Something creaked behind him.
Benedictus spun around, and then he saw him.
Upon the seats of the amphitheater, high above and watching him, stood Volucris, the King of Griffins. Dies Irae sat upon the beast, clad in armor.
"Hello, brother," Dies Irae called down. "Hello, Benedictus, King of Weredragons, Lord of Lizards. Welcome to my home."
With a growl, Benedictus shifted.
Volucris swooped.
A black dragon blowing fire, Benedictus leaped toward the griffin.
His joints still ached from the ilbane. His heart was still heavy. But tonight Benedictus ignored the pain. With a howl, he slammed against Volucris, crashing with a ball of fire, his roars shaking the world. Volucris shrieked, clawed, and bit. They broke apart. They leaped again.
"Tonight you're mine, brother!" Dies Irae called from atop Volucris, aiming a lance. "Did you truly think that I didn't see you earlier today?"
Benedictus roared and snapped his teeth. Volucris pulled back. Benedictus's teeth clanged against Dies Irae's shield.
"I saw you, brother," Dies Irae laughed. "I saw you today, and I have seen you for years in my mind. I saw you whenever I crushed a bug under my foot, or cut the head off a serpent that crawled through dust."
Volucris bit, Benedictus pulled back, and the beak scratched him. Benedictus howled, raised his claws, and blew fire. Volucris soared and prepared to swoop. Benedictus shot up, crashed into the griffin, and sent it tumbling.
Dies Irae spurred Volucris and flew high. Benedictus followed. The amphitheater was soon distant below, and Volucris swooped toward Benedictus. He met the griffin head on, crashing into him with biting teeth and scratching claws. Feathers and scales flew. Blood rained. They pulled apart, roared, and crashed again. Fire crackled.
"You've slowed down, brother!" Dies Irae howled, laughing, mad. Volucris burned but still fought. Dies Irae's cape caught fire, but still the madman cackled. "You have slowed, you have aged, and now I will kill you. Tonight you die."
They were high above the city now. The marble streets and forts of Confutatis seemed like toys below, small fires burning among them. Benedictus swiped his claws, but his brother was right. He was slow now. His torn wing screamed. Volucris pulled back, dodging the blow, and scratched. More scales fell, and blood seeped down Benedictus's leg.
He shouted with fire and pain. "Return the Griffin Heart, brother. Return the amulet that you stole. These beasts are not yours to tame. This throne is not yours to—"
Dies Irae pulled a crossbow from his saddle and shot. The quarrel hit Benedictus in the shoulder.
Pain flowed through him, the pain of ilbane, not old leaves like the guards had used, but the pure juice of the plant. It coated the dart, spreading fire through him. Benedictus howled. The city spun below. The statues and temples and streets all blurred. More griffins lurked there, but Benedictus could barely see them. Tears filled his eyes.
With all his will, he flapped his wings and lunged at his brother. "It ends tonight, Irae. Tonight you—"
Dies Irae fired his crossbow again. A quarrel hit Benedictus's chest. He howled, blood in his eyes, blood in his mouth.
"Oh dear, brother," Dies Irae said. He raised his visor, and through squinting eyes, Benedictus saw that he was smiling. "Oh dear indeed. All these years you've hidden, Benedictus. All these years you've dreamed of revenge. Only to fail like this... an old man, tired, Lacrimosa now my slave and—"
"You will not say her name!" Benedictus said. He did not know how he still flew. He'd never taken so much ilbane, had never felt such agony, but Lacrimosa's name on Dies Irae's tongue tore him with more anguish than the poison.
Somehow, impossibly, he flew against his brother. He bit and he clawed.
Dies Irae shot a third time.
The quarrel hit Benedictus's neck.
He tried to scream. He tried to blow fire. He tried to bite, to claw, to kill his brother. But he could not even flap his wings. He could not even breathe.
I'm sorry, Lacrimosa, he thought, tears falling, before darkness spread across his eyes. I'm so sorry.
Benedictus the Black, King of Requiem, closed his eyes and fell from the sky.
DIES IRAE
Dies Irae stood, arms crossed, and watched his brother wake up.
