A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,104

and more griffins and dragons fell pierced with arrows and spears.

Screeches sounded in the south.

Black shadows took flight.

"Here they come!" Lyana shouted over her shoulder to her warriors. "Griffins—into battle formations, go! We'll hold them back. Dragons, you keep burning those damn ships!"

She growled, beat her wings madly, and shot forward. A hundred nephilim rose from the trees alongside the riverbanks like giant diseased crows. They shrieked and drove toward her. Lyana roared and blew her flames. Griffins shrieked around her and reached out their claws. The nephilim crashed against them with thuds and exploding fire.

Blood splattered the trees and turned the rivers red. Dragons shot below, spraying fire. Ships burned and sank. Arrows filled the sky. Nephilim rose everywhere, and claws thrashed at Lyana, and she roared and bit into diseased flesh, then spat out maggots. Griffins shrieked and fell and clawed all around her.

Lyana shot between nephilim, soared higher, and gazed south. The river stretched into the horizon, thick with hundreds of ships. All along the riverbanks, more nephilim were taking flight. Southern Iysa still lay too far to see.

But we will reach the city, Lyana swore. We will pave a path of fire toward it, and we will burn it down.

"Dragons, keep burning the ships!" she shouted. "Griffins, battle flights of four—hold those nephilim back!"

The griffins and nephilim crashed and bit and clawed, and blood sprayed in mists. Below, dragons flew against the ships, and smoke rose in plumes.

Lyana cursed as she killed. It would be a long, bloody flight south.

ELETHOR

They streamed across the desert, thirty thousand strong, a swarm of dragons and griffins all bearing archers of Osanna upon their backs. The dunes raced beneath them and the mountains loomed ahead.

Elethor bared his fangs.

Thirty thousand. It was the number of souls who had lived in Requiem before the wyverns attacked. Thirty thousand. They would crush the Palace of Whispers and they would catch Solina and they would burn her.

"We will show you no mercy today, Solina," he hissed as he flew, flames in his mouth. "We will take no prisoners. You will stand no trial in our fallen halls. Today you die."

Scales clanked and fire blasted. Treale darted up to his side. The black dragon stared with narrowed eyes, teeth bared. A snarl left her maw, and a dragonhelm rose upon her head, crowned with blades.

"My king," she said and gave him a deep stare. "I fly by your side. I will kill for you. I will burn the enemy for you."

"Not for me, Treale," he said. "For Requiem. For the souls of our fallen. For the souls who still live."

All around them flew their warriors: dragons of Requiem with flames in their nostrils, true dragons of the east with fluttering beards, griffins with beating wings and yellow eyes, and upon every beast's back a warrior of Osanna bearing arrows and spears. They flew grimly, staring ahead in silence, rising and falling like waves upon the wind. Thirty thousand—a great northern host of light and fury.

The dunes rolled below, soon giving way to rocky fields, boulders, and hills. The noon sun pounded when the host flew over the mountains, and their shadows raced across rocky slopes. Nothing lived here; Elethor saw no plant or beast. There were only these rocky peaks, this white sky, and this glaring sun. The silence unnerved him and he growled.

Where are you, Solina?

They kept flying, a cloud of scale and steel. The mountaintops jutted beneath them like the fallen bones of ancient stone gods. Finally they saw it ahead, and Elethor hissed and his heart twisted.

The Palace of Whispers.

It still lay leagues away, but even from here, Elethor could barely believe its size; it looked larger than a city. He could not decide whether the Palace of Whispers was a mountain covered with towers, archways, bridges, and walls, or whether he flew toward a fortress so massive it had grown to mountain size. Hundreds of towers rose here, and hundreds of windows and archways led into shadows. All were built of the same tan, hard limestone of the mountains around them; Elethor could see no other color. The Ancients had built this place thousands of years ago, and time had done its work. The towers rose, craggy and twisting like stalagmites. The walls lay crumbling and bent like castles of sand after a wave. And yet, despite its age and dilapidation, this place still held power; Elethor felt it emanating like heat.

He kept flying toward the mountain. His host flew behind