"Do you know who I am, girl?" she asked.
Gloriae swung her blade. Umbra parried again. Sparks flew.
"One of Irae's pets," Gloriae said. She bared her teeth and lunged with the blade.
Umbra parried, sliced, and drove Gloriae a step back.
"I was a sister. I was a wife. You burned my husband and my brothers."
The sword and two daggers slammed together, showering sparks.
"Good," Gloriae said. "I hope they screamed loudly when my fire rained upon them."
Umbra snarled. Her eyes blazed. She leaped forward, daggers flashing.
"My husband and brothers never harmed you," she said, teeth bared. "They were Blood Wolves, warriors of the alleys. You burned the city with your dragonfire. You killed innocent people, Gloriae the Gilded."
Gloriae snickered. "I don't care." She lashed her sword, slamming it against a dagger. The dagger fell from Umbra's hand.
Umbra snarled and leaped carelessly, driving down her remaining dagger. Gloriae raised her arm, blocking the blow on her vambrace. The two women fell into the snow, Umbra atop Gloriae.
"You will suffer now, Gloriae," she hissed. She raised her dagger and brought it down.
Gloriae swung the hilt of her sword, hitting Umbra's wrist. The dagger drove into the snow, an inch from Gloriae's face. Umbra screamed and tried to bite, but Gloriae kicked her stomach, knocking her off. She leaped to her feet and swung her sword down, but Umbra rolled. The sword hit the snow.
Umbra crouched, eyes blazing, snarling like a wild animal. She tossed her last dagger. Gloriae rolled aside, and the blade sliced her thigh. She screamed and ran toward Umbra, sword waving. Umbra snarled. Her daggers gone, she leaped back and disappeared into a crowd of mimics.
Gloriae tried to chase her, but the mimics blocked her way, howling and slamming their blades against Per Ignem.
"I will burn you like I burned your husband!" Gloriae shouted after her, voice hoarse. "Run, Umbra. Run from me and cower. I will find you, and I will burn you."
The mimics shouted and waved their blades. Gloriae narrowed her eyes and parried left and right. I will kill these mimics. And I will kill Umbra. And I will kill Dies Irae. Her blade spun, raining blood.
"Gloriae!" Lacrimosa cried, leaping into battle beside her.
"Mother!"
Mother and daughter fought side by side, hacking at mimics.
"Where's Agnus Dei?" Lacrimosa shouted.
"She's in the hut! She's hurt. Go to her, Mother. I'll hold back the mimics."
Lacrimosa nodded and ran to the hut, hacking her way between mimics. When Gloriae looked around, she saw animated trees crashing into the huts, freeing the prisoners, and knocking mimics aside. The prisoners were limping toward the breached palisade that surrounded the camp; some were already fleeing into the forest.
"Hullo, Gloriae," Kyrie said, leaping into the battle beside her. Snow, ash, and blood covered him. He swung a sword and torch at the mimics.
"Hullo, Kyrie," she answered. She stabbed a mimic and kicked it down. "About time you showed up."
Kyrie torched a mimic who leaped at him. "Thought I'd drop by and save your backside."
Gloriae sliced off a mimic's leg, then drove her sword into its neck. "You haven't saved it yet. There are hundreds of these damn mimics around."
Kyrie nodded. "It was fun, but I think it's time to leave this party."
"Agreed."
Swinging their weapons, they pulled back toward the hut. As she fought, Gloriae stared around, seeking Dies Irae. When she saw him, she growled. He stood across the camp upon a hilltop, Umbra at his side. They were watching the battle from safety. Gloriae snarled, wishing she had her bow or crossbow.
"Oh stars," Kyrie said beside her. His voice was choked. "Stars, Agnus Dei. Oh stars...."
Gloriae gritted her teeth and kept fighting, her back to the hut. Her eyes stung. She heard Lacrimosa cry in mourning. Gloriae snarled. Rage bloomed through her. She looked up at Dies Irae, the man who had maimed Agnus Dei, who had killed her father, who had brought her family this pain. More than anything, Gloriae wanted to rush through the army of mimics, reach Dies Irae, and kill him.
But no, she thought. My family needs me now. They need me to lead them to safety.
"Come on!" she shouted over her shoulder at them. Kyrie and Lacrimosa were huddling over Agnus Dei. "Help her up. Follow me. We're leaving."