Of course, his arms were not crossed, not really. You could not cross your arms if you had only one. That groggy, bloody man below him—no, not a man, a creature—had bitten off his left arm. Now he had but an iron mace, a freak thing, a deformity. It was a deadly deformity, to be sure, and one that he enjoyed flaunting, intimidating with, killing with... but a deformity nonetheless.
"You crippled me, Benedictus," he said softly, so softly the sound did not carry past his griffin-head visor. "You made me what I am."
Knocked into human form, Benedictus groaned on the cobblestones. Blood covered him, and his eyes blinked feebly, struggling to stay open. Red lines stretched across his chest, lines of infection from the ilbane. Dies Irae spat at him.
"You turned me into this. Yes, Benedictus. You and our father. You drove me into shame, into pain and rage. I am a year your senior. I was to be Requiem's heir, even without the dragon curse. But you stole my place. You sweet-talked Father into casting me aside. You forced me to become this man, Benedictus. To kill Father, to raze Requiem. You have suffered for it, brother. Today I end your suffering."
Benedictus struggled to rise, but chains held him down. Dies Irae wanted to spit on him again, but his mouth had gone dry. It only curled bitterly. "Today I show you final mercy. I will not torture you, Benedictus. I have tortured you for many years, but you're still my brother. Despite all you've done, all your sins, you're still my brother. I will kill you painlessly. I give you that last gift."
Finally Benedictus managed to focus his gaze and speak. "I go to the halls of my ancestors, of the spirits of Requiem. When you die—and all men must die, Dies Irae, even those who style themselves deities—may the Sun God burn your soul in eternal fire."
Dies Irae kicked him in the stomach, and Benedictus doubled over. Dies Irae kicked him again in the back, driving his steel-tipped boot into him. "You die tonight, weredragon."
He kicked Benedictus a third time, then turned and marched across the courtyard. His boots sloshed through Benedictus's blood, which had fallen from the sky. Fitting, he thought. His boots were made of a weredragon child; let them now walk upon the blood of the Weredragon King.
Walls and towers rose around him, the fortifications of Confutatis. Griffins manned their battlements. Soldiers stood at attention and saluted as he walked by. Dies Irae ignored them. He walked past his hosts, past the courtyards and forts, until he reached Volucris. The griffin was feeding upon the bones of a prisoner, blood staining his beak.
"Come, Volucris", Dies Irae said. He placed a hand upon the griffin's head. Volucris cawed, and Dies Irae mounted him. His body ached from the fight—bruises were probably spreading under his armor—but he ignored the pain. "To the palace."
They flew over the forts and streets, and Dies Irae watched his palace from above. He gazed upon his statues that stood, shadows in the night, with two arms. He gazed upon his menagerie of caged tigers, elephants, and other beasts. He gazed upon his banners flapping from a dozen towers. It was a palace of splendor, of endless lavishness and power. But it wasn't enough. Nothing would be enough until he killed Benedictus, killed him a million times, profaned his memory. Fire filled Dies Irae, for he realized that even in death, Benedictus would taunt him, realized that even the destruction of the last Vir Requis could not calm the shame, the rage.
"Damn you, brother," he whispered.
The anger pulsed through him, hot and red like blood. He clenched his fist and watched it shake. When his griffin landed, Dies Irae marched through the halls of his palace, lips tight. He passed a maid, a girl no older than his daughter, and grabbed her arm so painfully, tears filled her eyes.
"My— my lord—" she began to mumble, and he
slapped her.
"Silence."
He dragged her up one of his towers, slammed the door behind him, and shoved her prostrate onto a divan. He took her there, his palm covering her mouth to stifle her screams. When he was done, he removed his palm, and found that she no longer breathed. That only enraged him further. He tossed her body out the window.
"How?" he asked himself, staring out that window into the night sky. "How do I kill him?"
In the amphitheater? No. That was a place for games, not for this, not for such a victory. In his palace gardens? No; he'd never get the stench out. In a dark alley, in a fortress, upon the city walls? No, no, no. Dies Irae slammed his mace against a table, shattering it. Benedictus deserved a special place to die, a place more ghastly, more humiliating than—
Dies Irae froze.
Of course.
He burst out of the room and marched down the hallway, scowling, ignoring the terrified servants who saluted him.
"Of course," he muttered between clenched teeth.
