Pillars of Dragonfire (4 page)

I'm sorry, Tash,
he thought, grimacing in pain.
I'm sorry.

The memories flashed
before him. Tash and him, traveling through the wilderness to find the Chest of
Plenty. Kissing in the delta. Making love. Laughing together. The light in her
brown eyes, the softness of her hair flowing between his fingers, the warmth of
her smile, her love.

And then the tears. The
anger. Tash betraying him, betraying Requiem, only to turn back after two
steps—and Vale turning away from her. Leaving her love behind.

Now, as he faced death,
tears filled his eyes.

I'm sorry, Tash. I
love you.

Ishtafel hovered before
him in his chariot.

"And now, son of
Aeternum, I will kill you. Slowly. I will first carve out your entrails. Then
your liver, then your stomach, then peel off your skin. And still you will
live. I've done this many times, and I know how to keep you alive. Only when
you beg and call me 'master' will I cut out your heart."

Vale thrashed in his chains,
tossed back his head, and howled. His wings beat. Spurts of fire left his maw.

No. No! I was meant
to fight for Requiem in a great battle, to save our nation, not this, not this!

Ishtafel hefted his
lance, smiling. He spread out his swan wings, rose from his chariot, and
hovered in the air. He aimed his lance at Vale's belly, eyes narrowed like a
surgeon examining his patient.

"Issari!"
Vale cried out. "Issari!"

"Your gods can't
help you, reptile." Ishtafel grinned. "I am your only god now. We
begin."

Baring his teeth,
Ishtafel flew forth, lance flashing.

"Vale, no!"
rose a voice from below.

Golden scales flashed.
Fire blasted. Crying out, Tash soared, placing herself between Vale and the
thrusting lance.

"Tash!" Vale
cried.

Her fire roared out,
slamming against Ishtafel, washing across him, an inferno, a storm, engulfing
the seraph.

Emerging from the
flames, Ishtafel's lance drove into her chest, cracking her scales, and burst
out of her back.

"Tash!" Vale
roared.

Ishtafel screamed,
falling, wings ablaze.

Seraphim flew downward
after their lord, and Vale thrashed, tearing off the chains.

"Tash!"

She stared at him in
the sky, a golden dragon, a lance piercing her, then lost her magic.

The lance tore free and
tumbled.

A young woman clad in
silk, Tash fell from the sky.

Vale pulled his wings
close to his body and plunged after her. Seraphim flew everywhere. Ishtafel was
still screaming somewhere in the distance, and fire flared, and the battle of
countless dragons and chariots stormed all around. Vale dived, reached out his
claws, and grabbed Tash.

He spread his wings
wide, and they caught the wind. Air whistled through the hole in his right
wing, but he managed to steady his flight, to descend toward the earth. Tash
hung in his claws, limp.

Gently he placed her on
the ground. His heart seemed to clench, and his breath caught. The battle still
raged above them, blood rained, and corpses lay strewn across the field. Vale
released his magic, returned to human form, and knelt above Tash.

"Tash," he
whispered and touched her cheek. She still lived, her breath shallow, her
eyelids fluttering. A hole gaped through her chest, and blood poured down her
belly and soaked her silken trousers.

"I . . . I burned
him," she whispered. "I burned Ishtafel for you, Vale. I . . ."

Tears filled his eyes.
He tore off his shirt and held the cloth to her wound. She winced. Her face was
so pale, turning grey.

"Issari,"
Vale whispered, looking up at the night sky. "Heal her, please. Heal her,
great priestess."

But he could not see
the stars, only the raging dragons and chariots and flames.

"Vale." Tash's
voice shook, so weak. "Hold me. Don't leave me. Don't look away."

Tears falling, he held
her in his arms, cradling her shivering body. "I'm not leaving you, Tash.
Never. I promise."

She coughed weakly,
reached up, and touched his cheek. "I love you, Vale Aeternum. And I'm
sorry for what I've done. I'm sorry."

"You are
forgiven," he whispered. "I love you too. I always did. I always
will."

"Fight for them,
Vale. Lead them home. To Requiem."

