licked his fingertips. Teeth snarled.
"Take your army," Dies Irae told him. "Take these thousand warriors. Lead them to Requiem... and to triumph."
Teeth tossed back its head and howled, saliva spraying from its mouth. It raised twin blades in its hands. They caught the light and seemed to shine with the Sun God's fury.
Dies Irae stood on this crumbling wall of Flammis Palace, crossed his arms, and watched his army leave the bloody courtyard. The mimics snaked through the ruins of his city. Yes, Confutatis lies in ruins now, he thought. The weredragons destroyed it. I will make them suffer for it.
When the army disappeared into the distance, Dies Irae descended the wall and entered the ruins of his palace. He walked down halls smeared with blood, rotting guts, and the old ash of dragonfire.
He stepped down a stairwell, plunging into darkness. The air grew colder. Frost covered the walls and stairs. The smells of fear and blood filled his nostrils. The stairwell kept twisting, burrowing into the darkness that lurked under his palace. Finally he stepped into the dungeons. The old kings of Osanna had kept barrels of wine here. Dies Irae kept sweeter treats.
Torches crackled, lighting a craggy hallway lined with cells. Dies Irae stepped toward a cell with iron bars. He heard the prisoners whimper, and he smiled.
"Yes, darlings, you should whimper," he said. "I like it when you whimper."
The keys hung from a peg on the wall. Dies Irae opened the cell's door and stepped inside.
Five women stood chained to the walls. The torchlight danced on their nude bodies. Dies Irae felt his blood grow hot and his loins stir. The women were ripe, with rounded hips, teary eyes, and trembling lips.
"My mimics are creatures of rot and worm," he said to them. A smile spread across his lips. "When I sent them on the hunt for ripe women, I didn't know what they'd bring. Crones? Corpses? But it seems mimics have the lusts of men. You are like summer fruit, full of sweetness and juices."
He stepped toward one woman, a peasant girl by the look of her. Her hair was red, and tears filled her grey eyes. Dies Irae caressed her cheek.
"Please, my lord," she begged.
Dies Irae touched her hair. "Please?" he asked. "What do you wish to beg of me?"
She trembled. "Please, my lord. Is my father.... The creatures dragged him away, and.... Please release me, my lord, I beg you."
He kissed her forehead. His hands travelled down her body, caressing her. Her flesh was icy but soft. Goose bumps rose under his fingertips.
"You should be proud, sweetness. You will do what so many have dreamed of. You will hurt weredragons. When my mimics bring me their heads, I will sew one onto your body."
"My lord, please...." Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"I think for you, the boy Kyrie will do. His head will look nice on your soft, ripe body. When my mimics take you, and hurt you, and plant their rotting seeds inside you, Kyrie will know more pain and terror than any being before him. Does it not please you, precious, that your body will hurt a weredragon so?"
Sobs racked that body and she could not speak. Finally she blurted out, "Silva will kill you! The Earthen will save us!"
Dies Irae nodded with a smile. "Ah yes, the Earthen, the group of ragtag Earth God followers who've been killing all those mimics." He grabbed the girl's cheeks and squeezed them. "They are pesky flies, and my creations whisper that this Silva, this leader of theirs, has some skill with the blade. He will make a good mimic some day."
The girl opened her mouth to speak more. Dies Irae backhanded her, so hard that blood splattered, and he felt her jaw crack. Her eyes rolled back and she hung limp on her chains.
He left the girl and turned to another prisoner, an angel of soft blond hair and red lips.
"I think... the weredragon Lacrimosa should work for you. She has always been so thin, and you are luscious. Yes. Her head will be for you."
This girl too wept, and begged, and Dies Irae smiled. What a glorious end it would be for the weredragons! He licked his lips.
A voice spoke behind him, soft and cold.
"And I want the head of the golden weredragon."
Dies Irae turned, eyebrows rising. One of the women had spoken. She stood chained like the others, but did not weep. She did not tremble. Her dark eyes stared at him, simmering