A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,56
clenched jaw. The scream pounded through his chest; it felt like it could snap his ribs.
"Shapeshifters, shapeshifters!" cried the creature. More shadows shot overhead. "Humans walk, humans smell like dragons. Feast upon them! I am Legion. I am Prophet. I bring you blood and bones!"
Three nephilim swooped, crashed between branches, and landed on the forest floor before them.
Elethor snarled, shifted into a dragon, and blew a stream of fire. Around him, men of the Camp Guard shifted too and blew their flames. The nephilim screeched and burned, and a fourth one swooped from above. Its claws reached out, grabbed a child, and ripped her apart. Blood spattered. People wailed.
"Shift and fly!" Elethor shouted. "Fly, Vir Requis! Into the sky."
They screamed. They wept. They shifted into dragons—elders, mothers, youths. A few Vir Requis were mere babes or toddlers, too young to shift; their mothers carried them in their claws.
Elethor crashed between the branches into the sky. Thousands of nephilim swarmed and howled. At his left, one swooped and grabbed a young red dragon. The nephil ripped off her head and swallowed it; the dragon's body returned to human form and crashed down. At Elethor's left, a nephil crashed into a silver dragon, slashed its claws, and gutted the dragon as easily as a fisherman gutting his catch.
"Fly, Vir Requis!" Elethor shouted. "Fly north. Fly to the temple!"
He could see Bar Luan perhaps a league away, rising from the forest. A few staircases, a crumbling archway, and craggy walls remained from what was once a sprawling complex; these remnants would have to serve them now. Dragons began flying toward it, blowing fire over their shoulders at pursuing nephilim. Elethor rose, blew a flaming jet at a beast, and ducked to dodge its tumbling body. Thousands of the creatures covered the southern sky, swarming forward.
"Fly, Vir Requis!" he howled. "Hide in the temple." He roasted another nephil, a scaly beast clad in rusted armor, and rose higher. "Camp Guard, rally here! Hold them back. Battle formations, here!"
A clanking white dragon rose ahead, horns long and eyes red—Garvon, chief of the Camp Guard. A gash ran down his side, seeping blood, but still he fought, blowing fire at nephilim above. A dozen other dragons, wearing the great dragonhelms of the Camp Guard, rose around them and blew their fire.
"Hold them back!" Elethor shouted. "Let the others flee. Flame the beasts!"
Behind him, the women, elders, and children were fleeing north. Before him and his fellow soldiers—less than a hundred dragons—the nephil host spread. Thousands of beasts, maybe tens of thousands, covered the horizon. They screeched to the heavens, and the trees below cracked and fell, and boulders rolled. The earth itself seemed to shake.
Hovering in midair before the swarm, Elethor bared his fangs and growled. Around him, his fellow dragons beat their wings and smoke rose from their nostrils. Elethor's heart pounded, and fear and rage throbbed through him, tingling from his tail to his horns.
"Soldiers of Requiem!" he said to the dragons around him, a mere handful of warriors before the swarm. "You will hold your ground. You will hold the beasts back. You will buy our people time to flee to safety."
Behind him, Elethor heard the survivors of Requiem fly farther; they would soon reach the temple. Before him, the countless nephilim screeched and soared and circled in the air. They flew in no battle formations like wyverns or phoenixes; this was a mob of devilry.
"Legion!" they howled. "Legion! Prophet of the Fallen!"
The great nephil, their champion, rose from flame. His halo of fire screamed. His body was lanky; his ribs pushed against skin like dried parchment. He howled to the sky, teeth long and thin and white, and his wings sprayed fire as he rose. His cry was so shrill it raised boils across the nephilim around him.
"I am Legion, I am Prophet!" he screeched. "I have led you to freedom. I lead you to dragons. Feast upon them!"
The thousands of beasts howled, beat their wings, and shot forward.
The dragons roared their flames.
LYANA
She crouched between the roots of fallen trees, stared downhill, and cursed.
The Tiran camp sprawled a mile away, covering the scorched earth. Sooty palisades, carved from uprooted trees, encircled a mass of tents and huts and campfires. Thousands of men swarmed there. Many were soldiers, clad in breastplates of pale steel, suns upon their shields. Others were masons; they bustled across scaffolding, raising walls of stone.
They are building a fortress here, Lyana thought. A great barracks in the heart of