A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,49
The staircase rose ahead; it would lead them out of darkness. It was only ten paces away, but seemed the distance of seas and forests. She walked on shaky legs, Mori leaning against her.
The shrieks swirled behind her, louder now. "More blood! More flesh to suck!"
Shadows danced. The torches flickered madly. The staircase was only five paces away now. When Treale looked over her shoulder, she saw the nephilim emerge from the chambers, maws bloody. They tossed their heads back and howled, and the dungeons shook.
The prisoners had only whetted their appetite, she realized. And we're the main course.
She yowled, clenched her jaw, and kept trudging forward. Mori was frail, but she seemed so heavy now; Treale's limbs were too weak, too thin. The creatures began scuttling behind them, claws clanking against the stone floor. Treale yowled and tried to run, but her feet slipped in the blood, and she crashed to her knees. Mori whimpered and fell beside her.
"Blood! Flesh! Fresh sustenance, comrades, fresh bones to snap!"
The two nephilim came charging toward them. Treale screamed and leaped to her feet. Was this corridor too small? Would the walls crush her? Would she crush Mori?
The nephilim snapped their teeth.
"Stand back, Mori!" Treale shouted, summoned her magic, and shifted.
Her body ballooned, becoming the dragon. Flames crackled in her maw. Her scaly flank shoved against Mori, pinning the princess to the wall. Treale howled, a black dragon trapped in the corridor like a clot in a vein. The nephilim screamed before her, and Treale blew her fire.
The flames exploded through the dungeon, crashed against the nephilim, and roared into the cells lining the corridor. The half demons shrieked, stones shattered, cracks raced along the ceiling, and bricks tumbled. Treale kept blowing her flames, and the beasts kept screaming. A chunk of the ceiling crashed against Treale's back, and she howled. More stones slammed against the nephilim, and she heard one's spine snap. She kept roaring her fire, emptying every flame inside her, until the beasts lay burnt and broken and still.
Panting, head twisting with pain, Treale shifted back into human form. Smoke and flame filled the dungeon; she could barely breathe. She knelt above Mori, and tears filled her eyes. The princess lay on her back, eyes closed.
"Mori!" Treale called, lifted the princess in her arms, and shook her. "Mori, wake up. Stars, Mori!"
The princess lay still in Treale's arms. Stars, did I crush her? Did I kill her? She placed her ear against Mori's lips. A shaky sob fled Treale's own lips. Mori still breathed! Some life still filled her.
"I'm going to save you, Mori," she said.
She wrapped Mori in her cloak, then roared with pain as she lifted the princess. She was not much larger than Mori. And yet here in this dungeon, weakened and wounded, she slung Mori across her shoulders and began to climb the stairs.
Step by step, growling with effort, Treale carried her princess out of the dungeon. Screams rose above her: both the shrieks of nephilim and the cries of men. Treale kept climbing. The stairs seemed to twist forever, finally leading to corridors that twisted and chambers where blood flowed. Down one hall, she glimpsed a nephil scuttling and shrieking for blood; she heard more racing through the palace above her.
It seemed hours before Treale found the back door that led outdoors into sunlight.
The sun nearly blinded her, and for a moment Treale saw nothing but light; she had been underground for six days now. When she blinked, she saw the sky swarming with nephilim. Hundreds flew there, maybe thousands, lanky bodies twisting and coiling, black wings flapping. They shrieked and howled at the sun.
"Hail Queen Solina!" they cried. "Hail Legion! We are free! We will feast! We will devour dragons!"
Treale stared, frozen, and her eyes burned.
The world is overrun. Can we ever flee such evil?
She sniffed and tightened her grip on Mori; the princess still hung across her shoulder, wrapped in a cloak, unconscious and breathing softly.
"We're leaving this city," Treale said.
She began to trudge away from the palace, and soon she walked down an alley where people fled, pointed at the sky, and whimpered in corners. If anyone even looked Treale's way, they saw her carrying only a thin bundle wrapped in cloth, perhaps some kindling for a fire.
"We are leaving this cursed desert, Mori, and we are never coming back."
Her legs shook, her back blazed with pain, yet Treale kept walking—step by step, breath by breath. She would cross the desert afoot