A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) (24 page)

"Shari is dead!" he
cried into the night. "I am heir. I am heir to Requiem!"

Tilla kicked wildly.

"Leresy, you bloody fool,"
she shouted into the wind. "Your father banished you. He will
kill you if you return. You're no heir, damn you."

But the red dragon kept flying,
clutching them, and roared fire over their heads. He beat his wings,
flying faster, streaming over the forests.

"Banished me?" He
laughed. "Yes, yes, that he did. But now I return. Now I bear
his greatest prizes—Relesar, the lost whelp of a miserable dynasty,
and Tilla Siren, the traitor who murdered his daughter. Frey Cadigus
will name me heir now. I will be his golden child." Leresy
howled and his fire bathed the sky. "It is Leresy's turn to
rise. Requiem is mine."

Rune and Tilla cursed and
shouted and squirmed. The red dragon tightened his claws, grinned,
and flew through the night.

 
 
KAELYN

A thousand dragons, their scales
chipped and charred. A thousand riders on their backs, bandaged and
burnt and bearing their guns. A ragtag force of refugees and rebels.
A whisper in the night. A single flicker in a storm. They flew
through the night and beheld the capital of Requiem ahead, rising
from the dark forest like a crown of fire.

"Nova Vita," Kaelyn
whispered, flying ahead of her people.

The capital had many names.
Jewel of Requiem. Gloriae's City. Light of Aeternum. Yet to Kaelyn
it was more than that. It was her home, her haunting pain, and her
glittering prize. It was all that mattered in the world.

"Nova Vita." Her
voice shook in the wind. "City of our ancestors. City of my
pain and hope. Today I liberate you, Nova Vita, or I die upon your
walls."

The city still lay miles away.
From here it seemed no larger than a ring she could slip onto her
finger. Fires blazed upon its walls, countless torches to light the
night. More fire crackled within the ring—dragons flying over the
roofs in patrol, blasting their flames. All around the capital, the
land slept in darkness, a black sea.

Kaelyn took deep breaths,
narrowed her eyes, and flew faster. The others flew at her sides:
Valien, her guiding light; Erry Docker, a coppery dragon with flames
in her nostrils; and two thousand more of her comrades, the dearest
souls she knew.

"And you wait for me there,
Rune," she whispered. "I will find you and I will free
you. Be strong, my friend."

At her side, Valien raised his
head, and his eyes shone in the night. He gazed upon his city and
began to sing. His voice was a low rumble, a thunder rolling in a
distant storm. Kaelyn knew the song. He sang Old Requiem Woods, an
ancient tune, a song the Vir Requis would sing before they had a
kingdom, before marble columns stood, before books were written and
myths were told. It was a song of days before gunpowder, before
walls of stone, before bloodshed and swords and a land that was torn,
a song of the Vir Requis living in this forest below, wild children
of the woods.

Kaelyn joined her voice to his.
He sang in a rumble, but her voice was soft and pure as summer wine.
Behind her, the others joined. A thousand dragons raised their voice
in song.

"Old Requiem Woods, where
do thy harpists play, in Old Requiem Woods, where do thy dragons
fly..."

They flew closer. The city
blazed ahead, a disk of light in the darkness, the beacon of her
heart. With every mile they crossed, more details emerged, and
Kaelyn could soon see dark towers and battlements. The streets
stretched out, lit with palisades of lamps, shaped like a wagon
wheel. In the wheel's center, like an axle, rose the black tower of
Tarath Imperium, a thousand feet tall.

A rumble sounded ahead, a
distant chant.

The Resistance flew onward,
singing their song.

Ahead, the walls of Nova Vita
blazed with torchlight. Specks upon the walls grew larger, revealing
themselves to be dragons, tens of thousands of them. Smoke plumed
from their nostrils, and flames blasted from their maws. A thousand
cannons rose between them, small as matches from here but growing
larger with every flap of wings. The rumble upon the walls grew
louder, becoming a battle cry, a howl for blood.

"Hail the red spiral!"
rose thousands of distant voices. "For the glory of Cadigus!
Purification!"

Kaelyn snarled. Her heart
twisted. Fear pounded through her. But she flew on and she kept
singing. She raised her voice, letting her song ring out. All
around, the other dragons sang with her. Their voices rose in hope,
in light, in memory.

