A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) (18 page)

Good,
she thought.
Good.

Tilla was learning. Shari
thought back to the first day she'd seen the woman in Cadport; it was
nearly a year ago now. Back then, Tilla had been only a filthy
commoner, but Shari had seen something in her even then. Unlike the
other peasants, Tilla had not cowered before her. Tilla had not
wept, fled, or broken even under the punishers of her commanders in
Castra Luna, nor under the punishers of her fellow cadets at the
academy.

Shari smiled. She knew, of
course, of Nairi burning Tilla to near death. She knew, of course,
of young nobles torturing Tilla for moons in the academy, burning her
flesh and breaking her mind. She herself had ordered the punishment.

It
made her strong,
Shari thought, looking at the icy young officer.
It made her deadly. She will be a great commander yet. She will be
like me.

As they walked through the camp,
heading toward the shack where they kept the prisoner, pain flared in
Shari's shoulder. She winced and sucked in her breath. The injury
still hurt most days. Even in human form, she felt the pain of her
phantom wing. The wound had healed across her shoulder blade,
leaving but a scar, yet the agony lingered.

Relesar
tore a part of me away,
she thought.
He
crippled me. He made me weak.

She had her prosthetic wing now,
a creaking mechanism of wood, rope, and leather, and she had taught
herself to fly with it, even to shift with it. Yet she would never
fly as smoothly again. She would never swoop as fast. She would
never kill with such deadliness.

Shari looked over at Tilla. The
young woman, ten years her junior, walked clutching the hilt of her
sword. Pauldrons covered her shoulders, and steel coated her limbs,
yet Shari could see her body's strength. Her every movement spoke of
a huntress. Her eyes stared ahead, narrowed the slightest, always
scanning for danger, always shining with pride.

I
am crippled, but she is strong,
Shari thought.
She
will grow stronger. She will be my killer, my sweet bringer of
death.
Shari ground her teeth against the pain.
Relesar
took my wing. I have taken his beloved from him… and I will make
her kill him.

That would be her greatest
revenge.

They passed the last tents and
troops, walked down a path, and reached the hut.

Small as a prison cell, its
walls had been carved from the surrounding forest. The smell of
blood, sweat, and urine flared. Flies bustled. Mewling sounded
inside, a sound like a kicked dog.

Shari stood outside the door and
looked at Tilla.

"You must make him talk,"
Shari said. "He will lie to you. He will deny all accusations.
Yet you must remain strong, and you must hurt him. For the glory of
the red spiral, we must shed blood."

Tilla stared at the hut. Her
face remained still and pale, but Shari saw small signs of her fear:
a twitch to her lips, a line on her brow, and a shadow in her eyes.

There
is still softness in her,
Shari thought. There was still weakness here to purify, even after a
year of training. Shari allowed a thin smile to touch her lips.
I
will crush that weakness. She will be my perfect killer.

"I will make him talk,"
Tilla said.

Shari nodded, opened the hut
door, and they stepped inside.

The man cowered there, if he
could still be called a man. Blood and welts covered his flesh; he
looked no better than a rotten corpse. He winced in the light,
huddling deeper into the corner, clad in chains. Shari herself had
given him these wounds. It was something Tilla had to see. Training
was clinical. Battle was chaotic. Here before her bled the true
face of war.

"Please," the man
whispered through cracked lips, "no more, please. I'm only a
quarryman, I—"

Shari drew her punisher and held
it against him.

Lightning crackled across the
man. He yowled and writhed on the floor, and still Shari held her
punisher against him. She waited until his skin cracked and bled,
then finally pulled the weapon back. The man lay twitching, smoke
rising from him.

"You are a resistor,"
she said. "You serve Valien Eleison, the traitor. Why else
would you lurk in the forests outside our camp?"

"I work in the quarry!"
he said, blood in his mouth. "Please, ask the men who work
there; they all know me. I cut bricks for this very fort!
Please…."

Shari looked over at Tilla,
studying her. The young woman stared down at the burnt man, face
pale and lips tight.

