A Dawn of Dragonfire: Dragonlore, Book 1 (2 page)

The phoenixes shrieked behind her.  Their heat blasted her.  Mori raced into the hall, dragged her brother inside, and saw countless phoenixes descending into the courtyard.  She slammed the doors shut as they landed, sealing their fire outside.

"Mori…," Orin whispered, voice hoarse.  "Mori, leave me… fly north.  Fly to Nova Vita."

Mori pulled a lever, dropping the doors' bar into the brackets.  She stood panting.  Could the phoenixes break the doors?  They were thick and banded in iron, built to withstand fire and axe.  And what of the other dragons?  Stars, were any still alive, and had she doomed them to death?  She trembled.

The phoenixes screeched outside.  Their light glowed under the doors, and tongues of fire reached around the frames.  They began slamming at the doors, howling.  Mori whimpered with every jolt.

I must go deeper,
she thought. 
Into the dungeon.  The door there is small, too small for them.

She leaned over Orin, and her breath left her.  Tears filled her eyes.  Half his face was gone, melted away.  Half his body was a wound of welts, smoke, and seared cloth clinging to flesh.  Mori gagged, for a moment able to do nothing else.  Then she steeled herself.  The phoenixes were lashing at the doors.  She had to save her brother.

She looked at the eastern wall.  A small door stood open there, revealing a staircase that plunged into shadow.  Mori tightened her lips.  The dungeon of Castellum Luna lay down those stairs.  The place had always frightened her—she would imagine ghosts lurking in its shadows—but today she would seek safety there.

"Come on, Orin!" she said, placed her arms around him, and tugged.  She grunted, grinding her heels against the floor.  "Come on, Orin, get up!  On your feet!"

He managed to rise to his knees, coughing, breath like a saw.  With strength she had not known was in her, Mori pulled him to his feet.  He leaned against her, twice her weight.  She thought she would collapse, but she walked, step by step, and helped Orin onto the staircase.  She pulled the door shut and began walking downstairs, Orin leaning against her.  As the phoenixes howled, and the fortress doors creaked, they descended with blood and tears.

Finally Mori found herself in the dungeon of Castellum Luna, a cold place of shadows, sacks of wheat, barrels of wine, and now the stench of burnt flesh.  An oil lamp glowed upon a table, painting the room red.  Panting, Mori lay her brother on the floor and touched his hair.  His breath wheezed and his flesh still smoked.

Upstairs, she heard the fortress doors shatter.  She started.  Great eagle cries echoed.  Even here in the dungeon, Mori felt the phoenix heat as they stormed into the hall.

"We'll be all right, Orin," she whispered and held his hot, sticky body.  "They can't fit down here.  The staircase is too small for them.  We're safe here.  We're safe.  I'm going to take care of you."

He only groaned, and she felt his blood upon her, staining her gown, and she held him tight.  They trembled together.  Above in the hall, she heard the phoenix cries; they seemed to shake the fort, cries of hatred, rage, and bloodlust. 
This must be how the griffins sounded when they toppled our halls of old.

"Mori…"  Orin spoke hoarsely, barely able to speak at all.  "Mori, you must fly north.  You are fast.  You…"

He could say no more.  Mori held him tight.  How could she fly north?  How could she escape so many phoenixes, an army of flame?  Her head spun.  Perhaps she should not have entered this fort, but… Orin had told her to hide here!  And now he wanted her to flee?  What was she to do?  Her head spun, and she shook it violently.

"Rest, Orin," she whispered.  "Please.  Rest."

She would have to take care of things now.  She would have to make the decisions.  His life depended on her. 
Be calm
, Mori,
she told herself.  She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths, to steady her trembling limbs.

"We'll wait here until the phoenixes leave," she whispered.  "They have to leave sometime.  They
have
to.  They can't fit down here.  When they go away, we'll fly north.  I'll take you to the temples, to healers, Orin.  They can heal you.  They can… they can fix your…"

Your ravaged face,
she wanted to say. 
Your flesh that melted off.  The ruin of your left side, a wound of blood and bone.
  Yet could anyone save him now?  And could anyone save her?

