Near Bruglia. Pelinor.

3201. Frostfield.

The city state of Bruglia was perched on top of a burnt orange mesa, one of many jutting out of the desert in the region. It was a rocky landscape of two heights: the mesas, and the canyons in-between, carved by hundreds of thousands of years of river erosion. Magic-enhanced irrigation projects brought the water from the rivers up to the tops of the mesas, turning them into oases in the surrounding barren terrain. Bruglia was one of the largest cities on Palinor, covering the entire surface of one of the mesas and bridging to several others. It was the home of Fountain University and the site of the portal to Mid-Earth, which had turned the city and its leaders into the richest families on the planet.

There were routes through the canyons for traders, some safe and some less so. The twisting, shadowed passages were prime for ambush and were home to a myriad of creatures which had spent most of their evolution adapting to become perfect hunters in their environment. The main road was protected once a caravan entered Bruglia territory. Those who could not afford the main road were forced to find alternatives, which led inevitably through danger.

Ellenbrin crouched and touched two fingers to the sand. “See the patterning? The sloughing of the dirt, like a snake’s underbelly, but you can also see traces of claw prints.” She sighed. “Well, I’d say that confirms it. We’re dealing with a durgon.”

“Son of a bitch,” Halbad said. He stretched, cracking the bones in his spine. He took the shrivelled cigar from his mouth and ground it underfoot. “Looks like we’re gonna have to earn our pay on this one, fellas.”

The deep laughter from Ngarkh sounded like chains dragged on stone. “Don’t we always? When was the last time we took an easy job?” They flexed their wings, the membranes between the frames rippling in the slight wind that blew through the canyon. Their nostrils flared and they ran a hand over the twin horns atop their head. “Wouldn’t want things to get boring.”

“A durgon, huh?” Seline moved her arms around the shoulder socket, limbering up. Her dual pikes were fixed to her back, sharp and nasty. “Remind me again what they do.”

Ellenbrin grinned at her as she got to her feet. “Don’t you ever pay attention? Durgon. An south-eastern dragon, big and long and nasty. Feathered, limbed with short legs. No arms. No real wings for flight but it can glide, and tunnel. But none of that’s important. It’s a dual symbiote - a single mind, with two bodies. Don’t think of it as two animals: it’s one creature, but separated into two halves.”

“I’ll separate it into more than two halves,” Ngarkh cackled, clicking their claws against each other.

“Yes, very good,” Erik said, pulling a set of vials from his satchel. He withdrew a measuring device from within his cloak and began distributing a bottle of green liquid among the vials. “A durgon is also horribly toxic. Get scratched or bitten and you’ll be in trouble. That’s why I brought this.” He set the vials down on a rock, each resting on a makeshift stand like might be found in a laboratory. “This will stop the necrotic infection from setting in, though it’s not going to stop it from hurting.” He closed his eyes, muttered a few words under his breath and waved a hand across the vials. The liquid turned brown.

“This looks unpleasant,” Seline said, taking one of the offered vials. “Any side effects?”

“Possible nausea,” Erik said with a shrug, “but that’s better than the alternative.”

Ngarkh held their vial up and Halbad clinked his together with it, as if they were about to down beers in a tavern. “I’m sure I’ve had worse hangovers,” Ngarkh said, swallowing the liquid.

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Ellenbrin said, gently pushing Erik’s hand away. “I’m better off having my wits about me and avoiding getting hit in the first place.”

Halbad raised his eyebrows. “You sure? This is a nasty critter.”

She tilted her head disdainfully. “Which of us is the monster expert?”

“Then let’s get to it,” Halbad said, shrugging.

*

The durgon had itself a cave network in the side of a mesa, some of it natural and some of it burrowed. The entrance was small, only as broad as two people standing next to each other with arms extended, and easily missed by anyone unfamiliar with either the terrain or the target. Ellenbrin knew both and found it swiftly.

The five of them ventured inside, the single tunnel soon opening into a huge cavern within the mesa, with multiple tunnels heading off in all directions. The rocky cavern was high and looked to be a natural formation within the surrounding mesa. “Durgons have a knack for finding places like this,” Ellenbrin said. She unhooked her bow. “Remember there’s two of them, but they think as one. It’ll try to use that against us.”

Halbad and Ngarkh took the lead, walking out onto the cavern floor. It was damp and uneven, though smooth from centuries of subtle erosion. Halbad held his broadsword at the ready. Seline and Erik followed just behind, with Ellenbrin at the rear. She’d try to stay distant, if possible, and pick a few good shots.

“Ngarkh, a little light, if you’d please,” Halbad said. The koth grinned and drew in a breath, then belched out a burst of fire. Halbad said a word, reached out with one hand and directed the flame onto his blade, where it enveloped and spun around the metal, the heat maintained through his elemental spell. “I am right in thinking it doesn’t like fire, Ellenbrin?”

She nodded. “No natural resistances there.” Even speaking quietly, her voice echoed from the cavern’s walls.

Ngarkh grunted. “Shall we get this started, then?”

“Do it,” Halbad said, nodding.

Releasing a booming roar, Ngarkh spread their wings and thrust into the air, moving around in the cavern, bellowing into the higher tunnels. After thirty seconds there was quiet again, other than the continuing reverberations as the sound travelled in and out of the tunnels, like the pipes of an instrument.

Ellenbrin strained at the edges of her hearing. As Ngarkh’s roar dissipated another noise became audible: a rapid pattering, coming from opposite sides of the cavern. She pointed in both directions. “Here it comes. Coming in hot, trying to pincer us.”

Seline snorted a laugh.

