A Day of Dragon Blood

by Daniel Arenson

  Mori's breath died.

  She looked closer and felt her world collapse.

  Solina's wyvern held the bloodied bodies of Adia and Deramon.

  A mewl left Mori's throat, a cry of pain soon rising to a roar. Tears filled her eyes. Fire blazed in her maw. Mother Adia—her greatest teacher, her guiding star, the Mother of Requiem and like a mother to her. Lord Deramon—greatest warrior of Requiem, the bright blade of her people. Fallen. Their lights dimmed.

  That day returned to her, that day worse than any other, a cold day in a far southern fort. She again saw Solina smile as Orin lay burnt at her feet, again saw the queen slash her blade, slice Orin open, savor his screams. Again Mori lay upon that table as Lord Acribus invaded her, and again Solina watched and laughed as Mori's body and soul and innocence shattered. That had been over a year ago, but now it bloomed within her, and rage filled Mori, a rage hotter than dragonfire, a rage that spun her head and overflowed her grief.

  I was a child then, Solina, she thought. I was scared, young, and alone. But now you will find my fire bright and my soul hardened. You gave me this pain. You gave me this strength. Her dragon roar pealed across the city. Now you will die in my flames.

  She drove through smoke and over ruin toward the Queen of Tiranor.

  Solina spun toward her. "Mori!" the queen cried in delight. "My sweet little bird!"

  The queen's crossbow thrummed.

  Mori snarled and banked. The bolt grazed her leg, and she kept flying. The devastation blurred below her. Wyverns flew at her; Mori shot above, beneath, and around them.

  Orin always said I could fly like a bee, she thought. He always said nobody could catch me. You killed him, Solina. Now you will die here—in the city where he lies buried.

  She soared over the shattered Temple of Requiem and roared her fire.

  Solina's wyvern, the great beast Baal, howled and reared. A sizzling jet spewed from his mouth. Acid crashed against flame. The streams exploded and rained upon the ruins.

  Mori beat her wings madly. The left one throbbed, holes spreading through it, but Mori ignored the pain and growled. She shot over the crashing inferno and rained her fire upon Solina.

  The queen raised her shield. The flames engulfed her, exploding around the shield and cascading upon her wyvern. The beast screeched and bucked, and more acid spouted, a geyser of heat and stench. Mori banked, dodging the stream. Drops splashed her and she roared, swooped, and lashed her tail.

  Solina still lived, clasping her charred shield. With a howl, Mori slammed her tail down.

  Light flashed. Solina's blade rose. Steel slashed Mori's tail and blood sprayed.

  She screamed. The pain leaped through her, a striking asp. She blew more fire, but Solina flew beneath her, and her wyvern rose higher, a wall of scales and claws. The beast dwarfed Mori, twice her size. Its maw opened and its cry shook her, and its maw boiled like a smelter. Acid spewed toward her.

  Mori soared. Acid splashed her back legs. She cried. She tried to blow more flame, but only sparks left her maw. The pain tugged at her magic like hands trying to rip off a gown; she struggled to stay in dragon form.

  No! Don't fall. Fight her! Kill her! For Orin. For your people who lie dead beneath you.

  Mori drove toward Solina and lashed her claws.

  One claw slammed against the queen's shield and shattered it. Splinters showered. Mori's second claw slammed against Solina's blade. Steel rang and Mori howled. She leaned down to bite the queen.

  Solina rose in her saddle and thrust up her sword.

  The steel sliced across Mori's cheek, screeching and shedding sparks.

  Mori screamed, pulled back, and heard wyverns swoop behind her.

  She spun to see them. Their claws reached out and their riders shot crossbows. Bolts slammed into her.

  "Take her alive!" Solina screamed somewhere below. "Chain the beast!"

  Mori could barely see. For an instant she lost her magic, tumbled as a woman, then regained her dragon form and flew again. Smoke and fire and cloud swirled around her. Her wounds blazed. She tried to flap her wings, but a spear shot through the left one, where a hole already spread from the acid. She spun and did not know up from down. Blood flowed into her left eye.

  "Elethor!" she called out. "Bayrin!"

  She could not see them. She saw nothing but the blazing eyes of wyverns, claws that clutched her, and chains that swung around her.

  "Bring her down!" rose Solina's voice from the haze. "Chain the beast!"

