Red Blooded

Before Lily could blast it, it ripped into my arm and blood began to spurt freely out of a gash that ran from my shoulder to my elbow.

The wound was jagged and hurt like a mother. “Get it… OFF,” I roared, clinging to the side of the gazebo with everything I had as it tried to yank me out.

A moment later a sonic boom exploded all around us.

The power of it almost lobbed me out into the open. My grip failed at the last minute, but the beast had fled and I managed to turn myself inward, falling to the ground inside the structure. I collapsed to the floor and rolled, holding on to my arm. It was regenerating slowly, but it still hurt insanely bad. “What the… hell,” I panted, glancing up at the demoness, who had her hands on her hips in front of me like we hadn’t just been surrounded by a bevy of wyverns waiting to tear us to shreds. “There must be hundreds of those things out there. How can you be so blasé? And how do we make it to the roof from here? You said we only had moments to get there, but there’s no way we can traverse that much ground before they attack again.”

“I have blasted them soundly back. Some will be injured. When one is injured others will prey upon it. But they will pick each other off quickly, so we have to leave now. Come on, get up.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me about this,” I said as I stood, the pain in my arm subsiding a bit. I shook it out, ignoring the throb, trying to ready myself to run. “And I’m not going out there until I know the whole story.” Which was sort of a bluff, because where else was I going to go?

“The portal here is unused because it’s in a very bad location.”

“How bad?”

“It sits in the middle of their nest.”

The demoness was out of the gazebo before I could form a rebuttal and I had no choice but to follow. Damn her. As I ran, I glanced behind me and saw the beasts intermittently blinking into existence in a huge circle. They were indeed gorging on one of their own and I was happy it wasn’t me.

The demoness moved quickly. She was a blur and I increased my speed to catch up. Once she reached the building she began to scale the wall. I was more apt in that department, my animal instincts aiding me, but with my arm still regenerating I was forced to move more slowly. The structure was broken and warped, which made it easier to find the footing we needed. It just would’ve been nice if my insides weren’t quivering like I was in a tiny boat at sea on top of everything else. It made it more difficult than it should’ve been.

I followed her to the top, rounding over the lip easily. By the time I hit the top, my arm healed.

What lay before us was total chaos.

Bones and nest material were littered all over, scarcely one foot of roof was showing, the rest was debris. There was one particular heap of matted bones stacked twenty feet high. It had to be the queen’s nest or the king’s or however the hierarchy worked for wyverns. It was massive and sat right in front of the clock tower.

Lily stilled beside me. I could tell she was formulating a plan in her mind. “Don’t tell me the portal is the clock tower.” I pointed toward the huge nest. “That’s not why we’re standing here waiting, is it?”

“The clock tower is the portal,” she replied. “Just let me think. That nest was not here the last time.”

“How long has it been since you ventured here?”

“Two hundred years.”

“What!” I would’ve clapped my forehead at that news, but I didn’t want to waste my energy. “And you didn’t stop to think that maybe things might’ve changed a bit since then? I’m pretty sure the momma wyvern or whoever lives here isn’t going to just let us waltz up to her nest and dig through it on our way to the portal.”

“There are no wyverns up here at the moment.” The demoness swept her long blonde hair off her shoulder as she turned to peer at me. “We can get through if we move now.”

“How do you know for sure it’s clear? One could be taking a nap.”

“Because I don’t sense any.”

“Hmm,” I muttered. “And we’re trusting your inkling to be correct because… why?”

“Because there is no reason to doubt my sensing abilities now.” She started for the nest without looking back.

I trailed behind her, trying not to complain about our awful situation, but not quite achieving it. “When they come back, we will literally be standing in the belly of the beast.”

“I’ll have my power at the ready.” She flexed her fists as she walked purposefully toward the base of the nest. “Stop worrying.”

Most of the bones I glimpsed here were bigger than those of the largest human or demon I’d seen. I gave a futile glance around me, wondering what else lived in the Sholls. Whatever these wyverns fed on was huge.

Lily started yanking apart the nest, tossing pieces of it behind her, uncaring of where they landed or how loud of a racket she made.

“Why don’t you just zap the nest out of the way with your power? This is going to take all day,” I said.

“If I use my magic, they will come. Stop grumbling and help me.” She grunted as she tossed a large mass of what looked to be cartilage connected to a half a skeleton away from her.

I started prying bigger parts away. “You said before that other than the wyverns, we were safe in the Sholls. But they feed on something huge. This bone came from a bruiser of a beast.” I yanked a large bone out and examined it.

“They consume something that resembles a rhinoceros in your world, but is too slow to be of harm to us, and they don’t live in this area. They are called xer tottod and they gather in small groups far from here. The wyverns only venture out when they have to. Mostly they just scavenge on the small beasts, ones that cannot harm us.”

Once we cleared away more of the nest, I spotted what looked to be an outline of a door in the surface of the clock. The hole we’d made was now big enough to enter, so I ducked my head and went in. The only light from outside was putrid gray and very little of it filtered in here. It was like picking my way through a thicket when I was a kid. Only back then I was actually having fun, now I was in Hell trying not to get eaten by a dragon.

The demoness gave a shrill scream behind me, knocking into my back, sending me sailing forward into more bones and twigs. “They have come back. Hurry—”

There was a terrifying screech as the thing landed and the nest above us quaked. I risked a glance behind me and saw more than one gigantic talon blink into existence.