Requiem's Hope (Dawn of Dragons) (17 page)

Across the hall, the soldiers picked up his chant. "Queen
Issari! Queen Issari! Blessed be Issari, Queen of Eteer!"

Issari rose to her feet, left the throne, and walked toward the
palace doors. She stepped through them and gazed down upon the city
of Eteer, heart of the Eteerian civilization: thousands of houses,
the canal with its ships, the city walls, the sea beyond. Her
soldiers stood at her sides.

One soldier, a young captain, blew a silver horn. People emerged from
their homes below, climbed onto roofs, and stared at the palace.
Issari gazed down upon her people.

"Queen Issari Seran reigns!" shouted a soldier. "Behold
Blessed Queen Issari!"

And she knew: The kingdom was hers. The people accepted her; so would
Angel.

When she returned to the throne room, she found the chained demon
shaking, lying on the floor, bloody tears leaking from her eyes. Her
wounds dripped, and her wings lay limp.

"Do you accept my dominion?" Issari asked. "Answer,
Creature of the Abyss! Do you accept me as your ruler, the rightful
Queen of Eteer?"

Angel fixed her with a narrow, pained stare. She hissed, smoke
seeping between her teeth. "By the ancient laws binding me to
servitude, I accept, Queen Issari. Your father no longer rules. The
throne is yours . . . as is my allegiance."

Issari took a shuddering breath. Tanin approached her and she clasped
his hand, relief spreading across her.

"Then I command you to call your demon soldiers home," said
Issari. "Withdraw them from the northern lands. Return with them
into the Abyss, and never more emerge."

But Angel seemed not to hear. She writhed on the floor, her teeth
clenched, and she let out a howl. Her claws dug into the floor. Her
belly bulged and contracted. Her legs spread open.

"What is she doing?" Tanin whispered, face pale.

Issari took a step back. Terror flooded her. She could not speak.

"I serve you, Queen Issari," said the demon, voice dripping
with pain. Blood beaded upon her brow. "But our children, Issari
. . . our children are only half-demons. No laws of servitude bind
them." She tossed back her head and screamed. "Welcome,
children of darkness! Welcome, sons and daughters of mortals! My rein
ends; the age of the nephilim begins."

A cackle rose.

A creature emerged.

Issari screamed.

 
 
RAEM

The
scout flew upon the wind, heading toward the demon host.

"Ah, our dear friend returns," Raem said. "The dragons
have been found."

He rode upon Anai, his bat-like demon, leading his host of a
thousand. The sky was clear and blue, though the smoke of demons
darkened the land. Below them the forests wilted, the rivers turned
gray, and the grass burned. The trail of death spread behind them
across the land, all the way to the southern coast. Ahead still
stretched the wilderness, the untamed land that he would bring under
his dominion. With the power of his demon army, he would not only
crush the fledgling nation of Requiem; he would conquer the open
north, turning Eteer into an empire.

"What is it?" Ciana asked, disgust filling her voice.

The young woman sat in the saddle before Raem, her back pressed to
his body. Her weapons hung from her belt, and the wind ruffled her
fur tunic. She wore the bronze mask that hid the ruin of her face,
but Raem could see the scars of dragonfire peeking from beneath. She
had only taken off her mask once, but the memory still pounded
through Raem—a faceless woman, ravaged, deformed, an abomination
unto Taal and his vision of purity. The dragons had done that to her.
The dragons would suffer tenfold.

He stroked her hair. "Do not fear my scout, Ciana, my dear. It
is a disgusting creature, an unholy insult to Taal, but a useful
servant. It will deliver the dragons to us."

The creature that flew toward them looked like a severed hand the
size of a tree. An eye blinked upon each shriveled finger, and a
mouth opened upon its palm, lined with many teeth. When it reached
the demon army, it fluttered toward Raem and panted, tongue dripping.
It spoke in a high-pitched voice, the voice of a child.

"King Raem! Weredragons in the north. Four hands of them. Rocs
too. Flying north! To a mountain like two skulls. I see them. I lead
you there."

Raem smiled thinly. Four hands—only twenty weredragons. He laughed.
Was that all this King Aeternum could muster—twenty lizards? Raem
looked behind him at the sprawling host. Twenty dragons wouldn't even
feed these creatures.

"This is no war," he said. "This is stomping on an
insect."

