulder was burnt, his jaw was tight, and his eyes blazed red and hard. He clutched his longsword Ferus.

  "Keep stacking the grain!" he shouted to the people. "Every last sack—I want it blocking the doorway!"

  They kept working. Soon a great pile of sacks—enough grain to feed hundreds—filled the doorway and half the chamber. The survivors huddled deeper against the walls, pushing into the further, deeper chambers, a sea of living flesh filling this labyrinth of stone. Mori stood huddled between Bayrin and Lyana. She reached out and clasped their hands—Lyana with her right hand, and Bayrin with her left hand, the one with her lucky sixth finger.

  If we die, she thought, I die with those that I love. A bitter smile touched her lips. That is not a bad way to die.

  She looked up at Bayrin. He met her eyes and squeezed her hand tight. They stood together—a king and princess, healers and wounded, nobles and commoners. They watched as the sacks began to melt, as the heat and stench rose. One man began to sing, voice hoarse, the old songs of Requiem. Hesitant, a woman joined him, and soon they all sang together—thousands of voices rolling through the tunnels, thousands of voices calling out the cry of starlight, the song of dragons.

  Acid saturated the grain. The sacks melted away. The distant shrieks of wyverns sounded, and the acid grew to a river... then came gushing into the chambers.

  MAHRDOR

  Pain.

  Pain tore through him like a horde of scorpions in his veins.

  He twisted his left hand into a trembling fist. The black leather glove he wore clung to the ruin of his flesh, sticking to blood, fat, and muscle. The pain flared from fingers to elbow and coursed through his body. Blood pounded in his ears. A red veil seemed to cloak the world.

  She did this to me.

  He sat upon his wyvern, a beast named Phel born with four leathern wings, having absorbed her sibling in the egg. One eye, one nostril, and three teeth of that twin thrust out from Phel's cheek, twitching with anguish; the rest of the parasite rotted inside her. The twisted wyvern perched upon a hill, claws digging into a fallen column. From his saddle of leather and steel spikes, Mahrdor stared down across the ruins to the archway; Solina sat there upon her own wyvern, goading the beast to spew more acid into the darkness below.

  She burns the weredragons like she burned me.

  He snarled. Even the movement of baring his teeth sent pain blazing, and he nearly lost consciousness. He clutched the reins.

  I should kill her now, he thought. Rage crackled through him. Fire blazed across him. I should slay her with my sword. I should peel back her skin, eat her flesh, and carve her bones with my name. Blood and fire painted the world. His head spun. His fingers trembled, and he gritted his teeth so hard he chipped a tooth and spat out the chunk. He licked his lips and imagined the taste of Solina's organs bursting between his teeth.

  He tugged the reins. His wyvern cawed, leaped over a pile of bodies, and landed ten feet closer to Solina. Mahrdor glared at his queen. She sat upon her mount, her back to him, her hair billowing, a banner of gold in the dawn.

  Mahrdor grabbed the glove on his left hand. He peeled the edge back, snarling. The pain exploded like Tiran fire inside him. Through the veil of red, he stared at the flesh beneath: twisted, soft, barely clinging to the bone.

  I will burn her too, he swore. Slowly. Inch by inch. Year by year. She will grow old in my dungeons, screaming for me. She will live a long life.

  Why had he taken the ancient punishment? Why had he dipped his hand into the acid? He could have killed her then. He could have slain her in her tent; he was strong enough, and she was but a woman, weak of flesh and mind. And yet... and yet he had shoved the hand in. He had taken the pain. He had drunk it up eagerly, savoring it, a pup begging for forgiveness.

  For what? The mercy of a queen? The honor of his post, a lord of hosts? He snarled, choked, and coughed. He spat a glob of phlegm and blood. What did he care for honor or power?

  "All I ever craved was my collection," he said through a tight jaw. "All I ever wanted was to create."

  He was an artist first, a warrior second. How he would have created art from Lyana, a true knight of Requiem! He would have molded her body, painted and pierced it, broken and healed it, shattered her bones and reshaped them until they mended into the forms he desired. And he would have molded her mind. He would have turned her from a proud, strong warrior into a mindless slave, a cowering creature, an animal that knew nothing but fear and pain and drool. She would have been his greatest creation, his gilded bird.

>   That is why, he knew. That is why I drove my fist into the jug. Never forget. Never forget why you are here.

  He growled at the sky where red clouds churned. He would find his Lyana again. He would return her to his villa in Tiranor. He would break and reshape her. If he had to sacrifice a hand, well... let his hand be as a work of art too.

  He ripped off the glove.