More mimics kept pouring toward her. She saw no end to them. Their teeth snapped, their claws slashed, and Gloriae's arms ached. She couldn't hold them back much longer, and few trees remained standing to help her.
"Let's go!" Kyrie shouted. He and Lacrimosa held Agnus Dei between them. She was conscious, but sweat matted her hair, and pain filled her eyes.
Gloriae gestured with her chin. "The palisade is breached over there. Let's get her out of here."
Five trees crashed into the crowd of mimics, kicking their roots, lashing their branches. Mimics fell and rolled. Gloriae used the diversion to drive between them, clearing a path with her blade. Mimic limbs and blood flew. The other Vir Requis followed her.
She reached the breached palisade. Other prisoners were limping through it. Mimics were leaping onto them, killing those who were too slow.
"Come on, hurry!" Gloriae shouted. She stabbed and kicked a mimic. It crashed against a pile of amputated legs. The bloodied limbs rolled, tripping the other mimics.
"Put me down," Agnus Dei said. "I can run. I can fight!"
"Kitten, come on," Kyrie said. "We're leaving."
Agnus Dei growled. She managed to walk on her own, then run. She leaped out of the breach, holding the stump where her hand had been. Kyrie and Lacrimosa leaped after her, swinging their torches at mimics. Gloriae stayed a moment longer, fighting inside the camp. She saw no other prisoners; they had all fled or died.
She looked up and stared at Dies Irae. He stood atop the hill across the camp, arms crossed—the real arm, and the steel one. He stood three hundred yards away, but it seemed to Gloriae like their eyes met.
She growled. "We'll meet again, Irae. This isn't over."
Then she turned and leaped out of the camp. She ran with the other Vir Requis through the snow, mimics howling and chasing them.
They ran fast, even Agnus Dei. They ran until they lost the mimics between the trees and boulders. They ran until the curse of the Animating Stones faded in the distance.
Gloriae roared and shifted into a dragon. Her wings thudded. Her maw roared fire. She leaped up and flew. Her tail whipped and her fire bathed the world. It had been so long since she had flown. She sounded her roar.
Three more dragons flew up from the forest: Lacrimosa, silver and slim, blowing blue flames; Kyrie, blue and fast, roaring fire; Agnus Dei, a red dragon missing her front foot.
Gloriae dived toward her sister, held her, and helped her fly. The four dragons roared, blew fire, and flew into the clouds. They streamed over burned forests and fallow fields, heading west, heading to Requiem.
Gloriae shut her eyes. We should never have left, she thought. We should never have attacked the mines. Now Agnus Dei is hurt, and we've lost our Animating Stones. What will we do now?
She swallowed, opened her eyes, and looked at her sister. Agnus Dei stared back, wincing, jaw tight with pain. Her wings roiled the falling snow.
"I'm so glad you're alive," Gloriae said to her. That was what mattered, she knew.
Agnus Dei blinked back tears. "I never thought we'd make it out in one piece. I guess I was right."
Gloriae laughed and sobbed. The sun began to set. The dragons flew into its dying beams.
MEMORIA
She flew over plains of ice, bloodied and bruised. The giants had chipped her scales, pummelled her body, and nearly killed her... but she kept flying. For Requiem. For Kyrie.
"Terra, we're almost there," she said.
He flew beside her, grunting. He was hurt, but still he flew, eyes narrowed.
They each wore one of Adoria's Han
ds around their necks. They had split the Giant King's chain and hung the segments around their own necks. As Memoria flew, she looked at the hands. They were so small, pale, folded into fragile fists. They swayed on the chains like worms on a fishing line. Could such dainty things truly hold back the mimics' curse?
The Ice City was never where she left it. It forever floated on its iceberg, moving with the currents. Finally she saw it ahead, its hundred palaces glistening like crystal shards.
Home, she thought, and the thought surprised her. On the eve of her return to Requiem, did her place of exile become her home? She would miss the icelings, she realized. Old Amberus, with his long beard and wise eyes. Small and silly Gif, only five years old, who would carve ice sculptures with her. Her friends, Illa and Oona, who were shy around Terra and giggly around her. Yes, this too has become a home to me, she thought, and she smiled sadly. The Ice City was cold, lonely, and far from Requiem, but it had been a good home.
