Song of Dragons The Complete Trilogy - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,288

today... today there is no beauty to Stella Lumen. Today my blade deals death and blood.

She swung that blade, cutting into mimics, their pus and blood and rot spraying. She screamed as she fought—for her children, for all free people, and for all her fallen.

Silva fought at her side, his beard fluttering in the wind, his eyes blazing, his sword bloody. His men fought around them, eyes solemn, green cloaks covered in snow and gore.

"Fight, friends!" Silva called over the din of battle. "Fight for the Earth God. We will kill the tyrant."

The enemy kept coming at them. Lines of flayed mimics burst forward, their bared muscles glimmering with blood, their internal organs shiny and pulsing. They looked like men turned inside out, and they swung jagged blades. One slashed at her, its eyeballs bulging from its skinned face. Lacrimosa parried, shouted, and swung her blade into it. Blood sprayed her.

"Terra!" she shouted to the sky. "Memoria! Burn their lines. Scatter them!"

Yet when she glanced up, she saw the mimic dragons mobbing the siblings, biting and lashing at them. More mimics and nightshades filled the sky all around. Lacrimosa cursed and parried another mimic's blade. Three attacked her at once, flayed and dripping, their teeth sharpened. She parried left and right, stabbed, thrust, and suffered a wound to her arm. She screamed and kept fighting until they lay dead.

For only a moment, she could catch her breath. Then new horrors burst from the battlefield.

Snowbeasts.

They towered seven feet tall, lanky things with six legs, flaps of white skin draping over their bones. They snapped their teeth, spraying the field with drool, and shoved between the mimics, charging toward Lacrimosa.

She ducked, dodging a blow from one's leg, and swung her blade. She hit its other leg, it fell, she leaped, she stabbed. Black blood sprayed. Another rose behind her, jumped, and slammed into her. She fell and its teeth came down. She raised her sword, screaming, and stabbed it through the mouth.

Lacrimosa lay on her back, panting, bleeding, her head spinning. More snowbeasts scurried around her like spiders. Silva cried commands to his men. Swords swung, horses thundered, and arrows blazed overhead. Above in the night sky, rays of light, pillars of fire, and streams of scales and shadow flowed.

They're too many, she thought in a haze. We can't defeat them. We have to run.

Bodies lay around her. Men and women of Osanna, come to fight here and die. Dead salvanae, the light of their eyes extinguished. Dead griffins. Everywhere—death, darkness, despair. Her eyes stung, and she felt herself sinking into the snow and blood.

The nightshades, salvanae, and dragons parted briefly above, and between them, Lacrimosa saw one of her stars. Its light was soft. She could almost not see it beyond the battle. But its glow seemed to call to her. Lacrimosa. Child of the woods. You are home, you are home. The words of her fathers.

Lacrimosa tightened her lips. Not yet. I still fight for you, Requiem. She leaped to her feet, shouting, and swung her blade.

Poisoned charged across the battlefield, shrieking in high-pitched, tortured voices. They had been men once, Lacrimosa knew, men twisted by green smoke and dark magic. Fish scales covered them. Their arms had grown long and twisted, their fingers clammy and webbed. Their eyes hung from their sockets on bloody stalks, slapping against their cheeks as they ran.

Lacrimosa fought them. She fought with blade and torch. She fought for Requiem. For her dead parents. For her husband. For her children. She fought as griffins and salvanae rained from the sky, dead or dying. She fought as men fell around her. She fought because her stars still shone, and life still filled her, and Lacrimosa would fight so long as she could. Until my last breath. Until my last drop of blood. I will die fighting for Requiem, and then I will be with you again, Ben, in our halls beyond the stars.

The creatures howled before her, blood rained from the sky, and Lacrimosa swung her blade.

AGNUS DEI

Flaming arrows whistled around her. Nightshades swooped in every direction, eyes blazing, maws dripping smoke. The mimic dragons bit and clawed. Volucris spun between the enemies, three arrows in his breast, his wings roiling smoke and flame.

Agnus Dei wished she had a second hand to hold onto Volucris. Her good hand held the golden skull, pointing its beams at swarming nightshades. Her left arm hung uselessly.

"Careful, Volucris!" she cried when he swooped, soared, and swerved. She nearly fell, and