“You’re sure you’ll be okay in here without me?”
Tempest eyed his friend warily, the little Eudimorphodon returning a look of annoyed chagrin of his own. Tempest knew that the constant attention towards him had to frustrate and embarrass Zephyr; there was no way it couldn’t make him feel like even more of a burden than he already did. And he was a burden indeed, though Tempest had no intention of letting anyone else know he thought that. But Zephyr was his burden and his responsibility. It was his fault that Zephyr had ever gone in that pond and so it was his fault that that awful monster had attacked him.
And it was especially Tempest’s fault that he had failed to protect him. And not only Zephyr, but Pax as well. He had failed to defend Zephyr against that monster’s predatory jaws, just as he had failed to defend Pax against the Elders’ raptorial judgement. Zephyr had put his future with the Order on the line to protect his friend, while Tempest did nothing but stand by and watch.
“Yes, Tempest,” Zephyr replied, with suppressed irritation. “I told you a thousand times already: I’m fine. Just because I can’t walk, doesn’t mean I’m going to fall down and die. Besides, Pax is here with me.”
A massive crocodilian figure was standing at the other end of the room, great tail keeping his balance as was he reared up upon his hind legs and looking out a window. Pax was only paying half-hearted attention, his eyes firmly fixed on the blue summer skies outside and his mind drifting far away. The mention of his name did pique his interest, if only briefly.
“Yes,” he offered, his naturally booming voice currently sullen and withdrawn. He waved away Tempest’s concerns with a single flick of a claw. “Zeph’ll be fine, Tempest. Take as much time as you need.” With that, Pax was back to gazing out the window.
Zephyr had gone back to reading from his (absurdly, according to Tempest) large collection of tablets he had taken from the library, and now Pax was busied again with his thoughts.
They don’t want to have anything to do with me, Tempest thought, sulkily. Not that he blamed them, of course. He wouldn’t want to have anything to do with himself, if he could help it. But he knew someone who did, and she was just about the only person right now he felt he could really talk to about the burdens- his nagging, oppressive guilt- weighing on him. It had only been a few days since he had gone to talk to Celeste, just after the incident at the pond, but it almost felt like it had been years. He was missing her now more than he had in a very long time; he had to go see her.
“Okay then, as long as you’re sure,” Tempest said, excusing himself and stepping out of the room. Neither Zephyr nor Pax looked back to him as he left. “I just need some time to myself. I’ll be back later.”
Tempest walked down corridor after corridor, past Pax’s grand personal room (he did, of course, need quite a bit more space than the two pterosaurs), and then the now-empty Council antechamber. The walls were built from conifer wood, harvested from the abundant forests surrounding the monastery, and the whole complex was quite well-lit, with innumerable windows along the length of outward-facing walls. Sconces for torches to be lit at night were dotted all around the hallways and at the entrance to each room. One torch, always lit, burned above Chief Elder Magnus’s personal chamber.
Tempest peeked around the doorway to see if the Chief Elder was looking; luckily for him, he wasn’t. Tempest passed by the room as quickly and quietly as he could manage. He was doing his best to avoid being noticed by any of the Elders, Magnus especially- and especially not today. The Chief Elder’s conduct during Pax’s trial had left a nasty impression on Tempest, one that wouldn’t quickly fade. He didn’t have the slightest desire to put his temper to the test right now. Thankfully, Magnus was preoccupied with something on the other side of the room and Tempest was able to pass without incident. Tempest exhaled as he successfully passed by the Chief Elder’s archway, not realizing that he had been holding his breath while he crossed.
He was close to the exit now. He only had to pass by the library and step out into the outdoor garden, where open skies awaited. He made this same exit time and time before, and it was always easy enough. The Elders were almost always preoccupied with their own business somewhere else, so that he hardly ever ran into any of them, aside from that brief passage past Magnus’s doorway.
Tempest came up on the library, passed the threshold of the entrance and very nearly made it to the other side, when a voice called out his name.
“Tempest! Where are you off to?”
Elder Ignavus. The aging Eoraptor’s high-pitched, tinny croak was instantly recognizable. He didn’t ask the question with any sort of suspicion, but with earnest interest; for his many faults, distrust was not one of them.
Tempest stopped in the entryway and turned to face the Elder. Ignavus was seated at a table, his narrow claws tracing shapes into a rectangular lump of clay with skillful precision. He briefly looked up to appraise his pterosaur guest before turning his attention back to what he had been doing. Of his few virtues, curiosity was not among them.
“Were you coming to visit the library?” Ignavus asked, his eyes still intently focused on the task at hand. “Zephyr was here with Pax earlier. He took out Volumes III through V of the Most Venerable Elder’s Memoirs. Did he send you to pick up another volume? I did tell him Volume VII was the most engaging, but he wasn’t interested. Did you know Elder Dilectus wrote it-”
I swear, I’m way less interested than Zeph was.
