The Devil in the Desert: Part 3: Galyx

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Part 3 - Galyx

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Mocha had been twitching and fretting since the night before. Becoming aware of the creature beneath the sand had put all three of them properly on edge. At least, Zhar assumed the Devil was on edge. He went back and forth between sunbathing and watching the horizon from the shadows beneath the rocks, eyes glaring and nose twitching furiously as though catching wind of something. Zhar herself was stuck in a daze. She wondered if the frantic events from the past day had pushed her to a point of numbness - which Mocha also seemed to fret about like some sort of nest mother. Her energy, both physical and emotional, had been nothing if not sucked dry from her. Every time she moved, she felt like an empty well that she kept attempting to draw water from. The second-hand’s sudden one-eighty personality from easy-going leader to overbearing nurse dragon wasn’t so surprising to her. She had seen him fuss over his children much the same, and she had decided not to worry herself over his frantic shuffling and bumbling.

They had spent all morning resting. It seemed that whatever creature lurked beneath the sand kept its distance from the towering rocks and jagged boulders that stabbed out from the dunes, which meant they were currently the safest where they were.

“Right,” Mocha suddenly snapped, pulling himself upright like a soldier standing at attention. Zhar dragged her eyes towards him, the Devil didn’t even spare a glance at him. “We’ll suspend the tributes until we find another option.” Her head snapped up. “Get some rest before we leave-”

“You’re not serious,” she growled out, eyes narrowing. “After all this?”

Mocha shot his head back to look at her. His expression was locked in morbid terror, and it sent a chill down her spine. She pulled back slightly, retreating into herself. “If this creature is what I think it is,” he began, voice cold and harsh, “then we need to leave as soon as possible.”

She stared at him, not confident to even blink. “Wh… what is it?” She felt small under the pressure of the second-in-command.

Mocha’s beak clenched, and Zhar very vaguely caught a glance of his teeth jutting out from beneath them. “A sandwyrm.” 

“Sandwyrm?” She asked, curious but unnerved. The Devil chattered, starting to fidget.

Mocha’s expression was sullen. “If this is near the area we found the Devil originally, it might be… if it was that big… but it couldn’t be… Surely not… Iiblis…” The Devil’s head whipped towards them, ears pricked and pupils wide. His fur stood on ends, as if electrified as he chittered and clicked. Zhar watched him carefully, his nerves rubbing off on her like static. Mocha stood tall again. “We must leave at once.”

She was confused though, and it simply fueled her fear of the situation as the two - usually - most grounded companions of hers paced and bumbled around nervously. “What- I don’t understand what’s going on. There hasn’t been a sandwyrm that big since even before my mother was a hatchling. There’s no way-”

“When Avira and I first came to the desert to investigate rumours of the Devil of the Dust,” Mocha cut in, voice sharp as a knife, “we learned two things. Firstly, there were two devils, two demons that the Wandering Nokterns of Old had witnessed. The first was this chap here,” his head flicked towards the Devil. “The second was his life-long enemy, Iiblis, the destroyer of the earth itself.” Zhar opened her mouth to say something, what, she didn’t know, but Mocha cut her off again. “The second thing we learned is that Iiblis is one of the hardest creatures alive to defeat. When we first encountered the beast, we lost more than half the stryx we flocked with. We defeated it by sheer luck and nothing more. It should be dead.” Mocha’s feathers were puffed with terror. Zhar watched him relive the horror he was describing, a fire burning through his eyes. The Devil had turned to pace up and down the rock’s flat surface to relieve some of the nerves that seemed to be physically biting at his heels.

She couldn’t understand. Confusion still swept through her mind. “I was… I was here for years- I grew up here, how did I never…” Her voice was tight, strained with stress and confusion.

