Requiem's Hope (Dawn of Dragons)

REQUIEM'S HOPE

DAWN OF DRAGONS, BOOK TWO

by

Daniel Arenson

Copyright © 2014 by Daniel Arenson

All rights reserved.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either
the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic
or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the
author.

• FOREWORD
  
• CHAPTER ONE: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER TWO: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER THREE: DORVIN
  
• CHAPTER FOUR: RAEM
  
• CHAPTER FIVE: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER SIX: JEID
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN: MAEV
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT: TANIN
  
• CHAPTER NINE: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER TEN: TANIN
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN: DORVIN
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN: RAEM
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MAEV
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN: JEID
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: RAEM
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY: ALINA
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: DORVIN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: JEID
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: RAEM
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: MAEV
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: ISSARI
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: ALINA
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: RAEM
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: LAIRA
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: JEID
  
• AFTERWORD
  
• NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON
  
• KEEP IN TOUCH
  

FOREWORD

Requiem's Hope
is the second volume of
Dawn of Dragons
, a fantasy series about an ancient kingdom whose people can turn into dragons.

This novel assumes you've already read the first
Dawn of Dragons
novel,
Requiem's Song
. If you haven't, you'll probably still get the gist of things here, though I do recommend reading
Requiem's Song
first. You can grab the first book
here
or search Amazon for "Requiem's Song."

With this introduction out of the way, I welcome you back into a world of blood, steel, and dragonfire.

 
 
ISSARI

A
white dragon, she flew across the wilderness, a thousand demons of
the Abyss flying in pursuit.

Issari panted and her wings ached with every beat. Jabs of pain shot
through her belly, and fire blazed in her maw, blasting out smoke
that blinded her. She had been flying for days, barely resting, as
they drew closer behind her—shrieking, roaring, clattering,
hissing—the creatures of nightmares.

Heart thudding, struggling for every breath, she looked over her
shoulder and saw them. Three days ago, they had been only a shadow on
the horizon. Now she could see their eyes blazing, their fangs
glinting red in the dawn, their claws stretching out toward her.
Creatures of rot. Creatures of scales, of slime, of disease, of
leather and of mummified flesh. Demons. Beasts of the underground.
The unholy army her father had summoned to kill weredragons, to kill
her kind.

Issari turned her eyes back forward and blinked away tears. The
wilderness of the north spread before her: hills topped with patches
of snow, plains of frosted grass, and forests leading to distant
mountains.

My kind,
she thought, her scales clinking.

She was eighteen years old, and she had never known of her magic, had
never shifted into a dragon, until only days ago. All her life,
weredragons—the cursed, diseased ones who could shift into
reptiles—had been people to pity, to protect from her father's
wrath.

And now I'm one of them.

She didn't know how she had become a dragon after all these years.
Had praying to the Draco constellation given her this magic? Had she
inherited it from her parents and only seen it manifest now? She had
lost her baby teeth late, bled late, grown to her adult height late;
had she simply discovered her magic late too?

"Catch the reptile!" rose a shriek from the southern
horizon; it rolled across the plains like thunder. "Break her
spine! Tear off her wings! Pull every tooth from her mouth, and snap
her limbs, and drag out her entrails, and make her beg for death!"
The demons jeered, their voices rising into a single cry, a sound
like shattering metal, whistling steam, and collapsing mountains.
"Slay all weredragons!"

Issari growled and flew harder.

No,
she thought.
No, I am no weredragon. Weredragons are
monsters
. She howled and spat fire across the sky.
I am Vir
Requis.

She picked up speed and streamed across the world.

"Make the sky rain the blood of dragons!" rose a screech.

"We will feast upon dragon flesh!" bellowed a deep voice.

"We will crack their bones and suck sweet marrow!"

Issari ground her teeth, narrowed her eyes, and kept flying.

The memories of the past few days filled her, hazy and thick like
dreams in the dawn. For so long there had been pain, water, sky—a
flight over the sea, three dusks and dawns, sometimes sleeping in the
water, her wings stretched out to help her float, mostly flying,
mostly hurting, seeking the northern coast. Then there had been
this—snow, cold winds, dark clouds, the hinterlands of the barbarian
north, a new world, a world of dragons.

"You're here somewhere, Requiem," Issari whispered. "My
sister. My brother. My friends. The dragons of Requiem."

Did they live in peace now, building their kingdom in the north?

"I have to find you. I have to warn you." The shrieks rose
again and she shuddered, her scales clattering. "We have to flee
them."

Yet how could she find the others? The north was vast and sprawling,
far larger than Eteer. And even if she did find the Vir Requis, would
she not lead these demons directly to their door?

She looked behind her again, and she saw him there—her father.

From here, several marks away, he was a glint of sunlight on bronze,
no larger than a bead of dawn on the sea. But she knew it was him. He
led this army, riding upon a great demon as large as a dragon, a
human woman broken, stretched, fed the flesh of men, and shaped into
an obscene bat. Even from here, Issari felt her father's eyes staring
at her, boring into her, cutting her like his whip had cut her flesh.