“No,” Tempest replied, shortly. Ignavus looked up from his work with a puzzled expression, looking a little hurt. Tempest corrected himself as quickly as he could manage. “No, Elder. I was actually heading to the garden.”
There was no reason to lie. Not to Ignavus, anyways.
“Oh. I should have guessed you weren’t here for the library,” Ignavus said, slightly downtrodden, and returned to his delicate work. Tempest guessed the Elder didn’t have very many friends, not among the other Elders and certainly not among the subadults, and he certainly didn’t have anyone with the same interest in Elder Dilectus’s musings. Well, except Zephyr- but even he wasn’t a fan of Volume VII either, apparently. “Most aren’t. Save little Zephyr, at least. But are you sure you want to go outside now? It’s getting late already.”
“No it isn’t, Elder,” Tempest said, flicking a wing toward a large window at the back wall, from which full light was still streaming. Was Ignavus really that bad at keeping track of time? Or was he just so focused on his work that he hadn’t noticed?
“Oh?” Ignavus sounded genuinely surprised and quickly rose up out of his seat to take a look outside. When he did, one of his claws stuck fast to the lump of clay and sent it flying as his arm swung, catapulting it to land right at Tempest’s feet. Ignavus shrieked in surprise, and then, as Tempest bent down to pick it up, shrieked in alarm. “Careful! It’s fragile!”
Ignavus was spinning around, frantically searching for something around his workspace. He looked positively panicked, quite a disproportionate response to just having dropped something that, by Tempest’s estimation, still looked perfectly intact. Finally, the Elder found what he was looking for, pulling out a thin cloth of tanned lizard hide. He rushed over to the scene of the accident and swaddled the bit of clay with the cloth, doting over the little object like it was his baby.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Ignavus repeated, returning the lump to its place on the table, relief flooding over his snout after he inspected it for injury. “By Mìr’s virtue, that was close! Quite too close for my liking.”
Given Ignavus’s jumpy nature, Tempest reasoned that quite a few things were a bit too close for the Elder’s liking. But what about that little piece of clay was so important to get that worked up over?
“What exactly are you working on, Elder?”
“History,” Ignavus answered, bluntly. He was again intently focused on the lump, now doing his best to smooth it back out into its firmly rectangular shape. “Every bit of writing here recorded on this library’s tablets was passed down by previous Chroniclers from this very monastery. As this current Council of Elders’ Chronicler, it is my solemn-” Ignavus slammed one of his bony fingers down onto a corner of the tablet, squashing it back down into its proper shape. “-it is my solemn duty to uphold this tradition and chronicle this Council’s actions.”
He’s writing about the trial today. I wonder how honestly he portrayed himself? Like the coward he was? Tempest winced, feeling a little guilty for that last thought. He hadn’t exactly been a paragon of courage himself, refusing to stand up for his friend. But Ignavus had nearly been responsible for Pax’s excommunication, all because he hadn’t been brave enough to vote against it! Surely that was worse, wasn’t it? Still, looking at the squirrely theropod, it was difficult to fault him. That was just his nature, after all.
“Will the tablet still come out okay?”
“Yes, I believe so. I’ll just have to be extra careful with it, to make sure it doesn’t crack during the heating process.” Ignavus sounded equally relieved and like he was just trying to relieve himself. He offered Tempest a polite smile and waved him away with a flick of the tail. “I appreciate your taking the time to visit, Tempest. Erm, but this is… delicate work, so if you could please excuse me now.”
Tempest could take a hint. Even the friendless historian didn’t want him around; and, to be fair, he didn’t really want to stick around either.
The rest of the trip to the garden passed without incident, and Tempest felt a flood of relief as he stepped outside, finally able to bask in the warmth of the afternoon sun. He had been cooped up inside for far too long today, so the smell of fresh air and the glow of the sun were very welcome indeed. The garden was populated primarily by ginkgoes and ferns, specifically nurtured and cultivated for consumption by Elders Sapiens and Retunsus, both of whom were the only herbivores at the monastery. The others subsisted primarily on fish and whatever lower-order, non-sapient prey animals they could get their claws on. Still, the colossal size of the two herbivores necessitated a hefty sum of vegetation for them to eat, and so the garden was richly packed with a sizeable number of overgrown flora.
Tempest walked out into the mass of vegetation, made several furtive scans to ensure no one was around watching, and then leapt high into the air, flapping his muscular wings with all the drive he could muster. Finally, his wings caught a loft of air and he was able to glide along with it effortlessly. A few drives of his mighty wings later and he had propelled himself far into the blue skies, high enough that the monastery became little more than a speck upon the landscape.