“We believe the clash between the two lasted years.” Mocha had been attempting to calm himself down, and by the way his shoulders dropped ever so slightly, Zhar could assume it was working, if only slightly. “I would not be surprised if you did not see the beast in that time, though. They were at each other’s throats so constantly and the desert is so vast that I’d be surprised if anyone was able to catch a glimpse of it outside of the small territory it was able to claim from the Devil. I mean, even when its corpse lay on the ground we could barely drag him away from it.” Mocha shook his feathers, trying to free himself of the anxious energy trapped beneath them. “Or what we thought was its corpse,” he added, unfiltered anger draining into his voice. “If it really is Iiblis then what was it all…” He stopped himself, voice heavy with an emotion Zhar had never experienced firsthand. She swallowed. Watching her superior struggle was not something she ever really expected to experience. She turned her head away, feeling the need to give Mocha some sort of privacy in this moment, if anything for respect for her superior.

Mocha took a breath in. “Rest while we are still safe. We leave at sunset.” And with that he took himself to a spot beside a boulder, where he curled up. Zhar bowed her head, watching Mocha for a short while before turning to join the Devil. He was perched on the face of the butte and he seemed calmer than before, though his nose and ears twitched furiously while his tail flicked. She stayed silent for a long time, processing the previous conversation. Her frustration built in her face, and she found herself continuously reminding herself to stop clenching her beak, but her teeth remained jutted out of her gums.

 

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By the time sunset rolled around, Zhar still found herself pent up with frustration. As much as she had tried to rest (and as much as she needed it), she found herself incapable of staying still. The Devil had given her a few annoyed chitters before moving to a large boulder to free himself from her constant fidgeting. She thought it best to leave him alone after that.
Mocha had also begun to ready himself for the flight back - preening his feathers and stretching his wings to shake off the fatigue. He had summoned a nearby microstryx to deliver a message to the flock ahead of them about their encounter, as a warning for travelling thieves and merchants.

“Alright, we’ll leave as soon as you two are ready,” Mocha announced, voice steady and commanding. His expression was still frigid, betraying his stress. Zhar let out a quiet and resigned sigh, stretching her legs and her wings one last time.

“Ready,” she finally said, voice low and begrudging. Mocha nodded before turning to look at the Devil-

Who was not on his perch anymore.

Mocha’s eyes widened in an impossibly and almost comical manner. Zhar would’ve laughed if they hadn’t just lost the feral creature who may or may not respond to his name in the vast desert with a giant, murderous sandwyrm on the loose. “Damn it,” Mocha cursed, feathers fluffing up again.

“We know exactly where he’ll be though,” Zhar tried to reason, though the two knew without speaking that their journey towards the Devil would probably lead to their deaths.

Mocha took a deep breath in, face tense with stress. “Alright, after me.” With that, he fluttered off the edge of the butte, towards the centre of the desert. Zhar followed with just a few heavy beats of her wings.

 

With that, they were off. The fading sun still provided a bit of light across the desert, and the heat of it still managed to blast on their backs. Despite the large size of the wyrm, they found difficulty in locating it, and it wasn’t until Zhar gave a chirp to her superior when she spotted a dark and furry mass shuffling and screeching along the sand.

The Devil was thumping his tail and erratically beating at the sand with his claws. Mocha signalled them to turn and begin their descent to escort their flockmate home. As they started dropping, a rumbling resounded from the ground. The dunes around them shifted and slithered like waves. The pair sped up their descent, hugging their wings close to their bodies.

The sand shifted and shuddered, like a snake slithering beneath until-

 

In an explosion of sand and dust, a great roaring creature shot up through the ground. Spikes and spines lined its coiling body as a circular mouth filled with razor blades opened and gave a shriek, tumbling in an arch towards the chiro that was spitting and screeching right back at it.

Mocha seemed to instinctively flair his wings out, but Zhar had other plans. Just barely dodging the tyto that had slowed into her path, she tucked her head back and tensed her shoulders, bracing for impact. With a loud and thundering crash, she slammed her body into the armoured giant. Pain erupted from the contact area as the impact with the creature forced it to dive into the sand clear of the Devil. Zhar tumbled to the ground, immediately scrambling to her feet to join with the chiro.

