A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) (22 page)

She snarled and her eyes blazed.
"We lost men, it's true. And we lost scopes. But we smashed
an army on the beaches, and we will smash the capital. This is the
greatest flight of our lives. Poets will sing of us."

He twisted his jaw. "Aye,
but will they be our poets, or those of the emperor?"

Such
was youth,
he thought.
Rune
is like this too; he is like her. They are young. They fly with
conviction. Justice lights their hearts. But I am old and I've seen
that justice often fails, that the righteous often die while evil
lingers.

And yet he flew on, for he knew
Kaelyn was right. He would find no peace upon a distant island. He
was a soldier. He had been a soldier for most of his life. All he
could do was fight on.

Even
if the battle is hopeless, I will fight it,
he thought.
Better
to die fighting than to flee and wither in pain.

They flew on, the valleys and
hills rolling below.

They flew over sprawling Lanburg
Fields where snow glimmered, the place where long ago the griffin
armies had slain all but seven Vir Requis, the last of their race.
They flew over the rolling farmlands of Oldnale, the great wheat
basket of Requiem for thousands of years. They flew until they saw
King's Forest ahead, its birches coated in ice, where the Vir Requis
had first risen, where their magic had first shone.

They flew across Old Requiem,
land of their ancestors, until at sundown the first roars of the
enemy sounded.

They looked ahead and saw them
upon the wind.

A host flew their way, and
Valien hissed and felt his belly knot.

"Resistors!" he called
and blasted fire skyward. "Spear formation! Cut through them."

His dragons roared behind him.
Roused by the alarm, those Vir Requis who slept in human forms leaped
off their saddles, shifted into dragons, and blew their flames.
Tirans leaped from dragon to dragon in midair, spreading themselves
out across the hosts.

Ahead, flying from the west, the
Legions covered the sky. Ten thousand or more flew toward them, clad
in armor, chanting their battle cries. The banners of Cadigus flew
upon them, black streams emblazoned with red spirals. They were a
storm, a demon of the air, a great beast of metal and fire and scale.
They howled for death.

Valien growled.

If
Frey sent this host our way,
he thought,
he
knows we're coming. He knows of our triumph on the coast. He knows
of the scopes. And he knows we'll fell his dragons from the sky.
Valien bared his teeth and hissed.
He
sends myriads to die under the Genesis Light... just to slow us down.

"Kaelyn!" he shouted.
"Take the right flank."

She nodded and banked north.
Miya rode upon the green dragon's back, her hair streaming, a scope
ready in her hands.

"Sila, ready your scope!"
Valien said to the rider on his own back. "And hold tight."

He banked south, and their army
flew forward, a great snake in the sky, driving toward the enemy.
Valien and Kaelyn flew ahead of the force like two horns.

The Legions swarmed toward them.

Dragonfire blazed.

Red light beamed.

Screams filled the air.

The Genesis Light tore through
the sky, two beams thrusting forward. By the hundreds, dragons lost
their magic. Human legionaries fell from the sky, screaming.

"Kaelyn, keep your beam on
those falling!" Valien roared. "I'll keep sending them
down."

She nodded and dipped in the
sky. Legionaries tumbled down, and Kaelyn followed, shining her
light upon them, not letting them shift back into dragons. They
crashed against the hills.

"Sila, sweep the beam
across them!" Valien said.

They flew, swinging their beam
from side to side, tearing into the dragons, scattering humans like a
broom scattering a swarm of vermin. The legionaries tumbled.

"Burn them!" Valien
howled.

Behind him, his fellow resistors
roared. Jets of fire blasted, burning the falling legionaries.
Arquebuses blasted and iron rounds tore into dragons and falling men
alike. Some legionaries managed to dart around the beams, reach the
Resistance, and blaze their fire, but they too fell; the arquebuses
punched through scales like arrows through flesh.

Valien roared. "Slay them
all!"

Only four thousand souls, the
Resistance tore through the Legions like a wolf tearing through a
herd of deer.

Resistors were chanting for
victory, and even Valien's heart was rising, when he heard the howls
behind him.