He was free again, at last! With exuberant joy he spiraled through the air, dashing through cloud after cloud, soaring effortlessly above the mass of forests dotting the ridgeline below. He could see the contours of a dry creekbed snaking its way down the mountain and could faintly make out the outline of a settlement a few miles in the distance, near the creek’s end.
Normally, Tempest would just follow this creekbed as a natural trail to the village, but today he opted to take another path. It was a nice day out, the sun was shining and the air was warm (but not uncomfortably so). It had been too long since he’d been able to stretch his wings for a good, cathartic flight. After today, he needed it.
So instead of diving along the contours of the ridgeline, he ascended, pulled up over the crest of the mountain and swung around the other side, aiming to make a wide circle that would ultimately lead to his approaching the village from the eastern entrance. To the east of the mountain range lay a flat, open plain, low-lying and heavily forested, save for the parts where a road had been hewn through the woods.
Tempest soared up over the plain, following the artificial path making its way through the forest. He took this path only a few times- when it was nice out and he had enough time to kill- but still enough to know it well, and without needing the guidance of the road below. He knew it by the currents on the wind, the ways they tugged and drifted on his wings, and he could, if he so desired, easily have made the journey with his eyes closed. However, with the sun’s rays shining down through clear blue skies onto the landscape below, painting all the plain with resplendent, beautiful light, he had every inclination to take in the views.
Tempest passed over the first of a few guard stations along this section of the path, typically occupied by a few of the wandering soldiers dispatched from one of the High Cities to patrol the roads, and was surprised to find it empty. The little stone watchtower was deserted.
That’s odd.
In all the times Tempest had flown this way, he had never seen the station empty. Perhaps the soldiers had been moved to a different station? Tempest knew there had been some sort of major unrest far at the capital, and rumor had spread that the ruling government had collapsed. Still, that hardly could have affected them way out here, could it? The capital was thousands of miles away, and each of the High Cities were fairly autonomous. Surely Civitas Lapis,- the great stone city and, presiding High City of their region, wouldn’t be withdrawing their soldiers over something happening on the other side of the continent.
Continuing his flight, Tempest couldn’t shake a feeling of creeping unease. The road was unusually quiet, free of any sign of the wandering merchants or passing patrolmen that would usually be present. Even the little animals of the woods had gone dead silent; there wasn’t the faintest chirp of any arthropod to be heard. Where had everyone gone?
After a few more minutes of disquieting silence, the pterosaur passed a second guard station, just as abandoned as the last. That’s it, he thought, sufficiently unnerved and curious in equal amounts. I’m going to take a look.
Diving sharply, the Caelestiventus wove through the trees with impressive finesse, landing with a graceful halt atop the peak of the guard tower. The silence was even more deafening down beneath the trees.
“Hello?” Tempest called out, making his way down the steps to the tower. “Is there anyone here?”
The only sound returned in response was the rustle of the wind. Tempest attempted to look in the front window of the little guard shack, but found it obscured by some piece of upturned furniture. He moved over to the entrance, a heavy wooden door, and tried the handle with his claws. The door was unlocked, but was reinforced enough that it was still difficult for even the muscular pterosaur to push it open. It had clearly been designed for the use of stronger creatures than him- and to guard against them, if necessary.
“Hello?” he called again, into the empty space. The only response this time was his own echo. The room was dark, any light that would have been coming in being prevented by whatever was blocking the window. There was some awful, pungent smell that Tempest couldn’t quite place; it reminded him of the smell a dead lizard made if it had been left out in the sun too long and was beginning to decay. Before he went in, Tempest made a little cursory sweep into the room with his wings, but they brushed against nothing. Steeling his nerve, he entered.
Again, no one said anything. He moved over to where he could approximate where the window should have been, and nearly tripped over something hard and fleshy. Tempest cursed and moved a little faster, grabbing hold of the edge of the thing blocking the window. Something had lodged it in place, but he was determined to let in some light. After several heaves with all of his strength, he finally managed to tip the object over, and light came streaming in.
The room was, just as he suspected, completely deserted. But it wasn’t empty. Lying on the floor was the body of a Lystrosaurus, lying in a pool of her own blood. She was clothed in a heavy metal armor, silver accented with violet- the traditional garb of soldiers from Civitas Lapis. Huge dents- the work of a massive blunt weapon swung by strong arms- riddled the surface of the armor all across her chest. Where the collar of the armor came up over her nape, there were puncture marks, as would have been driven by a sword- the wielder of which would have had to be incredibly powerful to pierce so cleanly through the metal. A blunt weapon had battered and crushed her bones, and then a sword had been driven through her neck to finish her off. She had been murdered, and by someone with astounding strength.