“You idiot!” She screeched, feathers and wings flaring. “Are you stupid? Is there sand where your brain should be?!” Mocha joined them.

“We have to hurry before it returns-” Before he could get the words out, the creature burst out of the ground again, in a fashion that Zhar would have found majestic if she were not so terrified. This time, it stayed stagnant, curling its large neck - head? - towards the small group. Zhar finally got a good look at the beast, and her blood turned cold. It had an angular head with a wide, gaping mouth that opened and closed as if taunting them. It had mandibles, horns, and bug-like legs close to its head that flicked and twitched. She took notice of a few missing parts of its legs and the way one of its eyes was cloudy with scars.

Suddenly its head twitched and a rumbling came from its mouth. There was a shuddering through the air, like the breeze itself was trying to escape from its dominating presence. Clicks and several rounded sounds later and Zhar finally understood that it was speaking. Its words were long and chittery, and so loud that at some points in its sentence she had flinched at the power in the air. The Devil had fought this thing constantly for years?

“What’s going on?” She asked Mocha, but Mocha had frozen, chest heaving with anxiety. Then, surprisingly, a long syllable came from beside them. Zhar snapped her head around to look at the chiro who was… talking. Unbelievable. In a language that she didn’t understand but still, a flicker of annoyance flared in her chest regardless.

What was most surprising was how deep the chiro’s voice was. It was like a whisper that buzzed through the air as if defying all barriers. By no means was it the loudest or deepest voice she had heard, but she was still surprised nonetheless. She had expected a more rat-like sound considering his whole demeanour.

The beast in front of them suddenly threw its head back and gave a wallowing cry. The Devil hissed. It seemed to be… laughing at them. The Devil chittered out some more words, and the monster - Iiblis - curled its head back. 

“Mocha…” Zhar urged, voice panicked as the creature began to rear. The tyto flicked his head, rearing up himself.

“I-I’ll see if I can-” The creature dove down towards the group. Zhar twisted her body, using her wings to force her body away from the creature as her claws grasped Mocha. The Devil dodged easily, his lithe body moving effortlessly across the sand. The ground rocked beneath them and Zhar almost tumbled to the ground before her wing caught her. A sharp pain sprung through her shoulder and she hissed, the injury no doubt from the impact.
Mocha was finally fully at attention. “Its armour is the issue right now,” he said, voice shaking but loud enough that she could hear clearly over the rumbling of the earth. “If I can get close enough to an armour plate, I can use my ice to weaken it.” The two stood aside, stumbling every now and then as Iiblis kept its focus on the Devil, which had managed a few swipes right close to its face without taking any damage himself.

“If we use the Devil as a distraction, I’ll try and keep it above the sand,” Zhar said. Mocha nodded, taking a deep breath. Zhar opened her wings, but not before Mocha grabbed her attention.

“Remember Zhar; stay focused on getting out of the way. We only need to scare it off long enough to give us time to leave the desert.” There was an expression on his face that scared Zhar, like he had already begun mourning their deaths. She nodded - it was all she could manage before the tyto launched himself up into the air. 

 

Zhar readied herself, pushing herself up into the air and taking a breath. She was very aware of the fact that the creature was almost twice her size above the sand. She clenched her jaw as the sand rumbled and slithered. Taking in a deep breath, she watched the creature surface and angled her body towards it. Iiblis was rearing its head back to dive into the Devil. She reached out her talons, body angled and gaze sharp, vaguely seeing Mocha swerve towards the chaos with her. Before the creature had the chance to dive, she connected with its head and took a hold of its largest horn. She used her weight and powerful wings to shake the creature’s head while it was surprised. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Devil leap up and crawl up the writhing and screeching creature. He reached its head and used his powerful and sharp claws to dig at the softer skin around its small eyes. Mocha had meanwhile found a suitable plate of armour and was swerving and circling, blasting belly-fulls of ice breath at it. The shards solidified and cracked with the squirming of the creature.

