Requiem's Hope (Dawn of Dragons) (23 page)

The boy hopped into the air, shifted into an azure dragon, and flew a
circle above. The people below pointed and gasped. The boy landed by
Issari and resumed human form, eyes bright.

Issari stared at him in disbelief. "If you knew I was saving Vir
Requis, if you knew of Requiem, why did you stay in Eteer? Why didn't
you approach me for aid?"

He shrugged. "What would I have in the north? Nothing. Would
Requiem welcome me, a beggar and thief? Perhaps, though I would only
be an orphan there too. In Eteer I knew how to survive, how to hide,
how to steal. At least, I did until the demon spawn destroyed our
city." He bowed his head. "My life as an urchin is over.
Now my life is to follow you, Issari Seran." Suddenly tears
filled his eyes. "You are a great leader. You are a great light.
We will follow you to redemption. To a new home."

Issari sighed and turned to look at the people walking behind
her—haggard, wounded, close to death. She looked at the landscape
around her, a lifeless desert, the ground cracked and rocky, the
horizons wavering with heat, the sun heartless and beating down on
them. Redemption? A new home? What hope could she give these people?

A distant speck appeared in the sky, soon growing to reveal a red
dragon, smoke from his nostrils leaving two trails. The dragon
circled once above the Eteerian exodus, then landed beside Issari,
claws tearing into the cracked earth. Tanin released his magic,
returning to his human form, and walked closer to Issari. The
bright-eyed young man she had met last winter was gone. Instead she
saw a haggard traveler, dust coating his dark hair and weary face.
His cloak billowed in the sandy wind, tattered and charred. He had
taken a khopesh, breastplate, and shield from a fallen soldier,
replacing his old dagger. If not for the stubble on his face and tall
frame—Eteerian soldiers shaved their faces and rarely grew so
tall—Issari would have thought him a soldier of her fallen kingdom.

"I flew for many marks," Tanin said. "No water. No
food, not even birds to hunt. Nothing but dry, cracked earth and
stones, and . . . in the south, as you said, a great mountain range,
and within it a single pass—a city like a gateway." His face
darkened. "Goshar."

Issari nodded. "If any hope remains for us, it lies beyond
Goshar's walls. That is where we head."

Tanin gripped the hilt of his sword. "Issari, I urge you to seek
another path. Just looking at Goshar chilled me. Cages hung from its
walls, dozens of them, men starving inside. Many of the prisoners
were already dead, crows feasting upon them. I flew high above the
walls, too high for the Gosharian archers to hit me. And what I saw .
. ." He shuddered. "Many slaves, Issari. Slaves in great
pits, whipped, dying, straining naked in the sun to build towers and
great statues larger than ten dragons." He shook his head. "The
whole city stank of blood; I could smell it even flying high above.
Goshar would be our death."

She gestured around her at the desert. "This desert would be our
death. Goshar guards the path through the mountains to the fertile
lands beyond. Would you have us die of thirst here, only days away
from the desert's end?"

For the first time since she had known him, Tanin glared at her, eyes
full of anger. "Would you have us enslaved, broken, chained?"
He grumbled. "That awaits us in Goshar, judging by the cages
upon its walls. We did not flee Eteer to suffer under another
tyrant's heel. We—"

She placed a hand on his cheek. "Tanin." Her voice was
soft, and she leaned forward and kissed him. "I would have us
survive. I would do anything I could to stop more of my people from
dying. Goshar is dangerous, and my father fought wars against its
cruel king. But what choice have we? Return to Eteer? Its nephilim
would slay us. Wander farther in the wilderness? We would not last
long enough to seek fertile lands; the mountains stretch for hundreds
of marks. Sail across the sea? We have no ships. We must choose
between starvation in the sun or the hope of a vipers' nest. I choose
the vipers."

She hugged herself as she walked through the dust. Twelve city-states
spread across Terra, the lands south of the sea. Eteer was the
northernmost, the realm of seafarers and traders, once wealthy and
bright, its arm stretching far across the sea. South of Eteer lay its
old enemies. Their lands were dry, their sun blazing, their people
cruel, and none among them inspired more terror than Goshar. While
Eteer derived its might from the sea, Goshar had become wealthy by
guarding the single pass through the mountains, a gateway from the
desert to fertile lands. Closest to Eteer among the thirteen, Goshar
was also Eteer's greatest enemy; her father had fought the city in
several battles, and many of Eteer's sons lay fallen around its
walls. Yet without supplies, wandering alone in the desert, it would
be death or mercy from old enemies.

