A Night of Dragon Wings by Daniel Arenson

Author:Daniel Arenson [Arenson, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1927601029
Amazon: B00B7NBGMA
Publisher: Moonclipse
Published: 2013-01-28T06:00:00+00:00

BAYRIN

He woke up with a stiff neck, Piri still cuddling against him.

Merciful stars, he thought and sighed. His every part ached, and he had barely slept with the girl clinging to him.

It's an amazing discovery, he thought. A creature for one of Mori's bestiaries—half woman, half leech.

"Up, up!" he said. "It's morning."

He struggled to rise, but Piri only mumbled, scrunched her lips, and wrapped her arms more closely around him. She kept sleeping. For such a slim young thing, she was surprisingly strong, pinning him down.

"Piri Healer!" he said with a groan. "Stars, get off."

The girl was intolerable. Throughout the night, whenever he would crawl away from her, she would snuggle closer, trapping him in her embrace. Whenever he did fall asleep, moments later she would mumble or kick her legs, waking him. And now dawn had risen, and still he could not extricate himself.

Bayrin groaned and let his head fall back onto his pack. He looked up at the sky. Clouds rolled there beyond the branches of maples. It would be a long day of flight, and Bayrin knew his wings would ache, but anything was better than lying here.

"Merciful stars, Piri, will you wake up?" he said. He grabbed her arm and tried to pry it off, but she clung tight.

A distant cry sounded.

Bayrin frowned.

He raised his head and stared. In the distance between trees, he could just make out dark forms in the sky. Shrieks rose, closer this time.

Oh stars.

"Piri!" he said. "Wake up!"

The screeches rolled across the sky. Long figures were flying there like dolls made from sticks, distant but moving fast. A stench of rot wafted through the forest.

Nephilim.

"Piri, Piri, wake up!" He shook her. "I really think you need to wake up now, Piri!"

She scrunched her lips, squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and mumbled. "What, Bay? I'm sleepy."

He managed to pry her arms off, leaped up, and stared east. Damn it. A hundred of the creatures flew there, moving straight toward them, and their cries rolled across the land.

"Bay?" Piri sat up and rubbed her eyes. "What's that sound?"

He grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. "Look!"

"Hey!" The young healer wrenched herself free. "Watch who you tug, Bayrin Eleison! I—"

Her eyes fell upon the approaching nephilim and she paled. She grabbed him and pulled him down. They ran at a crouch, grabbed their packs and blankets and pots, and scurried behind a fallen log.

"Bloody stars, Piri," he whispered, "I think you could have slept through the Griffin War."

She elbowed him. "Shush! And stay down." She tugged his cloak over them; leaves and twigs were still woven into it. "Be quiet for once, Bayrin."

"Me?" He bristled. "I—"

She dug her elbow sharply into his stomach. "Shh!"

They crouched under the fallen tree and stared between its branches. The stench of the nephilim flared. Two years ago, after the phoenixes had crushed a building in Nova Vita, Bayrin had helped dig up the ruins. Beneath a fallen wall, they had revealed a rotted corpse, and the stench had nearly knocked him down.

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