Requiem's Song (Book 1) (15 page)

For a moment, Laira only lay
still. She saw nothing but stars floating across blackness. She
didn't know if she was alive or dead. The smell of soil, worms, and
blood filled her nostrils. The pain throbbed, but it felt distant,
dulled. She was floating away.

No.

Her fingers curled inward.

No.
Fight. Get up. Move.

Somewhere above, a hundred rocs
shrieked, and hunters cried out.

Get
up!
spoke the voice inside her.
Move!
Run!

She growled, pushed down her
shoulders, and screamed into the mud.

Her face rose from the soil, and
she sucked in breath, choking on dirt and leaves. She spat. The
weight of the stake pushed down on her back. She wanted to cry for
Neiva again, but dared not make a sound; the hunters would hear.
Somewhere ahead, she heard trumpeting and thumping feet—mammoths
running among the trees. Briefly she wondered if these were the same
mammoths she had tried to hunt only days ago. Now she was the hunted.

I'm
burned. I'm broken. I'm bruised. I'm bound to a wooden stake that
crushes me and I cannot move. I will die here.

She gritted her teeth, gulping
down the despair.

So
I will die fighting.

With a growl, she pushed down
her knees and tugged mightily at her bonds. The ropes dug into her
again, but she found that her wrists slid a short distance up the
stake.

Hope kindled inside her. She
could not break her bonds, but with the stake lying flat above her,
perhaps she could sling her wrists and legs above its top. She would
still be tied but free of the stake; she would be able to crawl,
maybe even hop, forward.

Wincing, she tugged again. Her
wrists and ankles slid up the wood.

The thud of wings and cries of
rocs sounded above. Hunters shouted; she could make out Zerra's voice
among them. The stench of the flock wafted down into the forest, a
foul miasma. Laira clenched her jaw, winced, and tugged with all her
might. The rope kept tearing into her flesh, but she kept tugging,
inch by inch, until with a gasp, her wrists reached the top of the
stake. With one more tug, she was free from the wood. She wriggled
her legs free too, fell into the mud, and crawled.

The stake lay behind, but ropes
still bound her limbs. She couldn't even stand up. Dry leaves stuck
to the mud covering her, filling her mouth, her eyes, her nostrils.
Gasping for air, she wriggled into a patch of tall grass.

"Find her!" Zerra
shouted somewhere above the canopy. "Rocs, pick up her scent!"

Again Laira heard the discordant
sound—like air through pipes—as the rocs above sniffed for her.

They
will smell me,
she thought.
They
will find me like last time. They will take me back and torture me.

She had to mask her scent
somehow. She had to move faster. She crawled over a fallen log,
ignoring the agony of her wounds. When she thumped down into a patch
of moss, she saw an abandoned mammoth foraging camp.

The trees were stripped bare of
leaves here. Prints filled the mud, and shed mammoth fur covered
brambles and boulders. The animals were gone, fled from the cries of
rocs; she could see a path of trampled grass and saplings. A stench
hit her nostrils, making her gag; a pile of mammoth dung steamed
ahead, still fresh.

"Find her!" Zerra
shouted above.

Laira winced. She took a deep
breath and held it. Struggling not to gag, she crawled into the
steaming mound.

Her body convulsed and she
clenched her fists and jaw. She wriggled around, feeling the foul
slop flow around her, coating her hair, sliding down her clothes,
clinging to her skin, and even filling her nostrils and ears. When
she finally crawled out—sticky and covered with the stuff—she
couldn't help it. She leaned her head down and vomited, and her body
shook, and she almost passed out from the pain and disgust.

Trees shattered behind her as
the rocs crashed through the canopy.

Still bound, steaming and fetid
and coated with the mammoth dung, Laira crawled into the brush.
Leaves and grass clung to her sticky skin.

Her scent was masked. Her body
was camouflaged. She was battered and burnt and covered in dung, but
she kept crawling, refusing to abandon hope. Behind her, she heard
Zerra shouting at his men, insisting that his roc had smelled the
maggot here. She heard the beasts caw. She heard them fly above, the
hunters cursing, the flock confused.

