A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) (24 page)

And then something happened that
made fresh tears bud in Rune's eyes.

Scraggles began to cry.

Long, plaintive mewls rose from
him, sounds of loneliness finally ended, of joy and disbelief. As he
kept leaping and squirming over Rune, his cries rose across the
courtyard.

Rune held the dog close.

"I'm back, my friend,"
he whispered, nuzzling the dog. "I'm home."

A woman's voice spoke somewhere
ahead.

"Well, leaky maggot guts."
A sniff sounded. "Got me all teary eyed, you two did, and I
ain't cried since I stepped on a Counter Squares piece a moon ago."

Lying on the ground, his dog
upon his chest, Rune looked up and his eyes widened. A scrawny young
woman stood in the courtyard, barely taller than a child. She wore
bits of armor over ragged wool, and mud caked her short brown hair.

"Erry?" Rune's voice
rose incredulously. "Erry Docker?"

The urchin waved. "Hullo,
Rune, old boy. Heard you snogged Tilla." She grinned. "Burn
me, never thought you had it in you."

Rune rubbed his eyes, taking in
her ragged clothes and the black dog sewn on her sleeves. "Erry!
You're… one of the Lechers?"

"Of
course I am! Resistance is too noble. Legions are too stiff. Both
of you are mental." She shrugged. "Lechers got booze and
song and you don't have to be clean. In fact, dirt is quite
encouraged. I
like
that." She flashed a grin. "Rune, my dear boy, Leresy
Cadigus is a right bastard, a sneaky little weasel, and a bloody pain
in the arse. But he'll fight with you." She nodded. "If
there's anyone he hates more than the Resistance, it's his father."

Rune rose to his feet. "Erry,
I have to put Scraggles somewhere safe. We have only a few minutes.
Damn!" He held the dog close. "The castle is too
dangerous; there will be fighting there. There will be fighting in
every damn tunnel we dug."

He looked down at the dog.
Scraggles stood at his side, pressed against him, looking up with a
goofy grin.

Did
I find you only to lose you again, boy?
Rune thought.

Erry grinned. "You
resistors with your tunnels and castles. You want secret hideouts
nobody can find? Ask a dock rat." She shifted into a thin,
copper dragon with clattering scales. "Come on! I know a
place. We have just enough time."

Rune shifted too. He was a
larger dragon, his scales smooth and black, his claws long. When he
flapped his wings and ascended, he lifted Scraggles in his claws.

"Hurry, Rune!" the
copper dragon said, soared into the air, and winked. "We
haven't got all minute."

They rose from the courtyard.
They raced south over the city roofs, heading toward the boardwalk.
When Rune looked over his shoulder, he could see the Legions closer
now; they were rising from the horizon, a great storm cloud raining
fire.

The two dragons reached the
boardwalk, the place where Rune would walk so often with Tilla, the
place where Erry had lived feral and orphaned.

"Here!" the copper
dragon said, dived down, and landed by a crumbling windmill. Its
vanes had burned years ago; an empty stone shell remained.

Rune hovered above the
boardwalk, wings stirring sand and dust across the cobblestones, and
placed Scaggles down. He landed and shifted back into a human.

Erry shifted too, raced into the
windmill, and grinned. "Come on! Step in."

He glanced at the windmill.
Rune remembered that years ago—stars, it must have been over a
decade—the windmill would grind wheat into flour. An old fire had
put an end to that, burning the sails, the gears inside, and the old
man who had operated the place. Rune had not thought it occupied
since, but when he stepped inside after Erry, he saw a tattered
mattress, a few old blankets, and a colony of feral cats. The place
smelled of mold and cat urine.

"Welcome!" Erry said.
"Welcome to my old home. Well… one of my old homes. Well…
mostly a home for my cats. Well… mostly a place my cats ate what
food I found for them, then buggered off to scrounge elsewhere."
She sighed and looked around the place. "It's not much, but
it'll keep old Scrags safe. It kept me safe during a few storms."

Erry stood a moment, staring at
the place, and to Rune's surprise, she began to weep.

"Erry," he said softly
and took a step toward her.

Guilt pounded through him. He
had known Erry all his life. He had often brought food to her
various hideouts, played mancala with her on the beach, and
once—during a heavy storm—let her sleep in his tavern. But Erry
would always run off. She'd stay one night, eat one meal, then
vanish for days.