“Be with Mìr,” Tempest said, bending down to gently caress her head and close her lifeless, gaping eyes. This was the second dead body he had ever seen, after the Mastodonsaurus at the pond, and this one was even harder to stomach. The temnospondyl had tried to kill him, he didn’t have an ounce of regret for its death; but this poor soldier was different. She didn’t do anything to deserve this. Buried in a far-off memory, Tempest recalled something Magnus had said, at a funeral for the last of the previous generation of Elders. “‘May you, in death, find the peace withheld from you in life.’”
That put him a little more at ease, but it still couldn’t make the environment comfortable. His stomach was still churning and crest was bristling uncomfortably, urging him to hurry along and leave this room. But he couldn’t leave yet. Whoever had killed her had also barred the window; they didn’t want anyone to see what had happened here, and there had to have been a reason this soldier was killed. Maybe she had left some sort of clue behind?
If there were any clues though, he wasn’t quite sure where to look. The whole room was trashed: some furniture had been upturned, others were shattered into dozens of pieces. Evidently the soldier hadn’t been willing to die quietly. Blood was splattered all over, over walls and chairs and everything else. Had the soldier been able to wound her attacker before she died?
After a few cursory scans, Tempest couldn’t find anything of note. As his crest pricked against his neck again, begging him to leave, he was prepared to obey its urgings. He would just have to settle for warning the village that a killer might still be at large. Turning to leave, however, something caught his eye: a little misshapen lump of clay, half buried beneath bits of the splinters of a shattered table.
Reminded of how reverent Elder Ignavus had been with his work-in-progress tablet, Tempest stripped off his robe and swaddled up the bit of clay, doing his best not to damage it worse than the tussle in the room already had. Had the soldier been working on writing something before she was attacked?
Gingerly turning over the tablet in his claws, Tempest could make out little squiggles in the surface. The tablet was all misshapen and bits of it were missing, but most of the words had still managed to survive:
“Lieutenant Abr---,
I know your orde--, but I --n’t leave.
The --ads are not safe. The rai--rs and bandi--- are the least of our worries. ----- -- a cult lurking in the hills. ----- --- heavily arm-- and already killed --ax’s company.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
--- village guards are not prepared t- -eal wi-- them. I fear --- village is in danger. I need t- -arn them. I’m go--- -- stay and ---pare them.
Send word to Genera- -----, our sold---s CAN--T withdraw. We need –inforcem--ts.
Please send help soon, I fear---"
The tablet ended there. If what this soldier had been writing was true- and by her dead body on the floor, it assuredly was- then the village was in danger. Tempest didn’t have the faintest idea what this cult was she was referring to, but they sounded dangerous, and if they were hunting soldiers, then the village wouldn’t stand a chance. He had no idea how long it had been since she died, but judging by that awful smell, she was beginning to rot. If she hadn’t warned the village before she died, then they were running out of time.
Tempest had to hurry. He wrapped up the tablet in his robe, and then rewrapped it again, before tying the remainder of the fabric back around his shoulders like a satchel. He hurried back to the door, opened it with a loud creak, and then-
“Did you hear that?”
A thick voice called out, breaking the still silence of the forest. Tempest shrunk back into the refuge of the guard station. Someone- multiple someones- were waiting for him outside. Doing his best to keep quiet, he pulled the door closed ever so slightly-
Creeeeeeeak.
“Oi!” the same voice shouted. “It’s comin’ from the guard shanty!”
Uh oh. Tempest looked for something he could hide behind, or even to use to bar the door, but found nothing. The only piece of furniture left intact was the table that had been blocking the window, but that was much too heavy for him to move on his own. He only had a few options, and none of them seemed especially good.
He considered simply shutting the door and doing his best to keep it shut- he was pretty strong, and the door was reinforced for a soldier to withstand an assault- but he was no soldier, and if he wanted to have any chance of holding his own against someone hostile, he would need space to do it. He was a pterosaur, and pterosaurs weren’t built to win head-on fights, they were meant to take advantage of the open skies. On the other claw, if he stepped out in front of a group of armed killers here, he wouldn’t have any shelter to guard him. One quick swipe to his wing and he would be completely defenseless.
What can I do? Tempest stood still, frozen in place, paralyzed by fear and indecision. He could hear the sounds of excited feet outside rushing towards his position. There wasn’t much time left to make up his mind. I’m really not much better than Ignavus, am I? Just as much a nervous coward as he is.
Images in Tempest’s mind flashed back to the nearby village, and to the beautiful visage of Celeste. If no one warned them, the whole village was in danger; Celeste was in danger. No, Tempest thought, steeling his nerve. I’m not just going to wait here to die. I’m coming, Celeste.
