Song of Dragons The Complete Trilogy - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,183

"Did you say something, Father?"

"Yeah," he said, voice gruff. "I said let's go. We walk from here. We go to Osanna, and we seek the tombs of her kings."

They walked through the puddles, mud, and ruins, tattered and bruised, heading into the east.

BENEDICTUS

They travelled off road. The forests of Osanna lay wilted. The trees were white and shrivelled up, like the limbs of snowbeasts. Most had fallen over, spreading white ash across the land.

"There, in the distance," Benedictus said. "Two of them."

The others muttered and lay down, pulled cloaks over them, and lay still. Leafy branches, mud, and thorns covered their cloaks, sewn and fastened with string and pins. Soon the Vir Requis appeared as nothing but mounds of leaf and earth.

The nightshades screeched above. Benedictus lay under his cloak, still, barely daring to breathe. Finally the shrieks disappeared into the distance, and he stood up. The others also stood, looked at one another uneasily, and resumed walking.

"There are more every day," Kyrie said.

Benedictus nodded. "And they're larger, too. Irae is changing them. I don't know how, but he is. He's making them stronger, faster, tougher. Next time they attack, firelight won't daunt them."

Kyrie shuddered. "How is he doing that?"

"I don't know. But I'm hoping he doesn't know about the Beams. They're our last hope."

They continued to walk, not speaking, their boots rustling the dirt and snapping branches. It was their twentieth day of walking since leaving Requiem's ruins.

Twenty days of hiding under cloaks, of seeing the ruin of the world, Benedictus thought. They had seen barely any life. Few animals remained. People were even fewer. Sometimes they saw armored soldiers travelling the roads, even several knights on horseback. Mostly they saw nothing but toppled forts, bodies, and devastation.

Benedictus looked at Lacrimosa. She walked by his side, leaves in her pale hair. Her lavender eyes seemed so large, bottomless pools of sadness. He took her hand.

"I'm sorry," he said to her.

She looked at him. "For what?"

The young ones walked behind, speaking in hushed voices; they could not hear.

"I'm sorry that you must walk like this, Lacrimosa. Wearing leaves and dirt. Eating old rations and whatever skinny beasts we can hunt. You should be wearing silk, and dining on fine foods, and living in a palace."

She laughed softly. "Is that who you think I am? A pampered queen? Ben. I'm your wife. I'm your love, and you are mine. I would walk by you even through the tunnels of the Abyss."

He lowered his head. "You are strong, and brave, and I love you. But I've failed." He looked behind him at his daughters. "I've failed them."

Lacrimosa narrowed her eyes. "You are keeping them alive. You are leading them."

Benedictus looked ahead, to the leagues of rolling ruin, the wilted trees, the toppled walls, the animals that lay rotting on the earth. "I could have killed Dies Irae at Lanburg Fields. I pitied him. I let him live. I could have killed him under the mountain, but I was not strong enough. I'm weak, Lacrimosa. I don't know what strength I still have."

She squeezed his hand. "I know, Ben. We'll do it together. We'll find the Beams. We'll make the world safe for the young ones. I'm with you, now and always."

Benedictus turned to look at the youths.

Agnus Dei walked with a crossbow on one hip, a sword on the other. Her brown eyes were narrowed, forever scanning the world for a fight. Benedictus knew that among the youths, she was the most like him. She had his dark eyes, the black curls of his hair, the fire in her belly. Dies Irae thought she was his, that he had fathered the twins when raping Lacrimosa. When Benedictus looked into Agnus Dei's brown, strong eyes, he knew that was false. He knew she was of his blood.

Next Benedictus looked at Gloriae, and he sighed. Gloriae was twin to Agnus Dei, but she looked more like Lacrimosa. She was light like her mother, of fair hair, of pale skin. But there was none of Lacrimosa's frailty to her. This one was strong like her sister, but her strength was of ice rather than fire, a strength Dies Irae had forged into her. She's still a stranger to me, Benedictus thought. He wanted to earn her love, but she rarely spoke to him, and when she looked upon him, there was no feeling in her eyes, only that ice.

Benedictus then looked at Kyrie, and sighed again. Kyrie walked with muddy clothes, and his shock of