Zhar had barely held on for a minute before the creature screamed, a sound that shook the air, before throwing her off. She collided with the side of a dune, sliding and rolling to the bottom, her body aching and a stabbing pain throbbing through her entire upper body now. The giant body of the wyrm flung towards her, and she managed to fling herself out of the way, though not before one of the wyrm’s horns caught her wing, pinning her to the shifty ground beneath her. Giving a shriek of pain, she stuck a powerful talon out and scraped the side of the creature’s face. The wyrm shrieked and writhed back, blue goo dripping from its face. Through the pain, she was barely aware of the fact that she had just taken one of its many eyes with the blow, and with a quake that made her impossibly dizzy, the creature dove beneath the sand as though submerging itself in water.

She crooned in attempts to calm herself down, dragging herself to her feet as her injured shoulder-side wing drooped and red stained her feathers. Mocha circled above, sending concerned trills through the air to her. She croaked out a reassuring coo before trying to shake some of the pain out of her body. The ground shook and shuddered, a slinking mass writhing up from the ground before the creature burst from the sand once more. The Devil hissed, sliding down the dune that he had been flung away to with ease before leaping onto the wyrm (the sight of it would have been laughable save for the fact that the trio were all about to die). Zhar took a deep breath in, shaking her wing again, almost being brought to tears by the dazzling pain. As she took a step forward, she almost tripped over the stones and boulders that had been ripped up from beneath the sand in their battle.

Suddenly, a large snap echoed throughout their battlefield. The air grew deathly quiet for a second before suddenly a line split the sand around them. A rumbling and another snap before several more cracks in the sand formed. The fighting had paused, and Zhar was painfully aware of the sand around her feet pooling downwards underground - to where, she didn’t know. Mocha was screeching something, but the pounding in her ears flooded her brain. Wide-eyed, she looked up from the ground to the Devil who was also chittering, shifting carefully around the sand, too hesitant to take any major movements. “Wh-” Before she could even utter a word, the earth collapsed beneath her feet, and in an instant she was beneath the ground, body clumsily hitting a rock on her descent into the cavern they had broken through in their feud. The fall down made her heart toss in her stomach as she slid down the sides of a cave before eventually reaching a stop at the edge of a cliff, one of her wings looming dangerously over the ledge. She tried to swallow down the stress of the fall, but her mouth was dry and made swallowing painful. Sand dribbled down beside her as she haphazardly dragged herself to her feet. A movement caught her eye above her and she glanced up, watching the tail of the wyrm wrap around a pillar of stone, before the ground rumbled again. She watched it dive down, reversing itself down the massive pillar with ease before disappearing down a hole much farther away from her, a trail of blue ooze following it. There was a shuffling above her, and as she craned her neck upwards she spotted the Devil flapping down towards her, chittering and chirping all the while. He landed next to her with a loud thump, sand shifting around him. She could vaguely hear Mocha screeching above, but the entrance the Devil squeezed through must’ve closed during the aftermath of the wyrm fleeing.

“You know,” she croaked out, heaving out a dry cough that she was sure she could feel sand from, “we would’ve been almost halfway home by now if it wasn’t for you.” He wasn’t paying attention, instead sniffing her over and nudging her body. She watched as a pink tongue flicked out to graze at her wounds, which made her hiss and flick her tail at him, gritting out a sharp “not helping”. The creature sniffed her once more, then snorted before looking around, ears perking in all different directions. Using his claws, he manoeuvred around the cave and crevices - off into the direction of the sandwyrm. She stared after him in disbelief, before finally shaking her head. “You must be kidding, are you kidding?” She snapped, limping after him clumsily. “I- We almost just died! What do you think you’re doing?!” She heard her voice echo around the cavern walls and down the vast holes in the stone around them. She stumbled over jagged rocks as she ambled after him.

