A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) (25 page)

"Be strong, Rune,"
Kaelyn whispered at his side. Her face was pale, her lips tight.
She clutched his hand and squeezed. "Whatever happens, be
strong. I'm with you."

The Legions howled ahead.
Flames roared. Their cries pealed across the sky like demon howls
echoing in buried chambers.

"Crush the Resistance!"

"Slay them all!"

"Break their bones and
drink their blood!"

"Burn this city!"

Rune sucked in a shaky breath
and tightened his lips. He could not stop his chest from shaking.
The walls themselves seemed to shake beneath his feet; he didn't know
whether his legs were trembling, or whether the Legions were rattling
the very earth. The rain kept falling. He kept staring, wanting to
flee, wanting to shift and fly away across the sea.

He forced himself to stay still.
To stare ahead. To wait.

They flew three miles away.
Then two.

War.
Blood. The greatest battle of our time.

"You will fight well,
Rune," Valien said, standing at his left side. His voice was
raspy as ever, but deep and solemn. "Your wings will find the
sky. Starlight will bless you." The gruff, taller man looked
at him and managed a wink. "Today we fight together as
brothers."

Rune did not reply. He did not
trust his voice to remain steady. All across the walls of Lynport,
his fellow warriors stood, thousands of men and women in leather
armor, manning cannons or holding arrows nocked in bows. They were
thousands of brave fighters, and they would fight well, yet Rune had
never felt more fear.

"Slay them all!" rose
a shriek ahead.

"We will break them upon
the wheel!"

"We will flay their skin
and drink their blood!"

"Grab Relesar alive—he
will suffer most!"

Rune clenched his teeth, and his
sword shook. They were coming to capture him, to torture him, to
break his every bone and hear him scream. They were coming to kill
Valien, Kaelyn, Erry, and all those he loved. They were a hundred
thousand strong. He had but ten thousand with him.

We
can't win this,
he thought, and his eyes burned, and his breath trembled.
We
will die. We will fall. We—

He snarled.

No,
he thought.
No.

He could not let fear claim him.
Not now. Valien's words from his training returned to him.

All
wise men fear battle. Only brutes rush fearless into a fight. The
true warrior is not he who feels no fear, but he who conquers fear.

Rune nodded.

"I will fight," he
whispered through clenched teeth. "For the Resistance. For my
friends. For my home." The rain streamed down his face. "For
Requiem."

The Legions swarmed ahead,
closer and louder. Their roars crashed against the walls. Rune
could see individual dragons now. Their eyes blazed red in the
firelight. Their fangs shone. Their claws reached out. Flames
blasted from them, lighting the night. They rolled into the horizon.
Shari Cadigus flew at their lead, clad in black armor, spraying her
flames and shrieking, her head undulating in the heat waves.

"Slay them all!"

Rune lit his tinderbox.

At his sides, Kaelyn and the
other archers tugged back their bowstrings.

Beside him, Valien drew his
sword and held it aloft. The blade caught the firelight.

"Archers!" he shouted.
"Fire!"

A rain of arrows shot forward,
shards of red in the night, and slammed into the horde ahead. The
dragons shrieked. Blood splashed. They kept flying.

Valien shouter louder.
"Cannons—fire!"

Rune brought tinderbox to fuse.

The smell of smoke filled his
nostrils.

The dragons ahead shrieked and
stormed forward, only several heartbeats away from the walls.

The fuse burned.

"No fear," Rune
whispered.

An explosion rocked the city
walls.

Fire exploded.

The cannons thrust backward so
violently they almost fell off the wall. Light flared. A hundred
cannonballs blazed into the night. The smell of gunpowder flared.
Through clouds of smoke, Rune saw the volley slam into the Legions.
Where the cannonballs struck scales, fire screamed and blood rained.
Dragons lost their magic. Human bodies tumbled, torn apart into
limbs and torsos and severed heads. Already men were loading new
gunpowder and cannonballs, driving ramrods into muzzles.

"Archers!" Valien
howled, sword raised and voice hoarse. "Fire!"

A second volley flew. Arrows
whistled and slammed into the beasts ahead. Men shoved gunpowder
into muzzles, leaped back, and more fuses burned.

"Cannons, fire!"

