A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) by Daniel Arenson Read Free Book Online Page A

safety. His arms were thick
and tattooed with serpents, his shoulders were wide, and his stare,
he knew, caused even the strongest sailors to mutter and look away.
Yet Miya, it seemed, never saw him as a hero. To her, he was not the
burly captain with the withering stare, only her lumbering,
old-fashioned father.
    Perhaps
no man is a hero to his eighteen-year-old daughter, he thought and grumbled.
    "I will speak with them
once, Miya," he said. "I will let them tell their story.
And if I am not satisfied... they will suffer my justice."
    Miya sucked in her breath and
narrowed her eyes. She began to object, but he hushed her with a
glare. Sila had not condemned a man to death in ten years, not since
one sailor had slain another after losing a game of dice. He had
turned Maiden Island into a land of order, of harsh discipline, and
of harsh justice.
    If
more of those beasts follow, he thought, all
this will end. The new life I built for my people will burn too. He closed his eyes and saw the dying again, thousands in the water,
screaming for him, thrashing like flies in blood, scratching at his
hull as he sailed away. If
Requiem flies against us again, Maiden Island too will burn.
    They took a rowboat to the
beach, then walked the hidden paths up the maiden's waist. Mint
bushes rose around them, bustling with mice. Cedars grew like dark
columns. Carob, olive, and pear trees rustled, heavy with fruit.
Vines crawled over boulders and the branches of oaks. Frogs and
crickets trilled in the grass, herons and jays flew overhead, and
turtles sunbathed upon rocks.
    I
gave Miya a good home here, he thought, looking at her walking beside him, her face tanned deep
gold, her blue eyes bright. I
will not let this place burn too.
    A mile from the cove, they
reached the maiden's neck, a declivity between the hills of her head
and shoulder. The waterfall crashed down ahead, the maiden's hair,
and between the trees, their village sprawled.
    Sila wasn't sure when he'd
stopped calling this place a "camp" and started calling it
a "village." They had landed here eighteen years ago as
refugees, shivering and afraid and famished. Today were they still
refugees or simply islanders?
    Four
thousand souls lived upon Maiden Island, survivors of the slaughter
and those born upon the island. Their huts spread between the trees.
Some elders still bore the white, woolen tunics of Tiranor, sturdy
garments that had lasted the years. Most now wore clothes of maidenspun ,
a fabric they wove from local leaves and wild cotton. Some,
especially the children, simply wore clothes of grass, leaves, and
fur.
    Looking at the children who ran
around, near naked and laughing and wild, Sila sighed.
    "We came from a land of
golden obelisks, temples that kissed the sky, libraries with a
million books, and statues of such beauty that grown men wept to
behold them. We fled a beautiful, wise civilization that had ruled
the desert for thousands of years." He shook his head ruefully.
"And eighteen years later, we're running around half-naked in
the mud."
    His daughter, her own legs muddy
up to the knees, flashed him a grin. "And we thank you for it."
    Walking across a grassy plateau
dotted with gopher holes, he saw a squad of arquebusers drilling a
volley. They stood in five lines, ten men in each, holding their
guns to their chests. Across the plateau rose a dragon effigy,
life-sized and built of wood, grass, and wicker. Sila paused from
walking and placed a hand on his daughter's shoulder.
    "Watch," he told her.
    The
first five men stepped forward, standing in profile to Sila. They
raised their arquebuses, masterworks of oak and iron, and pointed the
muzzles toward the wicker effigy. They pulled the triggers, and
booms crashed over the island, so loud that even Miya, who had seen these drills
before, jumped and winced. Smoke blasted. The smell of gunpowder
flared. Rounds crashed into the wicker dragon, tearing holes through
it.
    "Good," Sila said. He
raised his voice to a