A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,39
my children," she whispered.
The scream died and echoed. A hundred screams then rose together, a chorus of screeches, groans, and wails. The palace reverberated. Dust rained as bricks shifted. A column cracked.
"I come to you, fallen children!" Solina shouted.
Her voice echoed down dark halls. She walked under vaulted ceilings, her light shining in the dark. The screams rose.
"Free us!" they screeched.
"The pain! End the pain!" they cried.
"Enough, enough!" they howled. "The pain must end!"
Solina raised her arms as she walked, casting her light upon halls as large as her entire palace in Irys. A grin spread across her face. She followed the screams through the darkness.
"I have the key, twisted ones!" she called. "Your savior comes to you!"
The screams swirled. The creatures wept and laughed and roared and shrieked.
"Savior! Savior!"
"We will crush bones, we will drink blood!"
"Legion will lead! Legion will kill!"
The Palace of Whispers trembled around her. A statue of a priest fell and shattered. Cracks spread along the ceiling. The screams of the nephilim raced like demons through the halls, so loud Solina could barely hear her own cries.
"Ten thousand years you languished here!" she shouted. "Today I free you, Fallen Ones. Today you will drink the blood of the world that tortured you!"
The palace echoed and shook with their cries.
She descended a coiling staircase. The screams rained against her. She crossed a dark hall lined with statues. The voices wept and begged. She reached an iron door that shone a deep gray; it towered taller than dragons. The screams crashed like falling empires.
"I have come, nephilim!" she shouted and laughed. "I come to free you!"
Red light and shadows scurried around the door. Claws reached under the doorframe, scratching at the iron. Blood dripped through the keyhole and between the hinges.
"Free us, free us!" they begged.
"End the pain!"
"End the hunger!"
Solina drew the key from her belt. It thrummed and gleamed in her hand, so hot it nearly burned her. A force was tugging it toward the lock; Solina barely kept it in her hand.
"I am Solina Pheobus!" she howled above the screams. "I am Queen of Tiranor! I am the Destroyer of Requiem! I free you, nephilim. You will follow my light to flesh and bone and blood!"
The red light streamed across her. Her key flared like a rising sun. Screaming and laughing, Solina placed the key into the lock.
She twisted.
Light and blood and sound exploded.
The Iron Door blazed like sunrise, then shattered into a million shards. Howls and stench rose. Shadows leaped. From the darkness, the nephilim swarmed.
Solina raised her arms above her, dwarfed by the giants, but shining bright with the light of her lord.
"Serve me, nephilim! I am Solina! I free you."
They spilled into the hall, weeping and shouting and swirling. They stood fifteen feet tall, giants of shriveled flesh, patches of scales, and diseased eyes. Their fangs tore at the walls. Their claws slashed. Their great wings, wide as the wings of dragons, beat the air. Their armor was rusted, their blades chipped, their chain mail hanging in shreds, yet still Solina knew: This was the greatest army the world had seen.
"We rise!" one shouted and wept tears of blood.
"We walk again!" cried another, a bloated beast with lines of teeth like stitches crossing its face.
They kept spilling from their prison, filling the halls, swarming across the caverns. A cry rose among them, a cry shriller and louder than all others, a screech like boiling oceans.
"Bow before Queen Solina!" The voice echoed. "I am Legion! I foresaw the savior. Bow before the Queen of Light!"
All around, the nephilim fell to their knees, wept, clawed the air, and screamed. They trembled. They kissed the floor.
"Hail Solina!" they cried. "Hail the prophet Legion! We rise!"
From the shadows of the prison, a great nephil emerged, taller than the others, reeking and rotten. He was an androgynous beast, a thing of ruin, but Solina deemed him male. A halo of fire burned around his brow; he alone among the beasts bore this crown. Solina knew this one from the old, whispered tales. He was Legion, spawn of a mortal priestess and a demon king—ruler of the nephilim.
Beneath his burning halo, strands of yellow hair dangled from his scarred head, caked with blood. Milky-white eyes burned in his face between oozing boils. He had no nose, only two slits for nostrils. Drool, blood, and sharp teeth filled his maw. His skin was rotten and torn, but muscles shone and rippled beneath it. His claws were long as swords and