"Slay the Resistance!"

"Hail the red spiral!"

"Hail Cadigus!"

The roars shook the sky. Fire
crackled in a typhoon. Heat blazed.

Valien turned his head... and
felt his heart sink down to his tail.

A second army flew from the
south, twenty thousand strong—two brigades chanting for death and
spreading out wide, a claw ready to engulf them. For several
heartbeats, Valien could not move.

"Slay every last resistor
and drink their blood!" the Legions cried. "Hail the red
spiral!"

The western host, cut down to
half their size, roared with renewed rage. The eastern host stormed.
From the north and south, more forces appeared, chanting and
blasting fire.

We
are trapped,
Valien thought.
We
are encircled. We will die.

He growled.

Then
let us die well.

"Resistance!" he said.
"Do not lose heart! I, Valien Eleison, fight with you. Howl
for Requiem! Blow your dragonfire! Fire your guns! We will
overcome."

They gathered around him, a
small host of survivors trapped in a storm, and they roared for their
home, and they blasted their fire.

"Valien!" Kaelyn said.
She flew up toward him, eyes damp but burning with rage, and upon
her back Miya was aiming her cone from side to side. "Let us
fly around our men in rings."

He nodded. "Fly clockwise!
I'll fly the other way."

She nodded.

They flew.

Darkness swarmed from every
side.

They fought like a sun engulfed
by night. The Resistance roared their dragonfire and shot their
guns. Their beams blasted out, felling legionaries, but they could
not cover the entire sky, not with only two scopes. Always they left
a flank exposed, and the legionaries swooped against it, blasting
fire and lashing claws. Valien flew from flank to flank, cutting the
Legions down, but only exposed more resistors behind him.

Blood rained.

Corpses littered the hill below.

The sun sank and still they
fought. Fire lit the night.

When dawn rose, it illuminated a
world red with blood and black with soot.

Lashed with claws, his scales
cracked with dragonfire, Valien descended toward the hills. He
grunted and puffed smoke, his blood leaked, and every flap of wings
blazed. He landed upon a hilltop and wheezed. The bodies of
legionaries spread around him, tens of thousands. The survivors of
the Resistance landed too, lacerated and burnt, coughing smoke and
all but collapsing.

Valien resumed human form and
walked among the dead, clutching his wounds. Kaelyn strode toward
him, her cheeks ashy, her clothes torn and bloody.

He marched toward her and she
crashed into his arms. Blood smeared her hair. Crows cawed, picking
at the fallen.

"We won," she
whispered, holding him tight.

He nodded, looking around at the
dead, the screaming wounded, and the gore covering the grass.

"We lost half our people,"
he said. "But yes, Kaelyn, we won. We won."

She wept against him, and he
held her in his arms as ash fell from the sky.

The capital still lay leagues
away. They were down to two thousand fighters, and horror clutched
Valien's heart so tightly it could barely beat.

 
 
RUNE

They crouched between the trees
as the sky burned.

The Legions swarmed overhead, a
storm of howls, blasting fire, and swirling smoke. The trees bent as
if cowering from the host. The scents of fire and oiled steel filled
the air, overpowering the smells of the forest. When Rune peered
between the branches, he couldn't see the sky, only scales, armor,
and smoke. Ten thousand dragons or more flew above, shrieking and
chanting.

"Death to the Resistance!
Hail the red spiral."

Rune scrunched his lips and
crouched lower. Tilla knelt at his side. Both wore garments woven
of pine branches, lichen, and twigs. Even kneeling beside her, Rune
could barely see Tilla; to the world, she looked like a snowy
evergreen.

"They're flying to battle,"
he whispered. "The Resistance must be near. They're still
fighting."

Hope sprang inside him, but fear
too. This meant Valien, Kaelyn, and the others were still alive. It
meant there was still light shining in the darkness. It also meant
war was flaring again... that everyone Rune still cared for could
burn.

"How far do you reckon the
Resistance is?" Tilla said.

"I don't know," Rune
said, "but the Legions are flying east, so we'll follow. We'll
follow until we find them."

