The Open Desert

She didn't have to say a word to Sir Cairex Forgepyre as she pulled down the snake's head. Before it could snap back, the strength spell only good for those four seconds she needed it, the werewolf had unhinged his blade and slammed it into the neck of the large snake.

It writhed for only a minute before it lay dead in the sands, and Safi let out a laugh that vibrated in the air. Her head was free of her hood, her dark hair as visible in the sunlight as her laughing tawny eyes. Magic vibrated from the ring on her hand down to her blade, and the crystal melted away from where she'd harpooned it through its chin, the weapon returning back to her hand as she crossed the sands toward the werewolf.

"That was easier than I--"

The dunes rumbled beneath their feet, and with screeches and screams, nine more massive sand snakes sifted out of the dunes to narrow their blackened eyes on little Cairex and Safi.

"Fuck."

"Cairex!" Safiyazade screamed as he ran toward one of the snakes. She had to roll out of the way of spitting acid, twisted from a strike of a head at her body and just barely missed it, as it singed the trailing scarves of her outfit. Her ring became a Sakandi scimitar in her hand and she smashed it in into its cheek, severing the tendons.

Two of the snakes went striking for Cairex, and Safi just had to hope that he could survive as she twisted, lights glowing around her and she stomped her foot on the ground, throwing a wall of sand into snake faces that had opened to spit their acid, choking them off.

"Cairex, we can't kill them all!" Safi yelled at him, dodging a whip of a tail, evading another strike of acid by twisting in the air and landing in the desert sands. They must have landed in a snake nest, although there'd been no warning of it whatsoever.

"I think the horses are the last of our-- problems!" She cried and twisted her arms in a large circle before shoving her palms forward and sending a blast of air up and all around them, like a cyclone. It immediately lifted the sand so that it was like a veritable wall all around herself and Cairex, putting them at the center of the storm.

The wind howled and screamed, and beyond it they could hear the hisssss of the snakes trying to get in. The wind even lifted their clothes and fur and hair up and almost over their heads as she turned toward Cairex. Her magic could feel the acid blasts coming at the outer walls.

Her eyes glowed golden, and she murmured something in what sounded like Sakandi before she pushed a thumb to Cairex's forehead. He would instantly feel himself full of energy and power, full of herculean strength as that gold light coated his body. "It will not protect you for long," Safi told him, her Sakandi accent thick now. "Slay as many as you can!"

She dropped the vortex around them and with a sudden warcry, turned and threw herself toward the remaining snakes on her side.

Cairex might have forgotten -- even the snakes themselves were poisonous the touch! but the golden magic that coated the wolf's lupine body seemed to protect him from that as well. With a mighty leap, he landed on one of the snakes, and before it could twist around and attack him, he had spun and thrown it into three snakes, knocking them into a tangle of writhing bodies.

Safiyazade was a little less effective on the other side. Although she was clearly an excellent martial artist, the way she curved and swayed and evaded with her unique red-crystal weapon that was like a mini scythe attached to a chain -- she was more adept at dealing with less-gargantuan snakes. She did have majic within her, but the suddeness of the snakes -- and how quickly they moved -- meant that she was concentrating more on not being hit with acid, poison, or their fangs than she could do otherwise.

Her weapon turned into that harpoon she had used before, i]majic[/i] glowing around her for a moment as she brought the singular snake down, right in front of her as acid struck its side from another spitting snake. Still, some of it splashed onto her shoulder, making her cry out, but she didn't stop. She twisted at the snake came down to strike and leaped onto its head, running up the incline of its body as her weapon turned into a long sword and she impaled the side of another snake, letting her body weight drag it all the way down to the sand where its innards spilled out, smoking as the acid congealed in the sands.

She barely moved to throw up another wind-like shield around her, a half-dome as two snakes came in to strike at her. She fell down to one knee and her weapon slipped back into the ring around her finger as she hurriedly ripped off the clothes that covered her arm. The acid had already began to bubble at her skin, and she cringed as the snakes struck at her little magic-dome again while she hastily tried to come up with a healing spell...

She was done with her healing spell by the time Sir Cairex Forgepyre had cleared the snakes away, but instead of attacking again, they seemed to screech into the air and dive back down into the sands. The magic dome shimmered away from Safi as she came to stand, one tanned arm naked to the hot breeze of the dessert.