They kept walking in silence. Behind Issari, the exiles of Eteer
trudged on, the strong helping the weak. Men and women held their
children, their elderly parents, their weary friends in their arms.
Dust coated all their faces, and their eyes were large and haunted.
Several women among them had survived birthing nephilim; they moaned,
bleeding, dying, held in their husbands' arms. Night fell and the
temperature plunged; the day had been sweltering but in the darkness
they shivered, the air colder than any winter in Eteer. The stars
burned above, cruel and small and taunting them, piercing their eyes,
and even the sight of the Draco constellation could not soothe Issari
as she shivered; it seemed too far, unreachable to her, unable to aid
her, only able to stare down upon her pain.

She tried to sleep in Tanin's arms that night, but even his body
would not warm her, and the sound of his breath would not comfort
her. Finally dawn rose, stretching orange and yellow fingers across
the sky; that sky seemed vast here, ten times the size it had seemed
from her old city. When the light fell upon the camp, it revealed a
dozen dead—elders and wounded Eteerians too weary to cling on. They
buried them beneath stones, and when the survivors walked again into
the south, vultures circled above.

It was the next day, leaving ten more graves behind them, that the
Eteerian exodus saw the walls of Goshar ahead.

Issari took a shaky breath, trying to swallow down the horror.

From this distance, she could see little details. The mountains
soared like a great wall of stone, covering the horizon, the border
of the desert. The range dipped in only one place, a crack in the
wall. Here, within this mountain pass, rose the city of Goshar. Its
walls were the same tan color as the mountains; beyond them, Issari
could just make out the slivers of towers. The people of Eteer
pointed, whispering in fear, praying to their gods. As they walked
nearer across the rocky earth, more details emerged. Goshar's walls
seemed small next to the mountains, but they must have stood twice
the height of Eteer's walls; the soldiers upon their battlements
seemed small as insects upon the rim of a well. Turrets rose at
regular intervals, bearing the banners of Goshar, displaying a nude
woman with a snake's head. A gatehouse rose ahead, large as a palace,
many archers atop its towers, and reliefs of snakes coiled across its
bronze doors. After walking another mark, Issari winced to see the
cages Tanin had spoken of. They hung off the walls, dozens of them,
their prisoners languishing or already dead within; crows hopped
around the bars.

Goshar
,
Issari thought with a shiver.
City of Bones.

When she looked down at her feet, she saw the bones there. They
spread in a field before her, picked dry by sand and beak. Thousands
of skeletons, broken apart, littered the desert outside the walls of
Goshar. Here were the bones of her own people, of Eteerian soldiers
who had fought this city, who had perished in the heat far from home.
Her father had fought two campaigns against Goshar, returning home
with tales of triumph, of many enemies slain and towers felled, of
the pride of Goshar crushed. Here lay those who had paid for his
wars, and still the walls of that old enemy stood; despite Raem's
boasts he had never breached these walls, only left fields of death
before them. The skulls of her people stared at Issari as she walked
by, entreating her, begging her to take them home.

My father could never enter these walls,
she thought.
But I
must. Not with swords and spears but with my words. If I fail, the
thousands behind me will join the dead, just more bones for the sun
to bake and the crows to pick clean.

She looked behind her at her followers, once the proud people of
Eteer, now ragged refugees covered in dust and dried blood. She
returned her eyes to the gates of Goshar. She took a few steps
closer, separating herself from the crowd, and raised her palm. The
amulet upon it shone.

"Hear me, Goshar!" she cried out. "I am Issari Seran,
rightful Queen of Eteer! I come to speak with your king."

For a long time nothing happened. The guards stared down from above,
arrows nocked in their bows, silent and faceless, their helms blank
masks. Issari wondered how many of those guards had lost brothers to
her father's armies.

If they fire upon us now, and if they slay us, they would only
save us from a slower death.