I
should have done more,
he thought, looking at the ruin of this place.
I
should have let her stay with us forever, not just once during a
storm.

"Stars, Erry," he said
and tried to embrace her. "Are you—"

She
growled through her tears and shoved him back. "I don't need no
hugs! I don't need no pity." She knuckled her eyes dry. "I
never did. I've always fought, and I've always survived here in this
damn, stupid, dirty boardwalk in this gutter of a town." She
looked around the old windmill, her eyes still red. "It's dirty
and it's cold and it smells like piss. But it's home." She
looked up at Rune. "It's
our
home. And we're going to fight for it. Right, Rune?"

He nodded and clasped her arm.
"Damn right, Err."

She nodded, sniffed, and gave
Scraggles an embrace. "Stay here, boy. Stay here and be safe.
Try not to wet the bed."

With that, Erry and Rune left
the windmill, closing the door on Scraggles. As they shifted into
dragons and took flight, Rune heard his dog crying for him and
scratching the door.

I
don't want to leave you, boy,
he thought.
I
don't want to leave you again. I'll be back soon. I promise.

The two dragons flew back north
toward the wall.

Above the forest ahead, a
hundred thousand dragons screamed, blew fire, and stormed toward
them.

 
 
LANA

They flew on the wind, a host of
chinking scales and pluming smoke, fleeing across the forests.

"Lord Eranor!" she
shouted, voice rolling across the sky. "Take your dragons and
guard the northern flank. Lord Ferin! Guard the south. Fly them as
fast as they'll go."

The two dragons, knights of the
canyon, nodded and snorted and barked orders. The warriors they
commanded, dragons clad in armor bearing the sigil of Cain, flew
behind them, forming a guard around the dragons they shepherded.

We
must fly fast,
Lana thought, looking over her shoulder as she led the flight.
Stars,
we must fly fast, or all here will perish.

The people of Lynport flew
within the ring of warriors—women, elders, and children. Their
scales were soft. Many dragons had lost their fangs to old age;
others had not yet grown them. The youngest of Lynport were too
young to shift; their mothers flew as dragons, holding human babes in
their claws.

"Forty-seven thousand
townsfolk," she whispered into the wind as she flew. "Only
a handful of warriors to guard them."

A
shiver ran from her horns to her tail, clattering her scales.
If
the Legions catch us out here, they will slaughter us all.

Looking upon the dragons, Lana
winced, the old pain flaring. Her right eye saw refugees fleeing
over autumn forests, frightened but flying fast. She had lost her
left eye years ago, yet forever it kept staring, showing her a mirror
image of the world. With this phantom eye, she saw the refugees
dying. She saw fire wash them, cracking their scales and burning
their flesh. She saw their blood rain. She saw them fall dead upon
stone, emaciated, pale skin draped over their bones.

Lana grimaced, the two images
overlaid before her, life and death, present and past. Always two
lives flickered within her. The eye she saw with. The eye she
remembered with. Which vision would prove true this day?

"Follow,
dragons of Requiem!" she shouted over her shoulder. "Fly
as fast as you can. Safety lies ahead."

She returned her eyes to the
northwest. The forests spread into the horizon. The canyon still
lay too far to see. Lana filled her maw with flame. They didn't
have enough time! Damn it, they should have fled Lynport earlier.
She peered east, seeking the enemy, but could not see them. Yet she
knew they flew there, a hundred thousand strong.

Lana cursed.

"Fly, dragons of Requiem!"
she called. "We fly to safety."

Yet they could not fly faster.
These were no warriors. They were elders, youngsters, the ill and
wounded.

Why
didn't we flee earlier? Stars, why did we wait?

The
forests streamed below them.

The sea disappeared behind.

They raced over the wilderness,
alone.

Weariness tugged on Lana's
bones. She spat flames and forced her wings to keep beating. Yet
the people trailed behind; Lana was faster and stronger. Fear
twisting her gut, she forced herself to slow down.

"Eranor, keep guarding the
north flank!"