  A claw slammed into Mori's back, driving through scale into flesh.

  A cry fled her lips—a cry of pain, of fear, of a girl who was lost in Castellum Luna and breaking apart in the darkness.

  Her magic left her.

  She plummeted through the sky, a human girl, until claws caught her. The great shards wrapped around her, nearly crushing her ribs. More wyverns rose and chains swung around her.

  "El!" she tried to cry, but her voice was only a hoarse whisper. "Bay... Lyana..."

  She tried to shift into a dragon again, but could not. The wyvern claws nearly crushed her, keeping her in human form, and the chains tightened around her limbs. Wyvern scales surrounded her; between them, she could catch only glimpses of fire and ruin.

  "Take her south!" rose Solina's voice. "Take her to Tiranor and chain her in my dungeon. I will come to her soon. Fly now! Fly south with the beast!"

  A stream of scales flowed beneath her. Wyvern wings flapped around her. Mori struggled in the grip. She tried to cry out, but she could barely breathe. Soon the wyverns parted below, and she saw fallen walls and then flaming farmlands. She looked up to see a burning horizon flowing to distant, shimmering light.

  The cries of dying dragons faded behind her. The lands streamed below. Mori's eyes closed and she knew nothing but pain, smoke, and the cry of wyverns.

  LYANA

  No. Stars, no. Please stars, let this be a dream. Let me wake.

  She saw Queen Solina rise over the ruins. She saw the queen smirk. She saw the bodies of her parents fall from the wyvern claws.

  Mother. Father. Tears filled Lyana's eyes. Stars, please stars, no. They're dead. She killed them. Her body trembled and she could barely keep flying.

  A roar sounded behind her, torn with pain. Bayrin howled and blew fire.

  "Solina!" he cried, voice hoarse. He soared, slashing and biting, a wild beast wreathed in flame. Lyana had never seen her brother like this. Blood and cuts covered him, and everywhere wyverns flew around him.

  "Scream for me, beast!" Solina called across the battle. The queen laughed. "Die screaming for the reptiles that spawned you!"

  Lyana's head spun. The grief seemed too great to bear. She howled to the sky. Around her, so few dragons still flew—a mere scattering of survivors. There were almost none left to save. Lyana sounded her cry: the cry of a warrior, of a knight, of a daughter grieving.

  You took everything from me, Solina, she thought, tears in her eyes. You took my city. You took my Orin. You took my parents.

  Even her rage could not rise above this grief, this great cry of loss, this falling of a kingdom and race. She howled with her grief and she flew toward Queen Solina through fire, acid, and blood.

  I will kill her. I will kill our nemesis, then fall dead upon the ruins of the city I loved. My bones will rest forever by my parents, and I will walk with them in our starlit halls.

  She saw the queen ahead. She narrowed her eyes. She flew with an empty, cold shard in her chest. She flew to kill and die.

  A storm of wyverns rose from the ruins below. Bolts flew. Acid sprayed. Solina's voice rang across the battle.

  "She is yours, Mahrdor! Enjoy my gift to you."

  Lyana snarled. She saw the lord there. Mahrdor flew upon his four-winged wyvern, leading five more beasts. He clutched a crossbow in one hand; the other hung scarred at his side. Disgust flooded Lyana to remember how she had lain with him in his villa upon the Pallan, letting him invade her among his trophies of flesh. She
drove toward him and blew her fire.

  Mahrdor banked, and her jet of flame hit a wyvern behind him. Lyana soared. Fire and acid exploded. Crossbow bolts slammed into her; she barely felt them. She shot toward the sky, then swooped with the sun at her back, claws outstretched and fire raining. Another wyvern fell. Lyana howled.

  For Requiem. For my parents. For the souls of my ancestors who watch from above. For the glory of our fallen columns and our stars.

  Her fire bathed the battle. Her fangs bit through armor. Her claws painted the city with blood. She was Lyana Eleison, a knight of Requiem, a broken woman. She was a girl running through glittering halls to her parents. She was a youth gasping in wonder under blankets at old books of adventure. She was a glowing woman, betrothed to her prince, a lady of the courts. She was a warrior. She was a killer. She was flame and fang, claw and blood. She was Lyana Eleison and she was the wrath and agony of an ancient, fallen kingdom, the shattered notes of a dying song.