With a sharp inhale, Tempest burst out the door. The individual nearest him, an elongated, crocodile-like creature, roughly around his own size, scrambled back in surprise.
“Conru! I thought you said the soldiers were all dead!” the little crocodilian, a Doswellia, shouted in alarm, scrabbling to draw a sword sheathed behind his hind leg.
The Doswellia was long and flat, low to the ground with short, stubby legs. To Tempest’s surprise, they were still sturdy enough to rear up on and held enough gripping power to hold on to the narrow hilt of his sword. His scales were a mottled patchwork of drab greens and browns, and he was adorned with a variety of scars across his body and narrow snout. A silver pendant, shaped in the image of some monstrous winged reptile- some terrible beast wholly distinct from any depiction of a pterosaur or other creature Tempest had ever seen- hung around his neck. A bow was securely fastened to his back, and a small quiver was secured to his other hip, just across from the sword’s sheath; Tempest couldn’t help but wonder how he could possibly draw the bow with his stumpy little hands.
“They are all dead. I made sure of that,” another voice replied, smooth and confident. It was a feminine voice, and yet was still quite sonorous and commanding. Despite the power behind them, her words flowed out with ease like a gentle caress. If Tempest hadn’t already been so on-edge, he might have been inclined to be put at ease by them. But one is not easily comforted by someone who just admitted to being a killer, even when her voice is pretty. “This is no soldier.”
When the speaker emerged from behind the watchtower, Tempest became even less at ease. She was a Saurosuchus, a colossal crocodilian- a Rauisuchian like Pax. She was even taller than Pax was, at least five feet tall on all four legs, and several feet longer. By some of her misaligned proportions, (her head had grown quite a bit larger than the rest of her had been able to keep up), Tempest reckoned she still had even more to grow. Tempest further reasoned by this that she must have only been a subadult, around the same age as him and Pax (Zephyr, though no one liked to admit it, was indeed a few months their elder). Tempest further reasoned by this that she must have only been a subadult too, around the same age as him and Pax (Zephyr, though no one liked to admit it, was indeed a few months their elder).
That young, and already a killer. Just like Pax. Tempest felt ashamed as soon as he thought it. Pax had killed to save lives, not murdered for- well, he wasn’t quite sure why this individual had, save to protect some ‘cult’. That seemed bad enough.
As more of the giant crocodilian rounded the corner, Tempest felt more of an urge to turn tail and fly away, in fact- that seemed like quite a good idea. He backed up and crouched down to make a solid leap upwards, but the Saurosuchus- Conru, he presumed- waved a claw for him to stop. Despite all good sense screaming at him not to, he obliged.
Conru was in full view now. Her upper body was a mottled dark green, shadowing a lighter green underbelly. She was toned and muscular, but still decidedly feminine, and she looked remarkably like Pax in general build. A giant warhammer was slung across her back, its head fashioned from the vertebral column of some other colossal creature, even larger than she was. A long sword hung sheathed at her hip. Those were, no doubt, the same weapons that had executed the soldier. Why, such a naturally armed creature had need of such weapons, Tempest couldn’t fathom. A silver pendant, fashioned in the same shape as the Doswellia’s, hung around her neck.
“You are no soldier, aren’t you?” she asked, with a smile. Her tone was kindly and her smile really did look genuine- but Tempest had a natural apprehension of Pax’s toothy smile, and those instincts came through just the same here, face-to-face with a professed killer.
“You killed the soldier in there, didn’t you?” Tempest skirted her question and held his ground. He reached a wing to his shoulder to ensure the tablet was still secured there. The little crocodile nearby moved to advance on him, but Conru waved for him to halt.
“I did,” Conru admitted, with an amiable shrug. She was still beaming that chillingly warm smile. “But I didn’t want to. I don’t hurt people I don’t have to. It was necessary to protect my family.”
“By ‘family,’ you mean cult, right?”
“Please darling, don’t use that word. It’s reductive.” Conru’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t making a request. “Not that I blame you, of course,” she added quickly, eyeing the makeshift satchel at his shoulder. “Someone has been spreading lies about us, I see.”
“And you killed her for it, right? Because she knew what you were, and she was going to warn people about you, is that right?”
“None of you have any idea what we are,” she hissed, still in that same faux-pleasant tone. She flicked her tail nonchalantly and the Doswellia advanced, brandishing his sword. “Now I suspect you believe things about us that simply are not true, and those things you believe are quite dangerous. I told you what happens to people that are a threat to my family, and I can tell you’re a clever sort. So if you care about keeping that handsome beak planted on those muscled shoulders of yours, I would recommend handing over whatever it is you’re carrying.”