  He screamed.

  He held the deformed hand before him in the dawn. When he flexed the fingers, flesh tore and pain blinded him, rivers of red and white. He found himself laughing through his screams.

  It is beautiful, he thought.

  His queen had done this to him, and he laughed, realizing his folly. How could he have hated her for this? She had made his hand beautiful. She had molded him. She had collected him. She had turned his flesh into a work of art, into rivulets of scars, into beauty.

  Maybe one day he would return the favor. He would scar her with beauty too. But not yet. Not yet. First he would take what was his: a horde of weredragons to collect, a knight, a princess, a king too if Solina would allow it.

  "They will all be my treasures," he whispered to his ruined hand. "They will all be beautiful like you, my love."

  He tugged the reins, pulling his wyvern away from Solina. He dug his heels into the beast and Phel soared, four wings beating in unison. Soon Mahrdor was circling above the city, nostrils flared, taking in the scent of death. In the dawn, the devastation rolled below him, a tapestry of triumph. The walls of Nova Vita lay fallen, bricks strewn across the smoldering forest like scattered teeth. The temple lay shattered, its columns snapped like bones. The palace lay in rubble; only a single column, hundreds of feet tall, rose from its ruin. Homes, shops, statues—all lay smashed, white with ash and red with blood.

  Such pathetic creatures, the weredragons, Mahrdor thought. He had fought in the war thirty years ago, a mere youth clutching a spear for the first time. He had watched the dragons destroy Irys, kill his parents, torch the palms and boil the River Pallan. How they fell now! They had not lasted a day.

  Mahrdor thought back to that war thirty years ago. He remembered finding his family crushed and burnt in the ruins of his house. He remembered lying by their bodies for days, staring at their gaping wounds, watching the flies feast, smelling them rot, admiring their beauty. When finally priests had found him in the ruins, they had thought him mad, had shaken their heads at his smile, at the blood on his lips.

  But is it not better to smile than weep? Mahrdor thought as he flew above, admiring the death and destruction. Is it not better to admire beauty than mourn loss? To collect art rather than cry over blood?

  He began circling down toward the city square, where Tiran warriors guarded a pile of wounded, whimpering weredragons. Some Tiran soldiers stood afoot, aiming spears or crossbows at the prisoners. Others sat upon their wyverns, ready to spew acid. The weredragons lay in human forms, clad in chains and splashed in blood.

  Mahrdor landed his wyvern in the square. The beast's claws dug ruts into the cobblestones. She tossed her scaly head back, nostrils flared to inhale the scent of weredragon blood, and howled to the sky.

  "Be calm, my girl," Mahrdor said and stroked Phel's nape. "Soon you will feast upon their bodies. Once they tell me all they know, their flesh will be yours."

  The wyvern mewled, slapped her tail, and beat her four wings. Her drool splashed the cobblestones and began eating through the stone. The third eye on her cheek blinked and shed tears. Sometimes it seemed to Mahrdor that this absorbed twin, only hints of it showing, craved flesh and blood just as much.

  Stroking the beast, Mahrdor dismounted. When his boots hit the cobblestones, pain flared through him, racing through his bones to the fingers of his ruined hand. As he walked toward his men, he saw their eyes shift to that hand, saw horror and disgust fill them. When he gave them cold stares, they stiffened and saluted, banging their fists against their breastplates.

  "How many prisoners are there?" he asked one of the soldiers, a phalanx captain with golden skulls upon his pauldrons.

  The man looked at the pile of chained, bloody weredragons and snarled. He was missing a tooth, and a scar ran across his head, cleaving his platinum hair like a red snake.

  "Fifty in that pile, my Lord Mahrdor," he rasped. "Ten of them are dead already. A dozen more will be dead by nightfall." The captain snorted. "The rest will live a little longer if you wish it, my lord, though they will envy their dead."

  Mahrdor stood and examined the creatures. One looked like a pile of rotten cornmeal, moaning and still smoking with acid. A few were children. A few were dead. Chains bound them in a pile of flesh, blood, and tears. Mahrdor pointed at one.

  "There, bring me him, the brute with the black hair. That one is a soldier."

  The weredragon sat hulking, head lowered, his wrists and ankles bound with manacles. Burns spread across his arms, and his left eye was swollen shut. He wore a breastplate emblazoned with the Draco constellation; a man of the City Guard, Mahrdor knew.

  Two Tiran soldiers approached the pile of prisoners and jabbed the burly guard with spears.

  "Up, weredragon," one said with a grunt. "On your feet."

