A Night of Dragon Wings - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,3
back to their city. What he saw in his queen's eyes, however, terrified Zar as much as the laughter that rose from the tower.
Solina's eyes were wide, her grin toothy. Her chest rose and fell with excited breath. She seemed like a woman in ecstasy.
The deep laughter rose to a shriek, a sound so loud that Zar wept and even the soldiers cursed. Zar whipped his head back toward the tower and saw it shaking. The screams rose from it: the screams of demons and the anguished scream of a man.
Blood seeped from the doorway, so thick and dark it seemed almost black.
The human scream died, and the laughter of demons rolled across the mountain.
"Rael," Zar whispered. "I'm sorry, my friend."
A shadow stirred on the tower's top, moving between the crenellations. Zar froze and stared, heart hammering. He wanted to look away. He wanted to close his eyes. He wanted to do anything but stare at that shadow. And yet the darkness that stirred there held his gaze, as powerful as the soldiers who held his body. It seemed a human figure, Zar thought—a man cloaked in black, a hood hiding his face. The cloaked sentinel moved atop the tower, a thing of darkness; Zar saw no head within the shadows of that hood. The figure raised its hand. Zar's throat tightened and he winced; the hand was long and deathly gray, the fingers tapering into crimson claws.
A thing of darkness, Zar knew and wept. A demon of the Abyss.
The demon knelt and rose again. In its claws it held a bloody, lacerated corpse. The demon tossed the body from the parapet. It tumbled and thumped against the ground only feet away from Zar.
He couldn't help it. Zar screamed.
It was the corpse of Rael, gutted like a fish. They had cracked open the man's chest, scooped out his innards, and tossed aside this bloodied shell. Rael's dead eyes stared into his own.
Please, the eyes seemed to say. Please, Zar, tell my wife I love her. Tell her that I'm sorry.
Finally Zar could close his eyes. A tear streamed down to his lips.
"Goodbye, my friend," he whispered through chafed lips. "May your soul rise to the Sun God's courts of eternal light."
Solina walked toward the body, stood above it, and shook her head ruefully.
"Sad fool," she said. "He could have had his freedom; he was too weak." She turned toward her soldiers and raised her voice. "Send the next one in! Send the woman! Give her a sword; she can slay whatever evil lies inside or fall upon the blade."
The gaunt woman's eyes barely flicked as the guards untied her wrists, shoved her forward, and placed a sabre in her hands. After so many years crouched in alleys, licking the dust of the south, could she even feel pain and fear? Her eyes were sunken, already dead. She clutched the sabre before her; the blade reflected the red sunset as if already bloodied. Her only sign of life was sweat upon her brow and a tremble to her arms. Her lips, pale and dry, finally opened to speak.
"If I slay the evil inside," she rasped, "and if I find your key, I want the dust." She looked at Solina and her eyes reddened. A tear streamed down her cheek. "Please, my queen, if only a spoonful, if only a taste. I will find your key not for freedom, not for jewels, only for a sprinkling of the dust, my queen."
Solina sighed and shook her head. "Pathetic creature. You are a daughter of the desert! You are the stock of a noble breed, a warrior race of steel and sand and glory. And all you crave is that southern spice that twists you into a beast?" The queen spat. "But I will grant your wish. Bring me the key, and I will give you not a spoonful of dust, but great barrels of the stuff, so you may lick your desire for all your remaining days."
The dusteater's eyes widened, and she wept and trembled. "Thank you, my queen!" She could barely speak; her chest rose and fell as sobs racked her body. "I will find your key. I promise you, my queen."
With that, the dusteater turned, stepped toward the tower, and entered the darkness.
Zar stared, not daring to breathe. Queen Solina and her men stood frozen, eyes upon the tower. A single crow circled above, the only movement in the desert.