Cold.
Lenny coughed and shivered.
Dark.
Opening his eyes made no difference to the pitch-blackness.
He groaned, vaguely remembering something about fighting griffons in a dirty tavern. Hundreds of ravenous rats had gotten involved at some point, followed by him getting dragged out into the streets and dumped in a refuse pit or maybe an empty grave.
Did I go drinking again?
It would explain the splitting headache and soreness all over his body. The bad dreams, too. Or maybe he really had gotten into an outlandish brawl once the beer had gone to his head…
Lenny grimaced and tried to rub his head, but something held back his foreleg.
Something sticky.
His heart rate shot up when he realised that he couldn’t feel the ground. He flailed for a bit as he tried to disentangle himself, but the material clung to his chin, chest and parts of his right foreleg and left hind leg like glue, leaving him hanging belly-up like a rabbit roasting on a spit. Thankfully not stretched to a painful extent, and he still had his wings and a couple of legs hanging freely. He could still feel the weight of his saddlebags pulling on the straps of his harness, though some must’ve broken off when he fell down the…
Oh, fluffing feathers.
Everything came back to him in a rush. The frantic climb back up, the swarm of flying horrors that tried to eat him, the fire-tossing pyromaniac. And then he had fallen down into the abyss, only to be caught in what felt like a spider’s web.
Lenny moved his free hoof up to explore the material, but quickly changed his mind. He had no way of knowing if the strand was sticky all along its length, and he really didn’t need another snared limb. Judging by the amount of sway and spring when he threw his weight against it, taking into account its apparent strength and thickness, he was probably suspended in a very wide space. High up, too, if the airy acoustics was anything to go by.
His breath caught in his throat when he felt other strands brush against his feathers and free limbs as he moved, but luckily, they did not stick. Maybe only some of the silk was sticky, or some strands had lost it due to age. He really hoped the web was abandoned; anything that could produce silk strong enough to hold him in place could probably eat him, too.
At least he still had his knife, sheathed and strapped to his left foreleg.
He carefully undid the clasp with his teeth, bit down and pulled it out, and then slowly manipulated it with teeth and tongue to work its handle into the tight loops of leather on his foreleg. Once properly mounted, he could use the blade freely without needing to grip it.
Before cutting, he flexed his wings carefully and winced when little knives of pain dug into his muscles. Still flightworthy, and with some luck they’d last long enough for him to glide to the bottom. If he didn’t blindly snag himself on more webbing further down. He certainly couldn’t light the spare lamp in this state, and that was even if he still had it.
The strand of silk felt almost as thick as a pencil – tense as a cable and yet somehow as stretchy as rubber, and it took him some time to cut through it, starting with the thread glued to his chin. It snapped with an audible twang, and Lenny growled to himself when the other strands stretched him out a little tighter.
Halfway through freeing his right foreleg, he felt the strands wobble.
Lenny froze.
More wobbling, distinctly unlike the swaying in the non-existent wind or the swinging motion created by his efforts to free himself. He held his breath and waited, hoping that he had just imagined it. A few seconds later, he felt a rapid series of shifts in the silk’s tension.
Faster, faster, faster!
Lenny grit his teeth and fought to keep his hoof steady as he sliced through the strands stuck to his chest and harness in rapid succession, all the while trying to ignore the increasing frequency and intensity of movement transmitted to him through the silk. He narrowly missed stabbing himself when he tried to nuzzle the blade between the thread and his belly so that he could saw outwards rather than in. That left just one thread, stuck to his right foreleg and left hind leg, pulled taut now that he’d cut the others away.
Something hairy poked his left leg’s fetlocks. He yelped and kicked at it with his right leg. His hoof struck true and produced a meaty crunch similar to that of a crayfish being smashed by a rock, and whatever he’d kicked produced a clicky screech that reminded him of the flying horrors, except buggier. And bigger, much bigger.