They traversed through the maze of caves and caverns. At some points, Zhar had to lean against the wall, heaving out breaths as her limbs ached and muscles cramped. Just as she was about to collapse, they came to a cavern. The space was vast and bountiful - filled with lush green plants and crystalline lakes of water. Mounds of jagged rocks and glowing yellow crystal structures stuck up towards the cave roof like spires, and she slid around them, sliding her claws and tail along the ground. She collapsed next to a pool of water, shoving her head in to take deep gulps of water, the fire in her throat finally subsiding as the cool rush of water swam down her throat. The Devil, too, had found his way to a small trickling stream of water to lap at it thirstily. Zhar panted, giving a grunt of pain as the ache in her body only seemed to grow as her body collapsed into exhaustion.

 

Without meaning to, her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the air had cooled dramatically and the Devil had disappeared again. Her body ached with every inhale, and she shuddered out a cry as the dull throb of her wing jittered into a sharp stabbing pain. “Devil…” She gasped, shaking her head to prevent the small dots of shadow in her vision from growing. “Devil!” She called, her voice bouncing off the wall. Her chest ached. Abandoned. He had left her here. She gritted her teeth as she crawled to her feet. “Devil!” She shouted this time, voice heavy with rage and exhaustion. There was a small click, a chitter bouncing off the stone wall beside her. Her head flinched at it, and she flicked her head around, straining her ears to listen. “Dev-Devil! Where are you, you-” She moved her legs as she heard the chittering again, “Stupid little…” Then finally, she found herself at a circular opening in the cave. She looked up, staring at the wall of the cave with what she was sure was a dumbfounded expression.

Paintings - splashed on the wall, some worn and others even scraped off with claw marks. Depictions of the small chiro in front of her fighting the beast, protecting people who seemed to worship him like a god. The creature beside her chittered again, and she tore her eyes to look down at bony remains - human remains - scattered on the floor of the cavern. She was speechless, and though she wanted to say something, her jaw clenched as her gaze slid to the chiro, who was sniffing the bones and chittering softly.

“Devil…” She began, face tight with emotion, before the cavern walls rumbled. Their heads snapped up, the Devil’s fur standing and his maw clenching into a silent snarl. His ears twitched around wildly, picking up sounds she couldn’t even imagine. He took a step forward, but Zhar managed to flick out one good wing to angle his body to her. He snarled at her, but her expression was stern. “We need to leave,” she said, voice gravelly. His snarl dropped, but his expression was still tense. He turned his head. “Dusty,” she stressed, softer this time, pleading. He looked at her again, eyes wide and ears flicking towards her finally. There was a short moment, a pause, as they stared each other down.

He finally gave a huff, scrambling out of her grasp and sniffing around, as his ears twitched again. Then they were off again - to Zhar’s relief (and surprise, honestly), in the opposite direction of the tremors. Sometimes while they shuffled through the caves, she would have to stop, leaning against the wall as her body threatened to give out. While he never helped, the Devil always slowed to a stop with her, never looking at her but staying near her. When she moved, he moved too. Finally, a whistle of wind, a sharp incline that the Devil cleared easily with a few beats of his wings, though Zhar had a much more difficult time without the mobility of her wing. Up and up until finally-

Sunlight.

The light of the sun crept up from the horizon, and only just peaked out from the plateau they had emerged from. A platform of solid stone was just nearby, and thankfully easy accessible for her to crawl onto, which the two of them did. Again, her exhaustion caught up with her as she settled into a crevice in the stone, away from the light of the sun. The Devil chirped at her but she shook her head. “Rest, please… I just need… a little…” And then she was out.

