Dragons Reborn (27 page)

 
 
MERCY

She flew on her
firedrake, hundreds more flying around her, hundreds of ships sailing below,
and she saw it in the distance, a line of light upon the black horizon: the
coast of Terra.

The
land that tried to topple us.
Mercy tightened her jaw and clutched her
lance.
The land that harbored the weredragons. The land that sought to
darken the light of my lord.
She bared her teeth.
The land I will
destroy.

Behind
her rose the smoke and fire of the fleet she had drowned, the enemy she had
vanquished. She had sent hundreds of ships down into the depths, slain myriads
of warriors. She was a queen of conquest, a bringer of blood, a holy warrior of
the Spirit, the vengeful blade of her faith. And still she flew onward.

"I
will not allow the Horde to recover, to nurse their wounds and their hatred, to
seek vengeance against me," she whispered to her firedrake. "When you
fight an enemy, you must destroy him. You must hit him so hard he will never
rise again. If you give your enemy a bloody nose, he will heal and strike back
with more vengeance than before. If you shatter his head against the wall and
slay his brothers and children, none will ever contest your might."

The
white beast below her clattered and cawed, spurting out smoke. Mercy smiled
thinly.

"And
so we will slay their brothers, their children, their wives whose wombs would bear
new warriors. It will be a night of blood, a dawn of fire, the hour of our
greatest triumph."

She
flew toward the coast—Lady Mercy Deus, Lady of Wrath, Lady of Dominion.

The
coast grew closer, and Mercy saw countless lights of campfires. Two massive
statues rose ahead, shaped as rearing stallions with gilded hoofs, the
firelight reflecting off them. The horses were still distant, but even from
miles away, she could see them clearly. They must have stood hundreds of feet
tall, as tall as the Cured Temple back home. Beyond the statues, even as Mercy
and her army approached, she saw no civilization. No buildings rose ahead, no
towers, no streets, no fortresses, as if the Horde—this massive mob of many
nations—had spent all their effort and industry on raising two equine idols,
then remained with nothing but poverty for the remains of their realm.

They
live in tents,
Mercy realized as she flew closer. She guffawed.
Tents in
the dirt. Nomads. Barbarians.

Dawn
began to rise in the east, its red light falling upon the coast and the camp
that sprawled toward the hills. This was nothing but a camp for refugees, for
all those the Commonwealth had driven from their homes: the Tirans of the
desert, the brutes from the swamps, the scattered remains of humanity that had
somehow survived the slaughter in Osanna and the fall of the ancient Terran
civilizations. The dregs of humanity. Heretics. Seaside scum, no more. Benighted
barbarians who did not know the light of the Spirit.

"But
they will see our light now," Mercy vowed. "And it will burn them.
The dawn rises, and so does the Cured Temple."

She
raised her banner high, letting the tillvine blossom shine in the dawn, and she
shouted out for her army to hear.

"For
the glory of the Temple! For the light of the Spirit! Slay the heathens! Slay
every heretic in the name of our god."

Across
the sky, hundreds of paladins raised their banners upon hundreds of firedrakes.
Many of the firedrakes were missing scales, charred, cut from the battle over
the sea. Many of the paladins were bleeding, their armor dented. But they were
ready for more bloodshed, for more holy light. They cried out with her.

"For
the Spirit! For the Temple!"

Their
banners streamed. Their horns blared out their cry. Below in the water,
hundreds of ships still sailed, the victors of the battle. Brigantines and
carracks flowed forth, sails wide, and longboats oared between them like great
centipedes. Horns wailed. Men cried out for glory. War drums beat. Cannons
wheeled toward the coast.

"For
the glory of the Spirit!" the warriors chanted across the hosts.

And
on the coast, Mercy saw them: the women and children of the Horde. They were
pointing. They were crying out. And they were fleeing.

Mercy
allowed herself a thin smile. She stroked her firedrake, and she spoke softly
to the beast. "Burn them all."

With
the cries of firedrakes, the beating of drums, and the chanting of holy
warriors, the Temple fleet reached the enemy coast.

"Cannons,
fire!" Mercy shouted from above. "Tear them down!"