Lenny felt it retreat, and he hacked repeatedly at the strand stuck to his foreleg until it snapped. Blood rushed to his head as he swung downwards like a pendulum, hanging by a single thread of silk glued to his hind leg. He curled up to reach it, and then gasped when the muscles in his midriff protested with throbbing agony.
He snarled and curled up again, this time hooking his right foreleg around his hind leg to hold on whilst he worked with the blade. The spider hissed and latched onto his fetlocks just as the knife sliced through the silk, and its fangs or appendages grazed his skin as its chittering faded into the distance.
After a few moments of blankly listening to the whooshing air, he realised that he’d soon end up as a nasty smear on the ground if he didn’t start flying immediately. He spread his wings and grimaced when their joints cracked and popped from the sudden strain, but luckily his feathers didn’t break and he managed to slow his fall to a more sedate glide. Without any light, though, he had no proper way of judging his distance, and since he didn’t fancy crashing face first into a wall or rock formation, he settled into a tight spiral downward.
The gurgle of distant running water and the chirping of insects reached his ears shortly before his hooves suddenly squelched into what felt like fetlock-deep mud. Only slightly better than his previous situation, but at least he didn’t sink any deeper. He plodded this way and that for a bit as the adrenaline rush wore off and left him woozy and thick-headed. The throbbing ache in his forehead didn’t help, either.
Light. Need light.
Lenny sheathed his knife so he could walk freely, listening for the sound of water as he did so. He then headed away from it in the hopes of finding some dry ground to settle on. He probably couldn’t get a light going with wet, muddy hooves, and he couldn’t afford to lose anything in the muck either. So he slowly plodded forward, taking one ginger step at a time with ears cocked for the slightest hint of danger and wings spread and ready to carry him out of harm’s way if necessary.
After a while, he realised that the darkness wasn’t quite as absolute as he’d thought. Specks of amber light dotted the blackness all around, some almost a stone’s throw away and clustered together like a colony of glow worms. He decided to keep his distance from those, at least until he had his own light and a proper way to defend himself.
The mud gave way to rock and gravel as he trotted up a slight incline. His hooves occasionally brushed against what felt like reedy grass and squishy mushrooms, and he tried not to think too much about the invisible insects chirping in protest at his passing. At least, he hoped they were just little insects.
Once he’d found a suitably wide clearing where he could safely lie down in any way or direction without hitting big rocks or touching questionable organic stuff, he sat on his haunches, unfastened his packs and laid them all out in a row on the ground. He went for the lamp first and sighed when he found it fully intact, along with the matches, tinderbox, wicks and spare oil.
With a few quick, practiced strikes of flint on firesteel, he set the wick alight and closed the lamp. After making sure that the giant spider hadn’t envenomed him or anything, he then lifted it high with a foreleg as he trotted in a small circle, sweeping his gaze from one end of the blackness to another. The lamp gave off just enough light for him to see a few metres in any direction – far less than he liked for spotting danger – but it did beat wandering around blind.
The rock and gravel around him looked water-worn, like those found in rivers or shores, with lumps and clusters of coral-like growths here and there. Little, buggy crustaceans skittered about their business between rocks and pools of mud, occasionally fighting over scraps of food with their claws and pointy feelers. Broken shells littered the ground, along with a few chalky, splintered rods that he hoped weren’t griffish or equine bones. At least they weren’t fresh…
Right. First things first.
Since Lenny couldn’t sense any immediate danger, he sat back down with the lamp by his side and sorted through his remaining supplies. Practically half of them had been dislodged, battered or otherwise torn off in the fall, leaving him with a wrecked harness, one lamp, the cyclops’ severed claw, the tinderbox, knife, one half-empty canteen of water and barely two days’ worth of food in grain bars and salted meat. He sighed when he found his slingshot and shot pouch intact; if there was anything worth eating down here, he had options for hunting other than chasing after it with a knife.
