Requiem's Song (Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

ale. But their old city across the sea . . . that was
a place a thousand times the size, its houses not built of mud and
straw but of actual stone.
    "I
want to go back home," Laira had once begged her mother.
"Please. I hate the cold north. I hate this tribe. I want to go
home."
    Mother
had only hushed her, kissed her brow, and smoothed her hair. "We
cannot. We bear a secret, a magic of dragons. We had to flee Eteer,
and Zerra is kind to us. Zerra gave us a new home. Hush now, Laira,
my sweetness."
    Laira
had blinked away tears and clung to Mother. "Is my father still
there?"
    Mother
had rocked her. "Yes, my child. Your father is still there, a
great warrior prince." She showed Laira her amulet, the silver
sigil of Taal, the god of the south. "This is the amulet he gave
me, an amulet to protect us. You are descended of royalty. Never
forget that, even here, even in our exile."
    Yet
what was royalty worth, Laira thought, if she could not return?
Cursed with reptilian blood, they had fled the distant land of Eteer.
Yet how was Goldtusk any safer? Mother had died here. Laira suffered
here.
    "Should
I flee this tribe as Mother fled her old kingdom?" Her eyes
stung. "Dare I fly to that fabled, secret place . . . the
escarpment? The hidden land where they say other dragons live?"
    Tears
streamed down Laira's bruised face, mingling with the mud. Others
like her . . . humans able to become dragons . . . cursed, outcast,
afraid. Men whispered of them. They said that Zerra himself had a
twin brother, a weredragon, a leader of weredragons. Could it be true? Or was the escarpment just a myth
as Mother had claimed?
    Laira
sighed. If she fled this tribe to seek a legend, she was likely to
die. The escarpment lay many marks away; a single mark was a distance
too far for her to cross alone, let alone many. In this world of
harsh winters and roaming beasts, even a dragon could not survive
alone. Her mother's words echoed in her mind from beyond the years.
    There
are no others, Laira. Only us. We are alone. And Goldtusk is our
home.
    "Goldtusk
is my home," Laira whispered.
    She
pushed herself up onto wobbling arms. Bedraggled and covered in mud,
she stared downhill toward their camp. The tribe's tents rose across
the misty valley, made of animal hides stretched over branches. Their
totem pole rose among them, carved with animal spirits, topped with
the gilded mammoth tusk they worshiped, the god Ka'altei. Deer,
hares, and fowl roasted upon campfires, and the tribesmen, clad in
fur and leather, tended to the meat.
    The
tribe's source of power, a flock of rocs, stood tethered outside the
camp. Great vultures the size of dragons, they gathered around a
mammoth carcass, tearing into the meat with sharp beaks. Those beaks
were large enough to swallow Laira whole. As she watched, the tribe
hunters—tall, strong, and sporting jewelry of clay, bronze, and even
gold—walked toward the beasts. One by one, they mounted the rocs and
took flight, brandishing bows and roaring hunting cries.
    "The
hunters are strong and proud," Laira said to herself, watching
as they soared. "They are the nobility of Goldtusk. They are
never beaten, never spat upon, never afraid."
    She
rose to her feet, hugged herself, and stared at the hunters flying
into the distance, their rocs shrieking.
    "My
old kingdom is forbidden to me," Laira whispered. "The
escarpment is but a myth. But I am the child of a warrior prince. I
am noble and I am strong." She clenched her small fists. She
would become what she had vowed the day her mother had died. "I
will be a huntress."

    * * * * *

    That
evening, the hunters returned upon their rocs, singing the songs of
their totems. The great birds shrieked, beating their rotted wings,
holding game in their talons: deer, boar, and buffalo. With splatters
of blood, they tossed the carcasses down between the tents. Soon
great campfires burned, and the game roasted upon spits, filling the
camp with delicious aromas.
    The
women returned too,