In
the ocean, the white warships of the Temple turned their guns toward the coast.
Men lit fuses. With smoke and roaring fire, with a sound that cracked the sky
itself, hundreds of cannonballs flew toward the Horde.

Flying
above on her firedrake, Mercy watched and smiled.

The
cannonballs tore through the heretics. They drove through tents. They drove
into fleeing women and children, scattering gobbets of flesh and bone, crushing
people like melons. Screams rose across the camp, and the people began to flee.
Thousands emerged from the remaining tents like ants from a disturbed burrow. Wailing,
they began to race inland.

"Fire!"
Mercy shouted.

The
guns blasted again, shaking the ships, flattening the water, blasting out
smoke, and the cannonballs flew toward the beaches. Tents shattered. Chunks of
human flesh flew through the air. Some of the heathens survived; they crawled
forward, missing limbs, spilling their entrails. Fires blazed across the camp.
Cannonballs thudded against the great horse statues, chipping the stone,
deforming the proud stone faces of the beasts.

Mercy
reached down to stroke Talis's white scales.

"Burn
them," she whispered to the firedrake. "Burn them all."

Talis
spread his wings and flew higher, tossed back his scaly head, and roared to the
sky. Mercy roared with him.

"Burn
them all!" she cried. "Firedrakes, attack!"

With
thudding wings and shrieks, hundreds of firedrakes flew across the water and
swooped toward the heathen hive of Hakan Teer.

The
people screamed, fled, cowered, prayed.

And
Mercy burned them.

She
burned all that she could.

She
plunged from the sky, and her firedrake spewed down his fire. The blazing
stream crashed into tents, consumed sheep and goats in their corrals, slammed
into fleeing women and children. They screamed. They fell. Some ran to the
beaches, burning. But mostly they died. Mercy laughed, dug her spurs into Talis's
tenderspots, and they soared toward the sky, then dipped again, blasting down
fire. More heathens burned.

All
across the tent city, the firedrakes streamed. They shot down flames. Some
women and children were running to the hills, and Mercy flew toward them,
burned them down, then dived back toward the tents and burned some more. Smoke
and fire enveloped the world. The screams of the dying filled the air. Hundreds
of firedrakes flew all around, sending down their death.

Mercy
laughed as she fought, as she conquered. Her banner streamed behind her, and
she was a figure of light, of piety, of holy victory.

"For
the Spirit!" she cried. "Burn them all! Burn the heathens!"

She
gritted her teeth as she flew, as she burned, as her drake screamed beneath
her.

I
lost my child.
She clenched her fists.
And so they will lose their
children. They will lose everything they've had. In your name, my fallen daughter,
I will conquer this world, and I will shine the light of the Spirit upon the
Horde's skeletons.

A
group of children were running ahead, heading toward the hills. One among them,
a little girl, was missing her legs; they ended with shattered, spurting
stumps. Her brother carried her, and they all ran, wailing, seeking safety.
Mercy swooped, prepared to burn them down, a goddess of wrath, when the roars
rose from the north.

She
tugged the reins, pulling Talis upward, and stared toward the sea.

A
smile spread across her face.

Mercy
laughed and raised her banner high as the city burned beneath her.

"Hello,
weredragons!" she cried. "Welcome to the Abyss!"

They
flew out from the dawn's light, six weredragons, a dozen griffins, a dozen
salvanae. A ragtag group of bandits. A group she would burn.

Let
the death of their Horde be the last thing they ever see. They will die knowing
the depths of their failure.

"Burn
them, Talis!" Mercy shouted, digging her spurs deep into the beast. "Slay
the creatures! Paladins of the Spirit, rise! Rise and fly! Slay the
weredragons!"

Mercy
grinned as the firedrakes shot forward. She steadied her lance. The dawn rose
upon her and her firedrakes, a dawn of glory, of holiness. She had defeated the
Horde in one of the greatest victories of her faith, and now—on this very
dawn, the dawn of Mercy's ascension—she would slay the last weredragons.

She would bring about the Falling.

This
dawn the Horde falls,
she thought as she streamed forward, the wind roaring
around her.
This dawn King's Column will shatter. This dawn the Spirit
himself will descend to the world, and I—Lady Mercy—will become a saint, a
seraph, a daughter of the Spirit.

