Anthill

Deerlegs was full of nervous, excited energy. She had done it again - she had snuck up to the plateau. She had adventured up here without a guide (or an accompanying sentry or guardian) a dozen times at least, and though she had gotten in trouble each time, it had done little to curb her curiosity. Now, at least, she was up here with purpose.

She was almost old enough now to really be considered a sentry, a helpful part of the herd and not some hatchling that needed to be looked after all the time. She could contribute.

Her intent now was to see what all the recent fuss was about and actually do something about it. There had been worried conversation around Highcliff recently of something leaving remnants of kills on the plateau, which was not necessarily strange. The world had gotten a lot bigger as she and the herd grew, and a lot more dangerous. It was not just suchomimus, carnotaurus, utahraptors, or cryolophosaurus that they had to worry about anymore, and those were bad enough. Monsters now lurked in the ocean, more than capable of snatching unattentive pachys from the shoreline when they were gathering gifts from the sea. The seabirds that the herd shared the cliffs with were accompanied in the skies by tropeos and tapejaras that sought to steal eggs and snatch hatchlings off the cliff face.

That was all to say - of course there were kills on the plateau. Deerlegs’ feathers fluffed before she shook them flat again, uncomfortable already by the thought of running into something violent. She was confident that she could take on whatever she ran into though. Mostly confident. ... a little uncertain, admittedly. The rumours circulating around the herd shook her a bit.

The problem with finding evidence of kills on the plateau was that some, if not most of them, had not been eaten, if the rumours were to be believed. Just ripped to pieces and left to rot in the sun. Stories of ghosts prowling through the scrublands, screeching and wailing hauntingly through the night. The silence that came after was almost oppressive.

Sentries and provisioners of course brought back stories from the plateau all the time, but this felt different. It was serious. Herd members were scared.

So she was going to do something about it. In the dark and not at all uncomfortable stillness of the cool, overcast, starless, moonless night. Deerlegs fluffed her feathers once again, trying to warm up properly now as she scouted carefully around the plateau. It felt different to other trips that she had taken onto the plateau, not just being on the lookout for trouble while her herdmates gathered food or came to drink from the small lake but actively seeking it out. More and more she was coming to realise that whatever she was looking for could be two or three times her size, but… it would be fine. She, like all pachys, sported heavy weaponry with her dome, beak, and teeth, and if all else failed, she was fast - she could just run and retreat back to the safety of the cliffs, even though she hated the idea of leaving whatever this was unsolved.

It did not take her long to find evidence of the hunter prowling the scrublands. Nosing past a prickly shrub (she was proud that she had grown so much that the thorns did not bother her near as much as they had when she was small), she discovered a grisly scene that made her stomach turn and she immediately lost all feelings of pride for being so grown.

It was difficult to say what the bloody pile of carnage even used to be, it had been so badly disfigured. Viscera painted the ground, bits and pieces strung out over the earth and plants so that it was difficult to really say whether or not the claims of something killing just for fun were really true. This felt… purposefully violent, though. Malicious.

Deerlegs pulled her head back, still feeling ill, only to realise that her feathers were stuck together on her cheek and muzzle. She had brushed against something wet - this blood was fresh.

Her heart was racing in her chest as she stood as tall as she could, eyes wide as she scanned the darkness for signs of whatever this creature was that was plaguing the scrublands.

The horrific, shrill shriek that cut through the air was paraylising. Her blood turned into ice in her veins as she turned where she stood, frantically trying to see the source of this terror.

Shrill’s blood-coloured eyes were sharper at night than the pachy’s. She had been watching Deerlegs for some time now, and seeing Deerlegs startle and begin to panic was nothing short of a thrill. In an area as open as this, sound travelled far and wide - it was impossible for Deerlegs to identify the direction that her cries came from, and it would strike fear into the hearts of the little herd that hung to the cliffs.

Such a wonderful game. Her lip pulled back to reveal sharp, bloodstained teeth. She could not wait to leave them another present and watch them scurry and cower like ants when their hill had been disturbed.

Zenith, crouched low to the ground so that the vibrant flash of white across their flanks would be hidden amongst the brush, wordlessly encouraged her. Chase down her prize, before the prey grew wise to her hunt and darted to safety. It was a challenging target - Shrill was quite small, even for her age, and an adolescent pachycephalosaur would be difficult to fight without the element of surprise.

Shrill was ferocious. Zenith was not concerned.

Even if she failed, it would be a lesson for the future. Something to make her even more capable of lethal violence.

The silence was almost palpable, punctuated by the rapid thudding of her heart in her chest.

Deerlegs started to turn, losing her confidence, and that was all it took for Shrill to spring from her hiding place and attach herself to her target.