"Amberus will heal our wounds," she said to Terra. "And then we'll fly to Requiem. We'll fly to Kyrie. He's alive. I know it."
Terra only grunted, eyes wincing with pain. They dived toward the iceberg, snow gusting around them, and flew between its palaces. All but one were abandoned now, their towers still, silent, and glistening. The two dragons, one green and one bronze, flew between the steeples of ice, kissed with snow. They glided toward the tallest palace, the place Amberus ruled, the place where they'd hidden for eleven years.
They landed outside its gateway, and Memoria's breath died.
Blood stained the ice at her feet.
Memoria growled.
Grunts sounded inside the Ice Palace. A screech echoed. Wind blew, carrying the stench of bodies.
"Mimics," she said.
Terra grumbled and fire crackled between his teeth. "Looks like we're still in for some fighting today."
Memoria kindled flame in her maw and ran into the palace.
The front hall, a towering chamber that dwarfed even two dragons, was splashed with blood. Bodies of icelings lay strewn across its floor, torn apart. Mimics leaned over them, feasting.
Memoria screamed and ran forward.
"Get off them!" she cried.
They raised their bloody faces from their feast, glared, and hissed. Their curse hit her with a thud, like air from a bellows. Memoria gasped and faltered. She felt their magic crash into her own, wrestle it, shove it, try to claim it.
"No!" she cried and gritted her teeth. If she became human now, she could not defeat them all. Not with only her sword. Her scales began to melt off. Her wings began to fold into her body. Her fangs retracted into her gums.
Around her neck, Adoria's fist began to uncurl.
Memoria shook her head wildly, struggling to cling to her magic. The mimics began racing toward her, drooling and hissing, brandishing swords.
Adoria's Hand opened.
It felt like a wave crashing forward. The power shoved back the mimics' curse, and Memoria's magic refilled her. She was fully dragon. She was fang and claw and fire.
Her jet of flames blazed across the hall, spinning and crackling, and crashed into the mimics. They burned and squealed and fell. Terra shot flames beside her. A few mimics reached them. The dragons lashed their tails and claws, sending them flying. Adoria's Hands rose on the chains, holding back the mimics' curse. The flames filled the chamber, and the walls wept.
It only took moments, and the mimics across the hall lay burned. Memoria ran from iceling to iceling, but they were all dead, their innards eaten.
Screeches rose from other chambers across the palace. Memoria raced between the rooms, shooting flames, burning mimics, lashing them with her tail, clawing them open. Iceling bodies filled every chamber.
"They're all dead," she whispered. "All dead."
Kyrie! she had called. Kyrie, do you hear!
Lanburg Fields stretched around her, drenched in blood, piled with bodies. She was rummaging through them again, searching for her brother, weeping over his body.
Kyrie!
Terra ran up behind her, flames dancing between his teeth.
"A hundred mimics are streaming into Whale Hall. Come, Memoria."
They ran across the ice, flapping their wings to steady themselves, and burst into Whale Hall. Mimics ran toward them, bloated and rotten, hideous creations that were part men, part beasts. Terra and Memoria blew their fire. The hall blazed. Water streamed down the walls. Mimics screamed.
Finally the flames died. The mimics lay twitching and burned. And among them....
Memoria ran forward, tears on her cheeks.
No.... Stars, no.
But it was him. Amberus, kindly old Amberus with the long white beard, the elder iceling who had become a father to her. He lay in the corner, his belly split open, his entrails consumed. Mimic drool covered him. He had tried to shield his followers; the bodies of iceling children lay in the corner behind Amberus. Young Gif, whom Memoria would sculpt with. His sisters. So many others.
"All dead," she whispered.
She turned to Terra. Her throat was so tight, she could barely speak.
"They came here searching for us," she said. "It's our fault."
Terra stared at the bodies with dark eyes. His claws shook, and he dug them into the ice floor. "We will avenge them. We will kill the man who sent them here." He looked up at her. "We will kill Dies Irae."
She shook her head. "I don't care about Irae." Tears welled up in her eyes. "I just want to save whoever I still can. Agnus Dei. And Kyrie. My Kyrie."
They pulled the bodies outside, and placed them on the ice, and prayed for them, and wept for them, and let the sun and moon shine upon them.
