A Dawn of Dragonfire - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,106

nightmares of this place haunt him? At once he knew the answer: for the rest of his life. He would not forget the sight of Nedath, a dead girl atop the body of a centipede. In the dark he would always see Lyana wrapped in cobwebs, turning into a shriveled creature. Every night, he knew that he would dream of the bodies upon the hooks, undying beasts that fed upon their own flesh.

He looked at Lyana, who flew above him, and his heart seemed so small, so cold, wrapped in ice.

Nobody else will ever know, he thought. Only Lyana and I. We'll never be able to speak of what we saw… not to anyone above ground, maybe not even to each other. He could barely see; his eyes blurred with tears. But we still have each other. Lyana is saved… and I will always be with her, to hold her in the darkness when our nightmares swell.

The thought of Lyana made his chest feel a little warmer. She kept the terror at bay. Elethor nodded as he flew, eyes damp. We will live in peace again, together—we will save our people, we will stargaze on Lacrimosa Hill, and we will leave this darkness behind us. She and I.

All his life, Lyana had been a thorn in his side, the sanctimonious girl who'd endlessly scold and lecture him. But today as he flew, he saw above him a strong, wise woman… a woman he wanted to spend his life with. A woman, he knew, that he could learn to love.

The Starlit Demon burrowed for what seemed like hours, roaring in the dark, until it crashed through a slab of stone, and screams rose above.

Elethor gasped.

As he shot up, he saw burrows running alongside the tunnel the Starlit Demon carved. His people—thin, bloodied Vir Requis—cowered there like ants underground. They covered their eyes in the demon's starlight and cried.

An instant later, the Starlit Demon crashed through the topsoil and shot into the night sky, a geyser bursting into the world. An army of phoenixes burned above, screeching and flapping wings of fire. The world spun. The sound deafened Elethor. Boulders cascaded and the tunnels began to crumble. Several Vir Requis fell into the darkness, tumbling past Elethor. They shifted into dragons below him, howled, and flew behind him.

"Elethor!" Lyana cried above. She soared out of the tunnel and into the night, crashing into the army of phoenixes.

Elethor howled and shot into the night. The phoenixes swooped. Dragons flew up below him. Vir Requis still in human forms ran deeper into tunnels. Sound and light crashed.

SOLINA

She was flying with her troops, a phoenix in the night, when the demon burst from underground.

It looked like a great scarab made of stone, larger than a whale. Its claws tore through the earth, and its eyes blazed, two stars shooting beams of light. The earth crumbled around it, a sinkhole falling into darkness. Vir Requis screamed and fell from their burrows, now revealed to the night.

It looks, Solina thought in a moment of incredulity, like a gopher bursting from an anthill.

She spread out her wings of fire and shrieked. Considering its girth, she had expected this stone demon to crawl upon the earth, but it came soaring into the sky. Wingless, it flew toward her and her phoenixes. Its eyes nearly blinded her, and its roars thudded against her, fanning her flames.

"Kill the beast!" she shrieked, her voice emerging from her beak like typhoons of sound. "Sunspear Phalanx! Dragonbone! Bring it down!"

The two phalanxes swooped in formation, each a terror of fifty phoenixes. One fell upon the stone demon from the right, the other from its left. Their beaks and talons thrashed its hide.

They crashed against the beast like flaming paper against a cliff.

Solina watched, shrieking, the flames crackling with fury across her. The phoenixes attacked the stone demon again, wave after wave of them, only to crash against it. The demon's eyes blazed with starlight. Its claws lashed and its teeth bit, tearing phoenixes apart. Their flames filled its maw, ran down its throat, and blazed through the fissures along its belly. The demon seemed like a great, flying furnace.

And my men are stoking its fire, Solina realized. She howled, a sound that could shatter walls. Elethor had found a demon in the depths, a creature to eat the flames of her wrath. As she flew above, she saw the beast swallow three phoenixes. Other firebirds slashed at its body, only to die at its