Deerlegs immediately squealed in surprise, a sound which became more of a bellow as she jumped, kicked, and bucked to dislodge her sudden assailant. Shrill clung to Deerlegs’ body as well as she could, digging her claws into the pachy’s feathers to try to get a grip and trying to snap her teeth around whatever was closest so she could pull her prey to the ground and split her from stomach to throat.

The pachy’s feathers were thick and cushioning, but still Deerlegs could feel the sharp sting of claws scraping at her hide. She had gotten into spats with her siblings and herdmates before; friendly sparring, nothing ever too serious but she still sometimes sustained bruises and scratches. This was so much worse. The fear intensified and dulled the pain all at once as adrenaline coursed through her veins, urging her to shake off the young cryo and to fight back.

She tossed her head, swinging her dome to try to knock into the cryo’s side and only narrowly missed the point of a handful of needle-sharp quills with her muzzle and eyes. She bucked again and decided that it would be best to simply run - so she did, taking off and running through treacherously thick shrubbery and tangled, thorny branches of squat bushes. She crashed through the scrublands and Shrill, her grip already tenuous, was ripped off of the pachy’s side with little more than a mouthful of dull teal feathers clamped between her jaws to show for her attack.

The cryo was not ready to give up just yet, though. She let out another ear-splitting shriek when she recovered and raced after Deerlegs, a sound which drove another jolt of fear straight through the pachy’s heart.

But she had to be brave.

Deerlegs rounded on Shrill. The cloud of dust that had stirred up behind her as she ran obscured her in as she charged towards the source of the screech, head lowered and primed for impact.

She only had a moment to prepare before she collided into something - it was small, but solid, and crumpled on impact. Shrill rolled with the blow but it was immediately apparent that something was wrong. She could not catch her breath, it felt like she could barely breathe at all. She struggled to stand but only made it halfway up before she fell down again and Deerlegs, panting, could only stand there for a moment and watch. This was the thing that had been terrorising Highcliff? A young cryo?

Zenith, ever watchful, decided that it was time to step in.

Zenith was not going to let this pathetic game animal take away all their hard work, not when Shrill had so much more potential to grow into.

Deerlegs’ attention was ripped from Shrill when the faint rustle of leaves told her that the two of them were not alone - and Shrill’s presence was terrifying enough. The sound was so quiet and subtle that it could have been a breeze that rustled the leaves, if it were not a windless night.

In the distance, a flash of static lightning sprawled just over the ground, framing the darkened silhouette of another, larger cryo. That, Deerlegs believed, could be the thing leaving carnage for Highcliff to later find.

And it was something that she decided she had little chance to stand up against. She could tell the herd what she had found out and then… they could all do something about it. Together, which was where the herd’s strength lay.

She just had to survive long enough to tell her herdmates first, and Zenith did not plan to allow that to happen.

Deerlegs took off running towards the cliff edge before Zenith had a chance to move, but the older cryo was immediately in fast pursuit. She just had to hope that, with her long legs, she was faster.

She could hear footfalls just behind her as she raced towards over the plateau, almost feel the ominous presence towering over her and reaching towards her. Terror again made itself known in her heart with the very real understanding that she might not make it to safety before she was caught. She might just become another bloody, unidentifiable spot on the sandy earth. She might never see her siblings, her parents, or her friends or herdmates again.

She did not bother slowing down as she neared the edge. It would only give Zenith a chance to catch up, to catch her. She leapt instead - springing across the width of the now-familiar crevasse and landing on a ledge that had barely caught her on her first excursion into Highcliff territory beyond her sett.

Deerlegs stood panting, trembling like she had the first time she had landed here, and gazed up at the ledge that she had jumped from just a moment before. There, standing with a terrifyingly calm presence, was Zenith, staring down at her with a gaze absent of emotion and black as the void. They did not even look remotely out of breath, like they had been standing there the whole time. Waiting. Watching.

It felt like their gaze alone was crushing something inside her, but Deerlegs could not turn away until Zenith, eventually, wordlessly began to move back away from the edge and into the scrublands to see to Shrill. She was not badly wounded, the breath had just been knocked from her lungs. Her chest was bruised, nothing worse than that. It was survivable. She would live, and she would grow stronger, and she would learn.

Even after Zenith left, Deerlegs found she did not yet have the strength, nor the willpower to find her way back down to the pathways that had grown so familiar to her. It was all she could do to keep standing as a strangled sound escaped her chest. Her hide stung where the savage young cryo had bitten and scratched her, throbbed where she had feathers ripped free. But she was alive. She was alive.

She had done her duty as a budding sentry and watched out for danger, even if she had failed to drive them away. Now, or... whenever she managed to find the strength to take a step forwards again, she could return to Highcliff and spread the word about the reality of the killers that were stalking the scrublands.