She kept flying. She forced
herself to breathe, to calm her racing mind. The Legions did not
care to slaughter innocents, she told herself. They wanted to crush
the Resistance. They wanted Valien, Kaelyn, and Rune. It was
Lynport—Cadport as they called it—that they craved, not these
people.

Yet still fear pounded through
her. Until she shepherded these townsfolk into the
Castle-in-the-Cliff, protecting them behind strong walls and the
Stone Guardians, she wouldn't feel safe.

She lowered her head as she
flew, gazing down at the oaks and birches. Perhaps it was still that
night she feared, that horrible night worse than any.

She had been twelve, only just
leaving her childhood, the winter the Cadigus family seized the
throne. How her father, huddled in his canyon, had railed against
them! He had pounded the table, shouted threats, and bragged that
he'd slay any man who tried to claim his dominion.

"I am lord of this canyon!"
Cain had shouted, voice echoing in his hall of stone. "For too
long did I serve the Aeternums. Now is our chance for glory. Now is
Cain's chance to rule! I will bend the knee to no Cadigus. I will
be King of the South."

And even in the northern cold,
in the distant capital of Nova Vita, the Cadigus family heard word of
his treason. Their spies lurked everywhere, even in those days.
They descended upon the canyon that winter, tens of thousands of
them, an army that covered the sky.

Cain would not fly out to meet
them. He hunkered in his canyon, shouting threats in the hall,
inviting the Regime to enter their tomb.

And
we remained in our hole,
Lana remembered. For days, for moons, for a year.

Toward the end, men were
drinking their piss and eating their dogs. Thousands fell ill. The
Regime tossed rotted corpses into the canyon. Stars, how it stank!
The fumes seeped into the Castle-in-the-Cliff and men vomited. The
old and weak perished first, then the strong began to follow.
Hundreds died of starvation, thirst, or disease.

How
long did it last?
Lana thought.
Fifteen
moons? Sixteen? More?

Finally
they could bear it no more, and Lord Cain and his household flew out
to meet the Regime in battle.

They fell that day.

Thousands fell dead.

Lana fought too, young but
strong enough to fly, to blow her fire, to slash her claws. She
faced Frey himself in duel that day. She never forgot the heat of
his fire bathing her, the agony of his claws, the sting of his tail
lashing her. She never forgot her three brothers falling around her,
burned with the flames of Cadigus.

And she never forgot his fangs.

She never forgot the pain of his
teeth digging into her face.

"You took my eye that day,
Frey," Lana whispered as she flew now, years later, a grown
woman yet still so afraid, still so hurt. "When I finally woke
from the sleep of wounds, I wore an eyepatch, and a trail of white
filled my hair." She snarled. "You fly south again. And
I will fight you again. I will fight you with every breath I have in
me."

Her father had bent the knee
that day long ago, and Frey had taken all their forests, fields, and
hills, leaving them but a crack in the earth.

"I will not slay you, Devin
Cain," the emperor had said, a great golden dragon with blood on
his teeth, pinning the canyon lord beneath his claws. "Death
would be too kind to you. Your punishment will be to serve me
forever. But not as lord of the south. You will have no more
sunlight to rule. You have holed up in your canyon for over a year
now, and you will remain there for the rest of your days. In shadow.
In fear. If you emerge, I will crush you. I will slay you like I
slew your sons. Stay in your tomb, Lord Cain, and whenever you look
upon your daughter's face, the face that I ravaged, remember my
wrath… and remember my mercy."

Seventeen years had passed
since. Yet still the rage pounded through her father. And still the
nightmares filled her. And still her phantom eye saw that death
wherever she looked.

"And still we fight,"
she whispered. "And I will fight you, Cadigus. Forever. For
the wound you gave me. For my people. For Requiem."

They streamed over the forests,
heading north, heading to safety, memory, and throbbing old pain.

 
 
RUNE

The rain fell, pattering against
his helm, as fires rose ahead.

He clutched his sword with one
hand, his tinderbox with another. He stared ahead. He waited.

The swarm oozed across the
night, a black puddle lit with countless fires like flaming stars.
The host seemed a sky of some distant, demonic nightmare spilling
into the waking world. Howls and grunts rang out. Flaming pillars
rose and crumbled like cathedrals of gods. They flew six miles away,
then five, then only four. They covered the horizon. They drowned
the land.