Song of Dragons The Complete Trilogy - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,144

dirt roads, and finally through open country. At first trees rustled around them, but as they walked, the trees dwindled and vanished. Burned logs and ash littered the ground. Soon they saw toppled columns, strewn bricks, broken statues, and scattered bones.

They had arrived in Requiem.

They walked silently through the ruins, daggers drawn. Vultures flew under the overcast sky, and bugs scurried around their boots. Nothing else lived here. A cold wind ruffled their cloaks. As they kept walking, more bones littered the earth, thousands of Requiem's skeletons. Once this place rustled with birch trees, and marble halls rose here, filled with laughter and harp songs, Agnus Dei thought. Once we sang here in temples and played in forests. And once we died here; all of us but five.

She wanted to talk to Father. She wanted to ask about the old life here. Her memories were vague; she had been only three when Dies Irae destroyed this place. But she dared not speak. This place was holy, the graveyard of their kind. Any words would defile it, she thought. She looked around at the skeletons and wondered if any were her cousins, uncles and aunts, childhood friends. The skeleton of a mother huddled the skeleton of her baby. The spines were broken.

Tears filled Agnus Dei's eyes. She hugged herself, and Father placed an arm around her. Finally she dared speak.

"I want to be angry," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "I want to hate Dies Irae. And I do, but... I don't feel hatred or anger now. I feel sadness."

Benedictus held her as they walked, but said nothing. She continued speaking.

"I'm sad to see the bones, and the broken columns, and the ash. All the ruin. But mostly, I'm sad to see the living Vir Requis. I can see them in my mind. The columns still stand, and the trees still rustle. I can hear the songs and harps, the prayers to the Draco stars. It is those visions that make me sad, the lost life more than this death. Does that make sense, Father?"

He nodded and kissed her head.

She looked up to the western horizon. The sun was low, a blob of red like blood. "Night is almost here," she whispered.

They found three columns that had fallen over one another, forming a huddle between them. They sat there in the shadows, hugged their knees, and waited for darkness.

When the sun vanished, the nightshades emerged.

Agnus Dei shivered and hugged her father. He held her and whispered, "Do not move, do not speak. We will be safe. Same as last night. I'll watch first."

She nodded silently, shivering. She could not sleep. The nightshades screamed above, and several times, she saw them dip to swirl among the ruins, then fly into the sky again. Agnus Dei hated those creatures. Hated them with such fire, she wanted to fly at them and torch them all.

"Do you think we'll find answers in the tunnels?" she whispered to Father. "Instructions for how to reseal them?"

He stared grimly out of their huddle, where nightshades swarmed and screeched. "I don't know."

Finally Agnus Dei found fitful sleep, her head against Father's shoulder. Whenever a nightshade shrieked, she started and woke, then slept again. Benedictus watched all night; he let her sleep as best she could.

Finally dawn rose—cold, gray, scented of fire and death.

They continued to walk, cloaks wrapped tight around them. The wind blew, scattering ash. Agnus Dei wondered if the dead Vir Requis had become this ash that stained her clothes, covered her face, and filled her hair. They passed communal graves, some which hadn't been covered. Hundreds of skeletons filled them. Bugs scuttled between the bones. Once they stepped over marble tiles, smashed and crooked, half-buried in dirt. This had once been the floor of a temple or palace. One wall still stood, three skeletons propped against it, staring with empty sockets.

"Why were they not buried?" Agnus Dei whispered, fiery tears in her eyes. "They were just... left here."

Benedictus nodded. "We fled. Griffins and men chased us. We fled into the fields, but died there too. We buried most, whoever we could. We burned others. For every skeleton you see above the earth, we buried a hundred, maybe a thousand."

Agnus Dei covered her mouth. She felt sick. "But there are thousands of skeletons here. That means... Dies Irae must have killed...." She tried to do the math, and felt the blood leave her face.

Benedictus nodded, his own face pale. "A million Vir Requis once lived here, maybe