The Cover of Darkness

The night air was thick outside the dining hall. It should have carried all manner of scents - food, dinosaurs, clean water, lush greenery, the pungent smells of night-blooming flowers - but all Deerlegs and Embargo could smell was blood.

Deerlegs’s eyes were so wide that Embargo could see the whites as she glanced over her shoulder between them, her breaths coming fast and frantic. She needed to calm down. Her heart was going too fast, she’d lost a lot of blood already from the wounds on her tail and hip.

“Don’t look,” Embargo murmured. Not looking towards the carnage didn’t help, but looking made it worse. How many islanders had been trapped in there, less agile than a pachy, and hadn’t made it out? How many did they just leave behind to be slaughtered? They hadn’t made it far from the banquet hall yet, and they could still hear the sounds of death. Shrieks, screeches, bellows, roars. It helped to not think about it.

They had themselves to take care of, and Deerlegs most of all needed tending to. Every step she took was a heavy limp, and it would only be a matter of time before the adrenaline wore off and she started to really feel her injuries, and him the cuts on the bottoms of his feet.

Embargo grunted, confused, when Deerlegs suddenly pushed off of him and turned with an angry, wordless exclamation. He turned to help her continue on their way - there was nothing they could do for the islanders trapped in the building - only to see the source of her outrage.

They had a shadow. A violent, fast, and aggressive shadow, small as it was. A grey oviraptor with limbs that looked as though they’d been dipped in ink, a flash of yellow and orange on his face with streaks of red over his neck and shoulders. He was approaching them so fast that at first Embargo thought the oviraptor was streaked with blood, only to realise that he was marked with the same paint as the other scouts; vines of red rather than a colourful crown.

Sagittarius smashed into Deerlegs, who was immediately thrown off balance. He crowed, a sound of alert, as he kicked and ripped his claws at her front and shoulders. Embargo bellowed and charged into the oviraptor, but with only minimal windup, the collision only served to knock the oviraptor away and distract him from his assault.

He threw his wings up in a disorienting display, claws scratching at Embargo’s face and shoulders while he continued to kick and claw at Embargo’s chest. Fortunately, Embargo knew that all he had to do was aim a blow right in front of him. The pachy snorted and tossed his head, clipping Sagittarius in the jaw with the bony spikes on his muzzle. The oviraptor squawked in pain and flailed as he reared back, but the sound was cut short when Deerlegs smashed into his ribs with her dome.

It was enough of a window for Embargo to shake off the scratches, reorient himself, and crane his head and neck back to charge again into the oviraptor. A sick crunch came from the impact, bones broken and cracked. Sagittarius screeched again; agonised, animalistic sound. There was a dangerous glint in the pachy’s eyes as Deerlegs and Embargo both looked upon him, both ragged and bleeding thanks to the actions of him and his Court.

Sagittarius held a wing to his injured frame, scrambling to get away from the pair of them. His dark eyes flicked behind them, just for a moment, and he almost seemed to smirk as his feather crest relaxed.

What gave the oviraptor so much sudden confidence? Even with Deerlegs wounded, Sagittarius was dangerously outmatched - and Embargo had been pressed to kill before.

The way the ground almost seemed to quake as the sound of heavy footsteps answered the question of Sagittarius’s confidence even as they glanced towards the banquet hall to see what had caught his attention. An iguanodon, gold with a wash of purple over her limbs and back and streaked with dark markings across her top and the jagged silhouette of thick quills on her rump and tail, was rushing towards them.

An oviraptor, the Highcliff pachys could take on with no problem. An iguanodon… Well. The result of that fight had already been made clear inside the hall, and Deerlegs would wear those scars for the rest of her life. If they made it away from here alive.

“Run! Go!” Embargo urged.

Deerlegs didn’t need to be told twice. She didn’t even need to be told once, but the state of her injuries made her slow, and taking off into a run was difficult. She stumbled and staggered as she turned to face away from Soraya, caught by Embargo when she struggled to keep her footing. If the iguanodon caught up to him it would likely be his death, but he refused to let Deerlegs fall behind.

His quills poked into her feathers as he tried to urge her forwards, to make her go just a little faster, but she was beyond caring at this point. Even if they made it past her feathers and scratched her hide, she scarcely noticed. Fear, anger, and pain coursed through her veins enough already.

Her heart beat double time as she heard, felt, the iguanodon’s steps crashing over the remains of the concrete road. They weren’t going to make it. She was slowing them down, they weren’t fast enough. Soraya was going to catch them and they were going to join the dead, just outside the hall instead of within it.

“The river,” she panted. They had made it to the bridge. They could jump in and it could carry them away faster than she could run.

“Can you swim?” Embargo didn’t slow his pace. He already knew the answer, but they didn’t have much of a choice. This was their chance to escape with their lives, or at least to choose their own end.

Their claws scratched against the concrete. The bridge shook as Soraya thundered closer. They had moments to climb the rail, Embargo helping Deerlegs over the edge. Deerlegs felt  a sharp sting at the very tip of her tail at the same time she heard a hollow snap behind her. She left one of her tail feathers behind, trapped in Soraya’s teeth, as she and Embargo plummeted into the river below.

The water was cold and dark. Bitterly, oppressively so. She felt her whole body lock up from the shock of it. Her lungs burned already, out of breath from fighting and running for her life. Now she fought with the current as it carried her downstream. Her leg and tail were stiff, her thick, waterlogged feathers heavy and tried to keep her beneath the water’s surface. She couldn’t even tell which way was up, the darkness of artificial night making her disoriented. Panic started to set in - until she suddenly felt cold on her tail. That was up. She twisted and forced herself upright and sucked in deep breaths, looking around to see if Embargo had also surfaced.

Nothing. She should have been able to see the glow of his hide if he had. 

A new flash of fear lanced through her heart and stomach. He couldn’t swim. He’d never learned.

“Embargo!” she yelled, her voice rough and her call cut off in a watery cough. She craned her neck to try to see beneath the water, just catching a glimpse of something green and glimmering.

She sucked in another breath and dove, the weight of her feathers working for her to drag her down beneath the water again. The cold water stung her eyes but she fought to keep them open, searching the dark desperately for the glowing drake.

Her muzzle bumped against his shoulder and she bit into him, heaving to bring them both to the surface. Despair crept into her heart, nestled together with the feeling of fear. He was too heavy. She could barely maneuver herself through the water. She wasn’t strong enough to get them both to the surface, and she was tiring. The bloodloss, the fighting, the running, the swimming, the feelings of hopelessness - she had no strength left.

Until her claws dragged over gravel. She thrashed, reaching her feet down to find that gravel bottom again. The tips of her toes scratched over stone, catching just enough to propel them towards the bank where the river had started to turn and become shallow to one side. It was when the water stopped supporting her weight that her strength gave out and she fell against the shoreline with a splash, bringing Embargo down with her.

Blood oozed from their wounds, leaking out into the water and disappearing into the inky river as the current swept it away.