His stomach growled at the thought of prey, and he placated it by slowly munching a hay and grain bar as he sat on the ground, thinking. The bottom of the Abysmal Abyss was way more spacious than he would’ve guessed. Instead of narrowing down to a raging river, it apparently widened so much that it could comfortably house both an underground river and a shore-like expanse of rock and gravel on either side of it. Nearly two hundred metres or wider, if he’d correctly judged the distance of the faint specks of light in the distance.
Something fluttered overhead, and Lenny threw himself to the ground, still and breathless as a statue. A moment later he sat back up, silently thankful that no one had been around to see him panic. He could still hear those things chirping, clicking, swarming, biting…
He shook his head to clear out the memory and groaned when the tender spot just above his eyebrows throbbed like mad. Exploring it gingerly with a hoof, he found that it had swollen up a bit, but thankfully the cut didn’t feel like it needed any stitches. Parts of his mane felt stiff and crusty with dried blood.
He’d forgotten about the sticky silk on his hoof, though, and had to pull out some of his hair to free it after he accidentally got it glued in place. Glancing down, he saw splotches of gluey silk on his chest as well.
Lenny finished off his grain bar and washed it down with a gulp of water before setting about dealing with the problem. He began by smearing dirt all over the gunk to reduce their stickiness. No amount of rubbing could get the stuff to ball up and peel off, and digging at them with his knife only gummed up the blade. Eventually, he settled on shaving his coat in those few patches and gladly buried the clumps of bluish-grey hair, milky silk and black dirt.
With that done, he plodded back to his pile of belongings and lay down as comfortably as he could next to it. He didn’t like the pervasive dampness, but neither did he fancy a walk in search of a drier spot. A huge yawn parted his jaws, and his eyelids suddenly felt too heavy to hold up on their own. Even his unsatisfied hunger and thirst felt insignificant next to the overpowering urge to nap.
He still had a whole lot of things to do in order to survive. Find food, shelter, a way out. But… maybe he could afford to take a break just this once. His head hurt, his muscles were sore, and he just couldn’t care about his missing companions right then. Especially not when he recalled that the smarting cuts on his back were the courtesy of Reynard’s talons when he fell.
Five minutes won’t kill me…
Curling up like a dragon next to his hoard, Lenny sighed and closed his eyes.
* * * * *
The next thing he knew, the darkness had swallowed him again. He opened his mouth to call for help, but no sound came out. The world spun as he grew light-headed and floundered weakly, unable to fill his lungs with air. No one heard him. No one saw him. No one could help him. Nameless behemoths swam in the blackness, closing in on him…
A clinking noise pricked Lenny’s ears, and he gasped as the pressure on his chest disappeared and the spinning world slowed to a barely-perceptible crawl. The darkness remained, though.
Cold sweat drenched his coat. His heart hammered away in his chest, trying to break out of his ribcage as he lay on the ground, curled up tight. Every little noise – every chirp, every scratch, every plop – made his ears twitch and his spine tingle. He wanted to just get a light going to chase away the roiling blackness, but his limbs refused to obey.
Gradually, though, once his heart rate and breathing had slowed several notches below full-blown panic, Lenny regained control.
He grimaced and shivered as he twisted this way and that, sore all over from the fall and sleeping on the knobbly gravel. After groping around for a bit, he found the lamp a little ways off – he’d probably kicked it in his sleep – and cold to the touch, meaning that he’d wasted a whole lot of time and oil. Hours must’ve passed, at least five or six based on how little oil sloshed in the lamp’s reservoir, possibly way longer for it to get that cold.
He relit the thing and stared as the shadows around him danced in the flickering light.
Great Sky Mother, I’m so plucked.
He was stuck at the bottom of the Abysmal Abyss with barely any supplies, likely surrounded by deadly creatures, lost and completely alone. What chance did he have of making it back? They’d been idiots to think they could. Like little gnats, crawling on someone’s coat or feathers, seconds before they got smashed to a bloody smear…
This is it. This is where Lenny Redtail ends.