The Legions howled ahead upon
the walls.

"Slay the Resistance!"

"We will break them upon
the wheel!"

"We will drink their
blood!"

"Leave none alive!"

Kaelyn shivered as she flew.
Her heart pounded in her throat. Ice seemed to wrap around her
spine. Myriads roared for her death ahead—hundreds of thousands.
Half a million troops or more waited here, each bred and broken into
a machine of perfect hatred, a killer who longed for her blood. Half
a million demons... flaming and screaming for her death.

She flew among two thousand.

The miles blurred below. The
walls grew ahead. The Legions screamed and blasted flames. The
Resistance sang their old song, voices clear and deep, a psalm of
old.

In darkness and firelight, with
song and with prayer, after two decades of fighting in shadows, the
Resistance flew toward the ancient walls of Nova Vita, capital of
Requiem.

"Old Requiem Woods, where
do thy harpists play, in Old Requiem Woods, where do thy dragons—"

A thousand fuses burned. Upon
the walls, a thousand cannons blasted.

Fire ripped across the sky.
Smoke blasted upward. Cannonballs blazed through the night, streaked
like comets, and slammed into the Resistance.

Blood sprayed. Iron tore
through dragons. In death they lost their magic; they scattered in a
shower of blood and human limbs.

Their song rose louder.

Kaelyn sang out the old words.
Her comrades sang with her. They flew on. Their flames lit the
night. They sang and they flew and though fear filled her, Kaelyn
felt the light of Requiem guide her onward and glow within her.

"Cannons!" rose howls
from officers ahead. "Fire!"

The Resistance sang as they
flew.

Matches burned. Explosions
rocked the walls, blasting smoke and flame.

A thousand more cannonballs flew
through the night.

The rounds ripped into the
Resistance. Hundreds of dragons howled, lost their magic, and fell
dead as ravaged men and women.

Kaelyn kept singing, staring
ahead.

The others flew around her.

The walls loomed closer.

Cannons fired. Smoke and blood
filled the sky.

They flew over the last fields,
and Kaelyn tossed back her head and blasted a jet of flame.

"Arquebuses!" she
cried.

At her side, Valien roared.
"Tirans, fire your guns!"

The dragons of the Resistance
swooped toward the city walls.

The cannons blasted and smoke
blinded them.

Hundreds
of arquebuses blasted. With an explosion of smoke and flame, with a
thousand
cracks
of gunpowder blasting, the iron rounds pummeled the city
battlements.

Legionaries fell.

Iron rounds tore through armor,
more powerful than any sword or arrow, cutting into steel like knives
into butter. Blood sprayed in a mist. Men and women tumbled from
the walls.

"Dragonfire!" Kaelyn
shouted. She dived toward the battlements and rained her flames.

Around her, a thousand dragons
of the Resistance swooped and blew fire. The walls rose in flame.
Barrels of gunpowder burst, and smoke and fire covered the sky.
Stone cracked. Kaelyn roared and beat her wings, churning ash and
smoke. Below, she beheld a wall crumbling. Bricks rained and
cannons tumbled, disappearing into clouds of dust.

"Fly, Resistance!" she
shouted through the inferno. "Fly to Tarath Imperium. Crush
the tower!"

She could no longer see the
city, only a storm of gray and red. Cannonballs flew through dust
and smoke and ash. Dragons screamed around her, lost their magic,
and collapsed into bits of flesh. Kaelyn screamed and kept flying.

"Forward, Resistance!"
Valien howled somewhere ahead. "Fire your guns. Blow your
fire!"

Kaelyn couldn't see. She could
barely hear beyond the ringing in her ears. A cannonball blasted
ahead of her, missing her by inches. A second round flew behind her;
it banged against her tail, knocking off a spike, and she screamed.
Yet she flew on. Through the dust and smoke, she could still hear
the Resistance singing their song.

"To the tower!" she
cried. "Fly on, Resistance. For Requiem!"

They flew over the walls.
Through the smoke, Kaelyn glimpsed the city roofs and streets. Nova
Vita sprawled below her, a labyrinth of shadows and firelight.

Shrieks tore through the sky
ahead.

Flames blasted toward her.