Ciana twisted around in her saddle. She stared at him through her
mask holes. "King Aeternum—Jeid Blacksmith was once his
name—is crueler than any other weredragon you've ever seen. He
burned me. He took my face. He is not an insect but a terror."
She sneered and clutched her bow. "And we will slay him. We will
slay them all. The king, his son, and all the rest of them."

They flew on, the land wilting below them, until they reached a
gushing river that split the land. Upon its bank nestled villages,
benighted human settlements barely better than the dens of animals.
Ciana pointed down at one of the backwaters.

"Oldforge," she said. "My village. The weredragon
family lived there once. That is where Tanin loved me." She
clenched her fists. "That is where Jeid burned me."

Raem stared down at the village, sneering. As they flew closer,
details emerged. He saw only a few scattered clay huts, their roofs
thatched with straw. Only a single brick building rose here, perhaps
a smithy, smaller than even a humble Eteerian home. Reed boats swayed
at the docks.

Raem laughed. "The fabled King of Requiem—not a son of nobility
or light after all. A simple barbarian. He may style himself a royal
leader, but—"

He bit down on his words and frowned. Seated in the saddle before
him, Ciana was trembling. When Raem leaned around her, he saw tears
pouring from beneath her mask. He felt something he had not felt in a
long time, not since before his children had betrayed him. He felt
pity. He felt . . . love. He stroked the young woman's hair.

"Sweetness, why do you tremble? Why do your tears fall?"

She stared down at the village. Her voice shook. "I can still
feel it. His fire flowing over me. I can still hear it. My own
screams. Even now it burns." She touched her bronze mask. "I
now have a face of metal. I now have a mind of memories. They did
this to me here. This village is the scar that will forever mark my
body and twist inside me."

Raem held her close to him, and his rage flared. His voice hissed
through his clenched jaw. "Then this is the village where you
will be reborn. Here you were hurt. Here I will heal you." He
dug his spurs into his demonic bat and he roared for his army to
hear. "To the village! Land in Oldforge."

As they descended, he sucked in strained breaths. His fingers
trembled and Ciana was warm against him. He had seen it done before.
He had seen the masterwork of these demons, their hooks and needles
creating artwork from flesh and bone and blood. They had used their
art to torture; now they would use it to heal.

He kissed the back of Ciana's head. "You are a true warrior of
Taal, a great huntress of dragons. I will heal you."

Villagers fled as the demon army landed in the village. They locked
themselves in homes, only for demons the break down the doors and
drag them out. Some fled into the fields, only for more creatures to
pounce and grab them. A few villagers tried to fight with arrows and
spears; demon acid, claws, and fangs tore them apart.

"Do not yet feed!" Raem shouted. He dismounted his bat and
walked among the huts. "Bring all the women to me. Line them
up."

His creatures bustled through the village, dragging women out of
homes. They all seemed crude compared to the beauties of Eteer; these
northern women were taller and wider, their hair lighter, their
garments made of fur, leather, and homespun. Yet he would find a
suitable one among them. A few were screaming, others weeping; all
tried to flee, but the demons held them fast with constricting
tongues and coiling claws. A few of their menfolk tried to save the
women, staging some heroic assault; they fell fast, their blood
feeding the soil. Finally a score of young women stood in a line,
clutched in the grip of the demons.

"Come, Ciana!" Raem said. "Come see them. Is there one
you favor?"

Ciana stepped forward hesitantly. "Raem, what . . . I know these
women. I know them all by name." She tilted her head. "What
will you do to them?"

He turned toward her, smiling. Her bronze mask was beautiful, but
behind it her face was gone, and that was an insult to his god, an
insult he must erase. "Who among them is prettiest, do you
think? Which face do you like?"

Her hand crept toward the hilt of her dagger. "Raem, what—"

"I like this one," he said, interrupting her. He pointed at
a tall, lovely woman with full red lips, pale cheeks, and long
eyelashes. "She will suit our purpose. Stitchmark!" He
coned his palm around his mouth. "Stitchmark, to me!"

Rancid wings buzzed. A demon landed and clattered toward him on many
hooked feet. Stitchmark looked like a great gray beetle, its shell
spiked. Long arms grew from its body, and each hand sprouted metal
tools as fingers. There were needles, scalpels, spools of thread,
bone saws, and more. A series of glass lenses on hinges covered its
eyes. When the demon reached Raem, one lens left its eye, replaced
with another. The demon bowed.