They knelt until the last
formations passed overhead, leaving a sky of smoke and raining ash.
With the shrieks distant, Rune and Tilla rose to their feet, two
leafy figures like storybook monsters invented to frighten children
away from the woods. They shivered, brushed snow off themselves, and
kept walking.

The snow was deep and progress
was slow. The trees rustled, their icicles gleaming. Rune could not
stop shivering, and soon he began to cough. Taken from the gopher
hole, his clothes were woven of thick wool, and his cloak was wrapped
tight around him, but still his teeth chattered.

"I wish we could fly,"
he said. "I'm never cold as a dragon. We should fly tonight."

Tilla shook her head forcefully.
"No flying! Not until there's a cloudy night. We would be
seen in the moonlight. You know only legionaries are allowed to fly
as dragons. And you know those legionaries are looking for us."

Rune grumbled. "At this
point, I'd welcome a fight against the legionaries. This snow is
nastier than every dragon who serves Frey."

Tilla's eyes flashed, and she
seemed ready to snap at him, but she bit her lip, stared ahead, and
walked silently. Her body was stiff, her shoulders squared.

Rune looked at her and sighed.

What's
wrong, Tilla?
he wanted to ask but dared not. For the past couple days, it seemed
whenever he asked her anything, she had only an angry retort. Her
eyes were always flashing, her mouth was always frowning, and fire
always seemed to simmer inside her. A root snagged her boots, and
Tilla swayed and cursed. When Rune reached out to hold her hand, she
glared and pulled herself away. She kept walking silently, not
looking at him.

Bloody
stars,
Rune
thought, looking at her, but she ignored him.
What
happened to you?

For three days—for three
wondrous, magical days in the burrow—Tilla had kissed him, whispered
of her love, and... Rune's blood heated to remember what else they
would do, their naked bodies moving together under the blankets,
their lips locked together, their...

He forced the thought away. As
lovely as those days had been, they seemed over. Since he'd insisted
on seeking the Resistance, Tilla had been cold as a statue.

"Tilla," he said,
making one more attempt to soothe her, "I was thinking that
after this war is over, we can return to Lynport. Maybe we can
rebuild the Old Wheel. I—"

She spoke harshly, not bothering
to look his way. "Don't talk to me of Lynport. Please. Just
walk silently, all right?"

Rune sighed again; he had lost
count of how many times he'd sighed since leaving the burrow.

"I know you're angry,"
he said, voice softer. "I know you wanted to flee Requiem, not
seek the Resistance, not march right back into war. But I promise
you, I—"

"Rune!" She snapped
her head toward him. Her eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed. "I
told you. I don't want to talk. I agreed to find the Resistance
with you. So we will find them. But that doesn't mean I feel like
talking to you, all right?"

Rune lost his breath. He had
never seen Tilla so angry. He had argued with Tilla before—he had
spent his childhood bickering with her about a mancala move,
wrestling her on the beach, or just arguing about minutiae like the
name of a star. But this was worse. Tilla had changed in the
Legions, grown both colder and more fiery. She seemed like a
growling wolf now, not even human.

He nodded.

"All right, we'll walk
silently for a while."

"Not just for a while. For
the rest of the way."

They kept walking. He spoke no
more, but his mind raced.

Was Tilla simply mad because
he'd insisted on rejoining the Resistance? Or could something darker
be stirring in her mind? He glanced at her as they trudged through
snow. She stared ahead, face pale, eyes hard, her mouth a thin line.
Her hand clutched the hilt of her sword, ready to draw and fight.
She moved like a warrior, a slinking beast ready to pounce.

Rune swallowed. Tilla had
trained for a year in the Legions. She had fought for them in
battle. She had killed for them. Could she still be loyal to the
red spiral?

Stars,
he thought.
Did
she free me so I could lead her to the Resistance? So she could draw
her sword and slay Valien, the man who killed her brother?

Rune felt dizzy. His throat
dried out. Tilla wore pine needles and twigs now, no longer armor,
but her every movement still spoke of a huntress, a warrior, a woman
ready to kill. Rune felt faint. Was he leading an enemy into his
camp?