Conru tilted her head in a pretty, innocent sort of way, but her eyes burned with fiery intensity. She was most certainly not bluffing. The Doswellia was only a few feet away now. One swift lunge would be all it would take to end Tempest’s life.
Tempest’s eyes darted between the pair of cutthroats, and he brought his wing back to his satchel. What are the odds they actually let me live if I hand this over? Very little, he supposed. He was sure to be dead either way. Again, his thoughts strayed back to the lovely image of Celeste, and he made up his mind. I’m not going to let them hurt you too.
“I appreciate the compliments, lady, truly-” Tempest lifted his wing up to unravel the satchel. The Doswellia moved closer and reached out one stubby arm to accept the package. “But I’m already taken.”
Tempest pounced on the little crocodile. He swung his blade, but Tempest ducked under it and managed to secure a grip on the hilt with his claws. The crocodile was longer than he was, but Tempest was stronger and he managed to wrestle him to the ground. Forced down onto all-fours, the Doswellia struggled to keep a hold on his sword, and Tempest wrenched it free of his grip. As the pterosaur struggled to get a good grip on the weapon with his awkward wing-claws, his opponent began to roll, doing his best to shake Tempest off him. Here, down in the dirt, Tempest was way out of his element. The crocodile rolled and Tempest was shoved deeper into the mud, the Doswellia taking a dominant position over him. His stumpy little claws dug into the pterosaur’s neck, shoving his beak further down into the dirt.
Tempest could hardly move now, crushed beneath the crocodile’s weight, and he was struggling to breathe. He had never wielded a weapon before, but his claws still dutifully clutched fast to the sword’s hilt. Desperately, Tempest swung the weapon in a wild arc. To his surprise, he felt it connect.
The Doswellia wailed in pain and relented his assault, giving Tempest just enough of an opportunity to push him off and leap into the air. He struggled to catch his breath, but flight came intuitively and he managed to catch the air. He flapped, and he began to rise.
“Shoot him down!” Conru barked, and Tempest proffered a quick glance back to the ground. The Doswellia had a thick gash down his side, but it was hardly slowing him down. He undid a leather strap slung over his shoulder and his bow came unbound, swinging around to the front of him. With one foreleg he gripped the bow and with the other he drew and notched an arrow. The crocodile snaked his narrow snout behind the bowstring, gripped two metal notches in the string with his teeth, and pulled it back. With a distinctive thwip, an arrow was loosed. Tempest watched the arrow sail towards him, horrified, before it collided with a tree branch.
Curiosity more than adequately sated, Tempest turned his attention back to the front of him and his focus went back to weaving his way through the forests without colliding into any trees himself. He had to ascend, up and out of the treeline! Thwip. Another arrow whizzed by. Quickly!
But the trees had formed a thick canopy here, making a quick escape difficult. If he had the time, he could delicately snake his way through the branches and out to the other side, but he didn’t have that kind of time now. Thwip. Another arrow sailed past, this time grazing his leg. He needed to find a clearing, fast!
There, up a few hundred yards, he could see one. The trees parted at a fork in the road, providing just enough clearance for him to make his escape. He drove ahead, pumping his wings with all the vigor he could summon. He was gaining fast, it wasn’t far now! Thwip.
“AH!” Searing pain coursed through his body, stemming from the center of his wing. Tempest struggled to maintain his bearing. He was losing altitude, quickly, and his reaction time was slowing down. The pain in his wing was unbearable, it was hard to think about anything else.
So don’t think, then.
He knew how to fly instinctually. He was a pterosaur, this was in his blood! Tempest fell back on instinct, feeling the tug of the wind as it guided him forward. He flapped and again, he rose! Even with the gaping hole pierced through his wing, he could still fly! He could still-
Tempest slammed into a tree branch, hard. He lost control, his mind spinning and reeling from the pain of the collision. He tried to flap his wings, to regain control, to no avail. He was plummeting now, down through the trees. He crashed through branch after branch, his limp body bouncing from one tree to another. With an ear-splitting crack, Tempest met his last tree, the old rotten conifer snapping like a twig as they made contact.
Tempest rolled off the splintered tree to the earth with an awful groan. He was back on solid ground now. That was better than his painful freefall had been, at least. His head was swimming, pleading with him just to lie back down and accept his fate. His body had suffered quite enough pain for one day, it supposed.
No. I can’t lie down yet. Celeste is counting on me. With monumental effort, Tempest forced his way back to his feet. Everything in him ached; there was no way he could have made that fall without breaking something. Hopefully it just wasn’t something he needed to get out of here. The rest of him could heal when the village was safe. The sun’s rays shone down through the clearing in the trees just overhead, as if taunting him. I’m too close to give up now.