This
still frightens her,
Shari thought.
Blood
and burns still twist her innards. She will have to be hardened.
Shari nodded.
I
will harden her soul like a smith hammering a blade.

"Tilla," she said,
"draw your punisher. Burn him."

Tilla hesitated for just an
instant, the length of a breath, and her eyes gave the slightest
blink, her lips the slightest twitch. But Shari saw it, and she
vowed to eradicate that weakness.

"Yes, Commander,"
Tilla said and drew her punisher. Its tip crackled to life, racing
with red energy.

And she burned him.

"Keep it there," Shari
said. "More. Keep it burning."

Tilla obeyed. She held the
punisher against the screaming man until welts rose, skin cracked,
and blood spilled. As she worked, Shari stared at Tilla's eyes,
watching, studying, smiling when she saw the weakness fade into grim
intent.

"Enough," she said.

Tilla pulled back, leaving the
wretch to writhe and mewl, half dead but still whimpering about his
quarry.

"Now draw your blade,"
Shari instructed. "Slice his belly. Make him bleed out. We
will not give him the mercy of a quick death."

Tilla hesitated again. Her hand
closed around her sword's hilt, but she did not draw the blade.

"Commander," she said,
"should we speak to the quarry? Maybe—"

Shari laughed. "You
believe his lies? Resistors always lie. The punishment is death.
He should be thankful for that. We could have kept him alive here
for moons, even years. Cut him! Slice him open. He serves the
Resistance, the rebels who slaughtered your friends, who captured
your town. Even now, they slaughter innocents in Cadport."

Tilla's eyes burned with rage
and pain. Her cheeks flushed and her lips twisted. With a hiss, she
drew her blade.

"Cut him!" Shari
commanded. "Make it hurt. He would do worse to you."

Tilla clenched her jaw. "For
Cadport," she whispered… and lashed her blade.

The man screamed. Blood gushed
from his stomach. He clutched at the wound uselessly. Tilla stared,
and her fingers trembled, and her eyes flinched. She raised her
blade again, prepared to strike the killing blow.

"No," Shari said. She
caught Tilla's wrist, holding her sword back. "No."

Tilla looked at her. Sweat
beaded on her pale brow.

"Commander," she said.
"I can kill him. I—"

"Let him die slowly,"
she said. "It's good enough for him. Come with me, lanse.
We'll let him die alone."

They left the hut and returned
to the sunlight. When Shari looked at Tilla, she found the woman
still pale, yet her eyes were dry and her lips tightened.

"Killing is hard,"
Shari said. "But it gets easier. Harden your soul, and you
will kill many more for the Regime." She slammed her fist
against her chest. "Hail the red spiral!"

Tilla returned the salute, chin
raised. "Hail the red spiral."

"Return to your phalanx.
We prepare for war. Soon we will fly to Cadport, and we will face
the Resistance in battle… and you will face Relesar again. And you
will be ready for him."

With that, Shari shifted into a
dragon and took flight, her true wing thudding, her prosthetic
creaking. She rose above the camp, filled her maw with fire, and
blasted a flaming jet across the sky.

She
grinned as she soared higher. Of course, the man
was
only a quarryman. But Tilla didn't have to know that, and Shari had
enough quarrymen to spare. What mattered was not another death, but
Tilla's soul—a soul Shari would break and reshape into her greatest
weapon.

When she rose high enough, Shari
saw the entire camp sprawled below. Across the ruins of Castra Luna,
her workers were digging ditches, raising scaffolding, and building
the first walls of her new castle, the glorious Castra Sol. In the
forest clearing beyond the construction, her army mustered, ten
thousand strong, men and women all in steel, drilling and saluting
and preparing for battle.

Shari turned her head north.
The forests sprawled red as blood into distant mist. Upon the
horizon, she saw dragons fly, thousands of troops joining her from
their northern forts.

More
will muster here,
Shari
thought. W
e
will gather in strength, a great hammer ready to fall. We will fall
upon the south, and Cadport will burn.

Shari howled, roared her fire,
and grinned.