Her tawny eyes were narrowed, her face in a frown as she watched them go, then looked at Cairex -- as a werewolf. "What did you do?" she asked him. There were several of massive snake bodies lying around in the sand, corpses to be bleached and baked by the sun.

She was looking in the direction that their only surviving horse had fled, her eyes open even though the sun beat down on them. When he asked after her, she turned to look at him, studying his feral appearance. "WE're going to die out here," she said to him and turned and began to march through the sands, moving toward the bottom of one of the dunes where her things had been scattered at the approach of the first snake.

"I am not being doom and gloom," Safi argued back with the wolf man, raising her voice as she made her way down the dune toward her scattered things. "And I am not returning to Sakand empty handed so that over-blown, self-righteous Fairuz can look down her nose and tell me that I'm not up for the challenge." As she spoke angrily, she snatched up her bag and began to shove her things back into her sack.

When Cairex mentioned running off to find the horse, Safi stood up, reaching out. "Cairex, wai---" She stared after the empty space where he used to be and sighed.

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The horse had booked it over the dunes. Given the climate and the environment the Sakandi horses were raised in, they were acclimated to the heat and lack of water, almost all of the horses a shade of light tan to golden to pale white. Evolution seemed to know that dark-shaded skin would only make them hotter. Their hooves were a bit wider, too, to help them travel over the sands, and they could go longer than other horses without needing water.

Needless to stay, the horse, unencumbered by anything as it had thrown off the Sakandi-styled bags and most of its saddle save for a few blankets, had made it pretty far in the desert... and not in a direction that made any sense. The dunes in this area were less high than the hillocks found in the rest of the desert, and it had reached a flat expanse that was dotted occasionally with rock formations, thick sand still under hoof.

And as it ran past the formations, it had even more of a reason to keep running.

Desert jackals had slid out from the shadows -- it seemed each formation led into shallow dens -- and the sleek desert dogs let out bays of hunting, a whole pack of them going after the horse. They rarely saw such a feast in the desert, and it was obvious that they planned to take the horse down, regardless of the single, large predator they could also smell on the breeze.

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Meanwhile, Safi had finished putting most of her things back into her bag when she heard the high-pierced screech above her head. She looked up into the sky, and she saw the large, winged figure coming closer. It had in one massive talon, a limp and dead sand snake and was no doubt coming to where Safi was located as there were plenty more bodies to pick from. Most raptors enjoyed eating live prey, but out in the desert, pickings were usually slim.

Safi immediately went still. If the snakes were that big... how big was that damn bird?!

The jackals were unlikely to be swayed. They yipped and barked between each other, racing hard after the horse was now running not just for fear, but for its life. The jackals' large ears were flat against their heads as they ran as a pack, splitting off into two in order to catch up and flank at the horse.

Sir Cairex Forgepyre was catching up, however, and although his single snarl did nothing, he was now within range to roar again and cause discomfort to the jackals. He would have to use a burst of speed to catch any of them however, because the jackals were almost close enough now that they were snapping at its heels.

The charm Safi had put on Cairex however -- to increase his strength and speed and durability -- was still active.

-----

Meanwhile, Safi began to run. She murmured, and her golden light whirled about her hands and glittered around her feet as she stopped and leaped into the air, running away from the bodies of the dead snakes. She gave another single mighty leap and heard the bird give a cry behind her.

Stopping for a moment, she snapped her head over her shoulder to see where the raptor was, her dark hair like a veil across her nose and mouth as her gaze took in the beast landing. It was behemoth, with brightly colored feathers on its chest and a beak that looked as if it was made from gold. It looked almost like a god incarnate, and its talons wrapped around the second dead snake and it went back up into the sky, carrying serpents in its claws.

She leaped again as if it follows its trail and landed at the bottom of a dune that had a surprisingly hard surface beneath its sand. Squinting in the distance as the bird flew off, she let loose of the spell and took a few steps forward--

then screamed as something crackled beneath her feet and let loose, falling into the deep darkness-- yet was saved when her bag caught in a jagged ledge of rock. She turned her face away from the sand that began to pour in, the hole widening and widening until the sun was able to beat down and gleam onto something bright.

Safi opened her eyes and looked down... and it was as if an entire ancient temple was built underground, a massive obelisk at its center, the smell of damp and mildew and water there as she noticed that a wide moat not only surrounded the temple,but also criss-crossed in between.

And Safi just hung there, the fall large enough to at the very least shatter every bone in her legs, and at the very likely, kill her.