A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,87

her jaw, and pain dug through her. "I am afraid for myself. I miss my parents and I'm so scared."

Tears filled her eyes. She could not remember when she had last cried. She spent all day here in this forest, and when night fell she looked up at the stars, and sang to them softly, and clutched her sword's hilt so tightly that her fingers ached.

"I am Lyana," she whispered to those distant lights, the constellation Draco, stars of her fathers. "I am Queen of Requiem. I am your daughter. I will walk in your light, stars; this I swear. Light this long, dark night."

She slept among the trees in dragon form, curled up as snow coated her blue scales. Dawn rose pale around her, and icicles filled the forest, and Lyana took flight. Osanna rolled cold and glimmering around her, but when she looked south, Lyana could imagine the desert, and there the sand was hot and the sun burned her.

LEGION

Legion licked his chops and snapped his teeth and slashed his claws. He grinned and howled and tasted the blood of dragons.

"We are strong!" he said, his cry rising and tearing the air and cracking trees and boulders. He flapped his wings and rose upon fire. "We feed! We feed!"

Across the ruins, the Fallen Horde roared, swirled across the sky, and covered the ground, an endless swarm. His children screamed and laughed and flew around him, thousands of his spawn torn from the wombs of his wives. Already more nephilim rutted in the dirt, and rotted wombs swelled, and more beasts burst through flesh to feast upon their mothers.

"The world imprisoned us!" Legion cried. They answered his call with thousands of screams. "Now we kill. Now we eat. Now we drink blood. We are the nephilim! We were the Fallen. Now we rise! We rise!"

Countless screams shook the world, boulders rolled, trees fell, and the ruins crumbled below.

"We rise!" the nephilim howled. "We rise!"

Legion flew around them, blood roaring, halo flaming, tongue licking, wings beating. He rose. He rose! He fed. He ate! He killed. Solina freed him! He was a god. He was Prophet. He was Legion.

"The dragons cower!" he shouted. "The world trembles. We are strong! We are Nephil. We are Enemy. We are Nemesis. Our jaws will crush their spines!"

As he flew drooling, he caressed his belly. His own womb swelled, and he felt the vermin kicking and biting inside, drinking his blood and eating his innards.

Soon, precious spawn, he thought. Soon you will burst from me too, and you will eat my flesh, and you will grow to lead this swarm.

He landed upon the roof of the crumbling temple. Blasts of fire burst from within. The flames sprayed from every window and hole. One flame blasted not two feet from Legion, clawing at the sky, and heat baked him. The vermin bustled inside his womb, and Legion heard their muffled screams.

Yes, Legion thought, yes, the fire burns us, my vermin. But not for long. They are weak. They are afraid. We will eat them, and their blood will nourish us.

He spread his wings wide, curtains of black leather, and raised his claws. His halo blazed and screamed. He howled to the sky of nephilim, and they swirled above and around him, a storm of rot.

"Tear down these walls!" he shouted. "Drag the beasts out and rip them apart! Feast, nephilim. We rise! We rise!"

They howled around him and the ruins shook.

"We rise!"

ELETHOR

"Break down the walls!" the beasts screeched outside. "Break them down!"

They huddled in the darkness—a few hundred Vir Requis, perhaps the last of their kind. They were ashy, bloody, and famished. They crowded together, mothers embracing weeping children, youths clutching swords, elders whispering. Around them rose the walls of the ancient temple—mossy bricks, roots and branches pushing between them, as old and brittle as the scrolls of ancient scribes.

Outside the horde cried for blood. White eyes like smelters blazed at every window and hole. Claws tore at every brick. The ceiling was crumbling, and through it the Vir Requis saw no sky, only more fangs and blazing eyes and claws that thirsted for blood. Countless of the creatures swarmed there; they covered the sky, the forest, and the ruins, breeding and multiplying until it seemed the world itself would crash beneath them.

Elethor shifted into dragon form, moved toward a gaping hole in the wall, and replaced a weary silver dragon who blew fire there. The silver stepped back and shifted back into human form—a