Song of Dragons The Complete Trilogy - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,219

turned to Terra, and saw him swinging his sword, battling two more creatures. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw tight; he was the bellator again, a knight of Requiem. He had shattered one creature's face, but it was still trying to bite. Memoria ran and slammed her sword into its head. Blood and maggoty brains spilled, but the creature only laughed.

Pain blazed on her calf. Memoria looked down, and saw the head she had severed. It was biting her. She screamed, kicked it off, and hacked at it. The head cackled. She stabbed again and again, breaking the head into a jaw, teeth, bits of skull, but still the head moved and gurgled and laughed. Memoria kicked the pieces into the hole in the ice, and they sank. The rest of the body kept creeping toward her. Memoria screamed, stabbed it, and kicked it into the hole. It floundered, and its fingers grabbed the rim of ice. She sliced them off and kicked them underwater.

Terra was swinging his sword, keeping the other two creatures at bay. His mouth was a grim line under his moustache. Frost covered his blade; it glinted like a shard of ice.

"Kyrie Eleison," the creatures hissed at him. "We come to kill you, Kyrie Eleison. Our lord, Dies Irae, commands that you die."

Memoria growled. How did these creatures know her dead brother's name? How dared they utter it? Memoria shouted, her heart racing, her head spinning. She leaped to her brother's defense. Their blades swung together. A severed arm leaped from the ice, clutched her shoulder, and scratched deep. Memoria ripped it off and tossed it underwater.

Terra was wounded too, she saw. Grooves ran down his armor, revealing bloody flesh. What kind of creatures can claw through steel? Still he fought, eyes narrowed, until the creatures were cut and crushed like butchered seals. The fingers, feet, heads, and other pieces kept writhing and trying to attack. Memoria and Terra kicked and stabbed, tossing them into the hole in the ice, where they sank.

Memoria kicked the last finger underwater, then leaned over, struggling for breath. Blood covered the ice. The stench of rot made her gag.

Kyrie.

She looked at Terra. Blood dripped from his wound. He stared back, silent.

Kyrie Eleison.

Tears stung Memoria's eyes.

"They... they spoke of Kyrie," she whispered and trembled. The memories flooded back, so powerful that her head spun, and for a moment she was back in Requiem, back in the war that had flooded her home.

"Kyrie!" she had cried, weeping, a youth who had seen too much fire and death. "Kyrie, where are you?"

The bodies had spread below her, thousands of them, covering Lanburg Fields. Where was her brother? Where was Kyrie?

"Kyrie!" Terra had cried too, searching the bodies with her, until they found the remains of a burned child, and wept over it, and buried it, and fled... fled here to exile, to endless ice, to endless memories.

Kyrie Eleison, the rotting demon had said.

Kyrie. My baby brother. The light of our family.

"What were those things?" she whispered, eyes stinging. She stared at the hole the creatures had emerged from. Her wounds ached and bled, but she ignored them. "Why did they speak of Kyrie?"

Terra's breath frosted before him. He stared darkly at the blood upon the ice. "They must be Dies Irae's new pets, something even worse than griffins. These creatures were built to kill Vir Requis. That's why we couldn't shift around them."

Memoria hugged herself. A chill washed over her, as if she'd swallowed too much snow. "So the war still rages. He's still hunting dragons."

Terra lowered his head and clenched his fists. Icicles were forming on his moustache. His voice was strained. "It's still going on. We've been hiding for eleven years, and the war still rages. And now it's here. He found us, Memoria. Dies Irae found us."

She shook her head, her heart racing, and she could barely see. Could it be? After these years... is it possible?

"The creatures were seeking Vir Requis, yes," she whispered. "But not you or me. They called me Agnus Dei. Does that name sound familiar?"

He stared at her. "Of course. Agnus Dei was our princess. I met her several times—a young girl with a mane of black curls. She gave me a favor, a single bluebell, before the battle of Draco Murus."

Memoria nodded. "You see, Terra? These creatures were seeking Requiem's survivors. We're not the only ones." Tears filled her eyes. Something halfway between sob and laughter fled her lips. "Others lived and fled into