He rode upon Anai, his bat-like demon, leading his host of a thousand. The sky was clear and blue, though the smoke of demons darkened the land. Below them the forests wilted, the rivers turned gray, and the grass burned. The trail of death spread behind them across the land, all the way to the southern coast. Ahead still stretched the wilderness, the untamed land that he would bring under his dominion. With the power of his demon army, he would not only crush the fledgling nation of Requiem; he would conquer the open north, turning Eteer into an empire.

"What is it?" Ciana asked, disgust filling her voice.

The young woman sat in the saddle before Raem, her back pressed to his body. Her weapons hung from her belt, and the wind ruffled her fur tunic. She wore the bronze mask that hid the ruin of her face, but Raem could see the scars of dragonfire peeking from beneath. She had only taken off her mask once, but the memory still pounded through Raem—a faceless woman, ravaged, deformed, an abomination unto Taal and his vision of purity. The dragons had done that to her. The dragons would suffer tenfold.

He stroked her hair. "Do not fear my scout, Ciana, my dear. It is a disgusting creature, an unholy insult to Taal, but a useful servant. It will deliver the dragons to us."

The creature that flew toward them looked like a severed hand the size of a tree. An eye blinked upon each shriveled finger, and a mouth opened upon its palm, lined with many teeth. When it reached the demon army, it fluttered toward Raem and panted, tongue dripping. It spoke in a high-pitched voice, the voice of a child.

"King Raem! Weredragons in the north. Four hands of them. Rocs too. Flying north! To a mountain like two skulls. I see them. I lead you there."

Raem smiled thinly. Four hands—only twenty weredragons. He laughed. Was that all this King Aeternum could muster—twenty lizards? Raem looked behind him at the sprawling host. Twenty dragons wouldn't even feed these creatures.

"This is no war," he said. "This is stomping on an insect."

Ciana twisted around in her saddle. She stared at him through her mask holes. "King Aeternum—Jeid Blacksmith was once his name—is crueler than any other weredragon you've ever seen. He burned me. He took my face. He is not an insect but a terror." She sneered and clutched her bow. "And we will slay him. We will slay them all. The king, his son, and all the rest of them."

They flew on, the land wilting below them, until they reached a gushing river that split the land. Upon its bank nestled villages, benighted human settlements barely better than the dens of animals. Ciana pointed down at one of the backwaters.