"A
dawn of light," she whispered. "A dawn of victory. A dawn of dominion
and falling marble."

Roaring
and blasting out fire, the weredragons flew over the beach and charged toward
her. Laughing, Mercy and her hundreds of firedrakes stormed forth to meet them.

 
 
FIDELITY

She had never
seen such destruction.

As
Fidelity flew over the blazing city, this mass killing field, tears filled her
eyes, and her breath died in her lungs, and her ribs seemed to wrap so tightly
around her heart they could still its beat.

Thousands
dead,
she thought, the world a haze. Her eyes were weak, especially in
dragon form with no spectacles to wear. But she did not need sharp eyesight to
see the fire, the mountains of corpses, to smell the burning flesh, to hear the
screams.

Mercy
did not come here merely to conquer, to defeat an enemy,
Fidelity realized.
She came here to kill every last man, woman, and child in Terra.

And
Mercy, eldest daughter of Beatrix, heiress to the Cured Temple, now flew toward
Fidelity on a white firedrake, and a hundred other paladins and firedrakes flew
with her.

Fidelity
tossed back her head, spread her wings wide, and roared for battle, for rage,
for fear, for hope. She roared the word forbidden in the north, the word she
had always fought for, her battle cry, her never-ending dream.

"Requiem!"

She
charged toward the enemy, and her family flew with her. Korvin, her father, a
great gray dragon, the strongest and wisest man she knew. Roen, a green dragon
of the forest, the man she loved, the man she had loved since her youth. Cade,
a new hope for Requiem, a young golden dragon with light in his eyes. Amity, a
red dragon, a great warrior, a heroine Fidelity admired. Domi, a spirit of
fire, a living flame, her sister. They flew with her now; they would always fly
together, the last survivors of Requiem, their ancient kingdom's warriors and
torchbearers. They stormed across the beach, and they roared for their
homeland, and they blasted out their flame.

Six
streams of dragonfire shot across like the sky toward Mercy.

Mercy's
white firedrake rose higher, then plunged down. Countless other firedrakes
swooped with her, blasting forth their flame.

Fidelity
screamed.

She
flew through a blazing sun, through the death of a nation, through the burning
of a world, the shattering of souls. All was fire, heat, sound, rage, pain,
light. She screamed. She flew blindly. She shot out from the fire and smoke,
spun in the sky, and saw endless fangs, claws, eyes. More fire rained upon her.
She cried out. Her scales expanded and broke, a dozen
cracks
like
splintering wood. All around the firedrakes attacked. She spun in rings,
blowing her dragonfire, trying to hold them back. She lashed her tail. She
snapped her teeth. She clawed at her enemies. The few griffins and salvanae who
had survived the battle over the sea flew above and around her, falling,
burning, crashing down.

And
still the cannons boomed.

Still
the firedrakes sent down their inferno.

Still
the people below died by the thousands.

Fidelity
spun through the sky, seeking Mercy again, but could no longer see the paladin,
and other riders kept flying toward her, blasting fire her way, and Fidelity
soared higher, dipped through the air, knowing she could not fight them all,
knowing she would die here, knowing everyone below would burn.

I
must save whoever I still can.

She
clenched her teeth and dived down.

I
must save the women and children of the Horde.

"Domi,
Roen!" she shouted. She spotted the two fighting farther away. "We
have to evacuate them! We have to gather whoever we can and fly!"

She
pulled her wings closer to her body and dived.

A
firedrake flew up toward her. Fidelity bathed it with fire. Another beast flew
from her side, and she lashed her tail, whipping the firedrake's rider so hard
she shattered his armor and tore off his arm.

She
kept diving, heading down toward a group of running children. One among them
had no legs; he ran on stumps, screaming, before falling and crawling onward.

A
firedrake came flying from the other direction, ready to blast fire, to roast
the fleeing children. Fidelity roared. She beat her wings, soaring above the
children, almost knocking against them, and blasted forth dragonfire. She
slammed into the firedrake an instant before it could burn the children,
snapped her teeth, clawed at its rider. Her jaws closed around the firedrake's
neck, tore out flesh, and she spat. Fidelity bellowed, blood in her mouth, and
the firedrake crashed down dead.