Within an hour, Dies Irae had mustered ten thousand griffin riders. He would bring an army to see this. He flew at their lead under grumbling black clouds, his bannermen flying behind him. Volucris held Lacrimosa in his left talons, Benedictus in his right. The two were in human form, wrapped in chains that would crush them should they shift. Their mouths were gagged, their backs lashed, their spirits broken.
"Tonight, I do what I should have done years ago," Dies Irae spoke into the wind, though he knew none could hear. A smile spread across his face.
He hadn't woken Gloriae to see this; she still slept in her chambers. Why? Dies Irae wondered. He'd spent years raising her to hate, to hurt, to hunt weredragons. Why on this night should he leave her to her dreams? Was it because Lacrimosa was her mother, and no child should witness the death of her mother? Was it because he feared for her, even with Benedictus and Lacrimosa gagged—feared that they'd hurt her, or tell her the truth of her parentage?
No, Dies Irae decided. It was not those things. It was because of something he saw in Gloriae's eyes of late. A fear and rage that burned above... what? Compassion? No. It was more like recognition. It had begun when they captured Lacrimosa, that strange glow in Gloriae's eyes.
Could it be that Gloriae had the curse too? Could she also shift? She had never done so before, at least not within his sight. But the possibility had begun to gnaw on Dies Irae. So he had left her in the palace. He would keep her away from these weredragons, away from their curses and magic.
Clouds still hid the stars, grumbling. Dies Irae flew over hills and farms, leaving Confutatis behind. When he looked over his shoulder, he could see his army there, thousands of riders upon thousands of griffins, their torches blazing, their armor and swords glittering. Smoke rose from their torches, trails of black and red like rivers of blood. Dies Irae snarled a grin. He wanted to see Vir Requis blood again, smell it, taste it. He spurred Volucris, and the griffin flew faster, and the wind whipped Dies Irae's face. His grin grew, his lips peeling back from his teeth.
It began to rain when he saw the place ahead. Darkness cloaked the land, a sea of tar, but Dies Irae knew this was the place. He could feel it, smell it on the wind.
"We're here," he said to Volucris, pulled the reins, and the griffin began to descend in circles. The ten thousand griffins behind him followed, wings thudding. Soon they were close enough to the ground that their torches lit the place, and Dies Irae snarled again and laughed. The torchlight flickered against bones, some the bones of men, others of women and children. The skeletons of five thousand weredragons littered the place, half-buried in dirt, a graveyard of victory and blood. There were no bones of dragons, of course; in death, these creatures returned to their human forms, fragile.
When they were several feet above the ground, Volucris tossed down Benedictus and Lacrimosa. They hit the earth with grunts and rolled, still chained. Volucris landed beside the skeletons of two weredragons—a mother huddling over her child. Dies Irae dismounted and inhaled deeply. It still smelled like fire, old blood, and metal.
They had reached Lanburg Fields.
Dies Irae walked toward Benedictus and Lacrimosa, this couple of "eternal love" that sickened him. His boots scattered bones. Dies Irae wondered if the bones came from the same Vir Requis child whose scales made his boots. The thought tickled him. When he reached Benedictus, he stood staring down upon him. The man was filthy. Wretched. His hair was unkempt, his face scruffy, his skin like old leather. His clothes were torn and muddy.
"Look at yourself," Dies Irae said, disgusted. His own raiment glinted, a masterpiece of white steel, gold, and jewels. This was how a king looked, he knew; not like that maggot at his feet. "You are disgusting."
Benedictus stared up between strands of black hair streaked with gray. Hatred burned in his stare. The man said nothing.
"Good," Dies Irae said. "Hate me. I've hated you for a long time, Benedictus. When you sat by Father, and I wandered the forests in shame, I hated you. When you married Lacrimosa, and I was left alone, I hated you. I do not hate you now, brother. I pity you. But I will still kill you. I will cut off your arm, the way you cut off mine, and then I will cut off your head."
Benedictus tried to say something, but he was gagged, and his voice was but a moan. Dies Irae kicked him in the chest. Benedictus coughed and moaned, and Lacrimosa screamed behind her gag.
