Night had fallen but firelight blazed between fangs, reflecting in large dark eyes, copper scales, and white horns. Among the pines and oaks, staring down upon her, stood a living dragon.

RAEM

 
RAEM

Flying upon his demonic mount, King Raem stared down at the barbarian tribe, grimaced, and brought a handkerchief to his nose. Truly this was a benighted land.

It was the tribe he sought, had been seeking for days. A wooden totem pole rose upon a hill, and upon its crest hung a gilded mammoth tusk. Tents sprawled around the pillar, dotting the hills and valleys like warts, crude things of buffalo skins stretched over cedar poles. Raem came from a land of stone towers, lush gardens that grew atop palaces, and a canal that drove into a city in a wonder of architecture. Below him festered a hive of worms.

The tribesmen themselves were no more impressive than their tents. Back home in Eteer, soldiers wore breastplates and bore bronze khopeshes, yet these northern warriors wore only animal pelts, and they bore humble spears and arrows tipped with flint. Their beards were long, and tattoos and piercings marred their forms, abominations unto Taal's teachings. Perhaps this distant land was beyond Taal's reach.

"Disgusting," Raem said.

His mount—a gift from Angel, Queen of Demons—grunted beneath him. Raem stroked the creature. The beast had been a woman once, perhaps a girl, a soul who had fallen into the Abyss centuries ago, lost or exiled or snatched. The demons had broken her, reformed her, stretched her over a new frame. Her arms now extended, long as dragon wings, the skin pulled back like obscene sails. Her head stared forward, twisting in anguish, mute, her eyes leaking tears. Three spine ridges now rose down her back, for the demons had added to her, sewing and augmenting, stitching in new victims until they had created this thing—a slave of flight, a demonic bat cobbled together from shattered souls.

"For long centuries, you flew in the dark caverns of the Abyss, feeding upon the corpses of buried mortals," Raem said, sitting in a saddle of bones. He stroked the creature's wispy blond hair. "Now you fly for the glory of a king."

The beast was ugly, deformed, an abomination. But she was the fastest creature to have risen from the underground, and she had brought Raem all the way here without rest.

"The creatures I seek are just as fast and many times stronger," Raem said. He looked down, saw them between the tents, and smiled. "There they are."

A hundred rocs stood outside the camp, tethered to pegs. Larger even than dragons, the birds clawed the earth, snapped their beaks, and cawed. Their feathers were black and oily, their necks scraggly, and even from up here, Raem could smell their stench. The birds saw him now, and they alerted the tribesmen. The hairy barbarians hopped about, pointing and nocking arrows.

Raem smiled grimly. "They are fools . . . but useful fools."