Crown of Dragonfire (23 page)

The flaming wheel spun
madly, then rose to hover above the Living Creatures like a crown, like the
halo above Meliora's own head. They stepped off the dais, advancing toward her.

"You will not touch
her!" Elory shouted, racing forward and raising her sickle.

Lucem ran forth too,
hefting his spear. "You stand before the Queen of Requiem, Living Creatures.
She is not yours to touch."

The Living Creatures
raised their claws higher, and blasts of light and heat rippled out, slamming
into Elory and Lucem. They cried out and fell, banging against the stone floor.
The wheel crackled madly, and heat drenched the room. Meliora fell back against
the closed stone door.

"Stop this!" she cried.
"Living Creatures, I have no wings! Seraphim have wings, yet I have none." She
spun around to show them her back, then faced them again. "Seraphim bear halos
of soft light, yet mine is a halo of fire—much like the wheel that burns above
you. I praise you, Living Creatures! I kneel before you. I—"

"Silence!" they cried. "We
smell your stench. We smell the blood of seraphim. The air reeks with you. And
so you will die, seraph child, for your kind betrayed the Eight Gods. You have
entered your tomb."

Elory and Lucem leaped forward.

"Requiem!" they cried
together, charging with their weapons.

The Living Creatures
roared, a sound that pounded across the chamber, rippling the air. Energy
blasted out from them, slamming into Elory and Lucem, lifting them into the
air, slamming them against the walls. Elory screamed and fell, fresh blood
gushing from the wound of her severed ear. Lucem's head slammed against the
wall, and he moaned and slumped down. And still the Living Creatures advanced
toward Meliora, the four bodies moving together, the eyes glaring, the crimson
claws rising to strike.

"Die," they hissed. "Die
. . . die . . ."

Meliora stared at them,
her meager halo's light drowned beneath their eternal flame. In the distance,
barely audible, she heard other screams, heard claws against stone, the cackles
of the hungry.

"You speak of smelling
seraphim," Meliora said. "And you are correct. But that stench is not from me."
She reached behind her and grabbed the stone door. "Saraph invades your tomb! I
reveal to you the traitors!"

She tugged the stone
door open again.

Behind her, in the
corridor, wailed the dark seraphim.

"Seraphim, seraphim!"
cried the Living Creatures. "Traitors with dark wings!"

Meliora leaped aside,
scurried toward Lucem and Elory, and knelt by them.

The Living Creatures
blazed with rage, fire blasting from their wheel, their bronze bodies casting
out lightning. They charged, claws lashing, crying out in rage. The dark
seraphim screamed, covered their eyes, fell back.

"The Living Creatures!"
they cried. "The vengeance of the gods!"

Meliora shielded Lucem
and Elory with her body, watching the devastation unfold.

A few dark seraphim
charged into the room, flying toward the Living Creatures with lashing claws
and snapping teeth. The Living Creatures' wheel of fire spun madly, casting out
flames, slamming them into the dark seraphim. Lightning bolts blasted from the
bronze bodies of the creatures, and their many mouths opened to scream.

One dark seraph fell,
clutching its chest. Another slammed against the wall, cracking its armor. And
still the fire blazed and lightning struck. Meliora pushed herself deeper into
the corner, covering her eyes against the terrible light.

"Traitors to the gods!"
cried the Living Creatures. "Dark ones, foul ones, cursed ones! The betrayers
of Edinnu shall perish."

Another dark seraph
crashed down, armor split open. The Living Creatures grabbed the man, pulled
him up, tore him open, and the animal heads ripped through the flesh.

The Living Creatures
made for the doorway, and for the first time in five thousand years, they left
the stone prison. With their wings connected, they had to turn sideways,
walking like crabs through the round opening. Still their fire and lightning
blasted out, knocking dark seraphim aside. The cursed ones screamed in pain,
burning, falling before the wrath of the gods.

"Come on!" Meliora
said, grabbing Elory and Lucem and hoisting them to their feet. "We're getting
out of here."

The two swayed,
bloodied and bruised, but managed to heft their weapons and nod. Swinging her
sword before her, Meliora leaped out the round doorway after the Living Creatures.
Elory and Lucem followed, holding hands and swinging their own weapons.