Though he felt no wind, he could almost hear the moan of the winds above – a thousand lost souls calling to him, drowning him, until his own feeble voice joined in the wailing…
Audri…
He could still see her reaching out to him as he fell, saw her dragging her sorry tail back to Mother to deliver the news. She’d lost her little brother.
Worse still, he had no way of knowing if she’d even made it back to the surface.
He could still see the flying horrors swarming in a black cloud of hunger, their chittering worming their way into his brain and turning his limbs to jelly. Sinking their fangs into him, ripping tearing—
“Argh!”
Lenny covered his ears with both hooves, but the horrible noises didn’t go away. He shook his head violently, then yelped when the shifting pressure sent a spike of agony through his tender forehead and between his eyes. It helped, though – the nightmarish spectres faded away and stopped chittering to him.
He wiped his sweaty brow with a trembling hoof and let his breath whoosh out.
Keep it together. It’s way too early to go insane. Eyes on the prize.
He’d had his fair share of hunting accidents and stupid blunders out in the wilderness. With a bit of luck, he might just add this one to the list of stories to tell if he got home. No, when he got home.
Besides, he owed it to Audri to haul his own flank out of trouble. He wondered what she was thinking right then, wherever she was. If she and the others had managed to get away from the flying horrors, he hoped she had the sense not to try coming back down for him.
His ears drooped at the thought. Fat chance of that; he would’ve done the same for her. Mother would probably go on a rampage if either of them left the other behind like that.
Lenny closed his eyes and focused on simply breathing. He was a griffon. Griffons were predators. They don’t turn into kittens or sparrows when facing danger. He had speed, strength and brains to spare; he just needed to use them properly.
Survive.
He looked straight up and saw nothing but darkness. Three or more miles of sheer drop separated him from the surface, to say nothing of the flying horrors, giant spiders and who knew what else that lurked in the space between. He probably didn’t have the strength to climb all the way back up without all the specialised equipment he’d lost, either. Going up could take more than a week once hunger slowed him down, if dehydration didn’t do him in first.
Lenny glanced at his wings and frowned. He couldn’t hear any wind above, so it must’ve either died down for the moment, or the abyss simply didn’t have any of appreciable strength this far down. Flying straight up would save him some time, but he’d eventually run into the brutal turbulence, and it covered enough of the remaining distance that he’d still have the same problems climbing up.
Waiting for rescue? He might as well pray for pony princess to whisk him away. His supposed rescuers would have no way of telling where and how far the wind had blown him in either direction, much less find him in such a vast expanse of darkness.
That left him with another option: navigating the abyss horizontally. One way led to the glaciers in the north, the other, east all the way to the stormy fjords. Freeze to death in the icy wastes, or drown at sea after getting dashed against the rocks in fifty-foot swells after traversing miles of infested, uncharted territory on hoof or wing? Joy. He couldn’t wait to start!
At least it beat staying put and waiting for his demise. Without any further information, going for the coast seemed like his best option. It had the most reliable means of acquiring food and water as he went along.
Lenny squared his shoulders and began strapping everything back on, doing his best to redistribute the weight evenly. He kept the lamp hanging by his side with a few strands of twine tied to his harness. It had a double layer of glass for insulation, so the outer cover wouldn’t burn him or anything else it came into contact with.
Though his stomach protested rather noisily, Lenny refused to eat anything more – he’d play it safe with the rationing until he had a reliable source of food.
Before setting off, he trotted back down the slope to the sound of running water. This time, the light provided by the lamp allowed him to see that the ‘mud’ he’d plodded through earlier actually consisted of seaweed-like fibres and pinkish thread. When he brought the light up close to one of the lumps, the fibres contracted into a glistening ball, pulsating gently like a disembodied heart.
Worms. Living, writhing, squelchy mats of them splotched all over the rocky ground, interspersed with pools of fetid water. Lenny wrinkled his nose and carried on, careful to avoid stepping on any of those things.