Tempest checked to make sure his satchel and its content was still secure. Finding it was, he made another attempt to spring into the air, but his weary legs just couldn’t make the effort. They buckled beneath him from the strain, and gave out. Tempest let out a loud groan before defiantly pushing himself up off the ground. His wings still felt functional enough, at least. He just had to find somewhere high enough to launch himself off from, and he could make his way out. He was always a good climber, maybe he could shoot off from one of these trees?
He wouldn’t have time to execute his plan. The earth shook, and Tempest didn’t have to guess why. It did the same thing whenever Pax decided to run. There, barreling her way through the trees with surprising agility, was Conru, her little crocodile companion affixed upon her shoulders- his bow drawn. Thwip. Tempest flapped his wings horizontally, managing to launch himself forward. He dove out of the way just as it sailed past where he had been standing.
Where’s that sword? He thought, scanning the surrounding terrain as quickly as he could. It had been in his claws while he was flying, but he must have dropped it during the fall. It couldn’t be far from here, could it? Conru was gaining rapidly. He had to find a weapon, while there was still some time! Finally, he caught sight of it just on the other side of the road, hilt standing straight up and blade buried in the dirt.
The massive Saurosuchus arrived before he had a chance to cross, and she wasn’t wasting any time. Her Doswellia companion leapt off her back and charged the pterosaur, arrow outstretched like a blade.
Tempest feigned a dive to the right, giving the pterosaur just enough of an opening to squeeze past him on the left. The crocodilian shouted in surprise as his target weaved past, but his long body wasn’t suitable for making any quick 180-degree turns.
At least that one’s not too bright.
But the little crocodile was the least of Tempest’s concerns, at least while the giant crocodile still blocked his path.
“You just had to play the hero, didn’t you?” Her voice sounded just as pleasant as always, but it dripped with a bitter sting. Her eyes burned with blazing wrath as she eyed her prey. Apparently, she wasn’t used to being defied and she wasn’t fond of the experience. She drew her titanic bone-hammer and swung. Tempest pressed his body to the dirt as the hammer swung overhead, its crushing head only missing his by a few inches.
Tempest scrambled forward, mimicking the little maneuver Zephyr made when he was trying to move himself somewhere and he didn’t want anyone’s help to do it. He snaked between the giant’s legs, pushed himself back up off of the dirt and dove to the other side of the road, landing just beside his dropped sword.
“I promise you, worm: this is going to be much more painful for you than if you would have just done what you were told.” Conru had turned around to face him, reared up on her hind legs and raising her hammer for another crushing blow. Tempest wasted no time in drawing the blade and scrambling backwards, just as she slammed down her weapon on the point where he had just been.
“I’m sorry,” he quipped, struggling to control his breathing. “But I have a bad habit of not following orders.” He was panting now, and all the physical exertion was really beginning to catch up with him. His bones were aching like crazy and his legs had no desire to stand again. That wasn’t an option. He dug his wings into the earth, pushed up off the ground and rose back up to his feet, sword brandished in his claws.
Luckily for Tempest, Conru wasn’t very maneuverable in this dense forest, especially not while she was standing up- she was just way too big. That’s it! A plan sparked in Tempest’s mind for a way to gain enough altitude to flap his way to freedom: he just had to make his way to her tail. Not that maneuvering closer to the gigantic homicidal crocodile was usually a recommended course of action, of course.
Getting that close would have to wait for a moment regardless. The Doswellia was charging between Conru’s feet, having cast aside all of his weapons. That was enough of playing with toys; the little crocodile was tired of these games. He was going to end this the old-fashioned way, with tooth and claw.
“I’m gonna rip that ugly ‘eak from your spine, whelp!”
He certainly looked intent to. There was a look in the crocodile’s eyes of a violent, ferocious bloodlust. Tempest had seen that look before, once. It was the same look that haunted his nightmares. The crocodile’s narrow jaws salivated and snapped with all the fervor of a feral, starving predator. The image of another monster’s ravenous jaws was seared into his mind. He had seen them up close only a few days earlier; he saw them every time he tried to sleep; and now, he could imagine them clamped down around Celeste.
He hated those jaws.
Tempest held his ground as the Doswellia charged, unflinching. When it had come a few feet away, the crocodile leapt, and Tempest sidestepped- but he didn’t dodge and flee, not this time. With a single fluid motion, Tempest swung his blade and it cleaved straight through this monster’s neck. He had seen that before too.
The crocodile’s severed head let out an awful gurgle before its jaws clamped open and shut, one final time. Tempest watched the light fade from its eyes before bending down to claim the necklace that had been around its neck; maybe someone at the village knew what it was? He placed it in the satchel beside the soldier’s tablet.
