Blood of Requiem (Song of Dragons, Book 1)

6. GLORIAE

GLORIAE

Gloriae cut the sky.

She lashed her riding crop, and her griffin shrieked, flapped her wings, and drove forward. The wind howled, biting Gloriae's face and streaming her samite cape.

"Fly, Aquila," Gloriae called to her griffin over the wind's roar. Her riding crop flew too. "Fly hard."

As Aquila flew, Gloriae narrowed her eyes and scanned the lands below. Hills, copses of trees, and farmlands stretched into the horizons. Hearth smoke plumed from a distant village, and a fortress rose upon a mountain.

"Where are you, Kyrie?" Gloriae whispered, willing her eyes to see through every tree, into every barn, and down every road. He was down there somewhere. He would travel north, travel to Hostias Forest where they whispered that Benedictus still roared. He would stay off the roads, sneak into barns for food, and sooner or later she would find him.

"You cannot hide for long," she spoke into the wind, and her lips pulled back from her teeth. Men often called her smile a wolf's grin, and Gloriae felt like a wolf, a huntress, a creature that lunges and kills and digs its fangs into flesh. "I will find you, Kyrie Eleison, and I will not take you alive. No, Kyrie. My father wants to capture you, to parade you as a freak, but not I." She caressed the hilt of Per Ignem, her sword of northern steel, which hung at her side. "I will make you taste my steel."

When Gloriae remembered the last time she saw Kyrie, she snarled. She had nearly drowned that day, but she had pulled herself from the roaring water, had survived, and now she hunted again.

Soon she flew over the village. If you could call it that, Gloriae thought. It was merely a scattering of cottages around a square. It was a wretched place, the houses built of mud and cow dung, the roofs mere thatch that no doubt crawled with bugs. Gloriae wrinkled her nose; she imagined that she could smell the place's stench even in the sky.

She turned her head to see the three griffins she led. Lord Molok flew alongside two riders of lower rank, men whose names Gloriae hadn't bothered to learn.

"The village below," she called to them and pointed. "We seek the weredragon there."

They nodded. Gloriae tugged the reins, and her griffin began to descend. The cold air lashed her, and Gloriae pulled down the visor of her helm. Peasants scurried below, fleeing into homes and closing the doors. Gloriae smiled her wolf's grin. Did they think their huts of mud and dung could stop her, Gloriae the Gilded, a maiden of the blade?

She landed her griffin in the village square, sending pigs and chickens fleeing. Gloriae snorted. Pigs and chickens? Truly this was a backwater; just the sort of place a weredragon would hide, cowering in the filth of beasts and the hovels of commoners. Gloriae drew Per Ignem, and its blade caught the light. She craved to dig this blade into Kyrie, to let weredragon blood wash it.

"You reptiles killed my mother," she whispered inside her visor, her jaw tight. "I was only three, but I know the story. You killed her. You ate her. You burned our towns, poisoned our wells, and drank the blood of our children. Now I will wet my steel with your blood, weredragon. I am Gloriae the Gilded. You cannot hide from me."

Her men landed behind her and dismounted. Lord Molok gazed upon the village silently, face hidden behind that black, barred visor. His lieutenants drew blades and awaited orders.

"Into the inn," Gloriae said, gesturing with her chin toward the building, a scraggly place of wattle and daub. "We will ask there."

She walked ahead, leading them, and kicked open the inn's door. Her boots were leather tipped with steel, and the door swung open easily, revealing a dusty, shadowy room where commoners cowered. The air stank of ale, sweat, and grease. If she hadn't been wearing a visor, Gloriae would have covered her nose.