Gently she pulled back from him; their bodies parted with a sickly, sticky sound like a bandage pulled off a wet wound.  In the darkness, Mori crept upstairs toward the dungeon door.  Firelight burned behind it.  The phoenixes stood in the main hall.  She heard their cawing, the crackle of their fire.  Squinting against the heat and light, Mori knelt and peeked through the keyhole.

Two phoenixes moved through the hall.  Their flames torched the tapestries and trestle tables.  One tossed back its head and screeched, and Mori covered her ears.  She thought that screech could tear her eardrums and shatter her ribs.

Please go away,
she prayed. 
Please please leave this place, fly away from here, and let this only be a nightmare.
  She clutched her luck finger behind her back, praying to it. 
Please send them away.  Please let me just wake up and be in Nova Vita again, with Lady Lyana and Father and everyone else.

Yet the phoenixes in the hall remained.  They sniffed, stirring wisps of fire upon their beaks. 
Stars, can they smell me?
  The firebirds turned toward the door where Mori hid, cawed, and stepped toward it.  Their claws rained sparks.  Mori caught her breath, too frightened to even flee.

They can't hurt me,
she told herself. 
They're too big to enter the doorway.  Even if they burn the door, they can't enter.  And they can't burn the stone walls of the dungeon.
  She forced herself to breathe. 
We're safe here.
 

As she watched through the keyhole, her breath died.

The phoenixes tossed back their heads, cried so loudly that they shook the hall, and outstretched their wings.  Their flames rose in fury.  They seemed to… not to shrink, Mori thought, but to… fold in upon themselves.  Their fire twisted, darkened, shaped new forms.  Suddenly the creatures appeared almost human to her, their limbs long and fiery, their heads burning.  The flames coalesced, forming a man and woman of liquid fire.  The lava hardened.  Last wisps of flame clung to the figures, then pulled into crystals they wore around their necks.  Finally all the phoenix fire glowed inside the amulets—two small, blazing lights.

Mori gasped and whimpered.  She reached into her pocket and clutched Pip so tightly the mouse bit her.

The two figures stood in the hall, smoke still rising from them.  Both wore armor of pale steel, gilded helmets, and curved swords upon their waists.  Their hair was platinum blond, so pale it was almost white. 
They have ghost hair.
  Mori trembled to see it.

The man stood facing her, staring at the dungeon door.  He was tall and broad, with a face like beaten leather.  His eyes were small, blue, and mean.  A golden sun was embedded into his breastplate.  Mori recognized the emblem—the Golden Sun of Tiranor.

Tirans!
she thought.  She had heard many tales of them; they were a cruel, warlike people from southern deserts beyond mountain, lake, and swamp.

The woman stood with her back toward the door.  She was tall and slender, and her hair was long and smooth.  Two sabres hung from her belt, shaped like the beaks of cranes, their pommels golden.  Slowly, the woman turned toward the door.  Her eyes were blue, her face golden and strewn with bright freckles like stars in sunset.  A scar, as from an old fire, ran across her face from head to chin, then snaked down her neck into her breastplate.

Mori gasped.

She knew this woman.

"Solina," she whispered.

Some of her fear left her.  Solina was her friend!  A princess of Tiranor, her parents slain, she had grown up in Requiem.  Mori remembered many nights of sitting in Solina's lap, listening to her tell stories of Tiranor—its white towers rising from the desert, capped with gold; its oases of lush palms, warm pools, and birds of paradise; its proud people of golden skin, bright hair that shone, and blue eyes that saw far.

Solina won't hurt me,
Mori thought, breathing shakily. 
Solina will realize this was a mistake, once she sees me, once she realizes it's me, Mori.  I was like a sister to her.

And yet… Mori hesitated.  She stayed frozen.  That scar that ran down Solina's face… could it be from that night?  The night Solina had attacked Father with a blade, and Orin burned her?  Mori shuddered. 
No, it can't be!
  But she knew it was true; that was the scar of dragonfire.

She remembered,
Mori realized, and tears filled her eyes. 
And now she's here to burn us too.

The tall, stately woman took a step toward the door, and those blue eyes stared right at the keyhole, right at Mori.  Solina's lips curled into a smile.

She saw me!
  Mori leaped back from the door, heart pounding.  She heard footfalls move toward her, and Mori scrambled downstairs.  She knelt in the shadows by Orin.  He was moaning, body hot, burnt, stinking with death.  She clutched his hand.