My father,
she thought, and new fire rose in her maw, fleeing
between her teeth.
The man who butchered thousands. The man I must
kill. The man who tossed me to the demons and will shatter my body if
he catches me.

She roared more flame and flew with every last drop of her strength.

So I won't let him catch me.

The clouds thickened above and a drizzle began to fall. In the north,
sheets of rain swayed like curtains, and lightning flashed, spreading
across the sky like the roots of a burning tree. A forest spread
below Issari, thick with oaks, pines, and many trees she did not
recognize, trees that did not exist in her warm, southern kingdom.
She dipped in the sky, panting, her chest feeling ready to cave in.

She glanced over her shoulder. The demons were closer.

I can no longer flee them in the sky,
she thought.
My
scales are too bright, my scent too clear. I'll have to lose them in
the forest, a human again, small and sneaky.

She glided down.

The treetops spread below her, drooping with rain and shaking in the
wind. Patches of old snow thumped down like a giant's dandruff.
Issari dived lower. Wincing, she turned her head aside, stretched out
her claws, and crashed through the canopy.

Branches snapped around her, cracking against her scales. Snow filled
her nostrils and mouth. One branch thrust up like a spear, its sharp
edge driving under a scale like a splinter under a fingernail, and
Issari yowled. She kept falling, shattering more branches, and
finally thumped onto the ground.

She lay in the snow, the early spring shower pattering against her.
Twigs fell like more rain. Her tail flicked and smoke plumed from her
nostrils. When she glanced up, she saw a hole in the canopy,
revealing the gray sky. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled, and she
heard them in the distance, screeching, laughing, mocking her, flying
closer.

A growl sounded ahead.

Issari turned her head slowly.

A bear stood before her, staring at her, a burly animal so small next
to her dragon form.

The cries rose from the sky.

"Sniff her out! Find her! Follow her scent."

Issari had spent many hours on her balcony back in Eteer, watching
the demons sniff across the city, seeking weredragons.

They'll smell me. They can find me anywhere. I shifted into a
dragon; the starlit magic fills me now, forever leaving a trail for
them to follow.

The bear growled.

"I'm sorry, friend," Issari whispered. She grimaced, guilt
pounding through her, and lashed her claws.

The bear whimpered and fell.

As the demon cries grew closer, Issari worked with narrowed eyes,
struggling not to gag. With claws and fangs, she skinned the bear,
ripping off a cloak of fur, skin, and blood. The meaty, coppery smell
filled her nostrils, mingling with the stench of the approaching
demons.

Her work complete, she stared down at the skinned carcass. She
grimaced. She had not planned to eat this animal, and the sight
disgusted her; back in Eteer, she never ate meat. Yet now her stomach
growled, clanking her scales. She blasted out fire, roasting the
meat, already imagining the taste.

I need this. I need its energy. I've not eaten for days.

She growled and let her flames die.

No. No!
With a dragon-sized stomach full of bear, she wouldn't
be able to become a human again, not unless she wanted her stomach to
burst. And now she needed to run as a girl, hidden, quiet, disguised.

For the first time since fleeing Eteer, she released her magic.

Her white scales melted like snow under rain. Her wings pulled into
her back, her claws and fangs retracted, and her body shrank. She
stood in the forest, a woman again, shivering in a white tunic, her
black braid hanging across her shoulder.

And still her stomach growled, and still the meat tempted her.

Grimacing, she tore off a chunk of half-cooked, bloody bear meat and
stuffed it into her mouth. She chewed, struggling not to gag, and she
hated herself, and she cried, and still she savored the sweet meat
and hot blood.

"We smell her!" rose cries behind, not a mark away. "We
smell the whore. Find her! Break her!"

Panting, still chewing the meat, Issari grabbed her bloodied cloak of
bear fur. Bits of flesh still clung to it. Her stomach roiling, she
wrapped the dripping coat around her, shielding herself in a cocoon
of its wet, hot smell.

With any luck they can't smell me like this.

She ran three steps, heading away from the shattered canopy and into
the depths of the shadowy forest.

Blood dripped down her face, her stomach gave a sharp twist, and she
couldn't help it. She doubled over and gagged, vomiting up her sparse
meal.

"Find her! Rip out her spine!"

She kept running.

She ran between the trees, the canopy hiding her, praying the cloak
masked her smell. Tears stung her eyes, her breath shuddered, and her
legs shook with weakness, but she wouldn't stop running. The demons
streamed above now, spinning, diving, and their drool and rot dripped
like the rain, pattering between the trees.

"Her scent is gone!"

"Uproot the forest!"

"Break her!"

Claws shattered a tree ahead. Issari bit down on a yelp, spun, and
ran in another direction. Shadows streamed above, and talons uprooted
an oak. She turned and kept running.

They can't smell me. I just have to keep running. I have to find
the others.
She clutched her aching belly, stumbling over roots
and stones.

"I'll find you, Requiem," she whispered. "I'll find
you and warn you. We will slay them together, or we will flee . . .
or I will die as a dragon of Requiem, roaring fire, fighting among my
kind."

The demons screamed above, branches slapped her, the meat roiled in
her belly, and Princess Issari Seran—a Vir Requis, a child of
magic—kept running.