"The last of the icelings," Memoria whispered. "The end of a race. A people extinguished, but forever in my memory, forever in my soul."
She had never prayed to the northern gods, but she prayed to them now. She whispered to Father Walrus to bless the memory of the ice people. She sang to the Wind Goddess, to Sky Eagle, to Sister Moon. She prayed to Mother Turtle who glowed green and purple upon the horizons. She wept as she lowered the icelings into the water, one by one, until they sank into the embrace of Old Whale, their guardian of afterlife.
They bound their wounds. They mourned for days. And they flew. Terra and Memoria, soldiers of Requiem. Exiles. They flew over icebergs, over oceans, over plains of snow and lifeless rock. They flew over forests of pines, the first trees they had seen in eleven years. They flew over fields of grass, over herds of deer, over fields and villages of men.
They flew home.
DIES IRAE
"They are beautiful," Umbra said.
She stood beside him on the walls of Confutatis, staring down into the field. The wind swayed her black hair. Her eyes were narrowed. A small smile twisted the corners of her mouth. She placed one hand on her hip, the other on his shoulder, and licked her lips.
"They are beautiful," Dies Irae agreed, "they are strong, and they will kill the weredragons."
The army roared below in the field, the greatest army he had ever mustered.
"Come," he said to Umbra, "let us walk between the troops. Let us inspect them."
They descended the city wall and walked into the field. Umbra slung her arm through his, a wolf's grin across her face. They approached the army's vanguard—thousands of howling mimics—and walked between their formations.
"Fifty thousand mimics scream here," Dies Irae said. "The world's greatest soldiers."
The mimics bared teeth, screeched, and banged their blades against their shields. Stench rose from them, and their eyes blazed. Some had the heads, legs, or claws of animals. Others sprouted many arms. A few towered twenty feet tall, giants stitched from gobbets of leftover flesh.
Dies Irae stopped by a burly mimic with a bull's head and four arms. Its hands held an axe, a spear, a sword, and a warhammer.
"Look at this one, Umbra. Look at the hand holding the axe. Do you recognize this hand?"
Umbra gasp
ed. Her grin widened. "It's her hand. The hand we cut."
Dies Irae nodded, smiling silently.
Umbra laughed. "Brilliant, my lord! I hope that hand cuts the rest of Agnus Dei."
"Come, I will show you more."
For long moments, they walked by the lines of howling mimics, until they emerged from the vanguard and approached the left flank. Thousands of snowbeasts drooled here, towering creatures of white, loose skin hanging over knobby bones. Seven feet tall, they looked to Dies Irae like great white spiders, or perhaps furless cats with six legs.
"Their legs are fast, and their jaws will tear into weredragon flesh," he said.
Umbra caressed one. "They are beautiful."
They continued walking. Past the snowbeasts, they reached a battalion of skeletons. Wispy beards, flakes of old skin, and rusty armor clung to them. They held spears and their eye sockets glowed.
"The skeletons of Fidelium," Dies Irae said. "I have freed them from two thousand years of underground shame. They will fight for me now."
Umbra's own eyes seemed to glow. Her breath grew heavy. "I love them, my lord. Show me more."
They walked between the skeletons, passing row after row of them. Finally they reached an army of great reptiles, the size of dragons, who growled and snapped their teeth. A thousand of them roared as Dies Irae and Umbra walked between them.
Umbra's cheeks flushed, and her lips parted. "What are they?" she breathed.
"Swamp reptiles," Dies Irae answered. "Terrors from Gilnor. They are as large as dragons, and with larger teeth."
"Show me more," Umbra begged. "I want more, my lord."
He nodded. They kept walking. They reached a field where twisted, scaly creatures stood. They looked like men, but fish scales covered them. Their eyes bulged. Some had eyeballs that hung on stalks. Their fingers were webbed, their arms long and twisted. Blood dripped from sores on their faces.
Umbra bit her lip in delight. "What are these things, my lord?"
"They are the Poisoned," he answered. "Years ago, with green smoke from my dungeons, I turned many weredragons into these things. Today I found peasants, prisoners, soldiers who were once men; they are the new Poisoned, and they will fight for us with tooth and claw."
Song of Dragons: The Complete Trilogy Page 66
