Song of Dragons The Complete Trilogy - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,210

she hung between two branches, and then they too snapped. She fell ten feet, and her helmet hit another branch. White light flooded her. The pain was so intense, she couldn't even scream.

With a crack, more branches splintered, and Gloriae hit the forest floor.

She lay in the snow, moaning. Everything hurt. She dared not move, fearing the pain of broken bones.

Thank the stars for my armor, she thought. Without my helmet and breastplate, I'd be jackal food.

She moaned and took slow breaths. What happened? How could her magic fail? For thousands of years, the children of Requiem could become dragons at will, could breathe fire and soar over forest and mountain.

Gloriae pushed herself onto her elbows. Her head spun, and she blinked several times, trying to bring the world back into focus.

That was when she heard the growl.

Wolves, she thought. She leaped to her feet, which made her head spin more wildly. She drew Per Ignem, her sword of northern steel, and looked around. If she could not breathe fire, she could still swing her blade.

She heard the growl again. It came from somewhere between the trees ahead. It was no wolf, Gloriae realized. This growl was too deep, too... twisted, wrong, cruel. She had never heard anything like it, and despite herself, she shuddered. A stench filled the forest, like rotting bodies and sewage, so heavy Gloriae nearly gagged.

She wanted to call out, to ask "Who's there?", but forced herself to remain silent. Whatever creature growled ahead, it might not have seen her yet.

Slim chance, she thought. Anyone around would have seen her fall from the sky, but Gloriae was a warrior, and stealth was beaten into her like the folds in her blade. She narrowed her eyes. Her body still ached and the world still spun, but Gloriae could still kill if she had to.

The growl rose again, and a second growl sounded at her right, this one closer. Gloriae spun around, sword raised, and finally saw the creatures.

One stepped out to her right, one from ahead, and one from her left. She knew them at once.

Mimics.

"Damn it," Gloriae whispered.

For a moment, terror froze her.

They walked toward her, rotting, rustling with maggots. Dies Irae had sewn them together from body parts, mixing and matching. One had the torso of a woman, bare breasted and gutted, flies breeding in the cavity of its stomach. One of its legs was the bent, hairy leg of a man, while its arms were tiny, the arms of babies. Another mimic had the torso of a man, but the legs of a goat, and arms that ended with blades instead of hands. The third had two torsos of children sewn one atop the other, and its four hands held knives. Each was different, but each had long blond hair. Each stared with baleful blue eyes.

Each looked like her.

"Hello, mother," they whispered as one. "Hello, first Gloriae. Your father sends his regards."

Their voices—twisting, screeching imitations of her own—snapped Gloriae out of her paralysis. She screamed and charged.

Per Ignem swung, slicing through one mimic's neck. Its head, stitched on, fell and rolled. Black blood splashed the snow. Its body, headless, lashed at Gloriae with claws.

Gloriae stepped back and stabbed a mimic to her left. She ducked, dodging another mimic's blades. The headless creature reached out its claws. Gloriae leaped forward, drove her helmet into its chest, and swung her blade, slicing another.

Claws grabbed her shoulder, bending her steel armor as if it were mere leather. Gloriae screamed, spun, and kicked. She hit the mimic's leg, snapping it. She brought down her sword. Black blood flew. The other mimics attacked.

As she jumped, dodged, and swung her blade, Gloriae remembered. The one time she had seen mimics before, she had tried to shift into a dragon, but could not. Their magic undoes my own.

The severed mimic's head bit her boot, and Gloriae screamed and kicked it. A severed arm grabbed her leg, cutting her with fingernails like blades. She stabbed it, freed herself, and turned to run.

She could not kill these beasts with steel, she knew. She remembered. Fire kills them.

As she ran, she heard them following, grunting like rutting beasts. Gloriae reached into her leather pack and grabbed her tinderbox.

Fingers grabbed her legs, and she fell. Her face hit the snow. The tinderbox flew from her hand.

Gloriae flipped onto her back, shouted, and kicked. Her boots knocked back a mimic's head. Its mouth opened to scream, spilling maggots. She kicked again and its head caved in,