"What is it, Benedictus?" Dies Irae asked. He ripped off his brother's gag. "There is nothing more for you to say. Look around you, brother. Look at the bones that lie strewn like a playground for ghosts. Do you know this place, Benedictus? Do you remember all those you led to die here? Women. Children. You led them here to their deaths. You chose not to flee with them. You chose to bring them here to me, to die at my sword, and the talons of my griffins, and the heels of my boots. You kept your wife safe, Benedictus, and you kept your daughter in hiding. And you led the rest to die upon the fields. You are a coward. You are a hypocrite. You fled me that day; you yourself dared not die with the women and children you killed. Today I kill you for those sins. Today it ends, here at the place where you lost your soul to blood and cowardice."
Benedictus stared up, saying nothing. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Dies Irae spun around and cried out to his men. "Gather here! Gather to see the great Lord of Lizards die."
The griffins shrieked, and their riders gathered around. They covered the land and circled above. The Griffin Heart was hot under Dies Irae's armor, nearly burning his chest. The amulet of his father.
Dies Irae raised his mace over Benedictus's head—this arm of steel where once a true arm had lived. "You die now with the weapon you gave me."
Benedictus mouthed something, but it was impossible to hear over the roar of fire and griffins.
Dies Irae laughed. "What is that? You wish to speak last words? I cannot hear your croaks. Speak loudly. I will give you these last words, for you are my brother."
Benedictus spat and spoke again, and this time Dies Irae heard his voice, and the words made him frown.
"Fight me."
Dies Irae raised his mace higher. "Fight you? Why should I fight you, brother? Why should I not bash in your skull now and be done with?"
Benedictus's lips were dry, his face bruised, his chin bloody. "We should have fought to the death ten years ago. That's how it should have ended. Let us end this now. Fight me, great and courageous Lord of Light. To the death."
Dies Irae laughed. "As it should have been? A fight to the death? Ten years ago, Benedictus, you faced my army alone. We had slain all the women and children you brought to fight your war. You faced an army of men, and you fled."
Benedictus growled. "I showed you mercy. I left you to live. I will not repeat that mistake again."
Dies Irae shook his head and sighed. "Very well, brother. You want to turn back time, to return ten years ago? I will grant you that. You will fight to death. But you will fight not only me, brother." He swept the mace head around, displaying his
army. "You will fight all of us... like you fought ten years ago. We turn back time tonight."
BENEDICTUS
"Requiem... may our wings forever find your sky."
As Dies Irae's men unlocked his shackles, Benedictus closed his eyes and whispered the Old Words. His voice was hoarse, his throat aching, and his limbs burned as he stretched them. When they had bound him, they had beaten him, covered his body with bruises. Yet through the pain, he remembered. He could still speak those ancient words, the prayer of his people. He struggled to his feet with eyes closed, the courts of Requiem resplendent in his mind.
He heard Dies Irae laughing scornfully; as a child, no doubt Dies Irae had hated the Old Words, those words every child in Requiem must speak in mornings. Dies Irae had never had the magic, never had wings; for him Requiem's sky had been unreachable.
"Are you ready, brother? Are you ready to die here?" Dies Irae's voice was icy with hatred and fiery with rage.
Behind closed eyes, Benedictus gazed upon those courts of Requiem, the marble columns that rose from the forest floor, the birch trees that grew beyond them, the rustling leaves. He could see autumn leaves skittering across the tiles of their forest courts, could see Father's throne of twisted oak roots, could see his friends, his family, his love Lacrimosa wearing silks and jewels, could see them ruling wisely under skies of blue and gold and white. Let me die with this memory, he thought. I go now to to the halls of my ancestors, to drink from their wine in our courts among the stars. I now take my greatest flight.
He opened his eyes. Around him spread the ruin of his people, the ribs rising like the teeth of dragons, the bashed skulls like so many rocks. But bones, ash, and blood could not make him forget the beauty of those old courts.
He stared at Dies Irae. His older brother. The shadow that would lurk beyond those courts, hiding and hating in its forests, planning revenge. Dies Irae was no longer a shadow; he was now a Lord of Light, a beacon of cruelty and fire to the world. Usurper of Osanna, destroyer of Requiem. Strangely, Benedictus no longer hated his brother. Neither did he fear him. As he looked upon Dies Irae, this glittering deity of steel and gold, he felt only sadness.
Song of Dragons: The Complete Trilogy Page 24