"Stitchmark, I like this young woman's face." He pointed at
the villager; she was weeping and screaming, trying to escape the
creature that held her, looking lovelier than ever. "Give Ciana
her face."

The woman wept.

Ciana took a step back, gasping.

Stitchmark leaped forth and began to work.

"Hush, Ciana," Raem said as the young huntress trembled.
"Here, lay down in the grass. Close your eyes. Let Stitchmark do
his work and soon it will all be over."

Blood flowed across the village. The demons crowded around, licking
their chops, admiring the work in progress. Raem stood among them, a
smile stretching across his lips. Scalpels cut and spools turned and
needles raced.

When Ciana rose to her feet, blood trickling down her neck and
forehead, Raem approached her. He touched her pale cheek, and he
kissed her full red lips. The demons feasted behind them.

"You are beautiful, my Ciana, my sweet killer of dragons."

They left the village full of blood, bones, and a discarded bronze
mask.

 
 
LAIRA

She
stood in her tent, remembering the day her mother had died.

She had stood waiting in a tent then too. She had spent days in that
tent, the sounds of her mother's trial—screaming, shouting,
cursing—rising outside. That day eleven years ago, she had emerged
into the daylight to see her mother burned at the stake, to see life
change into a fever dream of hunger, abuse, and hope for dragons. Now
she waited in a tent again, and again when she emerged, her life
would change, and the Laira she had known would be gone, replaced
with somebody new.

She lifted the bronze handheld mirror and examined her reflection. So
many times, Chieftain Zerra would force her to look at her
reflection, to see the creature he had turned her into—a waif with a
crooked chin, slanted mouth, sheared hair, and cheeks gaunt with
hunger and neglect. Her chin was still crooked, her mouth still
slanted, but she no longer saw a starving wretch. Her cheeks were
fuller, her hair longer, her green eyes brighter. A headdress of
silver and topaz adorned her, and she wore a fine cloak of wool woven
with golden threads. Beneath it, her tribe's women had painted totem
charms upon her body—paw prints upon her belly, rivers that coiled
around her breasts, and golden tusks upon her thighs. The symbols
would make her fertile, the women had said, and they would make
Chieftain Oritan desire her. Today she would be his.

She closed her eyes, shuddering to remember the only other man who
had lain with her. She had given herself to Chieftain Zerra in return
for a roc to ride, and the memory still made her wince. Would Oritan
too take her roughly, hurting her innards, drooling upon her, digging
his fingernails down her back? Or would he be gentle like some women
whispered their husbands could be? Laira did not know, but whatever
happened, she swore to bear it. For her people. For Requiem.

The tent flap opened. Lokania, a gatherer of berries of the Goldtusk
tribe, stood at the entrance. She held a jeweled bowl of ram's blood,
signifying the purity of matrimony. The young woman had long golden
hair and blue eyes. Fifteen years old, she was slim of body and quick
of fingers; she had woven Laira's garment herself. Since Laira had
become chieftain, Lokania had served her—preparing her meals,
tending to her hair and garments, and running her errands in the
tribe. Today Lokania's eyes were bright, her mouth solemn.

"It is time, my chieftain. He awaits."

Laira took a deep breath. She laid down her mirror and stepped closer
to Lokania. The girl kissed her fingertips, then placed them against
Laira's neck, an old blessing.

"You will please him in his bed, my chieftain." The young
woman lowered her eyes and blushed. "He is very strong."

Laira touched the girl's hair. "Walk with me, Lokania. Walk with
me to the tusks."

They left the tent together. Upon the mountainside stood the two
tribes. The Goldtusks stood to Laira's left, lower upon the slope,
clad in fur, bones, and beads, their beards long, their bronze armor
bright. To Laira's right, higher up on the mountain, stood the
Leatherwing tribe; they had no bronze, but they wore armor of bone
and boiled leather, and apes' skulls hid their faces. In a small
cluster ahead stood the Vir Requis, twenty in all—haggard, wearing
only tattered wool and fur. As she walked forward, Laira did not know
who her people were, who she was. Was she a princess of Eteer,
seeking a new home? Was she a daughter of Goldtusk? Was she a new
bride of Leatherwing?