The nave spread before
them, large as an imperial hall. The Living Creatures were moving forward,
their four bodies abreast, the eyes upon their connected wings blinking and
casting out streamers of light. The luminous strands slammed into dark
seraphim, cracking their armor. Another one of the cursed deities fell, gushing
out the golden ichor of Saraph. The surviving dark seraphim flew in the
chamber, swinging their sickles, chopping at the Living Creatures, but the
godly warriors' bodies were like bronze, and the sickles sparked against them
but could not cut them.

Above all soared
Leyleet, Queen of the Dark. Her wings were spread wide, and the fire blazed across
her, but she only laughed, her eyes alight.

"The gods are fools!"
She cackled. "I spit upon the Eight Gods. I will slay their champions like a
child slays ants."

The dark queen swooped,
face twisted with rage, swinging her sickle at the Living Creatures, blasting
out dark fire from her eyes. The gods of vengeance turned toward her as one,
raising their claws, casting out their light. The flames exploded and the nave
shook. Cracks ran across the walls and stones fell from the ceiling.

"Run!" Meliora shouted,
racing through the battle.

Elory and Lucem ran at
her side. They raced around the Living Creatures, and Meliora ducked as a blast
of lightning flew over her head. Elory yelped and leaped aside, dodging a
roaring pillar of fire. The walls kept shaking and boulders fell from above.
One stone landed before Meliora and shattered, and she leaped over the debris.

"The traitors will die!"
cried the Living Creatures, sixteen heads speaking together. "The cursed shall
be cleansed from the earth."

Meliora kept running. A
dark seraph swooped, sickle flashing. Meliora swung the Amber Sword, diverting
the blow with a shower of sparks. Another dark seraph flew toward Lucem, and he
roared and thrust his spear, knocking it back. Still the fire and light of the
Living Creatures filled the hall, their bronze bodies gleaming, their heads
roaring and shrieking, and their hooves shattered the floor as they advanced.

As they kept running,
Meliora saw the tunnel taper ahead, leading to a narrow corridor. If they could
just enter there, make their way into the shadows . . .

A great shriek pierced
the hall. Wreathed in black fire, eyes blazing white like stars, Leyleet
swooped toward them. A wound still gushed on her thigh from Elory's sword.

"For Requiem!" Meliora
cried. A boulder crashed down before her. She leaped onto it and vaulted
through the air.

Leyleet flew toward
her, sickle flashing.

With a scream,
Meliora—still airborne—swung her blade. The Amber Sword arched. The sickle
lashed. Meliora ducked her head, and the blade scraped across the top of her
hair, shearing the stubble even shorter. The Amber Sword slammed into Leyleet's
armor and knocked the dark queen back, cracking her breastplate. With a shout
below, Lucem tossed his spear, and the weapon flew and slammed into Leyleet's
chest, digging into her flesh.

Meliora landed on the
ground.

Leyleet screeched.

Meliora ran, pulling
Elory and Lucem with her, and they leaped into the tunnel ahead. Light flashed
and fire blazed as the Living Creatures charged, and Leyleet screamed again,
awash in their rage, her voice rising so loudly the walls crumbled and boulders
rained.

Leaving the fire
behind, Meliora, Lucem, and Elory raced through the narrow tunnel, breath
ragged. When the way forked, Meliora looked for her pieces of cloth, though she
hardly needed to; the acrid stench of the dark seraphim, the very stench that
had saved her life, was a better path.

Finally they saw
daylight ahead, and they burst outside onto hills and mountains awash with sunbeams.
The landscape spread into the horizons, barren, lifeless, and beautiful.

We're alive. Oh
stars, we're alive. There is still hope for Requiem.

Elory fell to her
knees, breathing raggedly, blood staining her neck and shoulder. In the
daylight, Meliora could see that at least half the ear was gone; only a shell
remained around the canal. Lucem gasped for breath; a thousand cuts and bruises
covered him. Meliora's own clothes were bloody, and the wounds on her cheek
blazed like embers pressed against her face.

"Elory, up." Meliora
reached down to her. "On your feet, Elory. Now."

Lucem glared. "She's
hurt."

"She'll be more than
hurt if we don't move. We don't yet know who'll win the battle in the caves. If
Leyleet is still alive, if she triumphs, she'll never stop hunting us. Elory,
up! Lucem, help her. Carry her if you must. We must move."