The gravelly shore abruptly gave way to an underground river, too wide for him to see the opposite shore and too deep for the light to reach the bottom more than a couple of metres out. The water shimmered in the light, crystal clear and icy cold to the touch. It tasted a little earthy, but aside from that, he found nothing to complain about and drank deeply. He then sighed and stared at the river, listening to its inviting gurgle as he fought the urge to take a refreshing dip. Despite feeling like a filthy, mucky slob, he couldn’t risk swimming in the strong current – not in his weakened state, and certainly not in a body of water housed in an abyss that had tried to off him several times already.
His heart fluttered when he saw a couple of silvery streaks flashing in the water. Fish! If his eyes hadn’t fooled him. But if they were edible, and if he could find a way to catch them, then he could scratch starvation off his list of urgent things to worry about.
It didn’t take him long to pick a direction. Considering how deadly the frozen wastes were all year round, he figured he stood a much better chance waiting for a relatively calm day at the stormy coast.
So he flew east, downriver.
“Fluffing—aack!”
Barely five minutes later, he’d gotten his wings snared in another spider web. Those cursed things were practically invisible even with the lamp light; by the time he got close enough to spot the sheen on the threads, it was already too late to avoid them.
He sheared off a few of his ruined primaries to free himself and resisted the urge to slash the whole web apart out of spite. Although the webs presented a massive inconvenience, a tiny part of him admitted that the web had probably saved his life, either from smashing onto the rocks or drowning in the river.
After another close call, Lenny decided to stay on the ground. Much slower, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with any stupid spiders. He snorted. With his luck, he’d probably bump into something equally dangerous down there.
He went farther up ashore, perpendicular to the river until he reached the base of the rift’s wall about a hundred metres away from the river. It didn’t rise cleanly up in a straight line, but instead had a series of massive, natural stone columns emerging from the ground in gradually taller and taller clusters until the sheer wall disappeared into the darkness above. They weren’t much, but he did spot several unoccupied nooks and crannies with enough space for him to hide in. Better than sleeping in the open, and if the formations were consistent throughout the rift, he shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a relatively safe space to retreat to when he needed to rest along the way.
Going on hoof gave him plenty of opportunity to explore, too. Branching rods poked out of mushy lumps on the ground, with luminescent globes hanging from their tips that glowed with eerie, amber light. Huge, beetle-like bugs with somewhat translucent carapaces munched on the greyish, vegetative matter around them. They were nearly as large as guinea pigs, trundling in swirly patterns around the luminescent coral-fungi. Surprisingly fast for their size, though – they scattered like roaches the moment he got within leaping distance.
Up close, he saw that the growths had a mixture of spongy and crusty surfaces, like a cross between coral and fungi, though some made him feel a little uneasy with their coloration that mimicked raw flesh. Something about the lumps on which they grew bothered him, too. He could see a few dark, hard objects poking out from under the growths here and there, arranged in a pattern that vaguely reminded him of limbs…
He didn’t feel so keen on looking at it anymore and carried on.
Every now and then, something would squeak or squeal in the dark, followed by silence, and he wondered what sound he’d make if something managed to snap his neck or sink its teeth into his jugular…
Despite his best efforts to remain alert and keep track of everything he saw, the minutes dragged on into hours as he trudged along, blending everything together into an indistinct blur. More rocks, more gravel, more weird ‘plants’ and bugs. A screeching or fluttery noise every now and then. Aside from his growing hunger and the creeping, dull ache in his muscles, nothing changed.
Just a little further…
Sweat trickled down his sides as he huffed and puffed along, but he pressed on regardless of his growing discomfort. A sweet scent wafted in the thick and humid air; he couldn’t put a name to it, but it made his mouth water all the same whenever he caught a good whiff. Like a basket filled to the brim with succulent veggies and fruit, all ripe for the taking…
He might’ve drooled a bit.