Through the thinning smoke, she
saw them swarm: countless dragons of the Legions, beasts clad in
steel, death in their eyes, fire in their jaws.

"Miya, are you still
there?" Kaelyn shouted above her shoulder.

Upon her back, the young woman
shouted back. "I'm here!"

"Fire your beam!"

Kaelyn snarled and flew toward
the Legions ahead, a mass of scales and metal and smoke. They
covered the sky.

"Miya!" she screamed.

The Legions howled and charged
toward her, their fire blasted, and Kaelyn winced.

Red light blazed above her head
and slammed into the horde.

They lost their magic.

They fell as men and women, clad
in armor and bearing swords, and crashed onto the roofs and streets
below.

Ahead, she saw a second red beam
pierce the smoke and fire. Valien flew there, her lord, the man she
loved. The silver dragon flew through fire and blood, roaring his
cry. The Legions fell before him and his fire rained.

For
Requiem,
Kaelyn thought.
For
Rune. And for Valien Eleison, the greatest man I know.

Their
guns blasted. Their beams blazed. Their fire lit the night. The
Legions surrounded them, darting between the beams to burn them down.
Cannonballs flew from every tower, crashing into their ranks,
felling them from the sky.

The Resistance flew over the
city, and they died. They died by the hundreds. Their corpses
covered the roofs and walls below.

And yet the survivors flew. And
they sang. They fought on, and even as their ranks crumbled, and
their comrades fell dead around them, they shot forward. They plowed
through the Legions, an arrow driving through a giant's flesh.

Tears in her eyes, her scales
cut and burnt, Kaelyn saw it ahead, rising from smoke and fire.

Tarath Imperium soared in the
night, the tower of Requiem, the pillar of Cadigus, the heart of the
empire.

My
childhood home.

Smoke
and light filled the night. The city burned and crumbled, and
thousands fell dead all around. It was the greatest battle of her
life, the last battle she would fight. It was the end of the war.

With song and blood and blazing
light, the remains of the Resistance, only a few hundred strong,
dived over the last streets toward the dark tower.

 
 
LERESY

Leresy flew high above the city,
watching it burn.

The capital blazed and crumbled,
a painting in red and black. A chunk of eastern wall had fallen, and
scattered fires burned around it. Cannons and arquebuses rang out,
dragonfire blazed, and smoke filled the sky. Corpses lay upon roofs
and towers, and blood painted the streets. The Legions covered the
sky, hundreds of thousands of dragons roaring. The Resistance drove
through them, shining their two remaining Genesis Scopes, cutting
down thousands of dragons, sending men crashing against roofs, walls,
and cobblestones.

Leresy had fought in battles
before. He had defended Castra Luna. He had fought in the great
Battle of Lynport. He had slain legionaries upon the beaches. Yet
he had never seen such death, thousands falling from the sky, a rain
of corpses. For every resistor killed, the beams sent a hundred
imperial dragons falling, yet the Legions kept swarming.

"Fly at them!" their
officers shouted, voices ringing across the sky. "Fly and slay
them, fly around their light, fly and die for the red spiral."

As Leresy flew above, watching
the carnage, a chill gripped his heart. His father was willing to
send thousands to die in the Genesis Beams, all to slay only a
handful of rebels. Was the death of a resistor so worthy, the life
of a legionary so expendable?

"Leresy, damn you!"
Tilla shouted, clutched in his left claws, still in human form.

"You're going to die here
with us, Leresy!" shouted Rune, also in human form, clutched in
his right claws. "The Resistance is slaying your father's
troops, and they will slay you too."

Leresy snorted fire. He
tightened his claws, almost snapping his prisoners' ribs; they
grunted and fell silent. He shook his head wildly, clearing it of
morbid thoughts. He could not contemplate morality now. He had to
deliver his gifts, claim his inheritance, and save his city.

"Oh, but you are wrong,
little ones," he said. "The Resistance will fail. I will
save this city in its hour of need. I will deliver you to my
father." He tossed his scaly neck, allowing his Genesis Scope
to swing on its rope like an amulet on a chain. "Then, with my
scope, I will cut down your feeble Resistance and save my empire."

He grinned. With Shari dead and
his newfound glory, everything was finally falling into place.