Read Requiem's Hope (Dawn of Dragons) for Free Online

He caressed his arm where
stitches still held his raw wound, the wound Issari had given him
when she stabbed him in the cistern. Raem licked his lips as he
imagined how she would suffer, how he would cut every part of her.
Perhaps he would stitch Issari and Laira together, forming a
conjoined twin, a single daughter to torment. He had seen demons
perform this art; he would practice it upon the reptiles.
    They flew onward, dripping rot, scanning the world. Spring had begun,
but their wings darkened the sky, their steam hid the sun, and all
wilted beneath their rancid rain.
    They flew until they saw the village ahead.
    Clay huts clustered together, their roofs topped with straw. It was a
place barely worth stopping to piss at. Three reed boats floated in a
river, and goats brayed in a pen. A few barbarians stood in the dirt,
firing arrows up at the demons; most hid in their huts. Raem wanted
to fly onward, but his demons bustled, drooled, begged for flesh.
    Raem sighed and stroked the creature he rode.
    "Very well." He pointed down at the village and raised his
voice. "Land, my friends! Land and feed."
    They descended upon the village in a spiral of decay, a dripping
tornado of hissing, snapping mouths and raining drool. A few
villagers tried to flee, firing arrows into the unholy swarm. Demons
descended upon them, ripping off limbs, pulling out entrails,
crunching bones in their jaws. Other villagers tried to flee across
the fields. A coiling centipede, as long as a fallen oak, wrapped
around one fleeing child and squeezed, slicing her to segments. A
twitching bundle of arms and mouths, its insect wings buzzing, flew
toward one family, regurgitated a net of dripping webs to trap them,
and thrust a metal tongue like a tube into the screaming mass. Huts
collapsed. Animals screamed and died. Gobbets of meat flew across the
village and blood soaked the earth.
    Raem's mount, the constructed bat, still hovered above the village.
She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes begging, tongue lolling.
Sitting in the saddle, Raem stroked her.
    "Very well, Anai," he said. He had named her after his dead
wife, for this creature had become his new companion. "You may
feed."
    Not wasting another heartbeat, the beast plunged down, her two spine
ridges bulging. She descended upon a screaming, legless man; a second
demon was guzzling down the legs a few feet away. The man tried to
crawl away, but Anai pounced upon him, thrust down her mouth, and
ripped out flesh. The creature wept as she fed, perhaps still
remembering her old human soul, but she fed nonetheless.
    When they took flight again, the village was gone, its houses
toppled, all its life consumed. Piles of bricks, bloodstains, clumps
of hair, and steaming demon waste were all that remained.
    The host flew on.
    "Soon, Anai," Raem said, riding his mount across the sky.
He caressed the beast's wispy, pale hair. "Soon you will feed
upon the sweet meat of dragons."
    Their appetite whet, their bellies still grumbling, the demons flew
north, heading across the river . . . heading to Requiem.

 
 
LAIRA

    Laira
knelt above her sister, stroking the girl's hair.
    "Issari," she whispered, and her tears fell, splashing
against the young woman's cheek. "My sister."
    Only eighteen winters old, Issari was younger than Laira, but her
limbs were longer, and even bruised and cut and famished, her body
seemed stronger. A braid hung across her shoulder, thick and black,
and her skin was pale.
    "You grew up in a palace," Laira whispered. "You grew
up in wealth, a roof always over your head, food always on your
plate. And you are beautiful. And I love you."
    Having fled Eteer as a toddler, Laira had grown up cold, hungry,
neglected, and now—in adulthood—her body still bore testament to
those hardships. She stood shy of five feet, her body frail and weak,
her limbs stick thin. Her hair, which her chieftain would crop short,
was only now growing out, falling across her brow and ears. Her jaw
was still