Song of Dragons The Complete Trilogy - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,81

room, blinding her. Lacrimosa squinted and moaned.

"Come on," spoke a deep voice, a voice like death. It sounded familiar, and sent fear through her, but she could not place it. Hands grabbed her, pulled her to her feet, and dragged her to the door. Others walked around her, but she could still not see in the blinding torchlight. She thought they moved down a hall of stone, and the crowd's cheering grew. Soon they entered a towering room. The chanting roared behind bronze doors.

Hands grabbed her arms, and with a clack, somebody removed the shackles from her wrists. She gasped with pain and moved her arms, rubbing them, letting the blood flow through them.

"Turn into the beast," spoke that cold voice, a voice like cracking wood in the heart of winter. Lacrimosa blinked, her eyes adjusting to the light, and then she saw him. She knew him at once.

Molok.

Gaunt and tall, the man looked like a torture device. His armor looked like an iron maiden, spiked and black. His helmet looked like a prisoner's mask, its bars like the bars of a cell. He raised that visor now, revealing a cadaverous face and sunken eyes.

"I know you," Lacrimosa hissed. "I saw you murder five infants in Requiem. I saw you r—"

He backhanded her, knocking her down. Her cheek burned, and her knee banged against the stone floor. She gasped in pain and tears filled her eyes. She glared up at Molok between strands of her hair. He'd always been Dies Irae's foulest pet—a murderer of children, a rapist and torturer. Someday I will kill you, she vowed silently.

"Turn into the beast," he repeated and raised his sword. His blade was black and spiked.

"I—" she hissed, and he kicked her. His boot drove into her stomach. She gasped and new tears filled her eyes.

"Turn into the beast."

Tears on her cheeks, pain saturating her, she shifted. Scales covered her, a tail and wings grew from her, and soon she crouched in the chamber, a dragon, smoke leaving her nostrils. Molok seemed so small now, a fraction of her size, and she wanted to tear her fangs into him. But that would mean death for her. That would mean she'd never see Benedictus, Kyrie, and her daughters again.

Molok collared her, then pulled her on a chain toward the bronze doors. When the doors opened, the cheering hit Lacrimosa so heavily, her head spun. Molok dragged her into a sandy arena. Tens of thousands of people cheered around her. It was an amphitheater, Lacrimosa realized, but not like the small theaters in Requiem where her kind would gather to hear minstrels or storytellers among the trees. This was a colossus, a great ring of stone. How many of Osanna's sons and daughters howled and jeered her? There were fifty thousand at least, maybe twice as many, an army of people hating her. They pelted her with rotten vegetables and cursed her. The colors and sound swirled around her, deafening, overwhelming.

Molok attached her chain to a metal post in the center of the ring. He backed away, leaving her in the middle of the amphitheater, alone, the crowd cheering. When Lacrimosa looked up, squinting in the sunlight, she saw a gilded boxed seat high upon the stone tiers. Purple curtains draped it, and griffin statues guarded its flanks. Dies Irae sat there upon a throne of ivory and jewels, wearing samite and gemstones, a crown atop his head. He gazed down at her, face blank.

What's the point of this show? Lacrimosa wondered, glaring up at Dies Irae. Why does he chain me here? Just so Confutatis can see me, mock me, throw their rotten vegetables at me? She growled, smoke leaving her nostrils, incurring wild cries from the crowd. Why does he do this?

Dies Irae rose from his seat. He raised his arms, and the crowd fell silent. For long moments, Dies Irae passed his gaze over the crowd, as if he would stare at every man, woman, and child. The sudden silence was eerie to Lacrimosa; silence before a storm. Nobody in the crowd so much as whispered. Lacrimosa could hear distant birds chirp. Finally Dies Irae spoke.

"Behold our enemy," he called out, voice loud in the silence. "Behold the beast, the weredragon. These are the creatures that threaten your children."

The crowd hissed and glared. Dies Irae spoke louder.

"These weredragons bring evil into our city. When plagues strike, it is because the weredragons poisoned our wells. When fires burn our homes, weredragon breath kindled