Requiem's Hope (Dawn of Dragons) by Daniel Arenson Read Free Book Online Page B

felt like she didn't even have to turn into a dragon to blast
out smoke. Mammoth arse! She would shove him up the next mammoth arse
they crossed. She made to leap up, shift into a dragon, and chase the
damn boy and his starry-eyed sister, but her eyes fell upon her
father, and she paused. All day, Jeid had been stern and somber, yet
now he seemed . . . Maev tilted her head.
    He seems afraid.
    She stared at him, her rage leaving her. She had never seen her
father look afraid before. She hadn't known he could feel fear. She
had seen him in mourning when Mother had died, then when
Requiem—little Requiem after whom their kingdom was named—had died
too. But not fear. And now she saw it in the stoop of his shoulders,
the ghosts in his eyes, the tightness of his lips. Her anger left
her, and she hugged him.
    "Goodbye, Grizzly. I'll look after the pups."
    Her brother approached slowly, hesitating. Maev had spent her life
thinking Tanin a soft-headed fool, but now, with the world collapsing
around her, she loved him so fully her chest ached. She stepped
toward him and pulled him into a crushing hug, then rubbed her
knuckles across his head.
    "Be strong, Tanin," she said. "Don't be a halfwit. And
try not to step on your tongue whenever you look at Issari." She
punched his chest. "I won't be there to look after you for a
while, so you better not mess things up."
    He rubbed his chest, wincing. "I'll miss you too, Maev." He
lowered his voice. "I love you, you warthog."
    She wanted to say more. She wanted to embrace her father and brother
again, to tell them she loved them, but her eyes stung, and her voice
caught in her throat, and she dared not show them weakness. She spun
around, shifted into a dragon, and took flight.
    "Wait up, pups!" she shouted. Dorvin and Alina were flying
ahead, silver and lavender, already distant
    Dorvin looked over his shoulder at her. "Fly faster, Mammoth
Arse!" He blasted flames her way, then turned back forward and
kept flying.
    "Shut your mouth, Dung Beetle!" Maev beat her wings and
flew faster. She looked back only once and saw other dragons taking
flight around King's Column. Then she returned her eyes westward,
sucked in air, and vowed that if any others existed in this world,
she would find them. She would bring them home.

 
 
TANIN

    The
two dragons flew south, red and white, traveling over the ruin of the
world.
    "A scar rifts the land," Tanin said.
    Gliding beside him, the white dragon lowered her head. "The
wounds he gave me scar my body." Issari took a shaky breath.
"And the wound he gave the world will perhaps forever mar this
land."
    A line of devastation covered the landscape, coiling from the south
like the path of a parasite through a heart. The demon army had flown
here, raining its rot, wilting the land. Trees stooped, white and
frail as starved corpses. The earth had turned a charcoal color, and
globs of red grew upon it like warts. Animals moved along this unholy
path, deformed under its curse, twisted beings with many limbs, their
eyes bloated and bulging from their sockets, their entrails dragging
behind them like clinging lampreys. The creatures wailed up at the
flying dragons, hissing, weeping, begging for death. A stench of rot
flared, and when Tanin and Issari flew directly over the path, the
miasma made them gag. They banked eastward, keeping the living land
directly beneath them, but always they gazed upon that cursed line in
the west.
    "This is what Requiem will look like if my father wins,"
Issari said. The white dragon stretched her wings wide, gliding on
the wind current. "Already Eteer has fallen to this evil."
She looked at Tanin, green eyes wide and wet. "We have to stop
him, Tanin. We have to take over his throne."
    Whimpers sounded below, and Tanin looked back down at the coiling
path of the Abyss. Small creatures moved there, raising their hands,
pleading. They had the bodies of dogs, but their heads were human
heads, bloated and pale like corpses. They yowled