  The wyverns fell around her, torn and burnt. Only one rider and beast remained before her: Lord Mahrdor.

  Around her, the battle for Nova Vita raged in a haze. Some dragons were still fleeing, others still fighting and dying. Wyverns still swarmed around them. But here, in this pocket of silence above the ruins of her temple, it was just her and her enemy, her and the man who had invaded her body, caged her, and destroyed her home. She drove toward him, howling and blowing her flame.

  Dragon crashed against wyvern. Fangs bit. Acid and fire roared. They tumbled, clawing and biting, and crashed into the ruins below. A fallen column cracked beneath them, and the wrath of Tiranor shrieked above.

  Pain exploded through Lyana. Her back leg blazed; she thought the bone might be broken. Growling, she pushed back, untangling herself from the wyvern that writhed and snapped its teeth. Mahrdor rose from the saddle and drew his sword. Bricks, corpses, and puddles of blood spread around them. The stub of a column rose twenty feet beside her, ending with a crown of jagged marble.

  Her head swirled. Lyana flapped her wings once. She struggled to her feet. She summoned fire into her maw.

  Mahrdor's crossbow fired.

  The bolt slammed into Lyana's neck.

  She fell back, gasping for breath. The pain tore her magic from her like claws pulling her heart from her chest. As she shifted, the bolt clanked bloody to the ground. She found herself gasping in human form, on her knees, clutching her neck. She looked up, wincing and dizzy, to see Mahrdor walk toward her. Ash covered his armor, and half his face was gone, burned into a mess of red and black clinging to his skull. Eyes blank, he raised his sabre above her.

  Lyana could barely move. The pain twisted through her bones like a horde of demons. With clenched teeth, her gloved hand closed around the hilt of Levitas, her ancient sword. She drew the blade as Mahrdor's sabre drove down. Steel clanged against steel.

  The battle still raged above, but its sounds seemed muffled to her, the beasts blurred. Vaguely she heard her brother howl, heard Elethor cry for Requiem, heard Solina scream—but their cries seemed to rise from beyond distant dreamscapes she could not grasp. Her world had become this stage: half a column, bricks, and a cruel desert lord.

  His blade flashed down again. Lyana parried. She pushed herself up, parried again, and thrust her blade. Steel clanged.

  They moved in a slow, lumbering dance of pain. His flesh sizzled, dripping off his cheekbone. No emotion filled his eyes; they were blue ice, the eyes of a corpse. He swung his blade. Sparks showered.

  "I will twist you," he said, lips bloody. His voice was gravely, a sound like bones crushed under boots. "I will shape you into a treasure. You will be the jewel of my collection, and you will live." He swung his blade. "I will never let you die. I will never let your pain end."

  His sabre slammed against her breastplate, knocking the breath out of her. She swung her sword down and cleaved his pauldron. Blood spilled down his shoulder. He snarled, revealing a mouth full of shattered teeth. Their blades clashed again.

  "No, Mahrdor," she whispered; it was as loud as she could speak. She felt blood trickle down her neck into her breastplate. "You will never more hurt anyone. You destroyed us, but you will fall with us. The one you sought for a trophy will be your death."

  Her blade flashed. Levitas was an ancient sword, borne by Terra Eleison himself, a knight of Requiem, the hero of the great war against Dies Irae. Today she, his descendant, was the last of the bellators—perhaps soon the last of all dragons.

  I still swing your sword, Terra, as you did. I still wear the armor of our order. I still fight for the bellators, even as they have all fallen, and I still swing Levitas for Requiem, even as she lies in ruin. I will soon dine at your side among our celestial columns.

  She howled as she swung that old blade. She howled for her ancestors and for her king—a last battle cry. Levitas shone with starlight. The ancient steel drove through Mahrdor's breastplate, into his heart, and crashed through his back. With light and blood and metal, she drove her fury through him. She screamed with the might of her stars.

  He gasped. He stared at her, skewered on her blade. They froze, eyes locked.

  "I am Lyana Eleison," she whispered, clutching the sword inside him. Her voice trembled. Tears and blood ran down her face; she tasted both on her lips. "I am a knight of Requiem. I am a daughter of starlight. May your lord burn your soul in his fiery halls."

  With a scream, she pulled her sword back. The blade retreated from him with gushing blood. He remained standing for but a moment longer, then fell forward. He lay dead at her feet.

