A Dawn of Dragonfire - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,25
sealing the tunnels! Come on!"
Ten phoenixes soared toward him. Elethor cursed, snarled, and swooped. He shot through walls of fire. He crashed against a temple's column, cracking it. Bricks rained. The body of a child burned below.
"Lyana, where are you!"
"Elethor, here! In Benedictus Square!"
He could just make out the columns surrounding the cobbled square. Only yesterday, philosophers, priests, and scribes would wander this square between the birches, praying and singing and studying the stars. Today bodies and smoke filled it. Elethor dived toward it, the forge of phoenixes in pursuit. He barely discerned Lyana standing at an archway; beyond it, stairs led underground. Elethor hit the cobblestones and shifted into a human. He leaped into the stairwell with Lyana, then spun to face the archway.
Phoenixes landed outside, screeching. Their flames shot into the tunnel, forcing Elethor and Lyana to leap back several steps. The craggy staircase led into darkness below. Hundreds of people crowded the stairs, weeping and moaning and screaming.
"Quick, seal the doors!" cried a burly man in armor, his red beard singed.
Elethor recognized Lord Deramon, father to Lyana and Bayrin. He had never liked the man. A harsh soldier with a face like a craggy cliff, Deramon seemed to always scowl and mutter around him. Elethor's hatred had only grown seven years ago, after Deramon caught him kissing Solina in the forest. The lord had marched to the king, revealed the secret love, and doomed Solina to exile.
"There are still people out there, Deramon!" he shouted. "They're dying!"
The phoenixes scratched at the archway but were too large to enter.
"They're dead already!" Deramon shouted back. His face flushed as red as his beard.
Elethor wanted to run outside, to find and save whoever he could. Had Bayrin made it into the tunnels? What of his father and sister; where were they?
"You don't know that, Deramon!" he shouted and drew his sword.
He watched the tunnel entrance and grimaced. Before his eyes, the phoenixes shrank, twisted, and took human forms. Soon they stood as warriors in bright armor, golden suns upon their breastplates. The sun of Tiranor, Elethor knew. The Tirans drew sabres. The Vir Requis in the tunnel shrieked in fear.
Lord Deramon drew his own sword—a thick, heavy blade of northern steel. Lyana already held her blade before her; it was bloodied and darkened with ash. Flickers of fire still clinging to them, the Tirans ran onto the staircase and blades clashed.
Elethor parried a thrust, grunted, and riposted. He was no great warrior; his father and Orin were the fighters. Today everything his swordmasters had taught him vanished, and he swung his blade with blind fear and fury.
"You will die, weredragons," said a Tiran, a tall man with blazing blue eyes. A crystal hung around his neck, a flame trapped inside it. His sword swung, and Elethor parried, raising sparks. Deramon fought at his side, his thick sword slamming at the enemy's thin, curved sabres. The tunnel was only wide enough for two men to fight side by side.
A dagger flew over Elethor's head and slammed into a Tiran's neck. Blood spurted and the man pitched forward, hit the stairs, and crashed down between Elethor and Deramon. Standing behind them, Lyana slammed down her sword, finishing the job. Vir Requis guards were racing up from the shadows below, drawing their own swords.
"Get down into the tunnels, boy!" Deramon howled at Elethor, swinging his sword. "We'll hold them back."
Elethor cursed and grumbled. "You will not call me 'boy'. I am still your prince, Deramon."
The man growled. "You are a boy, and you will enter the tunnels. Make room for men to fight by my side."
As he parried blows from Tiran sabres, Elethor fumed. He was no warrior, but he was still these people's prince; how could he run and cower among the women and children?
"I'm staying here to fight and die, old man!" he shouted, parried a blow, and thrust his blade.
Deramon slew a man. The body crashed down the stairs into darkness. "I'm not risking your life, not until I know if your father is alive. We're not losing another prince. Down, into the tunnels! Take my daughter with you."
A blade flashed. Elethor parried. Blood spurted and the enemies crowded at the doorway; there seemed no end to them. Nova Vita's survivors wept and shouted behind in the darkness.
"You think I'll run and hide instead of fight?"
"You will do what I tell you!" Deramon shouted, still swinging his blade. "As you like to remind me, you're our prince… not our champion."