"Open your gates, Goshar!" Issari cried. "I do not
come here as a soldier. I am not my father, for he has fallen from
Taal's light and has relinquished his right to rule. I am a new
queen. I come to speak of peace. Open your gates, City of Stone! I
shall enter and speak to your lord, the Abina Sin-Naharosh."

For long moments, silence.

They won't let us in.

Issari expected to feel fear, despair, anguish. Instead she felt
rage. Without pausing to think, she shifted into a dragon and soared.
Her voice pealed across the land, the howl of a cornered beast.

"Hear me, Goshar!" Her wings beat back the cloaks of the
guards upon the city walls. As she soared higher, she saw the city
beyond, a land of many tan buildings, towers, and coiling ziggurats.
"I am Issari, the Dragon Queen of Eteer, the Daughter of Taal,
the Light of Requiem." She blew a pillar of fire skyward. "I
can burn your city to the ground and lay waste to your people. My
claws can cut through metal, and my fire can melt stone. Resist me
and not even your bones will lie here in memory; all of Goshar will
become naught but dust. If you do not open your gates and let me
enter as a queen, I will enter your city as a dragon raining death.
Open your gates to my people, Goshar! Or you will not feel my wrath,
for you will die too quickly to feel anything."

She landed back outside the gates, panting, and shifted back into
human form.

Tanin raised an eyebrow and spoke from the corner of his mouth. "So
much for diplomacy."

Issari raised her chin. "That is the diplomacy of the desert."

For a long time, nothing happened. Then, with a creak and shower of
dust, the gates of Goshar began to slide open. Issari gave Tanin the
slightest of smiles, then turned to walk into the city. Before she
could enter the gates, a dozen guards stepped forward, blocking her
way. They wore copper scale armor, and their swords were broad and
straight. Horned helms topped their heads, and the sigil of Goshar—a
woman with a snake head—was engraved onto their round shields. Their
captain approached her, a tall man with a golden snake's head upon
his helm. A cloak of many beads hung over his shoulders, and his
curly black beard hung down to his belt. He raised his palm.

"Only Issari Seran, Daughter of the Demon Raem, shall enter.
Your people will not set foot in the holy ground of Goshar."

She glared at the man. "My people will die out here!"

"That is no concern of Goshar," said the captain. "Many
have died outside our walls. Let their bones join the others."

She sneered. "Your bones will be those to litter the desert!
Share your supplies with my people or I will burn your city with
dragonfire."

The captain stared back steadily, but she saw his fist tighten around
the hilt of his sword, saw the fear in him. "You may speak of
these matters to the Light of Goshar, our mighty abina, the Lord of
the Desert, Sin-Naharosh, blessed be his name. You may follow, you
alone, while your people wait outside our walls. If our blessed abina
chooses to grant them his mercy, they will be given sustenance."

She gestured at Tanin. "This man will join me. He is my
half-brother and will not leave my side." She knew that if she
called Tanin her bodyguard, he would be slain as an enemy. If she
called him her husband, he would be slaughtered too, freeing her for
a possible marriage between the kingdoms. A bastard brother, not
noble but still of her blood, would be allowed to accompany her and
live.

She turned back toward her people and raised her palm, letting them
see the light of her amulet. "Children of Eteer! Wait for me in
the desert and do not despair. I will return to you with water for
your thirst, with milk for your children, with food for hungry
bellies. You have suffered greatly under Raem the Demon King, and you
have traveled far in the heat and and cold, but I promise you: I will
bring you deliverance. Your queen does not forget your pain. Taal
will bless you, my children."

They looked upon her, eyes huge and weary in their gaunt faces. One
man cried out, "Blessed be Issari, True Queen of Eteer!"

The others answered his call. "Blessed be Issari, the Priestess
in White!"

Her eyes damp, she turned and entered the city of her people's oldest
enemies.

 
 
RAEM

"Hello
again, Laira!" he shouted and laughed. "Hello, daughter!"

She flew toward him, a golden dragon now, but he had seen her human
form, and he had laughed at her wretchedness. Issari, his youngest,
was a beautiful woman, her hair long and rich, her face fair enough
to inspire poems and songs. Her sister, meanwhile, bore the marks of
her shame upon her: a crooked jaw probably broken long ago, a frail
frame denoting years of hunger, and short ragged hair. She had fled
him years ago, and she had suffered for it, and that pleased Raem.