Something large and hairy brushed against his foreleg, and Lenny bit back a startled yelp as he leaped away from it. A dead spider, easily a metre across if it spread its legs out. The fangs alone were at least a couple of inches long.
Idiot!
Had that spider been alive and itching for a bite, it probably would’ve gotten what it wanted with him so distracted with thoughts of food. Stupid irony.
Lenny found the reason for its demise quickly enough; it had a dagger stuck in its abdomen, with greenish ichor trickling out from the wound. The ornate handle gleamed with silver gilding in the lamp light as he trotted around the spider’s carcass, sweeping his gaze left and right. His heart thumped hard and fast; someone had been there recently!
“Hello? Is anyone here?” he called out.
No answer.
He unhooked the lamp from his harness and held up high with one foreleg as he hovered up in the air.
“Hey, I found your knife!” he shouted.
Something chirped back, and he shivered involuntarily.
That might’ve been a mistake…
He then flinched when something cold and wet dripped onto the back of his neck. Looking up, Lenny felt a couple more cold droplets splash onto his cheek. After a moment of staring, he recovered his wits and dropped back to the ground to secure the lamp to his harness. Then, he unfastened his packs and placed them on the driest patch of gravel he could find before unsheathing his knife and mounting it on his bracer as he cautiously flew upwards, stopping short as soon as he spotted the tell-tale sheen of spider silk.
Dozens of threads crisscrossed the space directly above him, and several metres higher up, right at the limits of the lamp light, he spotted a figure all tangled up in a mess of sticky silk, still struggling feebly. A griffon, from what he could see of the tail and plumage.
Lenny dispensed with the niceties and simply cut through the threads barring his way, though he made sure not to slice at the sticky parts and keep well away from the whiplash when they snapped. As he got closer to the griffon, he saw that he couldn’t have done a worse job of entangling himself if he’d tried. The fellow had somehow managed to twist himself around several threads at once, and one had practically looped around and gummed up his beak – probably tried to chew through it after dropping his dagger.
Then, Lenny noticed the blue cloak, reddish tunic and owlish plumage. His heart sank.
This is just great…
Of all the griffons he could’ve found in the abyss, he just had to find the one least likely to be of any use. Not that he wanted to complain about finding company so soon after getting lost, but was it too much to ask for someone a little more… competent? He would’ve preferred just about anyone else, even the bad-tempered twins! Maybe even a wimpy pony, because it at least wouldn’t have delusions of grandeur.
Reynard’s struggling got a little more vigorous when he came close enough to make eye contact. His owlish eyes widened, and his voice came out all muffled through the webbing on his beak as his chest heaved with uneven breaths.
“Hey, it’s okay. Just give me a moment to—whoa!”
Lenny performed a quick back-thrust to avoid getting snagged when Reynard threw his weight forward and nearly hit him. Unfortunately, he got himself stuck on a bit of webbing from behind and had to slash it apart to free himself, leaving another sticky patch of silky glue on his rump.
“Quit it!” he growled. “I’m trying to help!”
Reynard’s eyes roved wildly, as if searching for some hidden threat. His pupils had shrunken to beady pinpricks, like a frightened rodent with nowhere left to go.
Lenny glanced around to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him, but his light didn’t reach far enough to give him sufficient warning even if anything decided to enter its radius in plain sight. And if Reynard didn’t calm down, his flailing was bound to attract attention, with a beacon conveniently highlighting their position for anything and everything.
“Hold still. I will—gah!”
He nearly got slapped in the face with a sticky wing.
“Are you stupid? If you don’t stop—”
Reynard’s tail whipped him on the muzzle, effectively cutting him off. For a moment, he simply hovered in place and stared at him.
What would Audri do?
Lenny kicked him in the stomach. Not hard enough to break anything, but with enough force to drive his breath away for a while.
Well, probably not that.
He couldn’t complain about the results, though. After his startled cry, Reynard groaned and curled up as much as the webs allowed him to.
