A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) (27 page)

The Genesis Beam fell upon the
deformed dragons. They shrieked and ran afoot, men clad in black
robes, swinging their axes.

Valien roared his flames.
Behind him, dozens of resistors swarmed into the hall, running
between and around his legs. Their arquebuses fired. The rounds
tore into the axehands; the dark priests fell, writhed, and burned.

"Find the emperor!"
Valien shouted, running into the hall. He whipped his head from side
to side, blowing fire. Between the columns, dozens of guards were
charging his way, swinging swords and firing arrows. His flames
washed them. His gunners cut them down.

"Where's Frey?" Kaelyn
shouted at his side, still in dragon form, her beam clutched in her
claws.

He growled and stared at the
throne. It was so close, only a hundred yards away, rising from
fire. He could run over and seize it. But no; without Rune here,
and without Frey's body, it was an empty prize.

"Kaelyn, climb the tower,"
he said. "Take half our forces with you. Seek Frey there."

She nodded. "What of you?"

Arrows and iron rounds blazed
around them. Legionaries fell dead at their feet.

"I'll search the ground
complex," Valien said. He swung his tail and sent a legionary
flying.

As the fires roared and the
blood spilled, she met his gaze, and for an instant they stood still,
staring at each other. Her eyes glimmered, those hazel eyes that had
guided him for years, the beacons of his soul, his starlight in the
dark. He loved her, and he saw the love in her eyes, and he knew her
thoughts. They were the same thoughts he himself was thinking.

I
might never see you again.

He wanted to hold her, to speak
of his love, to share a last embrace. But the battle raged.
Soldiers fell dead all around. One arrow flew between them, and
another snapped against his scales.

"Valien," she
whispered.

"Go!" he said. "Climb
the tower and find him."

She nodded, shifted into human
form, and ran between the columns. She shouted orders, and men ran
behind her, firing guns and clearing a path through the Legions.

Valien grunted, spun around, and
flamed three charging men. He shifted into human form too, drew his
sword, and bared his teeth. About a hundred resistors stood around
him.

"Sila!" he shouted to
the sailor. "Take your men and search the dungeons. Everyone
else, follow me. We'll find the bastard." Snarling, he raced
between the columns, leading fifty warriors. He swung his sword, and
gunners fired around him. They moved into a corridor, cutting men
down, splashing the walls with blood. They fought for every step.

As he killed, Valien could not
stop seeing her eyes in his mind, and the terror ignited his blood.
He might die this day. He might find Rune dead in the dungeons. He
might never seize the throne. But most of all he feared for Kaelyn.
He roared, swung his sword, and carved a path of corpses.

 
 
KAELYN

She ran upstairs, swinging her
sword and cutting men down.

Fifty resistors ran behind her.
Two ran at her sides; the stairway was just wide enough for three to
climb abreast. Legionaries shouted above, running down toward them,
swinging longswords.

"Fire!" Kaelyn
shouted.

The resistors at her sides
pulled their triggers. Their arquebuses blasted; they were so loud
her ears rang. Four legionaries crashed down above, pierced with the
rounds. Two more raced her way, and Kaelyn swung Lemuria. Her sword
crashed through one's armor, severing his arm. She parried the
second man's blow, swung down, and cleaved his helm. Their bodies
crumbled, and Kaelyn ran across them, climbing higher.

"Men, swap!" she
cried.

The men at her sides, their guns
smoking, retreated down the staircase to reload. Two more fighters,
their guns loaded and ready, replaced them.

"Hail the red spiral!"
cried legionaries above, swarming downstairs.

"Fire!" Kaelyn said
again, and two more guns blasted. Two more men retreated to reload,
and two more, their guns ready, replaced them. Kaelyn screamed and
thrust her sword. She trampled corpses and climbed on.

She climbed for hours, it
seemed, corkscrewing up the tower. Her men kept firing and
retreating, moving in a constant cycle. Their guns cut down the
legionaries, blasting through armor, killing two—sometimes
three—men deep. All those legionaries who escaped the gunfire met
Kaelyn's blade.

