Page 16 of Dragon Gods

The chief commander moved, waving to the hooded soldier that stood at attention next to him, an axe hanging in one hand. The soldiers pushed the first prisoner forward, forcing him to his knees. He was a scrawny man, his face speaking of cycles of near starvation and pain. But even as he kneeled, he kept his head high, looking out at the crowd with accusing eyes.

“Antonio Medina, you have been found guilty of treason, having known associations with the resistance and refusing to give up the names of your associates. As such, you have been sentenced to death.”

Flor’s hand clenched around Sofia’s in a painful spasm as the axe fell and the man’s head dropped from the platform and into the crowd below. There was a rush as those closest moved to destroy the head, stomping it into the ground as if he deserved punishment even in death. Sofia had made the mistake of going up to the platform after one of the executions, forcing herself to look at the scattered remains of blood, brain, and bone left behind by the people when they were done with their cruel ritual.

A sharp gasp from Flor brought her attention back to the platform and her knees went weak. Sari was kneeling now, her head tucked in the small divot, and the chief commander opened his mouth to speak. But Sofia didn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in her ears. And for a moment, it wasn’t straight brown hair hanging over the block, but a set of familiar tight black curls.

The sound of the axe coming down and the roar of the crowd broke her from her trance and she felt herself jerk back into her body. Sari’s brown hair was gone from the platform and the crowd at the front undulated in their dance of glee. Acid burned up her throat, but she swallowed it back down, Flor’s hand her only anchor.

Sofia stood, watching but not truly seeing, as the last two Dragonborn were beheaded and the king stood to congratulate the chief commander on his defense of Suvi. The moment the king’s hand raised in its dismissal wave, Sofia moved, no longer able to hold herself still.

She kept their hands linked as she pushed through the crowd, but she could feel Flor pulling at her, trying to slow her down. But she didn’t care.Couldn’tcare.

Not when she could still hear the slice of the axe through bone and wood. The crowd roared, a cheer of glee as the blood of the Dragonborn rained down on them from above.

Her mind was screaming and her throat burned as if the sound were stuck there, unable to come out. She was choking on her own rage.

Blood. Screams. Pain. Death.

The king wasn’t going to give up his power. He thought himself a god. He would kill every Dragonborn before he sacrificed a single thing to the resistance. Why not, when he saw them all as vermin to be exterminated?

Blood. Screams. Pain. Death.

And Chief Commander Harlow wasn’t going to give up anything, even to save Fox Ocon. That much was clear. He’d killed one Dragonborn for every day that Ocon had been captured. He’d continued to kill them until something changed.

Blood. Screams. Pain. Death.

Only a god could challenge another god’s power.

She heard the muffled voice of someone in her ear and she turned, eyes focusing on the person standing in front of her. Flor.

“Where are you going?”

Sofia tried to shake her head, tried to understand the words to form a response, but her mind spun and her breaths were coming too fast. Instead of answering with words, she tugged once more and started to move again.

She couldn’t think, but she could still walk, and she knew the steps to the mangroves like the back of her hand. It was stupid to leave when the sun was still up and the tide was moving in. Another Sofia with a functioning mind would have known that. Sheknewit even now, but she didn’t care.

The soldiers were feasting and drinking in celebration. The city was satiated in its bloodthirst and laying quiet now in the afternoon heat.

“What are you going to do?”

They were already in the mangroves, hands no longer linked, but Flor followed obediently behind her. Sofia looked back at Flor with her pale face and wide eyes. It clearly hadn’t been the first time Flor had spoken the words and she seemed surprised to finally be acknowledged.

“I’m going to get that Dereyan bastard to give me a way into the prison and the chief commander’s house. And then I’m going to kill him.”

FOX

AGE 16

When the first king was only fifteen sun cycles old, the truth of the world was revealed to him. The dragons that his tribe and the others of Wueco worshipped were not gods, but demons spreading terror over the land. His revelation did not come from his holiness, but rather he transcended his human birth through the actions he took to free the land from the demons.

-The Legacy of the Kings: A History of Wueco’s Creation by Francis Knoll

Being handed the axe was one of the greatest honors of Fox’s life. Chief Commander Harlow’s face was serious, mouth set in a grim line, but he could see the pride lighting up his eyes behind the mask of indifference. They were in front of the entire kingdom and it wouldn’t be decent to show favoritism toward the general’s son.

It wasn’t common practice to allow a high scout to conduct the executions, but he’d been the one to catch the rebel less than a mile from the outer wall. The Dragonborn had been carrying black powder along with a rough schematic for two houses in the royal quarter. The arrest was more than enough to ensure Fox’s promotion to high scout, but the chief commander had decided he deserved an additional reward for the thwarted plan.

When Chief Commander Harlow had come to dinner with Fox’s family to announce the plan to his father and him, Fox was thrilled. He’d even seen a flicker of pride that flashed for the briefest moment in his father’s eyes before he turned the conversation back to the ongoing campaign to find out where the schematics had come from and who was working with the man.

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