Taifa's vision, sense of self, and purpose split. She could see the battlefield
from the air. The women and men, dying by the scores, looked small and
insignificant.
She could see the two and a half thousand ships of her people, most of
them cannibalized for parts, lying on the beach like the half-eaten quarry of
some greater predator. She could see Omehi women and men scurrying
from the makeshift shelter of those broken ships to the sand to the battle.
She could see the ocean behind them all, stretching beyond the horizon,
endless.
But it wasn't endless. She'd crossed it with what was left of the Chosen
of the Goddess. She'd saved her people from eradication, and it was not
their fate, having found this distant land, to die on its sands. Her people's
sacrifice, Tsiory's sacrifice, would have purpose, and the natives, heathens
one and all, would learn what it meant to oppose her.
The merging completed, and the dragon's power, its fury, flowed into
Taifa. Quickly, she coiled these thick tendrils of consciousness and
fashioned them into the ropes that would hold her tight to it.
It was then the savages on the beach spotted the creature, and through its
eyes, she saw them turn and point. She could see their fear, smell it, and
Taifa tapped the dragon's anger, stoking it, fueling it, turning the creature's
need for vengeance into a compulsion.
It dove, spiraling toward the beach, and, using its gift, drew more from
Isihogo than any human ever could. The dragon took its power from there,
from the Goddess, and brought it into the world, igniting its blood. The
beast burned, and when the heat threatened to overwhelm it, it blew fire,
lighting the world ablaze.
Two dozen women and men, people of this strange land who thought to
defend its shores from her, erupted in flame beneath the blast of Taifa's first
attack. She could hear their screams as their lives ended in suffering. Her
dragon, twice the size of her warship, with scales harder and sharper than
bronze and blacker than tar, swept down and snatched two more of the
heathens from the beach, slicing them to pieces in its massive claws, before
landing on the sand. The dragon blew fire again, arcing the inferno across
the gathered enemy horde.
Those hit by the blast were incinerated, and that was a mercy. The
women and men on the attack's edges were seared by the heat, their flesh
bubbling and sloughing off their bones. The ones this didn't kill choked to
death on the fumes of the creature's acrid blood.
The daughters and sons of these white sands and withered trees, once so
fearless in battle, mounted no more attacks. They fell back in terror,
scrambling to flee, and in retreat, they faced the rest of the rage.
Taifa's Entreaters, the most powerful of her Gifted, merged with the two
other dragons that answered their call. Together, the rage blew fire so hot
that Taifa, only half in her body, still felt its heat from her warship.
The savages, the ones not dead or dying, ran for the safety of the trees,
but Taifa pushed her dragon to follow. It rose into the air, chasing those who
fled, burning down the tangled foliage that hid her enemies from her. The
heat of its fires melted white sand to black glass and where the flames fell
left nothing but ash.
As her dragon scorched the earth, Taifa prayed. She prayed to Ananthi,
the Goddess, for two things. The first was forgiveness. She begged for it,
knowing no mortal would have the grace to offer it, given what she was
going to do to the people of this land. After that, after forgiveness, she
asked for the power to destroy and the will to see it done.
"My queen," Taifa heard the KaEid say through the fugue of the
merging. "They're retreating. We've won."
But Tsiory was dead and Taifa would honor him with a funeral pyre
built from the corpses of her enemies. She urged her dragon on. She killed
and killed, until her wrath cost the lives of most in her Hex, and until there
was no one left to burn.
Exhausted, and with the shroud that masked her soul's light collapsing,
Queen Taifa Omehia sacrificed one more Gifted, released the dragon, and
folded back into herself. The beach was a smoldering ruin, and with a
remnant of the creature's senses, she could smell the charred flesh, death,
and stink of fear that suffused the sand.
She looked skyward as her dragon beat its way higher into the cloudless
dusk, making for its nest. As it went, it belched a twisting column of flame,
bright as the sun, and let out a mournful keen that almost started her crying.
She refused to shed a single tear. The day was won, and though there were
many more to come, the Goddess had already answered one of her prayers.
Queen Taifa had the will to do what must be done.
Striding past the bodies of the Gifted she'd sacrificed and ignoring the
horrified faces of her Ruling Council, Taifa turned away from the foreign
land that would be her people's new home. She quit the ship's deck,
descending stairs that took her from light to dark, and, finding herself alone
in the false twilight, placed a hand to her stomach. She had so little of
Tsiory left, but what she had she would protect.
"Let them think me a monster," the Dragon Queen thought. "I will be a
monster, if it means we survive."