The walls shook. The cannons
jolted backward again. Flames roared and exploded across the sky,
deafening. The Legions were close now, so close Rune could count
their teeth. The cannonballs ripped through them. One projectile
tore into a beast only a hundred yards away, shattering its head into
red mist, leaving a human body to tumble.

Yet still so many swarmed.
Still the thousands streamed forward, howling and raging and blowing
flames.

"Archers! Fire! Keep
those arrows firing!"

More arrows whistled. More
blood spilled and more dragons fell dead.

"Cannons!"

A third volley of cannonfire
rocked the city. The smoke rose thick and black and rich with the
smell of gunpowder. A hundred cannonballs ripped into the horde
ahead, tearing through armor and scales, showering blood and flame.

And then… then the Legions
were upon them.

"Fall back!" Valien
shouted, waving his sword. "Fall behind, into the tunnels, go!"

Rune leaped back, ears ringing,
and shifted into a dragon. At his sides along the walls, thousands
of resistors shifted too.

"Fall back!" Valien
howled, a silver dragon with one horn. "Into the tunnels!"

Rune flapped his wings, flew
backward, and beheld the wrath of Cadigus descend upon the city. The
dragons covered the sky, a burial shroud of scale and flame. Their
fire shot down, blasting walls and roofs. A few resistors were too
slow to shift; they were still loading cannons or nocking arrows.
The Legions slammed into them, and claws ripped them apart. Other
resistors managed to shift but were too slow to fly back; flames
blasted them, cracking their scales and melting their eyes.

"Rune!" Kaelyn
shouted. The green dragon slammed into him, pushing him lower.
"Fall back!"

Hovering above the roofs, he
looked around wildly.

"Where's Erry! Where's—"

"Rune!" Kaelyn
shouted. "Into the tunnels!"

He nodded. They turned and
dived. The rooftops and streets rushed up toward them. All around,
jets of flame crashed down onto Lynport like comets, burning roofs
and tearing into dragons.

"There, the smithy!"
Kaelyn cried. "Fly, Rune!"

They dived over the roofs.
Already many homes, those built of wood and clay, were blazing. The
brick smithy, however, rose strong from the smoke. Rune and Kaelyn
hissed. A stream of fire crashed down before them. They scattered,
skirted the flames, and kept diving.

They all but crashed onto the
cobbled road outside the smithy. When Rune glanced above, he saw the
Legions covering the sky of Lynport. Thousands of flaming jets
slammed down. Thousands of wooden homes blazed. Resistors were
blasting flame upward and scurrying into those houses built of stone.
Some resistors—or maybe they were Lechers—were brazen enough to
soar, howling, into the sky of legionaries. Claws and fangs tore
them apart, and they tumbled as ravaged humans. Blood filled the
rain.

"Rune!" Kaelyn
shouted, smoke and flame around her. "Inside!"

She shifted into human form,
fired one arrow into the sky, and leaped through the smithy window.
Rune blasted his flames upward into the dragon storm, shifted too,
and leaped. Flames crashed down where he'd stood, missing him by
inches. He scurried through the window and slammed its shuttered
panels shut.

Ten other resistors filled the
stone house. Their clothes were singed and sweat soaked them. A few
winced; welts rose across their skin. They all held swords.

"Into the tunnels, like we
trained," Rune said.

He doubted they could hear him;
he could barely hear himself over the ringing in his ears. Outside
the windows, scales flashed and fire blazed. The walls shook.
Dragons were landing outside, claws scratching cobblestones. The
legionaries' battle cries thundered as loud as the cannons.

"Find Relesar!" a
voice roared outside. "Slay all others."

When he peeked between the
shutters, Rune saw the imperial dragons shifting into warriors clad
in black armor. Helms covered their heads and their swords blazed
red in the firelight. Boots thudded across the streets.

Breathing heavily, Rune turned
from the window. He stomped forward, grabbed the floorboards, and
pulled them loose. A tunnel delved below.

"Follow!" he said and
placed a leg into the darkness.

Before he could enter, the
smithy door jolted open.

Ten legionaries stood behind it,
their armor reflecting the fires, their swords raised.

A rope, attached to the door,
creaked.

A barrel of bolts and gunpowder
fell against the soldiers.