She was growing so cold
in his arms, and her blood would not stop pouring. "You will fight with
me! I will heal you. The Priestess in White will heal you. I—"

"No." Tash
shook her head. "I'm no daughter of a great dynasty. I'm no heroine. I'm
just a woman who loves you, who loves our home across the sea. I will see
Requiem again, Vale. I can see her already." Her eyes shone, and she
stared skyward. "She's up there, Vale, a Requiem all in starlight, and her
harps are calling me home." Her tears streamed. "I will find our sky.
I fly to it now."

"No, Tash."
His tears splashed her cheeks, and he kissed her lips. "Don't leave us.
Don't leave me. I love you."

"This is a good
way to die," she whispered. "In your arms. I will always be with you,
Vale. Always. In your heart and in your stars."

Her eyes closed, and
her breath died upon his kiss.

Vale held her close
against him, rocking her, her head against his chest. A sob shook his body.

I love you, Tash. I
love you. Goodbye, daughter of Requiem. Goodbye.

 
 
MELIORA

They're too
many.

Meliora fought across
the sky, her dragonfire down to mere spurts, her silvery scales cracked. Her front
foot—a hand in her human form—was ravaged, dripping, blazing with an inferno.

Too many seraphim .
. . we cannot beat them.

The dragons had crossed
the wall and were flying over the wilderness now, but countless chariots of
fire kept attacking, flying in from every direction, culling the dragons. Every
heartbeat, another Vir Requis lost his or her magic and tumbled down through
the night. Ishtafel had murdered sixty thousand Vir Requis last time Meliora
had rebelled; now he would slaughter them all.

"Dragons,
fly!" she called out. "Fly with me, faster! Fly north!"

Yet Requiem lay so many
miles away; it would take weeks of flight to get there, and the seraphim would
harry them every mile.

We'll all die long
before we reach the coast,
Meliora knew.
Even as dragons.
She
snarled.
Then let me die giving the others hope. Let me kill as many
seraphim as I can, even if only a handful of dragons escape. That handful will
rebuild a nation.

She charged into
battle, flying across the rim of the camp, tearing into the ranks of attacking
seraphim. Lucem roared at her side, a red dragon, his fire still flowing. Elory
fought with them, scales chipped and bleeding, but still the lavender dragon
swiped her claws and tail, sending seraphim down dead.

For every seraph
killed, it seemed that a dozen Vir Requis fell, resuming human forms in death.
Men. Women. Children. They fell like rain through the darkness.

The fall of Requiem,
Meliora thought.
We rose in light and now we fall in shadow.

Yet even in the
darkness a new light shone.

The sun rose in the
east, and from the light they flew.

"Meliora the
Merciful!" they cried. "Meliora, our mother!"

She looked into the
light, and her eyes dampened.

The
erevim
.

They flew in from the
dawn, the life she had made. Beings raised from the mud, given the blood of
both Vir Requis and seraphim. Men and women coated with scales, swan feathers
growing from their wings and heads. They flew toward the battle, crying out her
name. They had multiplied in the wilderness, and a thousand or more now flew
forth.

"We fight with
you, Meliora!"

With battle cries, the
erevim charged against the chariots of fire, lashing their claws at seraphim,
tearing at their flesh with sharp teeth.

"For
Requiem!" rose new voices in the west. "For Requiem, slay the
immortals!"

Meliora spun in the
sky, saw them, and gasped.

"Hope," she
whispered. "Hope rises."

They flew in from the
lingering shadows, a hundred ghostly ships sailing through the sky,
translucent, firing their cannons. Ships of Old Requiem. The rebels who had
once risen up against the Aeternum family; they now came to raise Requiem from
ruin. Upon their decks, thousands of skeletons danced, rose, shifted into
ghostly dragons of smoke. The creatures stormed forth, blowing out white fire.

The seraphim shouted in
fury, then in fear, and finally in pain.

The astral dragons
flowed across them, tearing them apart, ripping limbs off torsos, severing
wings, sending corpses falling. Ships blasted their astral cannons, sending
chariots crashing down. The erevim flew between the apparitions, blood on their
claws, still calling out her name.

"Meliora, Meliora!"

The dragons of Requiem
flew on.

Blasting out fire,
clawing the enemies in their way, they flowed across the sky.

