Song of Dragons The Complete Trilogy - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,211

spraying centipedes and blood onto Gloriae's face.

Her tinderbox lay three feet away in the snow. Gloriae scurried for it.

A second mimic kicked the tinderbox aside, then walked toward her, grinning. Her sword had split its torso in half, from shoulder to navel, but still it moved, each half of its body swaying. Gloriae drove forward, swung her blade, and halved the mimic's head like a grapefruit, ear to ear. Only its jaw remained, and it squealed. Its claws sliced her shoulder, but Gloriae ignored the pain. She leaped five feet, landed by her tinderbox, and grabbed it.

Mimics screeched behind, lurching toward her.

Gloriae opened the tinderbox, gritted her teeth, and began rubbing flint against steel. Light, damn you, light!

A mimic grabbed her helmet and pulled her to her feet. It snarled, and drool sprayed from its mouth, green and thick with small white worms.

Gloriae frantically slashed flint on steel.

The mimic leaned in to bite.

Her tinderbox crackled with fire.

Gloriae drove it forward, shattering it against the mimic's face. The tinder spilled onto the creature, and its hair caught fire. It blazed.

She leaped back, watching the mimic burn. Cockroaches screeched and fled from it. The mimic tried to run toward her, but stumbled and fell.

The other mimics lunged at her.

Gloriae kicked the burning mimic's arm. It came loose and burned in the snow. She grabbed the arm, as if it were a torch, and swung it. The mimics cried like slaughtered pigs. Gloriae swung the arm into one's head, and its hair—blond locks like her own—caught fire. Soon its whole head burned.

One mimic remained. Gloriae stared at it, and though her wounds ached, she managed a small, crooked smile.

"Let's play," she said.

She swung her sword in one hand, the burning arm in the other. She dealt steel and fire. Black blood and maggots flew. Body parts fell, burned, screamed, and twisted.

"Gloriae," the last mimic hissed, a mere head with spilling brains, its body burning five feet away. "Gloriae, your father wants your head, and your arms, and your guts, and your—"

Gloriae stabbed it through the face, burned it, and watched it die. The stench of rotting meat and burning grease filled the forest.

She tossed the burning arm aside, disgusted. She breathed deeply, sword still in hand, blood covering her.

Mimics. Stars.

Gloriae looked around for more, and when none arrived, she examined her wounds. A finger had punched a hole through her armor, cutting her under her shoulder blade. More cuts ran along her calf. The fall onto the treetops had covered her with scratches and bumps; tomorrow bruises would cover her.

"Damn you, Irae," she whispered, staring at the burning bodies. She had killed three mimics a moon ago in the dungeons under Flammis Palace. She had never imagined Dies Irae would create more. How many mimics crawled the world now? Were more heading here, into the northwest, toward Requiem?

She had to warn the others.

She had to fly.

When she stepped far enough from the dead mimics, she found her magic. Wings sprouted from her back, scales covered her, and soon she roared as a golden dragon. She flew, crashed through the treetops, and found the sky.

She looked around, and in the distance, she saw trees sway and creak. She narrowed her eyes. Figures moved between those trees, many of them. Soon they moved into a clearing, black and red under the sun, and then disappeared into more trees.

Mimics. A hundred or more—an army of perverted humanity created by the man she had called Father. And they were heading home, to Requiem.

Gloriae cursed and flew.

KYRIE ELEISON

Kyrie was on guard duty, and he was freezing.

Snow fell, flurried in the wind, and covered his world. Kyrie saw no end to the horrible stuff. A blue dragon, he perched atop an orphaned archway, the walls around it long fallen. Below the mountaintop where the archway stood, ruins spread into the horizons: toppled walls and smashed columns and burned trees, the snow covering them all. Winter had come to the ruins of Requiem.

Kyrie shivered and wrapped his wings around him, but found no warmth.

"Stars, I hate guard duty," he muttered and spat. Snow covered him, and he shook it off, but more soon coated him.

He looked north to a valley between a cliff and mountain. Boulders rose from it like teeth, and a frozen river snaked through it. Benedictus was buried there—Kyrie's king, mentor, and brother-in-arms.

"I miss you, old friend," Kyrie whispered. "I wish you could have lived to see this, to see us back in Requiem." A lump filled