"Don't be scared, Orin," she whispered as the door above shook.  "I'll protect you."

Splinters flew.  The door shattered, and firelight bathed the dungeon. 

Mori wanted to shift into a dragon.  She wanted to let scales cover her, let flame blow from her maw.  Yet she dared not.  The dungeon was so small, a mere ten feet wide.  If she shifted, her girth would fill the chamber, would crush Orin dead.  Instead she clutched the hilt of her brother's sword, steeled herself, and drew the blade.  It hissed and caught the light.

Solina walked downstairs, hands on her own swords' hilts.  Her breastplate sported a golden sun.  Around her neck, her crystal of fire crackled, painting her face orange and red.  The burly man walked behind her, eyes blazing and teeth bared.

"Stand back!" Mori said, holding her brother's sword before her.  Her voice trembled, and the sword wavered.  She added her left hand to the hilt, the hand with six fingers, her
luck
hand. 
Bring me luck today,
she prayed to it.

Solina approached her.  The scar that halved her face tweaked her lips; she was either smirking, or her scar locked her lips in eternal mockery.  She seemed inhuman to Mori—her skin made of gold, her hair of platinum, her eyes of sapphire.  She was more statue than flesh and blood.

"Why, if it isn't little Mori!" she said, and this time Mori knew that she was smiling.  Those scarred lips parted, revealing dazzling white teeth.  "Last time I saw you, you were but a girl, a slight thing with no breasts and skinned knees.  You've become a woman!"

Mori stood, holding her sword in trembling hands, her brother groaning behind her.

"Stand back, devil!"  Tears rolled down her cheeks.  "Stand back, or my father the king will hear of this, and he will kill you!"

Solina's face softened—the face of a woman who saw a cute, angry puppy that melted her heart.  The man at her side, however, seemed not to share her amusement.  He stared at Mori hungrily; she felt his small, mean eyes undress her.

"Oh, dear dear, frightened sweetling," Solina said and clucked her tongue.  "But we were such good friends once, were we not?  We were as sisters.  I remember holding you on my lap, mussing your hair, and reading to you stories of romance and adventure.  I promise not to hurt you, my little sparrow… but please, do not stand between me and your brother, or Lord Acribus here will hurt you.  And he will hurt you greatly, little sparrow.  More than anyone ever has."

The tall man with the golden, leathery face licked his lips.  His tongue was freakishly long—it nearly reached his eyes—and white as bone.  It looked like a snake emerging from his mouth.  His eyes dripped lust, both for flesh and blood.

An hour ago, if somebody had told Mori this would happen, she would have expected to faint, weep, even die of fright.  Now she found herself snarling.  Her love for Orin, and her fear for him, swelled over fear for herself.  Teeth bared, she swung her sword before her, slicing the air.

"Stand back!" she said.  "You will not touch him."

Solina sighed.  "My sweetling."  She ran a finger down her scar, from forehead, to chin, and down her neck.  She kept tracing her fingers along her breastplate and finally down her thigh.  "Do you see this scar, Mori?  I call it my line of fire.  It runs from my head to my toe.  Your brother gave me this scar.  He deformed me.  Surely you of all people, with your freakish left hand, know about being deformed."  She looked at the burnt, groaning Orin.  "So I burned him too.  But I am not done with him.  He will feel so
much
more pain before I let him die.  But you, Mori, need not feel the same pain.  You were as a sister to me; I want to spare you this agony.  Step aside… or I will give you to my pet.  You will scream and beg me for death before he's done with you."

Mori was scared, so scared that she couldn't breathe, and cold sweat drenched her, and her heart seemed ready to crack.  She thought of her brother Orin, so handsome and strong, now this ruin of a man.  She thought of her other brother, the wise Elethor, who lived up north among the birches.

It's up to me now,
Mori knew. 
Me, the younger sister, the slim girl who is always so fast to cry, so fast to hide.
  She took a shuddering breath. 
For years my older brothers protected me; now it's my turn to fight for them.

With a wordless cry, she swung her blade at Solina.

So fast Mori barely saw her move, Solina drew her left sword.  The blade was curved, glimmering with white steel and gold.  The two blades clashed, one a northern blade kissed with starlight, the other a desert shard of fire.  Sparks flew, and before Mori realized what had happened, Solina's blade flew again, nicked her hand, and blood splashed.