"Just keep crawling,
Laira," she whispered to herself. The foul waste entered her
mouth and she spat it out. "Keep crawling. Never stop. You can
escape them."

Through grass, under brambles
that scratched her, and over stones that stabbed her, Laira kept
crawling, her wrists and ankles still bound, until the sounds of the
hunters grew distant behind her. And still she kept moving. She
wriggled on, sticky and gagging every few feet, until she reached a
declivity bumpy with stones.

She tried to crawl down to the
valley below. Slick with the dung, she slipped over a slab of stone,
and she rolled.

She tumbled down the slope,
banging against tree roots, blinded with pain. Her elbow smashed
against a rock, and she bit down on a scream. She seemed to roll
forever, grass and dry leaves sticking to her, until she slammed into
a mossy boulder, and her head banged against the stone.

Stars exploded across her
vision. Her eyelids fluttered. She gasped, curling her fingers,
struggling to cling to consciousness, but the blackness gave a mighty
tug . . . and she faded.

 
 
SENA

Alone.

More
than afraid, hurt, or ashamed—though he was those things too—Prince
Sena Seran, Son of Raem, felt alone.

He
sat in the corner of his prison cell, the top of Aerhein Tower. A
barred window—barely larger than a porthole—broke the opposite
wall. A ray of light shone into the chamber, falling upon him. Sena
liked this time of day, the brief moment when the ray hit the wall
near the floor, allowing him to sit in light and warmth. Soon the ray
would move, creeping up the wall, moving over his head, leaving him
and slowly fading into darkness.

But
for now I have you here, friend,
Sena thought, blinking into the beam.
Please
don't leave me again.

The
beam began to rise as the sun moved, and Sena craned his neck,
straightened his back, and tried to soak up some last moments of
companionship, of sunlight, of safety. But then the beam was gone,
hitting the wall above his head.

He supposed he could have stood
up. Standing would make him taller, let him embrace the sun again.
But he was too weak to stand most days. Too wounded. Too hungry. Too
tired.

"Alone," he whispered.

He rattled his chains just to
hear them answer, just to hear a sound. That was how his chains
talked.

How long had he been here? Sena
didn't know. At least a moon, he thought. Maybe longer.

"I'm sorry, Issari,"
he whispered. His chafed lips cracked and bled, and he sucked on the
coppery liquid. "I'm sorry that I'm sick. I'm sorry that I
shifted into a dragon. I miss you, sister."

He wondered where Issari was
now. In her chamber in the palace, the gardens, perhaps the throne
room? Was she thinking of him too? Sena had heard Issari several
times since entering this prison. She had cried out behind the doors,
calling his name, begging the guards to let her in. But they always
turned her away. And Sena always tried to call out in return, but his
throat was always too parched, his voice too weak.

Caw!
Caw!

Sena raised his head. A crow had
landed on the windowsill and stood between the bars. The bird glared
at him and cawed again.

"Hello, friend," Sena
whispered.

He began to crawl forward,
desperate to caress this bird, to feel another living soul. The crow
stared at him.

Caw!

You
have freedom,
Sena thought.
You
have wings and can fly, yet you came here—to visit me.

As he crawled closer, chains
rattling, Sena found his mouth watering.

I
can eat you.

Suddenly
it seemed that this was no crow at all but a roasted duck, fatty and
delicious, not perched on a windowsill but upon a bed of mushrooms
and leeks. Sena licked his lips. Since landing in this cell, he had
eaten nothing but the cold gruel the guards fed him once a day—a
gray paste full of hairs, ants, and sometimes—depending on the
guard—a glob of bubbling spit.

"But you are delicious,
crow," Sena said, struggling to his feet. "You are a true
friend—better than that damn light that keeps leaving me. Better
than the rat that only bites me when I try to catch it." He
reached out pale, trembling hands toward the crow, the shackles
around his wrists clanking. "I'm going to eat you—ah!"

The crow bit him.

Sena brought his finger to his
lips, tasting blood.

With
a
caw
that sounded almost like a laugh, the crow flew off into the
sky—back into that forbidden world, back into freedom.

