Requiem's Hope (Dawn of Dragons) (10 page)

Dorvin watched the green beast fly off, wincing at the pain of her
blows. Damn creature. He grumbled under his breath. He had to admit
Maev wasn't bad-looking, at least not in human form. Her hair was
long and golden, her body was fit, and her face was pretty enough—at
least when she wasn't thrusting out her bottom lip, haughtily raising
her chin, and glaring at everything that moved. If you removed the
tattoos on her arms, cleaned the mud off her, and maybe removed that
old buffalo hide she always wore, she could be a fetching woman.

"It's too bad she's got the personality of rhinoceros snot,"
he muttered.

They kept flying westward. The sky was blue. The land was green. A
few distant hills rose in the north. The same thing mark after mark.
His two fellow dragons flew silently. Dorvin couldn't take it
anymore. They had been flying like this for days now, and he was
bored senseless. Why had he ever agreed to this mission? He could
have gone north with Jeid! Surely the north had some demons in it. He
could have gone south with Issari and Tanin; Eteer was the land of
demons, surely full of many interesting creatures to vanquish.
Instead he had agreed to fly here, seeking more dragons, a decision
he was quickly regretting. Even if he did find other Vir Requis,
they'd probably be just as stiff as Alina and Maev.

"Oi, girls!" He flew closer to them. "All right, no
singing. How about some jokes instead? What do you call a woman who's
got a small head and a big arse? Huh? Anyone?" He winked. "Maev,
you'd know wouldn't you?"

Alina only rolled her eyes, but Maev fumed. Showering flame, the
green dragon roared and shot toward him, claws lashing. Dorvin braced
for impact, and the two dragons crashed together. Scales cracked and
their horns locked. Maev's fire flowed over him, and Dorvin shut his
eyes against the heat. His scales expanded and one cracked with a
blast of pain. He growled, shoved Maev off, and barreled into her,
snapping at her, trying to bite through her scales. The two dragons
spun in the sky, wings beating madly.

"Good!" Dorvin laughed. "Now this flight's a little
more interesting."

Growling, she grabbed his horns and began tugging him down. They
tumbled through the sky, the ground spinning beneath them.

"I warned you!" she shouted. "I'll cut your tongue out
now."

He laughed. "You can have my tongue if you just give me a kiss."

She twisted his neck, drove her weight against him, and they plunged
downward. Dorvin winced and beat his wings, struggling to slow his
fall. He managed to free himself from under Maev, soar a few feet,
and avoid the ground, only for her to grab his tail and tug him back
down. They slammed onto a hilltop, shattering a fallen log and
digging ruts into the earth. Dorvin groaned, and when he struggled to
rise, Maev clobbered him so hard with her tail she knocked out his
magic. He fell onto the hill, a human again, groaning.

The green dragon placed a foot against his chest, pinning him down.
She panted, her tongue lolling, and blasted smoke down onto him. He
reached up, grabbed that lolling tongue in his hand, and tugged it
down hard.

"Looks like it's your tongue that's about to get lost!"

Maev yowled and released her magic. She slammed into him in human
form, growling, and pinned him down. "Stupid boy. I used to
wrestle men twice your side for a living. Now I'll show you the
meaning of pain."

Her tattoos coiled across her arms. She raised her fist, prepared to
slam it into his face.

"Maev, no!"

Lavender wings fluttered, and Alina landed upon the hill. She resumed
human form and grabbed Maev's wrist, holding her fist back.

"Let go of me, Alina," Maev said softly, staring down at
Dorvin. "The boy needs to learn a lesson."

Lying beneath her, Dorvin managed to grin. "Teach me. Let's see
how hard you cry once I—"

Growls sounded to their side.

They froze.

Dorvin bit his lip. "Maev, is that your stomach growling?"

She leaped off him, drew her sword, and stared down the hill.
Standing beside her, Alina gasped and took a step back. Dorvin
struggled to his feet, rubbed his sore shoulders, and stared downhill
with them. He raised his eyebrows.

"Well, bloody stars." He cracked his neck. "Some
entertainment at last."

A pack of hairless wolves crept up the hill, foaming at the mouth.
Each was large as a bear, and warty, spiked tails hung between their
legs, dragging along the ground. Human limbs grew from their backs
like fins, twitching like antennae. Dorvin counted six of them.

"Bet I can kill them without becoming a dragon," he said to
Maev and hefted his spear.

She spat and raised her short, leaf-shaped sword. "Bet I can
kill all six."

