Chapter 16-6

Garkhen was too tired to protest, instead simply giving a weary little nod. Zakhin'Dakh quickly descended, landing in a patch of off-color grass. Almonihah got down and pulled out his battered symbol of Naishia, conjuring up memories of spell-prayers. Haltingly he murmured one, and soft green light shone over his wounds. He gritted his teeth as fatigue started to set in.

As soon as he felt himself mended enough he stopped. “Don't know how you do that so much,” he commented to Garkhen.

The Warder, however, was only half-awake at this point. Grunting, Almonihah said, “Guess we'd better camp,” and set about doing just that.

Once done, however, he was left with the issue of how to protect their camp with Garkhen now solidly asleep, himself fatigued from his minor healing spell-prayer, and Zakhin'Dakh worn out from hard flying. The Ranger looked around and growled softly.

“Hate being here,” he commented to no one in particular.

“Yeah,” Zakhin'Dakh screeched in tired agreement.

Almonihah glanced over at his big friend. “Get some rest, Zakhin'Dakh. I'll watch.”

It was a sign of the griffon's fatigue that he didn't argue, instead settling down a bit more and closing his eyes. The half-bronze dragon, meanwhile, started pacing the perimeter of their camp. He'd let Zakhin'Dakh sleep a while, then wake him up to trade watches. It was a decent plan... but somehow, at some point during the night, Almonihah sat down to rest his feet for a moment and fell asleep.

He awoke with a start, though he couldn't quite place why at first. Groggily he stood, and almost fell over on the steeply sloping ground.

Wait...

“Zakhin'Dakh! Garkhen! Get up!” he shouted as the facts of their situation sunk in.

When they had landed, this had been a fairly flat, grassy spot. Now, it was a steep mountainside, and Almonihah was fairly certain it was getting steeper as he watched. Before long it would be a sheer cliff.

Zakhin'Dakh stirred fitfully, grumbling as only a giant griffon can, in some kind of bizarre mix of eagle screeches and annoyed growls. Garkhen, however, showed no signs of stirring from the tent Almonihah had set up.

“Get up!” Almonihah shouted again at the griffon, while stumbling over towards the tent. He flung the flap open and swore, seeing Garkhen still sleeping with no signs of waking.

Instead, he took to the air with a flap of his wings, thinking it faster than walking on this treacherous ground, and flew over to Zakhin'Dakh, who was blearily opening an eye.

“Have t' go now!” He shouted. “Grab Garkhen, he's not going t' wake up in time. Can't afford to save th' tent.”

Finally fighting his way free of the fatigue that seemed to be dragging at his mind, Zakhin'Dakh opened his eyes and noticed things were strange. He felt Almonihah land on his back and get in his saddle, and then his friend's words finally started making sense. With a great cry, he spread his wings and took off, then circled back around and landed briefly by the tent. With one of his taloned feet he carefully reached into the tent (putting huge tears in it as he did) and gently grabbed Garkhen, then took off again.

Below them, the tent tumbled down the steepening slope into an abyss whose bottom was still hidden in darkness in spite of the moon's light above. 

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Sorry this took so long. I've been a bit drained creatively of late--I think I've been RPing too much, actually, so I haven't had much writing energy left. 

Oh, and also, I got engaged. Which has been a bit distracting.