As he looked down at the crocodile’s corpse, something gurgled in Tempest’s stomach. Regret? Guilt? Catharsis?
He didn’t have time to dwell. Conru was bellowing at the sight, her hammer already swinging by the time Tempest had turned to face her. With a startled yelp, Tempest tripped backward. Even a second slower and his bones would have been littering the woods.
“Singulus damn you!” The Saurosuchus swore, taking another swing. She wasn’t trying to mask her thoughts with pseudo-pleasantry anymore, nor did she have any care to be delicate. Her hammer barreled through tree after tree- propelled by pure, unmatched fury and strength to match- uprooting all of them in her path and sending them crashing to the forest floor in every direction.
Tempest scrambled around as erratically as he could, trying his hardest both to avoid falling trees and the killing blow of Conru’s hammer. It crashed to the left of him, and then to right, and then beside his feet. She was swinging it wildly now, caught up in the flurry of her emotions.
A reasonable response, Tempest reasoned. I probably wouldn’t be doing much better after watching one of my friends die either. Not that any of my friends are bloodthirsty psychopaths.
But with his adversary caught up in the fury of the moment, Tempest sensed an opportunity. As more trees fell around him, the pterosaur dashed and weaved through the undergrowth, doing his best to confuse the furious crocodile. She tried to keep up with him, but found it difficult to maneuver the colossal bulk of herself and her hammer through the trees. After a few moments of this endeavor, she finally gave up the attempt and just went back to hewing down the whole treeline to get to him.
“I’ll tear apart this whole Singulus-forsaken forest!” she bellowed, and was making quite good on her promise. But who is Singulus? That was a name Tempest had never heard before. One tree fell beside him, and then another, and another, and the pterosaur was struggling to keep up hiding behind one piece of cover before another one was uprooted. With every swing she drew closer, carving her own road through the woods. “And then I’ll rip you apart with my own claws!”
That wasn’t a fate Tempest found even marginally appealing. But his plan was working! In each attempt to get to him in the forest, she kept coming closer and deeper into the woods- further encircling herself in trees. Finally, Tempest uttered a quiet prayer to be at once with Mìr if his plan failed, and then he charged forward, dodging the next swing of her hammer and darting between the massive crocodile’s legs. She spun, trying to keep up with his maneuver, but it was almost impossible for her to turn, this thickly surrounded by trees.
She attempted to backtrack and move back to the road where she could maneuver freely, but she wasn’t fast enough. Tempest had made his way to her tail and he grabbed hold with all his strength. She caught on quickly and lifted the appendage, shaking it wildly. Tempest thrashed about, fighting with every ounce of strength he had left to hold on. If he lost his grip now, he would be slammed into any number of trees, and that would undoubtedly be his end.
That wasn’t how this story was going to end.
Tempest’s body ached all over. Blood dripped from any number of little cuts and bruises across him, and poured freely from the hole in the membrane of his wing. Every muscle in his body was screaming out, begging to let go and just end this torture already.
Not just yet. Not until I make sure she’s safe.
Conru flailed her tail in every direction. She dropped her hammer and clawed at her backside, swinging desperately to rid herself of the little parasite firmly clinging to her tail. She bucked and pounced, doing everything she could to get rid of him, but Tempest refused to let go.
Still, his grip was failing. The talons on his feet could barely maintain their hold on the flailing crocodile, no matter how hard he tried. He only had a few more seconds at most before he was done for, for good. As one last desperate measure, Tempest released one of his talons and reached out to claim the weapon still held in his wing-claws. With resolute conviction, Tempest thrust the sword deep into the crocodile’s tail.
She roared an awful roar. Conru’s scream echoed through the forest, refracting off every tree in every direction that the strength of her voice could carry it. As far as it still was, Tempest was sure her roar had to have even been heard in the village.
Tempest swung upward with one talon and gripped the hilt of the sword with the other, using it as an anchor to pull himself up and onto her back. On all fours he inched his way forward, clambering up the Saurosuchus’s back as though she were a mountain. As he neared the apex of her head, Conru reared up as high as her hind legs could take her and charged the nearest tree, slamming her back into the bark.
But she wasn’t quite fast enough. Tempest leapt from her nave, at least fifteen feet off the ground as she stood upright, and caught the air. He flapped and flapped, driving upward with every little ounce of power he still had left.
And he made it. As he cleared the treeline and allowed his wings to drift along the current of the air, he heard a tumultuous roar rising up from below the trees. It was a curse without words, an expression of spite and hatred deeper than anything any words could express.
But Conru’s roar didn’t matter now, so high above the trees. Tempest could see the village and it wasn’t far off now. He had survived. He had the information they needed. He would make sure they survived.
Celeste, I’m coming home.