Shuddering, her breath
sawing, Elory rose to her feet. Lucem wrapped an arm around her, and she slung
her arms around his neck. Meliora led the way. They raced across the hills,
heading down into a valley, then up another slope. The sunlight blazed down,
drenching them with sweat. From the cave the echoes of battle still sounded.

As they ran, Meliora
stared ahead into the northwest. Somewhere there, beyond the hazy white
horizon, it lay. The mountain of Khalish. The Keymaker. Hope for a crumbling
nation. They raced onward.

 
 
JAREN

It was past midnight when
the door creaked open and evil, cloaked and hooded, entered Jaren's hut.

Jaren had been up most
of the night, healing the wounded of Tofet, guiding the dying to their rest,
and whispering words of comfort to the grieving. Every night now, more wounded
visited his door, and more dead piled up, a slow genocide, the old, the weak,
the young, all perishing under the whips and heels of Saraph. Under Queen
Kalafi's rule, the slaves had labored to build great monuments, and while they
suffered, the queen had cared to keep most of them alive, to keep her labor
force at work.

But Ishtafel, it
seemed, delighted in torture for its own sake, delighted in working more and
more slaves to death every day. And every day it was Jaren who prayed over the
pits of the dead.

Days of labor in the
heat. Nights of healing and prayer. A slow agony, a slow dying, an endless
waiting for hope that might never come, for children who might never return.
The torturous wait for an ancient race to fall—not in battle, not in glory,
but a death stretched out, twisted, with more hope for the relief of death than
for a savior.

Jaren lay on the straw
on the floor. Shivering even in the heat. Alone in darkness.

"Be safe, Meliora,
Vale, Elory," he whispered. "Return to me. Return with the treasures or return
with your lives. We all pray for you, my children. We—"

The creaking door
interrupted him.

Jaren pushed himself
onto his elbows as the wooden door opened. A cloaked shadow stood outside,
holding a lamp.

"Kerish, is that you?"
Jaren asked, rising to his feet. "Is the wound on your leg still aching, is—"

The figure stepped into
the hut, and Jaren lost his breath. Golden eyes blazed within the figure's
hood, the pupils shaped as sunbursts casting out their rays.

A seraph.

"My lord!" Jaren said. "How
may I serve you? I—"

The seraph pulled back
his hood, and Jaren lost his breath.

A cold, handsome face
stared back at him, ageless yet ancient. The jaw was square, the hair golden.
An ugly scar rifted the man's face, crawling from the corner of the jaw, across
the nose, and onto the brow—the mark of a flaming halo pressed against the
flesh. The seraph's eyes were like flames themselves, horrible to behold, yet
cold, soulless, the eyes of a beast.

Ishtafel.

"My lord," Jaren
whispered, kneeling before him.

Every fiber inside of
Jaren screamed. He wanted to charge at Ishtafel, to pummel him. He still had
some strength in him. He wanted to grab the seraph's neck, to squeeze, to
crush.

You murdered my
wife,
Ishtafel thought, trembling.
You kidnapped my daughter and tried
to rape her. You nailed my son to the ziggurat's crest. You murdered a hundred
thousand of my people.
His breath shook.
You destroyed Requiem and put a
nation in chains.

"Yes," Ishtafel hissed,
looking down at him. "I see the rage in you, the hatred. That's good. Hatred
will keep you alive more than hope, more than prayer. And it makes this little
game so much more fun. Rise, Jaren Aeternum. That is your name, is it not?"

Jaren rose to his feet,
unable to douse the rage inside him, but knowing that this seraph could shatter
his bones like a child snapping twigs, knowing that he had to live, that he had
to survive this night. For his children. For all the wounded who still needed
him.

"Yes, my lord," he
whispered.

Ishtafel nodded, lips
stretching into a thin smile. "Aeternum, Aeternum . . . the name of an old
weredragon dynasty, is it not? Your family once ruled the throne of the
reptilian kingdom."

"That was a long time
ago, my lord."

Ishtafel frowned. "And
yet . . . and yet you long for those days to return, do you not?" He glanced up
at the ceiling, at the Draco constellation that was engraved there. "You still
dream of Requiem, I see."

Jaren lowered his head.
"A man can still dream, my lord, even while serving."