A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,90

at your forest camp, and they were fleeing the nephilim, and they summoned us here. Ghosts are real!"

Right then, Elethor did not care about the dead, only the living. He blinked tears from his eyes. He pulled his sister into his embrace and almost crushed her, and he rocked her in his arms, and he whispered her name again and again.

A cackle rose beneath the wall.

His sister still in his arms, Elethor turned and looked down. Upon a pile of nephil corpses lay a bloodied, laughing man. His left arm and both his legs were severed. Blood oozed from his stumps, caked his long white hair, and covered his face, and yet still he laughed hoarsely and coughed.

Elethor growled.

"Nemes," he said through clenched teeth.

The traitor looked up at him, spat blood, and laughed some more.

"You have failed, Elethor," he said, blood in his mouth. "My Lord Legion has left this place; you could not kill him. He returns now to his palace in his southern empire, and he will return, mightier than ever before." Nemes had only one hand left, but he clenched that fist as if clutching onto life itself. "You will bow before him!"

Gently, Elethor removed his arms from his sister, climbed off the wall, and stood before the hacking man. He drew his sword and held it above Nemes.

"You did this, Nemes," he said, chest tight. "You caused this death. You were a son of Requiem! You lived under my roof."

The wretched, dying man spat blood and hissed. His eyes blazed. "I served under your roof—like a worm crawling through the dirt. My father served you, as did his father; our backs nearly broke from bending to you and yours." He spat more blood, spraying Elethor's boots. "But now I bow before Legion, a great lord of darkness. Soon you will bow too, and your back will break, but that will not save you, boy king. You will beg and plead for mercy, but my Lord Legion will lock his jaws around your spine. He will snap you in two before devouring you." Nemes snorted and swept his one arm across the battlefield. "Who do you bring for aid? Griffins? Dragons of the west? Pathetic creatures. Do you think they can hold back the darkness that rises in the south? You have tasted but a bite from Lord Legion's feast. His greatest power still lurks in the desert, and he is coming for you, boy king. You cannot hide from him, only die. Only die."

Elethor growled and placed his sword against Nemes's neck.

"Soon you will be silent," he said. "You have betrayed your people, Nemes; for this you will die."

Silence fell over the battlefield. Elethor was vaguely aware of more Vir Requis coming to stand behind him: Bayrin, Lyana, Treale, and others. They stood silently, watching.

Nemes hacked more blood and laughed again. "I'm already dead, boy king," he said. "So are you. You don't know it yet. But you will. When the jaws of my lord close around you, you will." He coughed blood. "Go on, boy. Go on. Kill me. You were always a coward. You cannot even do this. But I am strong, Elethor, more than you can imagine. I—"

Elethor drove his sword down, piercing the traitor's neck.

He pulled his blade back, stumbled away, and Mori crashed back into his embrace. Bayrin wrapped his arms around them, and Lyana followed, then the others. They stood together, wounded and burnt and bloody survivors upon a mountain of corpses.

Holding his sister, wife, and friends, Elethor looked south. The ruins and bodies stretched for miles, but beyond them hung a cloud and dark mist.

Solina waits there, he thought. That is where we fly. Into darkness. Into the very lair of madness.

He held his friends and family close and shut his eyes, and the pain grabbed him like demon claws.

BAYRIN

He walked through the ruins of Bar Luan, calling her name. Ash covered his face and he shouted himself hoarse, but could not find her. He shifted, flew as a dragon over the carnage, then landed and turned human again. He walked among the dead—so many men and beasts rotting and bloody.

"Piri!" he shouted. "Stars damn it, Piri! Where are you?"

A few others had joined him. Treale walked among bodies across the ruins, armor sooty, also calling the healer's name. Many others searched for survivors: mothers cried the names of their children, wives called for husbands, and even griffins cawed and searched for their fallen comrades. Bayrin moved among the