Taking advantage of the opening, he prodded Reynard until he made eye contact again, then growled, “All right, I’m going to say this just once – I. Want. To. Help. Got it?”
Reynard stared at him.
Eh, good enough.
He brandished the knife and flew a little closer. “Keep still. If you snag me, we’re both dead. If I accidentally stab you, you’re dead.”
Reynard blinked a couple of times before he finally nodded. Slowly.
“You strong enough to fly?”
Another stiff nod.
“Right. Hold still.”
Lenny freed his wings first, cutting the silk strands wherever he could to save as many feathers as possible. Some were too badly damaged or glued up, so he had no choice but to shear them off. Same went for some parts of his charred cloak. Bit by bit, he untangled Reynard from the mess, until he was hanging by just a couple of threads stuck to his forelegs.
He hesitated, though. Reynard looked severely on-edge again, with his nervous tics and manic eyes. Heck, just listening to his short, irregular breaths and incoherent mumbling made his ears twitchy and his hair stand on end.
They didn’t have much time to consider other options, though.
“Ready for the drop?” Lenny asked, panting slightly. His wing muscles burned as he fought to maintain height, having to compensate for the lost or damaged feathers.
Reynard flared his wings and twisted violently, but the remaining strands didn’t break.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Six or seven storeys to the ground. Drop.”
He slashed him free, and after a bit of flailing on Reynard’s part, they glided down without much incident.
Once safely on the ground, Reynard plucked his dagger from the dead spider, wiped it on his cloak and frantically scraped at his beak. Lenny’s heart sank further when he saw that Reynard had practically no supplies at all. Just an empty harness and a belt with a few pouches.
A springy snap, followed by Reynard sputtering when he finally cut through the sticky webbing. “We have to get out of here. They’re coming,” he panted.
“What?”
Reynard looked upwards and crouched low, wings at the ready.
“What do you think you’re—hey!”
He lunged and tackled Reynard just as he leapt into the air, then crashed down and scraped themselves on the gravel.
“What are you doing?” he said through gritted teeth as Reynard tried to wriggle out from under him.
Reynard dug his talons into the gravel and clawed his way forward. “Can’t stay here. We have to get out!”
“I didn’t save you just so you could—nngggh!—fly blind and get stuck again!”
“They’re after our blood. They’ll eat us. They’ll eat us all!”
Lenny’s spine tingled and his ears flattened as he recalled the flying horrors swarming around him, chirping, biting, urging him to run and run…
No, focus!
He thumped himself on the head with a trembling hoof. His shortened breaths had lost rhythm, and cold sweat had broken out under his coat. He then growled and shook his head. As much as he wanted to just leave Reynard to his panic attack, they stood a better chance together than alone.
Just then, Reynard heaved and nearly succeeded in throwing him off, but Lenny bore down on him with all his weight and pressed his cheek into the dirt, growling, “Listen to me. I know it sucks that we’re stuck down here, but you’re going to have to calm down if you want to survive. No one’s getting eaten today.”
“Can’t you hear them? We’re plucked, stupid pony, we’re—”
“Shut up!” he roared, pressing down on his head to cut him off.
Reynard whimpered and tried to squirm away, but Lenny kept him pinned.
“Listen.”
After another half-hearted wriggle, Reynard lay still and obeyed. Aside from their ragged breathing and a few insect noises, silence surrounded them. Gradually, his breathing steadied out and his eyes regained some semblance of griffish dignity.
“They’re inside our heads,” he said softly as he scanned their surroundings for anything his shout might’ve attracted. “It’s probably how they hunt – drive us nuts until we do something really stupid, then pick us off once we’re too tired or injured to fight back.”
Reynard stared into the distance and said nothing.
“Just… try to ignore it. There aren’t any of them down here.” At least, not any that he’d seen, but he didn’t need to tell him that.
After another moment of still silence, Reynard swallowed dryly and rasped, “Why aren’t there?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the spiders eat them or something. Can you stay put now, or do I have to sit on you all day?”