 

The Devil watched her body fall limp into the rock, deep shudders of air rumbling out of her beak. He approached her, long claws clicking on the sandy rocks below, and sniffed the wing she held clamped to her body. The blood had dried and was glueing her feathers together. Careful not to awaken her (though she probably wouldn’t anyway), he began to clean the wounds and scratches on her body.

 

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When Zhar awoke again, the moon was high in the sky above them. The Devil sat poised on a rock beside her, ears flicking towards her when she shifted her neck up. Her body, though stiff, didn’t feel as bad as it did when she had first collapsed in the cave, and the tension on her feathers above her wounds had disappeared. Deciding this was a good sign, she stretched in the only way she could with her body in such a state, and ruffled her feathers to shake the dust and sand that had collected on her away. With a deep breath in, she limped towards the edge of the plateau to gaze out across the desert. Squinting her eyes, she could only just make out the shape of the mountains in the distance in the dark of the night. “There,” she said, pointing the tip of her beak towards the mountains. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the Devil glance at her. “If we can get there, we can make our way back home, we just need to regroup with-...” She paused. Mocha. Mocha. Gods, was he even still alive? She clenched her jaw.
The Devil chirped at her, stopping the spiral of emotions she was close to falling into. He sat back on his haunches to flap his wings. She attempted to open her wings out, only to hiss as the sharp pain cut through her wing. “No flying…” Despair crept up again. The creature stared at her.
Suddenly, he was on his feet, clambering to the sand. Her heart jumped. “What are you-?!” She stopped as he began making a slithering motion as his claws touched the sand. Similar to the basilisks she had seen, his body writhed from side to side, claws sliding along the sand so as to not create vibrations as he moved. She relaxed, though her feathered scarf remained puffed in a fashion similar to Mocha’s. “Smart…” She mumbled, slowly making her way towards the sand. The Devil had stopped to wait for her, and she awkwardly attempted to copy him. Her movements were jittery, not at all fluid like his were. The injured wing made it all the more difficult, though as she made her way to him, she slowly began getting the hang of it.

The trek across the sand dunes was slow and tedious, the Devil taking the lead and moving at a pace that she could clearly handle. Sometimes a gust of wind would make the sand shudder, and the movement made Zhar tremble in fright, but still she persisted, heart thumping in her chest so wildly she was afraid the wyrm would feel it in the sand.

As the moon slowly began to descend and the rim of the sky lightened, Zhar’s heart lifted as she heard the whistle of wing beats. Above, the light fluffy silhouette of their second-in-command made its way to them. “Mocha,” she cried out, relief flooding her eyes with tears.
“You’re alright! The two of you!” Mocha called, landing on the sand beside them. Passing by the Devil, who looked over the horizon towards the centre of the desert, Mocha trotted to Zhar to embrace her in a tense hug. “You’re alright,” he repeated as she smiled and wrapped a wing around him. His eyes glistened in the moonlight with relief, before his face straightened. “We need to leave, at once!” As he turned to leave, Zhar stopped him.
“I am injured, my wing…” She tilted the red-stained wing towards him and he grimaced in return.
“Then we’ll-”

The Devil hissed.

The ground trembled.

Zhar felt her blood run cold. The relief from finding the second-in-command left immediately and she turned towards the desert. The sand writhed, dust flying up under the moonlight.
Terror struck her deep within, paralysing her.
“..r… Zhar!” Mocha was calling her, but she felt dizzy. Her lungs felt about to collapse as she panted deep and quickly. “Zhar we need to move!” Mocha was glancing back and forth between the approaching beast and Zhar. Finally he gave a tense growl. “Go!” He nudged her towards the edge of the desert. “We’ll hold it off - make some space, we’ll catch up!” He swivelled, wings flaring as he sprinted into flight towards the dust clouds. The Devil hissed and screeched, following him closely behind. Zhar stumbled clumsily through the loose terrain and up a sand dune. As she made a move to clear it, she stopped, talons digging into the sand. She panted. What was she doing? What the hell was she doing? She turned back. Mocha and the Devil had already made contact with the wyrm. Mocha was blasting ice haphazardly to slow the beast, which seemed to be working to a degree, while the Devil made to keep the wyrm’s attention on him by tearing at the thick, armoured hide of the beast.