They flew away from
Tofet.

They flew away from the
army of seraphim.

They flew through blood
and fire and rain. To freedom. To a dream of Requiem.

 
 
LUCEM

The dragons flew, and flying among
them, Lucem thought of home.

For the first eleven years of
his life, home had been in Tofet. A home of the whip, the shackles, the pain of
carving and molding bricks. Then, for the second half of his life, home had
been the wilderness—huddling in caves, wandering the darkness, singing to
nobody, talking to invisible friends.

Lucem looked around him. He
flew as a dragon on the wind, and thousands of other dragons flew with him.
Their scales shone brilliantly in the sun like a field of jewels. Lucem's eyes
stung. So many times he had dreamed of seeing this—seeing the people of
Requiem rise in their dragon forms, no collars around their necks. Free.
Leaving Tofet and the corpses of seraphim behind.

And leaving two other
souls behind,
Lucem thought, eyes dampening.

Elory flew up to him, a
slender dragon, smaller than most. Her scales were deep purple near her belly,
growing lighter along her flanks, turning pale lavender on her back. Her horns
were small and white, her eyes kind. One of her ears thrust out from her head,
violet and scaled. The other was missing.

"How are you,
Lucem?" she asked softly.

He blinked the tears out of
his eyes. "I just . . . I just wish they could have been here. My parents.
I keep looking around, hoping to see them, even imagining that they fly with
us. But then I remember. How the overseers killed them a decade ago." He
lowered his head as he flew. "How they'll never see our freedom."

Elory flew a little closer
and touched her wing to his. She reached out her tail, gently tapping his own
tail.

"I'm sorry, Lucem. I
miss my mother too—so badly that it physically hurts." Elory's eyes shone
damply. "I don't know what'll happen next. I don't know how many enemies
await between us and Requiem. But whatever happens, I'm here for you. Always. I
love you, Lucem, and I'll always fly by your side."

They flew together, side by
side, bodies touching.

Lucem stared forward as they
flew. Across the thousands of dragons, the wilderness sprawled to the horizon. Thousands
of miles still separated them from Requiem, and many enemies perhaps waited
along the way. And yet beyond the horizon it lay. Their homeland.

Let Requiem be my third
home,
Lucem thought.
Let it be a home to all of us. A home of light, of
safety, and of peace.

 
 
MELIORA

The children of Requiem
gathered in the wilderness under the heat of the blinding sun.

The land was burnt
around them. The rushes along the river, the trees, the forests, all had burned
in the fire of Saraph when the first slaves had escaped to find hope. Now half
a million Vir Requis had fled their captivity, and they covered the land.

Most stood or lay as
humans, nursing their wounds. Many flew as dragons above the camp, protecting
those below. The Vir Requis carried their meager supplies with them—skins of
water, sacks of oatmeal, a few pickaxes, some dried fruit, not much more.

Meliora walked up a
hill until she stood above the camp. In dragon form, her front foot had been
wounded in the battle, and now her hand was bandaged, blazing, screaming with movement.
The hot wind billowed her tattered burlap robe, and her good hand rested on the
hilt of Amerath, her ancient sword of kings and queens. The sun beat down upon
her, browning her limbs, and her halo crackled above her head.

What a figure she must
have struck, she thought. Only a few months ago, she had been a different
person. Nobody from that time of her life would recognize her now. Once she had
worn gowns of finest muslin, adorned with precious jewels. Swan wings had grown
from her back, and golden hair had cascaded across her shoulders. Her skin had
been pale, soft, powdered. Today that skin was tanned and covered in scabs and
bruises. Her hair was but stubble on her head, and instead of a golden halo,
she stood crowned with dragonfire. No more swan wings grew from her back, but
two scars ran there along her shoulder blades, reminders of who she had been,
who she could never be again.

My seraph half died
with my wings,
she thought.
I am nothing but a daughter of Requiem now,
pure.

"Children of
Requiem!" she cried, and below the hill, the people turned toward her.
"Hear me, children of Requiem!"

They stared up at her.
Thin, hungry, wounded. Wearing rags. Their ankles still chafed from the chains
they had discarded. A brutalized people, heirs to a kingdom they had never
forgotten.