Reynard shot him an indignant glare from the corner of his eye.
Good. At least he’s got some spirit back.
He tilted his head. “Well?”
Frowning, Reynard heaved a sigh and nodded. “Get off me.”
Lenny did so, and when Reynard showed no signs of freaking out again, he trudged over to his supply packs. “Are you injured? Anything that needs immediate treatment?” he said over his shoulder as he sorted through them.
“I—I’m fine. Just… very tired.”
“Join the club.” He tossed one of the packs at him. “Put these on and we can get moving.”
Reynard caught the pack but stared at Lenny as if he’d just been told to eat his cloak.
Lenny paused in strapping on his own load and frowned. “What?”
“You want me to carry one of these?”
He tossed another pack at him and said, “And I want you to carry a few more.”
Reynard opened his beak, then closed it again and wordlessly attached the bags to his harness. Lenny felt that he’d swallowed a pretty lengthy and uncooperative response, though, if his tense posture was any indication. That was definitely going to become a problem.
He turned away and tended to his own burdens.
Whatever. One problem at a time.
His ears swivelled towards a rather loud gurgle coming from behind him, and he turned to find Reynard rummaging through one of the packs.
“Where’s the—”
“Here,” said Lenny before he could finish. He reached into the food bag, unwrapped a few strips of jerky and passed them to him. “Eat slowly. Make them count.”
Reynard eyed the measly strips and frowned. “That’s it?”
Lenny shrugged. “Lost the rest when I fell.”
“How much more do we have?”
“Between us, maybe enough for three days if we ration properly.”
Reynard looked at him for a moment before he turned away, muttering something under his breath.
Tough luck. Too bad.
He kept watch whilst Reynard sullenly ate his ration, listening for any sign of danger. Aside from the odd chirp or click that sometimes made his hairs stand on end for reminding him of the flying horrors, nothing else really caught his attention. Once he’d finished and they’d put everything on, he began trotting towards the wall.
“Where are you going?” Reynard asked.
“Finding shelter,” he said without missing a step.
“Y—you actually want to stay here?” Reynard sputtered. “We have to—”
Lenny grit his teeth, but forced himself to relax before he turned and growled, “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired, hurt and pretty annoyed that this stupid place has nearly killed me a couple of times already. So… unless you know a shortcut for reaching the surface in a day, it would be just great if we could find a safe place to sleep so that we don’t drop dead from exhaustion halfway up!”
Reynard blinked, but said nothing.
Lenny tapped the side of his head and added, “All in our heads, remember? Going all-out and tiring ourselves is exactly what they want.”
As the silence stretched on, Reynard’s wings, crest and posture drooped until he almost resembled a willow tree. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.
“Okay then.” He spun back around and carried on. “Shelter’s this way. Not too far off.”
After a short walk to the wall, they reached a small hollow that he’d spotted earlier, nestled between two rock columns leaning against each other. It had only one entrance and no other connecting hollows or tunnels for any nasties to hide in, and was situated a small ways up the series of columns with a clear view out to the shore. They probably couldn’t ask for more, given the circumstances.
Lenny wasted no time in stripping off his gear. Reynard did the same.
“I’ll take the first watch,” he said.
“Very generous of you,” mumbled Reynard as he spread his cloak on the damp rock and lay down.
Lenny ignored his tone. Between his sore muscles, headache and lingering hunger, he’d already dealt with enough problems for one day. Or maybe two; he could’ve easily lost track of time due to the lack of sunlight, not to mention the time he couldn’t account for whilst passed out from the blow to his head.
“I’ll wake you when it’s your turn,” he said as perched the lamp on a rock and set the flame as low as it could go to conserve oil.
No answer. When he turned, he found Reynard already curled up and out like a light.
He sucked in a deep breath and slowly exhaled as he rubbed his throbbing forehead.
Keep it together. We’re griffons. We survive.
If he said it often enough, it might just come true.