  The wounded guard grunted and remained with his head lowered. His helmet had been knocked off in the battle, and blood matted his head. One of his ears was a lacerated mess.

  "Can you hear, lizard?" the Tiran said. "Get up, damn it."

  The two Tirans grabbed the weredragon and began pulling him up. Finally the beast seemed to awake. He tossed back his head and howled, the wordless cry of an animal. He spun, lashing his chains at the Tirans. The men cursed and thrust their spears. One spearhead slashed the weredragon's leg, and the creature howled and swung his chains again. More Tirans rushed forward. It took ten men to subdue the weredragon, chain his wrists to his sides, and shove him forward. When finally the brute stood before Mahrdor, blood stained his teeth and dripped down his leg.

  Mahrdor stood, examining the weredragon. Held in the grip of two Tirans, the weredragon stared back from his one good eye; that eye blazed with hatred.

  "Good," Mahrdor said. "Good, you have spirit. That means you'd have risen high in the Weredragon Guard. You'll have the information I need."

  He reached out his burnt hand. When he uncurled his fingers, they blazed with pain and made a sickening, crackling sound like old parchment unfolding. He caressed the weredragon's bruised cheek and swollen eye, letting wound touch wound.

  "My hand," Mahrdor said, "is a work of art, a landscape of pain and punishment. I will turn you into a work of art too. Piece by piece, I will make you beautiful."

  The weredragon growled, but fear filled his one good eye. Mahrdor nodded. Smiling thinly, he turned to his men. "Bring me jugs of acid. We will see if he learns to speak."

  Two men brought forward the acid.

  Two others shoved and held the weredragon down.

  Mahrdor began to work.

  As the weredragon screamed, Mahrdor smiled. As flesh burned, he licked his lips. He created. Even here, in the rubble of battle, he was an artist. He shaped flesh. He wove symphonies from screams.

  "There is an escape tunnel underground," he said as he worked, trickling acid against flesh. "The Weredragon King would have carved one. Where does it lead?"

  The weredragon only screamed. His left leg was gone already, a sticky mess of flesh barely clinging to bone. Behind him, the other weredragon prisoners wept and wailed. Mahrdor clucked his tongue and kept working.

  "Speak and your pain will end," he said. "Speak and I will create something from your corpse rather than your living flesh. It would be easier for you, I think." He poured more acid and the man's howls rose. "I have escape tunnels in my villa in Tiranor. My queen does in her palace. Every ruler of importance has some path to flee an underground tomb. Where does the Lizard King's tunnel go?"

  Mahrdor worked and the man screamed.

  He screamed of his phalanx.

  He screamed of his commanders.
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  He screamed for his wife and mother.

  He screamed until he was a useless, burnt chunk of flesh, and Mahrdor kicked him aside. He licked his lips and grinned.

  "This one knows nothing," he said. He pointed at a second chained weredragon—a young woman in the steel armor of a soldier. "Bring me that one."

  He cracked his neck and kept working. Soon this one was screaming too.

  It was three more weredragons before one finally screamed, face sizzling under acid, of the escape tunnel underground.

  "It leads to the eastern hills!" the creature cried, its eyes eaten away. "It emerges between three boulders on a hillside—five hundred yards east from the walls. Please... please..." The creature sobbed. "Please kill me. Give me death. Give me mercy."

  Mahrdor kicked the wretch aside.

  "Give you mercy?" he said to the twisted beast. "But you already gave me what I want. Why should I dirty my sword?"

  He turned, leaving the burnt weredragon to writhe and wail on the ground. He mounted Phel again and soared, smiling thinly.

  From behind him rose the screams of the prisoners and the laughter of his men. Below him rolled the destruction: piles of rubble, smashed columns, and the corpses of wyverns and weredragons. Two archways still stood, the entrances to tunnels; at each one, wyverns lined up to spew acid underground.

  By nightfall the tunnels will be overflowing, Mahrdor thought. He licked his lips, imagining the beautiful screams and stench and death below. He looked at his left hand and shuddered to imagine all the flesh that was now sizzling below the earth, hidden like the curves of a woman under a dress.

  He spotted Solina in a square, still sitting atop Baal, her behemoth of a wyvern, the greatest of the beasts. She had moved aside, allowing a lesser wyvern to spill acid underground. The fumes stung Mahrdor's nostrils and eyes. His arm blazed in pain as if remembering the heat of acid. Gritting his teeth, he landed his wyvern upon the smashed cobblestones by his queen. He bowed his head to her.

  "Queen Solina."

  She looked at him, amusement in her eyes. She raised her eyebrows, stretching the scar that halved her face.