The durgon burst from the tunnels, the four-legged serpents exploding like a ballista firing, one leaping at Ngarkh and the other descending rapidly to where the rest of the party was waiting. They were feathered, with slender membranes between arms and body that gave it a controlled, gliding movement through the air.

Nocking an arrow, Ellenbrin fired at the higher of the two, hitting it just behind the eye and knocking it from its course. Ngarkh roared approval and dived after it.

The other one was also distracted from its attack by the wound to its other body. “Hurt one and it hurts both of them!” Ellenbrin shouted as they repositioned themselves.

“Seems like a big design flaw,” Erik replied, busy encasing himself in a protective gravity shield.

“Don’t complain,” Halbad said, “just hit it!”

As Ngarkh grappled with one in the air, they moved to surround the creature that had landed on the floor of the cavern. It was fast, faster than seemed possible for something of its size, reminding Ellenbrin of the erratic movement of small lizards. She kept her distance, firing arrows, though the creature seemed to have learned from its brother and was darting from side to side, making itself harder to hit.

Moving in close, Halbad and Seline piled into it with their weapons. Halbad’s fire blade neatly severed the wing membrane beneath its foreleg, while Seline tried to pin it with her pikes. Beneath the feathers the durgon’s plated skin made it difficult to land more than a glancing blow. It whipped its tail and hit both of them, sending them skittering across the cavern’s rocky floor.

Distracted, the durgon didn’t see Erik’s approach until it was too late. He whispered the words and cast a mass spell onto the durgon’s left rear leg, pinning it in place. The clawed foot cracked under the pressure as it was crushed into the rock. Erik leapt up the side of the durgon, using the feathers as handholds, and cast a second spell on its other leg.

“It’s locked in place,” he shouted. “Mind its jaws, but it’s not going anywhere.”

Having picked themselves up, Halbad and Seline moved back in. “Ellenbrin! Help Ngarkh! We’ve got this one.”

Turning her attention back to the air above, She saw that Ngarkh was grappling with the other durgon, tumbling through space and only barely managing to stay aloft. The durgon broke away and dove straight down towards its companion creature, fangs bared. Ellenbrin fired off another arrow, hitting it inside its mouth, and it spread its wings and pivoted, soaring back up and away until it hit the side of the cavern. Its claws dug into the wall and it roared at them, then scurried towards one of the side tunnels.

“Need a lift!” she shouted, running towards that side of the cavern. Ngarkh swooped down and grabbed her with their feet, then lifted them both up into the air. Ellenbrin’s stomach dropped away for a moment, then she refocused as the air rushed past her ears.

“It’s going to get tight in there,” Ngarkh warned, flying them towards the tunnel entrance. The koth’s claws dug into Ellenbrin’s sides but it was a manoeuvre they’d practised many times, the hold leaving her arms free and clear. She could hear the durgon scrabbling through the tunnel up ahead and there were a light cloud of disturbed dust filling the air. They turned a corner, Ellenbrin having to draw her knees up to her chest to avoid catching the wall, and the creature came into view, scuttling away as fast as it could. Ellenbrin squinted into the darkness; none of the humans would be able to see in this gloom, so it was a good job she was the one being carried by Ngarkh. She pulled an arrow and fired it, only to see it bounce off the animal’s armoured scales.

“Could do with a bit of heat,” she said, pulling another arrow and holding it above her. Ngarkh took it and a burst of flame illuminated the tunnel. They handed it back, the tip and half the shaft now on fire. The flame licked over Ellenbrin’s gloved hand as she aimed and released, the fire arrow catching the durgon on one of its rear legs. Ngarkh’s fire had the natural koth plasma, meaning it lingered and spread fast, in this case engulfing the delicate membrane between the durgon’s leg and body. There was a roar from the creature, and then the tunnel abruptly disappeared and they were back in the main cavern; they must have looped around.

The durgon was falling, end over end, spiralling oddly. They pursued it, Ngarkh’s descent far more graceful. Colliding into the stone floor of the cavern, the durgon scrabbled for purchase but not before Seline was on top of it. She lifted one of her long pikes and drove it through the creature’s skull. It writhed for a few seconds, then was still. There was a screeching from the other half, abruptly halted when Halbad severed its head with his sword, the blade’s impact enhanced with a gravity pull from Erik.

The cavern returned to quiet, interrupted only by the distant dripping of water. There was an underground river somewhere, just on the edge of Ellenbrin’s hearing. Ngarkh lowered her gently to the ground and released her. Her back was sore from being carried, but she’d avoided being scratched by the durgon. Ngarkh winced and stumbled, holding their side with one hand.

“Oh, shit,” Ellenbrin said, “did it get you?”

Taking his hand away, Ngarkh revealed a sliced wound from the durgon’s claws. It had pierced all the way through the koth’s scaly hide. “Got me good. Hope that potion of yours does what you said, Erik.”

“It’ll stop you having any of the nasty side effects,” Erik said, coming closer and examining the wound. “That looks painful.”

“It feels painful,” the koth growled.

Seline fixed her weapons to the sheaths and brackets on her back, then put her hands gently on Ngarkh’s body. “Don’t move,” she said, as she whispered a spell and breathed slowly, deliberately. The angry red of the wound subsided and the skin knotted together, though it still looked raw. “That’ll hold together as long as you don’t try and fight anything, but we’ll need to get you to a proper healer in Bruglia.”

Ngarkh smiled and ruffled her hair. “You are a proper healer,” they said, with a crooked smile.

“Right, let’s wrap this up,” Halbad said. “Get the trophies, gather your bits, and let’s head back to town. I want to get paid, get laid, and then tomorrow I’ll find us another job.”