Face pale, Alina took a step back and raised her staff. "Stars
of Requiem, protect your children, shine your light upon—"

Dorvin did not wait to hear the rest of her prayer. He flashed Maev a
grin and burst into a run, racing downhill toward the wolves. They
howled and ran up toward him, kicking up dust. Dorvin leaped onto a
boulder, vaulted off its top, and tossed his spear from midair. The
projectile flew and sank into a wolf's neck. The creature yowled and
fell, and Dorvin unstrapped his second spear off his back.

"That's one, Maev!"

She was still running downhill, her hair streaming in the wind. Two
wolves reached her, snapping their teeth. Maev dropped to slide
downhill on her backside, moving between a wolf's legs. She thrust up
her blade, driving the sword through its jaw and into its head. The
second animal pounced. Maev leaped onto the corpse of the wolf she
had killed, hurtled herself into the air, and slammed into the second
demon. Her blade drove into naked, warty flesh, and the creature
snapped its teeth, whimpered, and fell dead too.

"Two, Dorvin!" she shouted back. "With no dragon
magic."

"Get shagged!" he cried toward her. He was about to hurtle
more insults when two more wolves slammed into him, knocking him
down. He grunted as claws slashed his tunic. His blood dripped. He
swung his spear, slamming its shaft against one wolf's head. He
leaped to his feet and thrust the weapon, but a wolf grabbed the
spear between its jaws and yanked it free. The two demons circled
him, hissing. The human arms growing from their backs twitched, their
hands opening and closing. Foam filled the beasts' mouths, oozing
down to the ground. Weaponless, Dorvin reached down, grabbed a stone,
and tossed it. The rock hit one wolf's head, only enraging the
creature. It pounced, and Dorvin winced but refused to summon his
magic, to let Maev win.

He roared and leaped toward the wolf, fists flying.

Before the two could slam together, the demonic canine yowled. Dragon
teeth drove into its flanks, tugged it up, and tossed it aside. A
spiked tail slammed down, crushing the second demon.

"Stars damn it, Alina!" Dorvin shouted. "I had them."

The lavender dragon hissed at the two wounded demons. Both creatures
tried to drag themselves forward, to attack again. Alina torched them
with a blast of flame. She turned back toward Dorvin and glared.

"You were going to die just to prove some point to Maev."
She released her magic and slapped him. "Oaf of a brother!"

Dorvin rubbed his sore cheek, glaring at the druid. "I could
have had them."

Laughter sounded behind. Dorvin spun around to see Maev trudging
uphill, a mocking smile on her lips and blood on her hands. She
pointed behind her where lay the corpses of three demon wolves.

"Well, well," she said. "Looks like I killed three
demons, Alina killed two, and you, Dorvin?" She pretended to
count on her fingers. "Oh my. Only one kill for you."

Both of Dorvin's cheeks burned now. He grabbed one of his fallen
spears and thrust it into a corpse. "Both of Alina's were mine!
I wounded the damn things before she torched them."

Maev nodded and patted his cheek. "Wounded, not killed."
She mussed his hair. "Better luck next time, Dung Beetle."

"Go to the Abyss, Mammoth Arse."

She raised her eyebrows. "I could kill more demons than you
there too."

He spat, shifted back into a dragon, and took flight. "Come on,
girls!" He blasted smoke down onto them. "Enough dallying.
We've got to fly west and find more Vir Requis, and hopefully not
dull ones like you two."

He beat his wings, flying again, until he caught an air current and
glided. The girls flew alongside, and Dorvin ignored them, not
singing or joking for once. For the rest of the day, his thoughts
kept returning to the battle—to Maev wrestling him, patting his
cheek, mussing his hair. He knew he should hate her. He
did
hate her. So why in the Abyss's name did he keep looking her way,
keep thinking of how her body had pressed against his?

"Damn rhinoceros snot," he muttered.

They flew on, moving farther west than Dorvin had ever flown,
crossing mountains and heading into lush woods of secrets and shadows
and hidden hope.

 
 
ISSARI

They
walked through the gates, entering a ruined city, and Issari shed
tears for her home.

"Eteer," she whispered, pressing a hand against a stone
column. "Poets have sung of your towers and gardens. Soldiers
have wept at the sight of your banners and walls. You were a city of
light and now you lie in darkness. I am Issari. I am your daughter. I
have returned home."

At that moment, staring upon Eteer, she was more a child of this
kingdom than of Requiem across the sea.

