A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,6

armor, his beard fiery red and his eyes wild, thrust his sword into Zar's leg. He fell. His comrades pulled him back. So much blood poured from him; Zar had not imagined the human body could store so much. He knew that he would die here. He tried to crawl back but saw only darkness, only stone walls, only wild eyes and shadows and his blood pooling beneath him.

When his eyes opened, he found himself back on the ground floor of Tarath Gehena. He lay upon the obsidian table, bleeding across the engraving of the great staring eye.

Zar screamed and blood filled his mouth.

The obese, pale creature sat before him, fork and knife clutched in its hands, bloodied. More blood smeared the creature's slit of a mouth and rolled down the folds of its skin. When Zar looked down at his own body, he wept and begged and closed his eyes.

Please, Sun God, please, no, make him stop eating me, make him stop, make him give me my legs back.

Claws dug into his shoulders. He slid across the tabletop and thumped against the floor. When he opened his eyes, he saw a hooded creature clutching him, dragging him across the floor and onto the staircase. Zar's body thudded against each step, dripping, spilling, eaten away, so much of it gone, so much blood. Zar screamed and wept and begged, but still they climbed and climbed until they emerged onto the tower top.

The sky roiled red above, whirlpools of ash and blood and shadow. The hooded creature raised Zar above his head, half a man, still weeping. The creature screeched to the sky, a sound rising and shattering in Zar's ears until it cracked something inside him, and Zar could hear no more, nothing but ringing.

The world spun around him.

Wind whipped him.

He tumbled from the tower and crashed down, shattering, at Queen Solina's feet.

She looked down upon him, and her lips tightened sourly, and she turned to speak to her men. She is beautiful, Zar thought. She is my beautiful queen, a deity of gold and purity. He wept to see such light and beauty at the end.

He closed his eyes, thought of his wife and son, and walked toward the fiery halls of his lord.

ELETHOR

He lay in his bed—a mere pile of furs—and held Lyana close but could not forget the pain. She lay naked and sleeping against him, her head of fiery red curls upon his chest, and as he held her he thought: She is beautiful, and she is all I ever wanted, and I should be happy now but this hurts too much. This is all the sadness in the world.

He looked up at the cave's ceiling, rugged stone carved by dragonclaw into the mountainside. He looked at the walls where candles burned in alcoves. He looked back at Lyana and marveled at the milky pallor of her freckled cheek, the flame of her hair, and the warmth of her breath against him. He held her under the furs, his one hand on her thigh, the other on the small of her back. He never wanted to let her go. She was an anchor to him, and all around roiled a sea of blood and tears.

One thousand and fifty-seven.

Such a small number—a mere few trees from what once was a forest. Such a multitude—so many souls to lead, to defend, to give hope to. One thousand and fifty-seven. They survived the fall of Nova Vita. They slept in these caves and in the forest around it. They wore furs, and they ate what they caught, and they needed him, they needed their King Elethor to bring them hope, to lead them home, to defeat their enemies and bring new life to Requiem.

They need me to be my father. To be like the great kings of old. He closed his eyes. They need me to be a man I am not.

Lyana stirred against him. She mumbled something of poison that burned, crowds that chanted, and whips that lashed. When Elethor opened his eyes, he saw her wincing and biting her lip. She kicked under the furs, and he held her tight like holding a flouncing fish, and he kissed her head and whispered to her until she calmed. Lyana too, for all her strength in battle and fierceness by day, was afraid, was haunted, and was dependent on her king.

Sometimes Elethor envied her for her nightmares. They meant that she could sleep. He himself lay awake most nights,