A Day of Dragon Blood

by Daniel Arenson

  Solina smiled, raised her crossbow, and pointed it at Deramon.

  "Goodbye, old friend," she said with a crooked smile.

  When she pulled the trigger, a white figure leaped forward and slammed into her. The bolt whizzed and ricocheted off a wall. Solina snarled and fell several steps, nearly crashing into the rivers of acid. She spun to see Mother Adia, the woman's eyes wild and her teeth bared.

  The priestess was unarmed and still in human form, but she looked every inch a beast. Her eyes blazed with condemnation. Her hair flurried. Her fingers curled as if they bore dragon claws. She leaped again at Solina.

  "Stars of Requiem!" the priestess cried and drove her fingernails toward Solina—her only weapons. "You will die here, Solina, and may your Sun God forever burn your soul."

  Solina sidestepped, amused. With a snort, she drew her sabre. The curved blade flashed, arcing out of its sheath and into Adia's flesh.

  The priestess froze.

  Solina's smile widened.

  With a snarl, Solina pulled the blade back. It emerged bloody from the priestess—a giver of hot, intoxicating blood, the blood of her enemies, the blood of her glory and triumph.

  Adia stared silently, red spreading across her white goan like a field of poppies growing in snow. Her eyes were deep pools, emotionless. Her lips whispered silently.

  "Weredragon," Solina said to her, disgust dripping from her voice. She spat. "Fall at my feet and beg for a quick death."

  Adia held the wound that sliced her belly; she was calm, like a mother holding her babe. The priestess stared at Solina, and still no pain filled those eyes, no fear, no anger... and as Solina stared into those eyes, it seemed to her that starlight glowed inside them, not blazing and furious like the light of her lord, but soft and mysterious like the night sky. And suddenly Solina herself was afraid, for she saw a power in those staring eyes, in those pools of night—a power she could not understand or burn.

  "Child," Adia whispered. Blood stained her lips. "Poor, wayward child... what have we done to you? How did we hurt you so? Why does such pain fill you?" She reached out a bloody hand. "Would you forgive us, child, for the pain we gave you?"

  Solina sucked in her breath. That pain danced inside her, gripped her, and spun her head. Her eyes stung with it. Suddenly she was a youth again, frightened and lonely, seeking comfort in Elethor's arms. Suddenly the courts of Requiem seemed so large to her, the dragons so cruel, their fire so hot, their stars so beautiful and foreign to her—stars that would never bless her, a lost desert child. She wanted to weep. She wanted the priestess to embrace her, to pray for her, to be her mother too, as she was a mother to all of Requiem.

  No! No.

  Solina's fist trembled around her sword. No, that is not me. It was never me! She snarled. Her flesh burned with hatred. She did not need their pity. She did not need their love.

  She howled in the chamber. "May your pathetic stars burn your soul, Mother of Reptiles!"

  Screaming, she thrust her sword. It drove into Adia's chest. Hot blood stained Solina's fingers. When she pulled her sword free, the blood sprayed her, and Adia fell to her knees.

  The priestess gave Solina one last look—a look of sadness and of love. The starlight in her eyes dimmed and she fell.

  A howl rose behind Solina, deafening, filling the chamber like a storm.

  Blood on her hands, lips curled back, Solina turned to see Deramon. The dragon roared—the roar of hearts rending, of forests burning, of towers crashing. It was a roar like the ghosts of a drowned city calling from the ocean depths, like a dying race that would forever cry from lost graves, like children lost in flame, like the sound her own heart had made when they tore her from Elethor. It was the roar of a man for the woman he loved, of a grief and pain too great for any mortal body to hold, too wrenching for any mind to contain. It was grief itself—primal, pure, and deeper than all the seas and tunnels in the world.

  Solina froze in wonder, in fear, in awe. Tears filled her eyes.

  I made him roar this sound, she thought. I had the power to create this. Here in this cave, before this dragon and this howl, it seemed to her a greater triumph than all the towers she had raised, the armies she had led, and the dragons she had slain.

  I made something pure. I created this roar and it is the greatest, saddest, and most perfect thing I ever did.