A hundred cuts covered her. A
gash on her thigh bled—the same place Shari had wounded her almost
two years ago, the night she had flown to Lynport, seeking Rune. She
howled, driving onward, climbing floor by floor. Her limbs shook and
her ears rang, but she fought on.

I
will always fight on,
she thought.
Until
my last drop of blood. Until the last beat of my heart.

"Father!" she shouted
as she climbed. "Father, come face me! Are you a coward?"

But she heard only his Legions,
the endless chants, the bloodthirsty cries of those he'd molded into
killers. And she killed them. She slew them with steel and iron,
and their blood covered her, stinging her lips, coppery and sweet.

You
made me a killer too,
Kaelyn thought, swinging her sword.
You
made me a greater killer than any in your Legions. I can forgive you
for killing my people. But I can never forgive you for making me
kill yours.

"Father!" she shouted.
"Face me! It's me, Kaelyn. Do you hear?"

Arrows whistled down from above.
The men at her sides screamed and fell, and their guns clattered
down. Kaelyn ducked. An arrow flew over her head, slicing her hair.
She grabbed a fallen arquebus, screamed, and fired. The gun
blasted, blinding her with smoke, nearly knocking her down the steps.
When the smoke dispersed, she saw two fallen legionaries above, but
more stood behind them, ready to charge.

She rose to her feet. She swung
her sword and cut a man down. She fought on.

When shouts rose behind her, she
cursed. The Legions were charging up the stairs from below too,
trapping her and her men. She fought onward, killing with every
step. An arrow slammed into her left arm, and she cried out in pain.
She kept climbing.

"Father, come and face me!"

She ascended another few steps.
Men fell before and behind her. The stairs were slick with blood.

"Father!"

A cackle rose above, muffled
behind the walls. "Kaelyn, my sweet traitor! Have you fought
all this way to scream under my punisher?"

She sucked in air. It was his
voice, the voice she had heard a thousand times in her nightmares.

My
father.

She kept climbing. Her left arm
hung uselessly, pierced with an arrow. Her leg bled. Her head spun.
Yet still she killed. Cut, burnt, and pierced with arrows, her men
fought around her. Ten more steps, and Kaelyn saw a red door. The
cackling rose beyond it.

The sight of this door pierced
her with more pain than her wounds.

"No," she whispered.
"Oh stars, no, not here."

Frey Cadigus kept many chambers
in this palace. His throne room, a hall of glory, lay far below.
Still farther above, near the tower's crest, festered his butcher
room, the place where he slaughtered both beasts and men. Yet here,
Kaelyn thought, here behind this door lay the true heart of his
madness.

"His trophy room," she
whispered. "The center of his pride and insanity."

"Kaelyn!" he shouted,
voice echoing beyond the door. "Kaelyn, my sweetest betrayer.
Do you remember this place? Come inside, Kaelyn, and scream for me."

Guns fired over her shoulders.
Legionaries clattered down. Kaelyn could no longer see the men
battling around her. She could only stare at that door. She could
only see the old nightmares.

"This is the room you are
most proud of," she whispered. She grabbed the arrow in her
arm, grimaced, and pulled it out with a gush of blood. "This is
the room where I kill you."

She kicked the door open, barged
inside, and swung her sword.

A crowd of axehands ran her way.

Kaelyn clutched her sword with
both hands and ran toward them.

Behind her, her fellow resistors
charged into the room. Guns blazed. Smoke filled the chamber;
Kaelyn couldn't see farther than her blade's tip. She spun in
circles, cutting limbs, kicking men down. All around the guns fired,
steel sparked, axes flashed, and blood sprayed. The iron masks of
the axehands leered at her. A blade sliced across her side.

"Father!" she shouted.
"Face me alone! Call back your thugs and face me, coward."

The clanging of steel and
crashing of guns rang out. Every heartbeat, more bodies thudded to
the floor. Blood sluiced around her boots. When the screaming died
and the dust settled, Kaelyn found herself standing alone. Corpses
surrounded her, resistors and axehands alike.

All lay dead.

Kaelyn stood panting, Lemuria
still clutched with both hands.

I
stand alone.

She took a step farther into the
chamber, sword trembling in her hands.

"Father?" she
whispered.

