The Sky Demons Part Two: Quest

Chapter Four- Mind the heat

Kayira- Mind the heat

I sat high up in a tree, straddling one of the branches and bracing myself against the trunk to keep my balance. Not far away Tenmar did likewise, Firah absent from his side as she hid further away, having a hard time avoiding been seen now that she was back at full size. Below us was a clearing, about five miles away from Zreikta’s gates and much like any other clearing in the forest apart from the down-pointing arrow carved into the trunk of the tree I was now sitting in.

It had been three weeks since our meeting with Furay and this was the exact place he had told us he would be meeting up with the smuggling group to buy some fresh stock. I sighed heavily through my nose as we watched the veo deishani pacing around the clearing some way below us, wringing his long clawed hands together. This wasn’t the most exciting mission and hopefully after this we would be able to find and disband the group quickly, then take a long-distance mission that would allow us to return to The Hideout with new supplies without raising suspicion at our long absence.

I watched our informant pacing absentmindedly, pondering what supplies the others might want us to bring. Confectionary and long-lasting foods were always in demand, what with most of the inhabitants otherwise having to rely on only what they could find in the wild to feed themselves, and they could probably use some new clothes and weapons-care items, maybe some new books too. There hadn’t been time to take any requests, Firah would probably be thankful.

I glimpsed movement from the corner of my eye and my attention snapped into place. I sat back further on the tree trunk and pulled my green and brown cloak around me for better camouflage, motioning to Tenmar to do the same. Below us new people were arriving; I counted five.

There were two deishani: a black dog with glowing red eyes and a stymphalian bird with razor-sharp metallic wings. The other three were spectrumosa: light green, navy and grey. Two of them carried huge bags over their shoulders while another two had small cages covered over by dirty cloth. The grey spectrumosa walked in front, head held high and carrying nothing, I immediately marked him as the one in charge.

I glanced upwards to find that Tenmar had already turned his gaze to me, waiting for my signal. I readjusted my position on the branch, watching the group moving around below us. Just a few more seconds and… a spectrumosa moved into position directly beneath and I dragged my hand across my neck in a signal to Tenmar before muttering a protection spell and dropping from the branches.

I landed on the green spectrumosa’s back, bracing myself against the pain of impact and forcing both of us into a roll until I lost the momentum gained in the freefall. In a moment I was on top of him, a knee digging into his spine as I wrenched his arms behind him and shackled him with manacles engraved with magic sealing abilities. The shackles closed around his hands and he immediately slumped, his entire body weakened. I just about glimpsed Tenmar, wings still spread wide from his more gentle flight to the ground, snapping similar shackles shut around the wrists of the black dog deishani whom he had landed behind, before a shape came barrelling towards me and I was forced to roll backwards.

The bird deishani was at green guy’s side, a hand on his back. I heard a muttered curse as she examined the shackles and found that they had locked on closing. She stood, glaring at me, her wings spread wide and I realised her intentions just a moment before she acted on them.

Quickly I chanted a spell, rooted around the word earthu,and called up a thick wall of earth just moments before the knife-like feathers impaled me, they thudded into the wall, causing crumbs of dirt to shudder and fall off, imbedded so deeply into it that I could see the silver glint of them poking through the other side.