  Lyana shifted into a dragon. She took flight. She soared above the ruins. Thousands of wyverns howled, flapped wings, and dived toward her.

  ELETHOR

  Children lay dead upon the fallen palace. The corpses of elders, their white hair stained red, lay broken upon the shattered amphitheater. The body of a mother huddled under an orphaned archway, clutching the charred remains of her babe. As he flew between wyverns, searching for survivors, Elethor saw only death—thousands of corpses, extinguished stars.

  "Mori!" he cried. "Mori, where are you?"

  He could not see her. Night was falling, a sunset of fire and smoke and cloud. Shadows cloaked the city like a blanket. It began to rain. The drops pattered against the ruins, washing away the blood and acid. Distant thunder rolled and countless wyvern eyes burned red in the darkness.

  "Mori!" he shouted. He had not seen her since bursting from underground in a shower of light. Had she fallen upon the city? He dived and flew between shattered columns, seeking his sister. So many dead—he saw corpses everywhere. They lay upon bricks, in puddles of acid, upon fallen walls. Some were mere skeletons, flesh eaten away and ribs cracked like the city's columns. Others were torn apart, limbs scattered. Is one of those charred remains my sister? Elethor's eyes burned as he called for her.

  The rain fell in silver curtains. Nothing but bodies. Nothing but ruin.

  And so it ends, Elethor thought in a haze. So does Requiem fall, as it fell in the days of King Benedictus. His eyes stung and smoke streamed between his teeth. I'm sorry, Requiem. I'm sorry, Lyana. I failed.

  "Fly!" Bayrin cried in the distance. "Go, into the forest, fly!"

  Elethor looked up to see his friend. Blood covered Bayrin's scales, but he still flew, herding a group of ragged, lacerated dragons. The survivors—there were a dozen or more—were taking flight from a collapsed house like crows rising from a disturbed tree. Wyverns spotted them, shrieked, and began to chase.

  Growling, Elethor flew toward them. His body ached. The bolts of crossbows dug inside him, and burns stung across his scales.

  Some still live. Some I can still save.

  King's Column rose before him, a pillar of moonlight rising from darkness. It glowed in the rain. So long as it stood, there was hope, Elethor knew. So long as that column rose, he would fly. He would fight. He would seek the sky beyond wyvern and cloud.

  He flew around that column, heading toward Bayrin and
the others, when a great wyvern rose before him from the ruins. Its wings unfurled, black shrouds for the death of a god. Its eyes blazed, two red torches. It blocked the sky, a demon of darkness and iron. Atop its back rode a deity of gold, her banner streaming, her sword raised. The Queen of Tiranor cried out to him in the night.

  "Elethor! Elethor!"

  He reared before her, wings wide and fangs bared. "I'm here, Solina."

  She raised her sabre high. Lightning flashed and slammed into the blade. Solina laughed—an echoing laughter that rang across the city like funeral bells.

  "Hello, my love! Hello, my king!" Wyverns rose around her, black ghosts in the night. Solina pointed her blade at Elethor and called to them. "Grab the Reptile King! Bring him to me in chains."

  The wyverns surged.

  Elethor soared.

  He rose through rain and cloud. Lightning crashed around him. Thunder blasted him and he howled in the darkness. Wyverns shrieked below him, and pillars of acid rose around him, a temple of corrosion. The clouds covered them. Elethor could see no more than several feet in any direction. He kept flying higher through the storm. The wind howled and shards of lightning exploded. One lightning bolt hit a wyvern; the beast screamed and fell.

  "Catch the reptile!" Solina's voice stormed somewhere below him. "Chain the—"

  Thunder boomed over her words. Elethor leveled off and dived through the clouds. He tried to fly north, to head into distant forests where he could hide between smoldering trees. He could only guess the direction. He saw nothing but clouds, heard nothing but thunder, rain, and shrieks. Acid sprayed to his left, nearly searing him. He banked right and flew higher.

  He had to find Mori. He had to find Lyana and Bayrin. Were they still alive? Was anyone still alive? He ached to cry to them, to roar their names, but dared not; wyverns flew everywhere in the clouds. One appeared before him, emerging from darkness ten feet away. Elethor dared not even blow flames lest the other wyverns see; he drove forward and lashed his claws, tearing the rider apart. The wyvern fell. The rider's limbs tumbled.