Dragons Rising by Daniel Arenson Read Free Book Online Page A

rose.
They lived. They ascended.
    "Fly!"
she cried, laughing.
    And
they flew. A storm of bones. A maelstrom of rot, of wonder, of
miracles. Life reborn, transfigured, holy. Blessed, beautiful
children of the Spirit. The skeletal firedrakes rose, and on their
backs, their old paladins raised rusty lances and chipped shields,
their bones creaking within their crumbling armor. Their eyes too
blazed with light, each rider fused to its mount, great centaurs of
glory. They filled the sky. Their light beamed against the clouds,
and they swirled above in a whirlpool, countless flying beasts.
    "My
bonedrakes," Beatrix whispered. "My children."
    "What
are they?" Mercy asked, voice shaky, finally coming to stand at
Beatrix's side.
    "Our
champions," Beatrix said. "Our holy warriors. Those who
will do what you could not." She raised her voice to the sky.
"Fly out! Fly now! For the glory of the Spirit, for the death of
weredragons, for the Falling! Fly!"
    And
they flew. Coiling out in great rivers of bone and dry shreds of
skin, of streaming light, they soared out from the valley, spreading
across all horizons, vanishing into the darkness. All that remained
were the echoes of their cries and their lingering aroma of rot and
divinity.

 
 
KORVIN

    The
first snows of winter fell as Korvin and his daughter walked across
the wilderness. It was too cold to be traveling. Too cold to be
without a home, lost in a world with but a flicker of hope.
    "We
must seek shelter for the night," he said. "A burrow or a
cave if we can't find a village or farmhouse."
    Fidelity
looked up at the sky. She walked beside him, wrapped in a green
cloak. It was an old cloak, tattered, its hems burnt, bought from a
farmer for a copper coin. They had spent more money on food, and they
both carried packs full of turnips, sausages, apples, and bread,
perhaps enough for a few days--not enough to reach the mountains of
Dair Ranin. Like Korvin, Fidelity wore the armor of the Horde under
her cloak, and a curved saber hung at her side, its hilt shaped like
a falcon's head.
    "It's
only noon." She squinted up at the veiled sun. "I think. We
should find a place to hide and sleep until nightfall."
    She
was always squinting these days, struggling to see. Her spectacles
were in even worse condition than her cloak. One lens was missing,
the other cracked, and a string held the frame together.
    We
need to buy her new spectacles, Korvin thought, looking at her.
But the only coins they had left were old Requiem gold, worth a
fortune and a barrelful of questions. And Korvin dared not enter a
city where new lenses might be found. Not with soldiers patrolling
every street.
    "We'll
keep walking for a while longer," he said. "We'll find some
shelter. We can't rest out here in the snow."
    He
looked around at the snowy landscape. It was strange to think that,
only several days ago, they had been in the hot southern lands,
delivering the survivors of the Horde to a new home on the Terran
coast. Now they were traveling across the Commonwealth, a different
world. Gone were the cypress trees, twisting pines, clear waters, and
yellow sun of the south. Here was a land of rolling hills, a pale sun
veiled behind gray clouds, and only a few scattered aspens and oaks.
Crows circled under the clouds and the wind moaned. The snowfall was
light--they were still too far south for the great gales that could
bury villages--but it would get colder as they traveled farther
north, the snows deeper, the food scarcer.
    Fidelity
sighed and lowered her head. "I'm sorry, Father. In the heat of
battle, I didn't know what other meeting place to name. Lynport in
the south burned. Altus Mare is a bastion of Templer might. So I
shouted out Draco Murus, the ancient ruins I read about so often in
my books, the ruins where the great old heroes fought." She
looked at him, eyes full of guilt and fear. "I didn't pause to
think that it's so far north, ruins across a landscape Beatrix
controls, a landscape now falling to