  The great dragon's scales blazed with light. His claws rose like swords. His fangs shone like the whetted blades of demons. The wyverns outside the cavern, freed from his flames, spewed acid. The streams crashed against Deramon, drenching him, eating away at him. His scales began to shrink and twist, revealing raw flesh beneath them. Yet he did not fall. He rose tall in the chamber until his head nearly hit the ceiling. His wings unfurled like a dark sky. And he roared his fire.

  The stream crashed toward Solina.

  She screamed.

  She remembered Orin's fire—the fire that had scarred her body and soul, that tore her from Elethor, that placed this flame in her heart. The old pain clawed inside her. Solina leaped aside. She nearly crashed into the acid. The flames blasted the rock where she had stood.

  "Your soul will burn with hers!" Solina shouted and fired her crossbow.

  The bolt slammed into the dragon's flaming maw.

  The dragon reared. His fire hit the ceiling and rained. With a cry, Solina drove forward. She shoved into a mother and babe, knocking them into a stream of acid. She leaped onto their bodies, sprang toward the dragon, and swung onto his leg. She scurried up the scales until she clung to the beast's back.

  He bucked and roared. His wings flapped. Solina snarled and clung to him. The dragon leaped, slammed against the ceiling, and Solina screamed. If not for her armor, she'd have been crushed between scale and stone. Acid sizzled across the dragon, eating at her breastplate, her boots, and her gloves.

  "Die with your whore, reptile," she said. Tears stung her eyes and she could not breathe. "You tore me from Elethor. You told your cruel king of our love." Suddenly she was that youth again—afraid, angry, and weak. Her tears streamed and she roared, her own roar of pain and fury and loss. "You drove me to this, Deramon! You brought this death upon your land! Look around you. Look at the dead. Look at the corpse of your wife. Die knowing that you did this, beast! Die knowing that you killed her!"

  Blinded with tears, strong with her fury, Solina reached around the dragon's neck. She swiped her sword. His scales were weakened with acid; her blade tore through them and into the flesh.

  His roar died upon her steel.

  The beast fell.

  With a shower of blood, fire, and acid, the great Deramon Eleison—Guard of Requiem, slayer of many Tirans, Lord of Dragons—fell in darkness and light. His head hit the floor, and his wings fell limp, and the fire drained from him. Bloodied, he returned to his human form—a grizzled man clad in armor, body scarred and eyes dim.

  Solina stood and stared down at the man. In her youth, he had always seemed so frightening to her, a mountain of hair and muscle and steel, all booming shouts and clanking weapons, twice her size and ten times as loud. Now he seemed so small to her—too thin in his armor, his beard more white than red, his booming voice silenced. He was still alive. He crawled across the mound of earth and stone. He reached out to the body of his wife.

  His hand, bloodied and scarred, clasped the hand of Mother Adia. The priestess's hand, pale and lifeless, seemed so small and fair in Deramon's grip, a white flower in the paw of a lion.

  "Adia," he whispered, voice hoarse, nearly silent. "Adia, my love. Do you see them? Do you see the white columns, the starlit halls of our fathers?" He clasped her hand, his eyes dampened, and a smile trembled on his lips. "We fly there together; we will dance and sing there always, my love. We will see our Noela again."

  Solina drove her blade down into his back.

  He gave a last gasp.

  His eyes closed and he lay still, holding the hand of his wife.

  Solina stared down at their bodies. Her
lips curled back in disgust. When she looked up, she saw her men staring, silent. The last bodies of mothers and babes lay strewn at their feet, pierced with bolts. When fighting above Nova Vita, her men had cheered and howled for every dragon slain. Now they only stared.

  She ignored them. She skirted a pool of acid and approached the shaft the Starlit Demon had carved last year. Wyverns fluttered up and down the chasm. Solina placed her fingers into her mouth—they tasted like sweet blood—and gave a loud, long shriek of a whistle.

  A screech above answered her. Wings blasted air, each flap a thunderbolt rank with death. Baal, the King of Wyverns, dived down the tunnel and faced her. The beast hovered before the collapsed wall. Acid dripped between his teeth. Solina leaped through the opening, swung around Baal's neck, and climbed into his saddle.

  "Grab those bodies," she told the beast. "Grab them and fly."