Tanin took her hand in his. "We will rebuild. We will bring back
the light."

They walked down the street, hand in hand, moving slowly and
silently, solemn as if walking through a graveyard. And much like a
graveyard Eteer was. Skeletons of animals and humans lay discarded in
street corners, the bones shattered. Windows and doors were boarded
up on some houses; other houses had fallen into heaps of bricks. No
more peddlers, priests, and buskers lined the streets. No markets
bustled with shoppers. Eyes peered through cracks in boarded windows,
and the only living creature to cross their path was a scrawny, feral
cat. Aerhein Tower, once the tallest structure in the city, stood no
more. The palace still rose upon the hill, its columns blue and
crested with gold, but no more gardens grew atop its balcony and
roof; they had burned in the great battle when Issari had fought
Angel, when the amulet had fused with her flesh.

She raised her hand and gazed at her palm. The amulet of Taal, her
mother's amulet, gleamed there.

"This was the amulet of a queen." She caressed it. "Now
I will be Queen of Eteer. King Raem's throne must be mine."

She thought words she would not speak.
You died in the north,
Mother. You have fallen, Sena, my dear brother. But you still look
down upon me from Requiem's stars. I will make you proud. I will save
both our kingdoms—the kingdom of our birth and the kingdom of our
constellation.

"All the demons have flown north." Tanin walked with a
drawn dagger. He glanced around nervously. "We can take this
city easily if the generals accept your leadership."

She nodded. "All have left but Angel. She still lurks in the
palace, warming the throne as my father is away. And she frightens me
more than an army of demons."

Tanin shuddered and said no more. They kept moving through the city,
climbing over a fallen column, skirting a shattered statue, and
walking down a boulevard where blood still stained the flagstones.
Banners hung from roofs. Some showed the god Taal, a slender man with
open palms, while others showed the god Kur-Paz, a winged bull. Other
banners were more lurid; some were mere sheets stained with blood,
and others showed crude images of broken men, of red eyes surrounded
with teeth, and of a winged woman of fire. Demon banners.

"My father perhaps is still king by name," Issari said.
"But it seems that Angel governs here now."

They were walking by the canal when they saw the first pregnant
woman.

She sat on the docks, leaning against a lantern pole, her face ashen.
She gazed at Issari with sunken, vacant eyes—the eyes of a soldier
who had seen too much, of the sole survivor of a slain family, of one
so ill that only the grave could offer comfort. Her belly was grossly
distended—twice the size of any pregnant belly Issari had ever seen.
It bulged out from her tunic, the skin so stretched it looks ready to
tear, and strange figures moved behind that skin, kicking,
scratching, tracing the symbols of demons. A rustle rose from within
the woman like the buzz of cockroaches, and Issari knew:
She is
gravid with a demon child.

As they kept walking, they saw more of these poor souls, their
bellies large, their eyes glassy, their lips whispering prayers.
Dozens seemed to fill the city, maybe hundreds—lying on streets, too
weak to rise, demon spawn scuttling inside them, shoving at the skin,
begging to emerge. Issari whispered prayers to all she passed,
knowing she had no way to heal them, knowing all she could do was
claim the throne and banish the horror back into the Abyss.

"Taal looks over you, my children," Issari said as she
passed, holding up the amulet embedded into her palm. "His light
shines upon you. I am Issari Seran and I am home. I will look after
you."

They couldn't reply, only stare with anguished eyes, the creatures
kicking within their bellies. Tears in her eyes, knowing there was no
more she could do, Issari walked on. Tanin walked at her side, eyes
dry but haunted, his blade raised.

The noon sun was blazing overhead when they rounded a charred garden,
its palm trees blackened and its cobblestones cracked, and saw the
city fortress ahead. The complex rose upon a hill, watching over
Eteer. Walls snaked around the hill in a ring, topped with
battlements and turrets. Beyond, upon the hilltop, rose several
buildings: a columned temple to Sharash, the god of war; squat
armories, silos, and smithies; and a towering round barracks, nearly
the size of the city palace, holding the city garrison. Once cypress
trees had grown beneath the walls, and once a gilded statue of
Sharash had stood upon the hill. The trees were now burnt, and demons
had severed the statue's head, replacing it with a metal mockery, a
demon head with a lurid tongue and hollow eyes. But soldiers still
guarded this place; Issari could see them on the ramparts, spears in
their hands, helmets on their heads. Eteer's army still stood.