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power as a threat. She was
no longer that young, frightened priestess he could defend but a
mighty leader, and he was lowly by her great light. And so he left.
And so she hunted him. And so she learned that he too was one of the
beasts, a treacherous weredragon, a filthy shapeshifter who had
sneaked into her bed, claiming her with lies, stealing her virginity
with his secrets.
    "And
so I slew your wife, Korvin,"Beatrix whispered, walking through
the graveyard. "I slew the woman you chose over me. And I will
slay your daughters. You will know this pain before you die too."
    Mercy
pointed ahead. She raised her chin and spoke coldly like she did when
afraid, a show of defiance to hide that fear. She had been doing it
since her childhood. "We're here."
    Beatrix
smiled thinly and tightened her robes around her. "So we are."
    The
land sloped down here into a valley. The oaks crowded on the
surrounding hills, creaking in the wind, as if too frightened to
enter this vale of shadows. No moonlight reached this place. It could
have been a hole leading to another night sky, a pit leading to the
Abyss itself. But Beatrix carried the light of the Spirit within her,
and it burned strong, illuminating her path. She walked into the
valley of death, the Spirit her guide, even as Mercy's armor clanked
with the paladin's fear.
    As
Beatrix paced over the soft earth, she could feel the slain life
below. She could hear the voices of the buried. Mighty firedrakes
screeched underground, a sound like wind. Softer, faded, almost
indiscernible rose the cries of the drakes' lost human forms. The
weeping of babes. The screaming of the burned.
    "Yes,
my precious beasts." Beatrix's smile grew. "You were
children once before I burned you. You became dragons of flame. And
now . . . now after your long years in the darkness, your third cycle
arises. You will now become blessed warriors of light."
    She
felt them scurrying below, their dark presence, their cries, their
need for her. They were her true children, more loyal and strong than
those she bad birthed from her womb. These creatures beneath her
would no longer know the weakness of flesh, the pain of the heart.
They would be pure. They would be beings of light.
    And
they will hunt weredragons.
    She
came to stand in the center of the shadowy valley. All around her the
darkness stretched. Even Mercy dared not approach nearer. The paladin
stood at the rim of the shadows, staring down, young, frightened,
weak. But Beatrix was old. She was strong. She raised her arms above
her head, sucking up the life from below, feeling the dark tendrils
rise up her legs to kiss her skin, her sex, her bones, her very soul.
    "Hear
me, Fallen Ones!" Beatrix cried out, fingers tingling, head
tossed back. "Hear me, the fallen beings of fire and flesh! I am
your mistress. I am a conduit to the Spirit's light. Rise! I am
Beatrix Deus, your mistress, and I summon you! Rise and be fallen no
more!"
    The
earth trembled beneath her feet. Shadows swirled. Moans rose from
below, mourning, crying out to her, babes desperate for milk, the
dead desperate for life. Grooves opened across the valley like wet,
toothy mouths, pulling down soil and fallen leaves. The sky swirled
above like a second valley of shadows. Upon the hills, trees shook
and branches cracked to rain down. And everywhere Beatrix felt them,
caressing her, whispering, screaming, enveloping her, sucking at her
skin--the spirits of the dead.
    "Rise!"
she cried. "Come to me."
    And
they rose.
    Ribs
emerged from the soil like the columns of a cathedral. Claws, bone
white and gleaming, thrust up from the ground. The earth shook madly
now, dirt crumbling into pits, boulders thrusting up, and still they
rose. A spine ridge slithered like a snake. The long, thin bones of
wings beat against the ground, and the many segments of a tail
flailed like a bony whip. With shattering stones and sinking earth, a
skull emerged before Beatrix, eye sockets deep pits, fangs like
swords. Another skull