Her head spun. She walked
hesitantly, stepping over corpses. She saw nobody living. Could
Frey have died among his axehands? Heart thudding, she stepped
deeper. Her knees shook. Her breath shook in her lungs. Blood
dripped from her wounds, but she moved on, whipping her head from
side to side, seeking him. The eyes of the dead stared up at her.
The stench of death flared so powerfully Kaelyn almost gagged.

Deeper into the chamber, candles
glowed and she saw his trophies.

A chill ran through her.

Thousands of years ago, the
first King Aeternum had raised a marble column in the forest. King's
Column had stood since; ancient magic protected it. Frey had smashed
the rest of the old palace, but King's Column remained, and all his
cannons and dragons could not topple it. Instead, Frey had built
Tarath Imperium around the pillar, a black tumor growing around a
single white bone. That ancient marble rose inside Frey's tower, the
stairway coiling around it like a snake coiling around a rod.

In this chamber, surrounded by
black walls, Kaelyn saw the capital of Aeternum's ancient monument.

The column rose only three
hundred feet tall; most of Tarath Imperium still towered above. This
room was Frey's museum for Aeternum's fallen glory. The column's
capital stood forlorn, pale and glimmering, carved in the shape of
rearing dragons. If Frey could not smash it, he would display it
like a master displaying a chained slave.

All around the marble artifact,
he displayed the rest of his trophies. The severed heads of the
Aeternum family floated here in jars, each standing upon an obsidian
pedestal. Their faces stared at Kaelyn, still torn in anguish.
Their swords lay shattered upon the floor.

A glass tank, six feet tall,
stood here too. Kaelyn had never seen this trophy before. Liquid
filled the container, and a woman floated there, her body naked and
cut with red spiral scars. She had wavy hair the color of honey,
feline features, hazel eyes, and a pale face strewn with freckles.

The woman looked exactly like
Kaelyn.

"Marilion," she
whispered.

A voice spoke in the shadows.

"Marilion Brewer of
Cadport, that was her name. Wife to Valien. Sister of that drunkard
who raised Relesar in his tavern. Such a beauty. Such a waste."
Frey emerged from the shadows, placed a hand upon the glass, and
admired the floating corpse. "I told Valien that she still
lives in my dungeon. The fool must have believed me. He took the
bait and came here. I lured him out of his hiding and into my lair."
He turned toward Kaelyn. "And now he will die, my daughter.
Now you will die too. You both will float here with her."

Kaelyn screamed and charged.

Frey stepped back, and Lemuria
slammed against the tank, scratching the glass. The woman inside
swayed and seemed to stare at Kaelyn, eyes still wide in pain, mouth
open in a silent scream.

Kaelyn raced around the tank,
all her weakness gone, all her pain drowning under rage. She swung
Lemuria and met her father's blade.

He had drawn his sword, a
monstrous hunk of black steel named Fellwair, a weapon as long as
Kaelyn's entire body. She had seen him severe his enemies' heads
with this steel, seen him hack into flesh and lick the blood. It was
the blade he had killed the Aeternum family with, the blade that had
slaughtered the last soul of Osanna, that had killed Marilion.

Now this terror swung toward
her, and Kaelyn screamed as she parried.

"You've returned to me, my
daughter," Frey said, and a cold smile twisted his face. "Do
you remember this chamber? Do you remember how I chained you here,
how I forced you to stare at the heads, how I beat you until you
wept?" He snarled and swung his sword. "I will hurt you
here again, my daughter, more than ever. I will hurt you here for
years before I let you die."

She screamed and thrust Lemuria.

"You will never more hurt
me." She could barely see him; she had lost too much blood, was
too hurt, too weak, but she fought on. "You die tonight,
Father. No, you are no father to me. You are nothing but a beast."

He laughed, a mirthless and cold
sound.

"Is that so, daughter?"
he asked. "Already you weaken. I see the blood soaking your
clothes, draining from your flesh, leaving you weak and pale. You
cannot best me in swordplay. Nor can your pitiful Resistance hurt
me." He blocked another blow and sighed. "Oh, my dear,
foolish daughter. Do you not see? I have planned all of this."

She screamed and swung her
blade. It sparked against his own.