  The wyvern reached into the collapsing cavern. He grabbed the body of Adia with one clawed foot, the body of Deramon with another. The beast licked his lips and looked over his shoulder at Solina.

  "No, Baal," she said and stroked him. "You will not feast upon these ones. Not yet. We will first flaunt them before the city." She kneed him. "Fly! Into the sky!"

  They soared.

  Walls of stone blurred at their sides. They rose from underground into a city of ruin, then into a sky of smoke, ash, and fire. Twenty thousand wyverns screeched and spat their acid. Twenty thousand dragons flew around them—children, old toothless beasts, and cripples missing limbs. The mob of Requiem, an untrained mass, bustled and roared fire and slashed claws. Solina inhaled sharply.

  It's beautiful, she thought. A great tapestry of glory. She had never seen so many beasts flying and killing under one sky; it seemed to her like the great stories of old, the ones where griffins toppled the mythical halls of Requiem's golden age.

  Blood rained. Blood coated her. She licked blood off her lips and sword, savoring its coppery taste, the taste of her might. It was a day of dragon blood, a day of sunfire, a day of triumph. When she looked across the battle, she saw him there—her king, her love, the jewel she sought.

  "Elethor!" she cried and flew toward him.

  MORI

  The battle was lost. Mori could see that. She shot through the chaos, eyes burning. Blood and acid rained. Everywhere she looked, clouds of wyverns and dragons fought above the fallen city. Bodies crashed down into the ruins, and their blood flowed across the strewn bricks, smashed mosaics, and shattered columns of her home. Wind roared and clouds of ash roiled above her.

  Only a single column rose from the devastation, a great pillar of white marble, three hundred feet tall and kissed with a beam of sunlight: King's Column, raised by King Aeternum himself millennia ago. Swarms of wyverns were attacking it, lashing their claws and tails, but could not break it. Mori knew the legends. The old scrolls wrote that so long as a single Vir Requis lived, King's Column would not fall. Looking around the battle, Mori realized with a chill: the column might fall this day.

  The wyverns were everywhere. Two swooped toward her, the sun at their backs. Mori screamed, dodged their streams of acid, and soared above them. She roasted their riders with fire. The Tirans screamed and burned, and the wyverns crashed down. Three more wyverns flew to her right, and Mori shouted and dived under them, then spun and blazed them. She had always been so fast, the fastest dragon in Requiem; these burly wyverns were clumsy around her. Yet other dragons were faring less well. So many were elderly, wounded, or young. Dozens were mere toddlers, no larger than ponies, their wings weak and their fire mere sparks. They fell around Mori, burning with acid and peppered with crossbow bolts. When they hit the ruins below, they returned to human forms and lay dead—slashed, burned, torn apart.

  Mori growled. She flamed another wyvern. Acid splashed her tail and she howled. She soared higher, crashing through wyverns and dragons, and surveyed the battle. Barely any soldiers of Requiem now flew; their army was now comprised of the old, the weak, the frightened. The wyverns were tearing through them like a pack of wolves in a chicken coop.

  She looked around for Elethor, Bayrin, and Lyana, but could not see them. Had they fallen too? Did she now lead these ragged, dying remains of her people? She growled, eyes stinging, fear an inferno in her belly.

  We cannot win, Mori thought. We must flee.

  "Dragons of Requiem!" she cried to the battle. "Flee! Flee into the forests! Flee to the east and west. Leave this city!"

  When she looked below her, she saw a group of young dragons flying over the ruins of the temple. Wings batting madly, they cried out for their mothers. A wyvern shrieked and shot toward them. Acid streamed, crashed against one young dragon, and the child fell dead and twisted. Three more wyverns charged, their own projectiles spraying. The young dragons wailed and another fell, the acid eating through her scales like a swarm of ants on meat.

  With a growl, Mori swooped.

  She crashed between three wyverns fighting a few older, toothless dragons. With a howl, she rained fire upon the beasts that burned the children. They shrieked and turned toward her, acid sputtering. Their riders burned and screamed.

  "Flee, dragons!" Mori cried down to the children. "Flee to the forests!"

  Two of the wyverns began soaring toward her, their riders flaming. Several young dragons wailed and began fleeing, only for wyverns to pursue them. Crossbows fired. Another dragon fell dead.