She slid back down the dune, stumbling and clumsy with pain. Gods, what was she doing?! She pushed the pain of her wing aside, heart pumping thick adrenaline through her veins as she clawed her way towards the fight. The three didn’t even notice her as she barrelled her way toward them, until she leapt upon the beast, beak open and claws outstretched in the manner that perhaps a raptor would perform. “Zhar!” She heard Mocha exclaim as she connected with the upper body of the creature, wrapping her thick talons around its hide and her jaws around one of its spidery legs. The wyrm screeched with surprise as it writhed and wiggled beneath her. She only clamped down harder, her wing aching and almost giving out. Suddenly, something gave way and she slipped off the creature to land on the sand below. Stray ice crystals dug into her and she staggered to her feet to escape from them. Finally aware that she was still clasping onto something between her teeth, she dropped the item to reveal one of the legs of the beast as it dropped to the ground.

There was a beat of silence.

The beast looked at the leg on the ground, then slowly moved its dagger-like glare to her, one side of its face deeply mutilated and still dripping with blue ooze. She shuddered, but puffed up. With a deep inhale, she let out the most fearsome roar she could muster.
The wyrm angled towards her, but a leathery creature swung into its path, clinging to another of its legs. The Devil must have seen the feat and been inspired, but the strength of the limb’s connection with the body was too strong, so the chiro moved to the missing limb to reach into the gooey injury, behind the armour. The wyrm screeched and thrashed, but to no avail as the Devil manoeuvred next to the injury to the plate of armour that had been targeted by Mocha’s icy blast. With a sickening crack, the chiro tore a section of the plating away revealing the soft flesh beneath. Zhar’s heart was set alight. “There!” She cried out, moving towards the wyrm. Her legs gave way, but confidence drove her to her feet. Mocha circled above, the Devil too close to the weakened area to make any move, and Zhar moved forward, a smile reaching her lips.

The creature gave a roar, another thrash, and finally having enough, it dove into the ground. Zhar skidded to a halt, heart pounding and breaths heavy. The Devil appeared out of the sand beside her, shaking off the dust from his coat.

“Did we… is it over?” She asked, to no one in particular, but a screech from Mocha told her it wasn’t over. The sand shifted and it was back again, blue goo oozing from its wounds and dripping onto the already messy sand below. It hissed and the two flared up again, readying themselves. Mocha screeched once more, but Zhar had already felt the trembling - from behind this time. She glanced back to see the shifting of sand, writhing towards the two before-

Another wyrm burst out from the ground. Clearly aiming for the two on the ground, Zhar’s legs gave way as she made an attempt to dodge. The flash of mandibles and rows of teeth confronted her before a large bullet of ice collided with the head of the other, decidedly smaller sandwyrm, steering it just clear of the two. The Devil hissed, baring its teeth but remained glued to Zhar’s side as she struggled to stay upright. Mocha landed behind her to cover her flank as the smaller wyrm shifted out from the sand in a snake-like manner.

“Two of them,” Zhar gasped, head dropping. “Two of them,” she gasped out, disbelief and horror flooding her veins.
“Stay upright, Zhar,” Mocha commanded, though his voice trembled.

This was it.

They all knew it.

The Devil hissed but his back was pressed against Zhar.

Zhar clenched her jaw. She let out a ragged yet vicious hiss.

