Clay huts clustered together, their roofs topped with straw. It was a place barely worth stopping to piss at. Three reed boats floated in a river, and goats brayed in a pen. A few barbarians stood in the dirt, firing arrows up at the demons; most hid in their huts. Raem wanted to fly onward, but his demons bustled, drooled, begged for flesh.

Raem sighed and stroked the creature he rode.

"Very well." He pointed down at the village and raised his voice. "Land, my friends! Land and feed."

They descended upon the village in a spiral of decay, a dripping tornado of hissing, snapping mouths and raining drool. A few villagers tried to flee, firing arrows into the unholy swarm. Demons descended upon them, ripping off limbs, pulling out entrails, crunching bones in their jaws. Other villagers tried to flee across the fields. A coiling centipede, as long as a fallen oak, wrapped around one fleeing child and squeezed, slicing her to segments. A twitching bundle of arms and mouths, its insect wings buzzing, flew toward one family, regurgitated a net of dripping webs to trap them, and thrust a metal tongue like a tube into the screaming mass. Huts collapsed. Animals screamed and died. Gobbets of meat flew across the village and blood soaked the earth.

Raem's mount, the constructed bat, still hovered above the village. She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes begging, tongue lolling. Sitting in the saddle, Raem stroked her.

"Very well, Anai," he said. He had named her after his dead wife, for this creature had become his new companion. "You may feed."

Not wasting another heartbeat, the beast plunged down, her two spine ridges bulging. She descended upon a screaming, legless man; a second demon was guzzling down the legs a few feet away. The man tried to crawl away, but Anai pounced upon him, thrust down her mouth, and ripped out flesh. The creature wept as she fed, perhaps still remembering her old human soul, but she fed nonetheless.

When they took flight again, the village was gone, its houses toppled, all its life consumed. Piles of bricks, bloodstains, clumps of hair, and steaming demon waste were all that remained.

The host flew on.

"Soon, Anai," Raem said, riding his mount across the sky. He caressed the beast's wispy, pale hair. "Soon you will feed upon the sweet meat of dragons."

Their appetite whet, their bellies still grumbling, the demons flew north, heading across the river . . . heading to Requiem.

LAIRA

 
LAIRA

Laira knelt above her sister, stroking the girl's hair.

"Issari," she whispered, and her tears fell, splashing against the young woman's cheek. "My sister."

Only eighteen winters old, Issari was younger than Laira, but her limbs were longer, and even bruised and cut and famished, her body seemed stronger. A braid hung across her shoulder, thick and black, and her skin was pale.