A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,98

rising, grabbing bodies and pulling them to sea, then tossing them back ashore covered with seaweed and salt. Crabs and flies bustled across severed limbs and heads and burnt corpses.

Wounded Tirans, their armor and bodies broken, writhed in the sand among the dead. Half were wyvern riders, their mounts dead beneath them, slashed with griffin talons or burnt with dragonfire. The rest had flown in phoenix forms; bolts of salvana lightning had crushed their magic and charred their bodies. Most were dying, barely able to whimper, common soldiers with no ranks upon their shattered armor.

They will know nothing, Elethor thought.

"El," Lyana said softly. "Should we heal them? We can't just… just leave the wounded here to die. We—"

"First we will find what we seek," he said. "Then we will heal whoever we can."

They kept moving through the bloody sand, at times climbing over the corpses of beasts. Finally Elethor found what he sought and stopped walking.

The Tiran officer lay on the beach, clutching her slashed stomach. Blood seeped between her fingers. Her breastplate was shattered—it showed the form of dragon claws—but upon her pauldrons Elethor could still see golden suns. This one was of high enough rank to serve him. He knelt by the woman.

"You are a captain," he said to her.

Blood covered her lips. The sides of her head were shaven, revealing sun tattoos, and several rings pierced her lips and brows. The hair that grew from her scalp spread out around her, platinum stained red, and more blood splashed her golden skin.

"I…" She licked her lips and coughed. "I will not talk."

Elethor tightened his lips. Rage flared in him. She would not talk? He would make her talk. He would stab at her wound. He would stab her eyes. He would hurt her until her bones cracked, and she screamed, and—

No. He clenched his jaw and looked away. No, I will not torture a prisoner. I am not Solina. I will not let that rage overcome me.

He looked back at the wounded officer. She lay clutching her belly, and her blood kept trickling; so much of it already soaked the sand.

"We can heal you," he said. "You need not die here, bleeding in the sand among the corpses of your comrades. We can give you silverweed to ease the pain, bandages, and water to drink. But you must tell me what I need to know."

She gave a weak cackle, spitting blood. "My queen was right." She laughed hoarsely, a hideous sound, and blood stained the rings piercing her lips. "She told us this King Elethor was a weakling, a soft boy. I never imagined how soft you were." She managed a snarl. "But we are strong, boy king. We will never fall. The Tiran empire rises, and Queen Solina leads her to glory. You will die, weredragon, you and all your kind."

He leaned down; their faces were but inches apart. He stared into her mocking blue eyes.

"We will die, Tiran? We crushed you at this beach. We claimed your shores. We drove you out of our lands, and now we drive into yours. Who is weak, Tiran? I, a king who conquered, or you, a wounded soldier in the sand?"

She laughed, and more blood trickled down her chin, and her armor clanked as her chest shook.

"Drive into our lands? Weredragon, you have seen nothing of our strength. You fought but a drop from our ocean, and this drop ravaged half your forces. Do you think you can move beyond these shores?" She coughed a laugh. "The might of Tiranor still awaits you, weredragon. I wish only that you live to see it all, but you will be crushed too soon. Even as you linger here, my queen breeds new hosts. Even as I lie dying, she gives life to a million more nephilim."

He bared his teeth and glared. "My father burned Irys to the ground and killed its monarchs; I will do the same."

The Tiran spat blood at him. "You are not fighting Irys now, boy. You fight the Palace of Whispers, a god of stone, a city in the mountains. You will crash against its walls. From within its chambers, Solina will send forth her wrath, and you will die, weredragon. You will die screaming and begging to worship her."

He rose to his feet and wiped her blood off his cheek. He turned to Lyana and his men.

"I've heard enough," he said. "Fetch healers; treat her as well as you can. If she dies, bury her with