She decided - if they were going to mess her tributes up so bad that she wouldn’t even live to see the outcome of them, she’d at least give them hell to pay for it. With trembling limbs, she reared her body, ready to drive forward. Sensing this, the Devil glanced at her, then got low, stalking the enemy they knew they were about to lose against. She opened her mouth to let out a roar, but a distant sound stopped her. The wyrms hissed, not paying attention as the trio looked up, the whistling of thunderous wing beats breaking up the silence of the desert around them. Zhar’s eyes widened as an enormous shadow blocked out the rising light of the sun, as though night had come again. A flash of silver metal before-

The dark body of the massive gryph slammed into the smaller wyrm, knocking it into the ground in an explosion of sand and dust. Zhar shielded the three of them with her good wing to the best of her abilities, and Mocha chirped, brighter than Zhar had seen him the entire trip. “Dearest!”

With a loud crunch - the sound of jaws breaking clean through the armour of the wyrm - the blue-headed gryph dragged her head back, tearing a good portion of the younger wyrm’s body away. The creature barely had time to comprehend what had happened before its limp body fell to the ground. The greater wyrm hissed, rearing its head towards the group. Vespira’s icy gaze moved from what had been the previous threat of the second wyrm to the group, and then to the greater sand wyrm, Iiblis, who seemed to pale in comparison to the might of the beast of the stryx that had landed beside them. Towering above even Zhar, Vespira drew back, inhaling a wispy breath of air, before unloading a glacial breath of ice towards the wyrm. In just one breath, Iiblis was incapacitated, its entire lower body fused to the sand with the glacier Vespira had just summoned. The wyrm screeched and writhed, desperately trying to pry itself free from the thick and overbearing icy spikes.
Vespira glowered at the creature, giving a low huff, before her gaze softened as she turned towards her mate. “Dii Shul,” came her deep, husky voice, soft with warmth and dramatically contrasting with her messy, ooze-covered appearance. “Your feathers are a mess.” Mocha seemed to melt on the spot as she approached him to croon and preen his very puffed up feathers.

Zhar was still shocked, numb from the sudden experience (and very sudden death of a creature she was prepared to lose very thoroughly to). She turned to the wyrm, which the Devil was approaching with a sharp growl. Launching up to its head, the chiro snarled and clawed at its throat, which was still protected by its thick armour. Zhar gasped in pain as she stumbled towards the wyrm, struggling to climb up the spires of ice to get to its head. Finally reaching the peak, she dragged her body to its neck. “Move,” she rumbled. The chiro looked at her, stopping his feeble attack on the armour. With a loud growl, she launched forward, jaws wrapping around the plate of armour protecting the neck. She almost lost balance from the shaking the wyrm was doing, but anger fueled her. Using every last ounce of strength she could possibly muster, she let out a loud roar as the plating tore away with a loud crunch, escaping from her jaws and landing in the sand a short distance away. The Devil took this opportunity to launch himself into the soft and exposed flesh. The creature warbled and garbled, ooze sinking into its slowly opening throat.

Zhar watched the Devil unleash years - decades of anger and resentment to his foul opponent. When the creature went limp, she turned her quickly darkening gaze towards the ground where Vespira and Mocha looked up at her. “You did well, Goraan Gein,” the powerful stryx assured, gaze warm and strong.

Zhar didn’t even realise she was crying until a sharp sob hiccuped from her beak. Vespira guided her down from the spires of ice, which were slowly melting beneath the tall sun.

 

•─────⋅☾۞☽⋅─────•

 

“You are all fools,” Avira screeched, pacing up and down the rocks. “Fools! All you had to do was do a few tricks, hunt a few desert rabbits! And the next thing I know, a messenger is detailing your probable deaths!” Mocha was trying his best to soothe his friend, and to a certain degree it was working. He began to usher the flock leader to a meal that another flock-member had brought them. Another was busy healing Zhar’s wounds so they could travel back. The Devil was cleaning the blue blood from his face, and Zhar honestly found it kind of hard to look at him after watching him devour the corpse of the enemy they had faced together.

Nonetheless, when he made his way to her to lay his head down against her body, she accepted him beneath her wing and felt comforted as he finally shut his eyes to sleep beside her.