The explosion rocked the smithy.
The door shattered, raining wood. Armor tore apart. Limbs flew
across the street outside, and a severed head rolled into the smithy.
Blood pooled and smoke rose. The doorway had vanished. Bodies lay
strewn outside. One man still lived, screaming, his arms torn off
and his entrails spilling.

One leg still in the tunnel,
Rune stared.

His heart seemed to stop.

The world shook and his ears
rang. He could no longer hear anything but the ringing, see anything
but the ravaged bodies, the man writhing, the blood, and oh stars, he
was still alive, and—

"Rune!"

Kaelyn was shouting above him.
He could barely hear her beyond the ringing. He looked up and saw
her face splashed with blood. She was shoving his shoulders, trying
to push him into the tunnel. Outside the doorway, more legionaries
were racing through the streets, and more explosions rang. Through
the windows, blood and debris flew everywhere. A man ran down an
alley, aflame and screaming.

"Rune!" she screamed.

He nodded, tightened his lips,
and plunged into the tunnel. He fell down a shaft, hit an earthen
floor, and beheld a burrow driving forward. He crawled. He had
forgotten his lamp somewhere above. When he glanced behind him, he
saw Kaelyn and the others crawling too; a few held flickering
lanterns.

The tunnels shook, raining dirt.
Blood smeared Rune's face and his arm burned. As they crawled
through the darkness, he could still see the bodies and hear the
screams.

 
 
TILLA

Her city burned beneath her.

The flames rose everywhere.
Houses, shops, trees—they all blazed. Tilla flew, eyes stinging,
the smoke swirling around her. Blood spilled. Dragons burned and
fell dead. Soldiers ran, swinging swords, and explosions tore
through alleyways, ripping men apart. Streets cracked. Buildings
tumbled. Walls fell. Any house built of wood blazed. From the
brick structures—the fort, the courthouse, the silos and
shops—cannons were still firing through embrasures in the walls,
tearing into dragons.

My
home,
Tilla thought. Her heart thrashed, her eyes stung, and the terror
gripped her.
Cadport.
My home. It's burning.

"Rune!"
she howled, flying above the destruction. "Rune, end this! Fly
to me, Rune. Stop this warfare!"

She
flew in circles above the city, seeking him. The resistors scurried
below, leaping from street to street, shadows in the night. They
fired arrows, then vanished into doorways and windows and holes.
Cannons blazed and smoke unfurled. Imperial dragons blasted the
streets with fire. Their claws tore at homes and walls crumbled.
Bodies littered the streets.

"Rune!" she roared,
flying above, trying to find him but seeing only shadows, only
dragons drenched in fire and blood, only death and destruction.

No!
No.
None of this should have happened! They were supposed to capture
this city, not destroy it. They were supposed to capture Rune, not
topple her home above him.

"Rune, surrender yourself
and this will end!" she cried, flying above the streets. A
cannonball flew from a silo, and she barely dodged it. Fire rose
from a rooftop, blasting her tail, and arrows shot from windows,
clattering against her armor. Tilla roared, dived, and bathed the
buildings with fire.

"Rune, hand yourself in!"
she called. "We don't have to watch our city fall."

She looked around, seeking her
old home, but could not see through the smoke. She tried to look
toward the beach, that place where she'd walked with Rune so many
times. Dragons flew above the boardwalk and fire rose in walls.

Cadport was crumbling below her,
and she could not stop it.

"Find the boy!" Shari
shrieked. The blue dragon flew at her side, howling fire. "Find
Relesar. Search every building until he's found! Slay all others in
your path."

Below, legionaries in human form
snaked through the streets, armor clanking. They yanked open doors,
only for barrels of gunpowder to burst, scattering gore across the
street. They tried to climb through windows, but arrows peppered
them. Every instant, resistors burst from a hole, shot arrows and
thrust swords, and vanished back into hiding. The larger houses held
dragons; their fire erupted from chimneys and windows, blasting any
legionary who approached.

"It's like fighting
gophers," Shari said in disgust. Her blue wings churned the
smoke and she roared. "Tear down every house until you find
him!" She whipped her head around, stared at Tilla, and
snarled. "Lanse! Lead your phalanx to the courthouse; they're
firing cannons from within. Stop them."