 
 
ERRY

She walked through the forest
until the sounds of the camp faded behind her. Scraggles walked at
her side, tail slapping branches and bushes, and gave her a plaintive
look. The dog could feel the sadness inside her—Erry knew that he
could—and he licked her fingers.

"Come on, Scrags," she
said and gave him a pat. "We have to keep moving."

Shouts rose behind her.

"Erry!" The prince
was hoarse. "Damn it, Erry, come back here."

She kept walking. She was small
and sneaky and silent. She had lived for years alone upon the docks,
fleeing wild dogs and those who'd steal her food or break her body.
If she did not want the Lechers to find her, they would not.

"We'll find a better
place," she said softly to Scraggles, keeping one hand on his
back as they walked. "Leresy can go eat furry bear droppings."

Scraggles wagged his tail in
approval, and they kept walking through the forest. She had to move
slowly—dry leaves carpeted the forest floor, crackling beneath her
boots, and there were plenty branches to snap underfoot. But she was
far enough now. They would never find her, not if they uprooted
every tree here.

Erry reached into her pocket and
fished out her medallion. She gazed at it—a silver sunburst upon a
leather thong. A prayer in foreign letters gleamed upon it. It was
the language of Tiranor, which she could not read.

"Tiranor," Erry
whispered, caressing the medallion. "My other home."

She had never been to that
southern desert kingdom. She had never met her father, the Tiran who
had bought her mother upon the docks. With this medallion, the
sailor had paid for his night of pleasure, then vanished back
overseas the next day. When Erry was younger, a feral urchin upon
the docks, she would often gaze at this sunburst and dream.

"The desert is a better
place," she would whisper, shivering and cold and hungry enough
to eat dead fish. "There are oases there full of dates and
figs, and sandstone columns rise into the sky, and my father is a
wealthy man. Wealthy enough to have paid for my mother with this
silver medallion, not just copper coins. He is a great prince."

She would weep and dream of
flying to that desert, but never did. The Legions had burned Tiranor
years ago; everyone knew that. No more ships sailed to Requiem from
that distant land. No more life filled the dunes. Her father was
dead; the Legions had slain him.

And so Erry had remained in
Requiem. But she had kept this medallion. She never wore it around
her neck; if any caught her wearing a symbol of Tiranor, they would
slay her. But she kept it always in her pocket. A prayer she could
not read. A memory. A hope that a better world did exist out there.

"Maybe we should fly there,
Scrags," she said, walking through the forest, her father's
medallion in her hand. "Maybe he still lives out there, a
prince of the desert, and we can find him."

Scraggles licked her hand, and
Erry patted him, sniffed back her tears, and kept walking.

"Erry!" Leresy shouted
behind; he sounded hundreds of yards away, his voice so dim, she
could barely hear. "Erry, damn it, will you listen to me?"

She touched her cheek where he'd
struck her. It still tingled and Erry sighed. Men had struck her
before—many times and much harder. During those long years,
orphaned on the docks, she had suffered many bruises and cuts. Men
had tried to hurt her for sex, for theft, for pleasure, and Erry had
always fought them, and she had always healed.

"He's just another one of
them, Scraggles," she said, a lump in her throat. "Just
like the drunkards on the boardwalk."

She had bedded such men before,
so many she could not count. She had given her body for food,
shelter, or warmth on a cold night. The other girls in town called
her a whore, but the other girls had roofs over their heads and food
on their tables.

"I never took no money,"
she whispered to her dog. "Never! No man ever paid for me. I
am not my mother. I took food. I took a bed and a roof when it
rained. But I never sold myself for money."

And
then… then she had joined the Legions. Then she had met Tilla and
Mae, two souls she loved dearly. Then she had a roof over her head,
even if it was only a tent roof. Then she had food to eat, even if
it was only scraps. Then she had protection, a sword to fight with,
a
home
.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
Yet Mae was dead and buried, and Tilla was dead inside, and here she
was again. Feral and alone. Hungry. Lost.

And now… now, after all these
men, it was Leresy, the prince of Requiem himself, who filled the
same old role. Now another man wanted her body for food, for
shelter, for promises of protection. And again—only days out of the
Legions—she was selling herself.