Sena shook his fists at the
barren window, spraying blood. It was just like that damn rat again.
It was just like that damn beam of light. They all taunted him. They
all pretended to be his friends. And they all left him.

He stared out the window. So
many creatures flew across the sky these days. Birds. Demons.
Creatures of scales, of rot, of blood, of jelly, of stone, of fire—a
host of flying nightmares that cackled, grinned, sucked, spewed,
swarmed, streamed, lived. Sometimes Sena thought he was delusional.
Other times he thought the Abyss had risen into the world, that the
endless lurid eyes and fangs were real, not just visions of his
hunger but true terrors.

He shook his head wildly and
knuckled his eyes, forcing himself to look away from the demons
outside his window, from those taunting, cruel, cackling apparitions.
They weren't real. They couldn't be real.

Alone
. . . insane . . .

Sena
trembled. It wasn't fair. The crow thought itself superior to him.
Those winged visions of demons thought themselves superior too. If
Sena had wings of his own, he could fly farther, higher, catch the
damn bird, and—

But
I do have wings,
he thought.

Of course. He was cursed,
impure, an abomination unto Taal.

I
can become a dragon.

That sin had landed him in this
tower cell in the first place. Perhaps it could also free him.

Wait,
whispered a voice in his head.
Wait.
You tried shifting into a dragon already. Don't you remember? You
tried just yesterday. It hurt you. It—

"Quiet!" Sena said,
silencing that voice—that voice of the old him, of somebody who had
been a prince, not a prisoner, of somebody who still clung to sanity.
He hated that voice. He hated that false one, that liar.

He tightened his lips.

He summoned his magic.

Don't!
cried the voice inside him.
Pain—

Scales flowed across Sena, blue
as the sky. Claws began to grow from his fingernails. His body grew
larger, inflating, and—

Pain.

The chains that wrapped around
him dug deep. He cried out. The metal links cut into him. His
ballooning body was pressing against the bonds, and his blood
spilled.

With a whimper, he released his
magic.

He lay on the floor, trembling,
small again, safe again, chained in the shackles that kept him human.
He had always been able to shift with clothes, even with a sword at
his waist, taking those objects—parts of him like his skin—into his
dragon form. But these chains were foreign things, cruel, hurting.

"I'm sorry, Issari,"
he whispered.

The cell's doorknob rattled
behind him.

Sena cowered, sure that the
guards had heard him. They would kick him again, spit upon him, bang
his head against the wall. He crawled into the corner as the door
creaked open, raising his hands to shield his face.

"Please," he
whispered.

But it was not the guards.

His father, King Raem Seran,
stood at the doorway.

Clad in his bronze armor, the
king stared down at his son in disgust. Sena blinked up at his
father, and hope sprang inside him.

My
father has come to free me.

"Father,"
he whispered, lips bleeding. "Forgive me. Please. Forgive me. I
love you."

When Sena reached out to him,
Raem grunted and kicked his hand aside.

"Forgive you?" Raem
said. He sneered. "You are a weredragon, a filthy creature lower
than lepers. I did not come here to forgive you." He lifted a
bloody canvas sack. "I came here to show you what could have
been your fate."

Raem upended the sack. A severed
head spilled onto the floor, eyes still wide in frozen fear. Sena
gasped and scampered away from the ghastly gift.

"A weredragon," Raem
said. "My demons caught this one hiding under a bakery." He
snorted a laugh. "It can be your friend. As you stare into its
dead eyes, remember that you are alive, that I showed you mercy."

With that, his father turned and
left the cell, slamming the door behind him.

Tears in his eyes, Sena raced
toward the door. He slammed himself against the heavy oak, pounding
it with his fists.

"Please, Father!" he
shouted. "I'll do anything you ask. I'll never shift again. I .
. . I'll hunt weredragons with you! I . . ."

His strength left him.

He slumped to the floor.

The severed head stared up at
him, its mouth open, the stalk of its neck red. Sena pulled his knees
to his chest and stared back into the lifeless eyes.

At
least,
he thought as the sunlight faded,
I'm
no longer alone.