A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,114
dragons circled over the city; some were descending to land upon roofs and streets. The chained slaves flinched whenever a shadow crossed them.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Lyana said. "Where are the nephilim? Where—"
Stars.
Lyana growled and took flight.
Stars damn it.
These slaves were not chained to balls of iron. They were chained to clay balls of Tiran fire.
She had not soared fifty feet when the temple ceiling crashed open, the doors shattered, and nephilim burst screeching outside.
The air cracked. The Tiran fire exploded below. Fire raged and white light flooded Lyana, and the slaves' blood splattered her. Her ears rang, and claws grabbed her leg, pulling her down. She roared.
As she plummeted, she glimpsed the rest of the city. From every temple, fort, and hall, nephilim burst into the sky. Tiran fire exploded. Flames and blood showered across Iysa.
Lyana crashed back onto the temple courtyard. One nephil grabbed her leg, and three others leaped onto her. The slaves were gone; nothing remained of them but blood and gobbets of flesh. The temple walls had shattered opened; archers stood there, and arrows flew at Lyana.
She roared and blew her fire. Upon her back, Wila screamed and fired her own arrows. Lyana's flames crashed into a nephil, slamming it against a wall. Another leaped onto her shoulder, and claws dug, and Lyana screamed and bit. Her teeth sank into the beast's flesh, and she tasted its rot and maggots.
"Take her alive!" shouted a Tiran soldier in the temple. "Her horns are gilded—this one is a noble. Take her alive!"
Lyana screamed and flapped her wings, struggling to rise. She kicked wildly, freed herself, and flew ten feet.
Three more nephilm swooped from above, crashed down onto her, and she slammed into the cobblestones again. They cracked beneath her. She roared and blew fire.
"Wila, run!" she screamed. She did not know if her rider even lived. Arrows peppered her, clattering against her scales. One pierced her chest, and Lyana roared in pain, and claws tore at her, and teeth bit, and pain flooded her.
Light and song and ringing flowed across her.
Her magic tore free like a bandage from a wound.
She lay in human form, the nephilim dwarfing her. She gripped her sword. She drew a foot of steel. She screamed and claws grabbed her, tightened around her like a girdle of bone, and lifted her.
She screamed and kicked and spat, tried to shift again, and shouted every curse she knew. She was still screaming when they shoved a sack over her head, and wings flapped, and her legs kicked in midair. Wind whipped her, her head spun, and terror pulsed in her chest.
ELETHOR
Legion's claws wrapped around Elethor's chest, pinning his arms down and nearly cracking his ribs. Elethor could barely breathe, barely make a sound. His wounds burned; so many cuts and bruises and welts covered him, he felt like a slab of beaten meat. He tried to shift but could hardly muster the power to stay conscious.
"Yesss," Legion hissed. The nephil was carrying him down a dark hall, his clawed feet clattering. "Yessss, struggle, weredragon. I like it when you struggle."
The demon's tongue dipped to lick Elethor's cheek. Elethor grunted and closed his eyes. The beast's head rose above his own—the creature stood thrice his height—and his jaws leaked drool and pus that stank of corpses.
"Soli—" Elethor began, but Legion squeezed his claws tighter, suffocating his voice.
The queen walked ahead, not turning back to regard him. She held a torch, lighting walls covered in faded murals depicting the Ancients battling serpents and raising fire in their palms. As they moved down the hall, Elethor shut his eyes and thought of Treale.
Fly to our starlit halls, daughter of Requiem, he thought. Await me there among the souls or our fallen. You sing now among them.
Solina led them through many halls, stairways, and doors, until finally she brought them to a towering archway whose keystone sported engravings of lions. Solina walked through the archway, and Legion—carrying Elethor in his grip—followed.
They entered a hall the size of a palace, easily the largest chamber Elethor had seen in this mountain. He thought that the fallen courts of Requiem could fit into this chamber with room to fly around them. Limestone columns rose from shadow to support a wide, domed ceiling like a stone sky. In the center of the chamber, a tower rose from a pit; a bridge led from the doorway to the tower top.
Solina took several steps onto the bridge, turned around, and smiled at Elethor.