  Mori roared her fire. The flames crashed against streams of acid that rose toward her. The blasts exploded, spraying flames and acid. Mori howled, dived, and closed her jaws around a rider. She tore the man in two, then spat out his top half. It tumbled, entrails dangling like the tail of a comet. The second wyvern rose toward her, a crossbow thrummed, and a bolt slammed into Mori's shoulder. She blew her fire and swiped her tail. She knocked the rider half off the wyvern; the reins pulled taut and the wyvern banked. Mori bathed it with fire until it fell.

  "Flee, dragons of Requiem!" she cried to the children. They were flying around confused, calling for their parents. Wyverns were tearing them down one by one. Mori flew, flamed a wyvern, and herded the children forward, wings spread wide. When wyverns shot toward them, she blew a ring of fire, lashed her tail, and thrust her claws.

  "Together, here, with me!" Mori cried to the surviving children. Her wings opened wide, as if she could shield them all. She drove them forward, nipping at them with her teeth and goading them with her tail. "Fly! Fly into the forests and hide! I will find your parents and send them there too. Now fly!"

  Wailing, tears in their eyes, the children fled. Soon they flew over the fallen walls of Nova Vita and headed toward the burning forests. Three wyverns began to chase them, and crossbows fired upon another child, sending the girl falling into the flaming trees.

  Roaring, Mori flew over the crumbling walls. She crashed against the three wyverns. Fangs bit her tail. Acid blazed against her wing. She blew flames against the riders, soared higher, and swooped again, raining more fire. The wyverns fell.

  "Fly!" she cried after the children; the survivors were distant now, mere specks over the blazing landscapes. "Fly and never return!"

  She panted. Blood trickled down her scales, and wind roared through a hole in her wing. She turned back toward the city and grimaced. The wyverns flew like storm clouds over the ruins, raining their acid. Only a handful of dragons were fleeing over the toppled walls, wyverns in pursuit. Some dragons still fought but were falling fast. Mori growled. She began flying back to the city. Her wing ached and she wobbled. Her body burned, and she realized that acid had eaten through the scales on her back leg. A bolt thrust out from her shoulder, a demon of steel eating away at her.

  Yet still Mori flew, eyes narrowed and breath blazing. She had to save whoever she still could. She had to find her brother, to find her love Bayrin, to find her dearest friend Lyana. And so she flew back to the inferno, blood and fire streaming behind her, death blazing before her.

  She flew over the ruins. The batt
le raged around her. A great wyvern soared ahead, the largest she had seen, rising from darkness like a demon from the Abyss. Its rider glittered, a deity of gold holding a banner of a blazing sun. The rider's cry rang out above the battle, high and beautiful like the cry of a goddess.

  "Elethor!"

  Mori snarled.

  It was Solina.

  The Queen of Tiranor rose higher. Her wyvern's wings thudded, two hundred feet wide, spreading debris across the ruins below. Her gilded armor shone, a second sun in the sky. Her hair streamed behind her, a second banner of gold.

  "Elethor!" she called again. "Your city is fallen, Reptile King! Fly here and beg me to spare those of your vermin that still live."

  Mori wheeled her head around. Across the city she saw her brother, and tears filled Mori's eyes. Elethor rose from smoke, a great brass dragon roaring fire. Mori remembered him as a gaunt youth, a dragon barely larger than herself; now muscles rippled beneath his scales, his flames burned white-hot, and his eyes blazed with the fury of a king. Suddenly he was not merely Elethor, her sad brother, but a great king of Requiem, as powerful and noble as her father.

  Wyverns surrounded him—hundreds of them—a fortress of iron scales and spraying acid. Inside the ring, two more dragons rose from smoke: Bayrin, his green scales splashed with blood and ash, and Lyana, her blue scales dented but her wings still beating strongly. The three dragons fought back to back, blowing rings of fire, holding the wyverns back.

  Mori wanted to fly to them. They were the people she loved most; without them, there was no reason to live. She wanted to fight by them, to die by them if she must. She took a deep breath, flapped her wings, and prepared to charge and fall with them in the ring of iron and acid.

  Before she could flap her wings again, she saw from the corner of her eye that Solina's wyvern clutched two bodies.