The air made Griffon cough as it sucked the moisture out of his throat. The dirt under their feet crunched as they walked and dust swirled around them in eddies as the wind kicked up. It got inside their ears and up their noses despite the thin covering of fabric they wore specifically to keep it out.

Griffon pulled the handkerchief tighter over his mouth and nose, then waved the party forward. Behind him, if he squinted, he'd see the tassels of the marker they'd placed in order to find their way back to the caravan.

Rock outcroppings jutted from the ground every few hundred yards, like giant teeth. Eventually they got smaller, then petered out completely at the edge of a long-dried lakebed. The deserted earth stretched for the next hundred miles. Animals prowled for bites of food and men often perished from exposure out here, but hopefully they'd catch the animals first.

"I'll never get used to this heat."

Gabriel leaned heavily on his sword as he talked. Griffon knew he was supposed to be at the medic tents on days like this, but he’d begged for an extra hand because it felt like there might be trouble out this way and he hadn’t wanted anyone else to come along. Gabriel was older, more world-weary, and knew the desert as well as he did. He knew Griffon’s movements as well as if they were his own.

“Dunno why. Medic tent’s not that much cooler,” Griffon said. “Caleb, how you holding up?”

"Fine," replied the boy. He was around Armand's age, and he sported a pair of wings that looked like a hawk's. Unkempt hair and wide eyes made him look entirely too much like a child.

"This stuff is heavy." He heaved the pack hung over his shoulder and adjusted the weight to compensate. "I still wish we could just fly."

Gabriel stopped and put a hand on Caleb's shoulder. He reached inside the boy’s pack and fished around a little. "It's too windy and it's too hot. We'd all die from exposure or get blown off course. Griffon, can you help him with some of the weight? We shouldn't be making the kid play pack mule." Gabriel's voice sounded muffled from the square of red cloth covering his mouth.

"He just got done telling us how tough he was after he spooked at that frill-lizard. Make him carry his own stuff," Griffon said, but his eyes crinkled over the border of his face covering.

"Jerk," Gabriel muttered under his breath. He tossed the second canteen at Griffon, who caught it, then tucked it into his own bag. Griffon scanned the horizon. There were birds circling something overhead. The sounds of jackals squabbling carried on the wind even though he couldn't see them yet.

"I can't see what they're after. Go out ahead, Gabriel." Griffon pointed in the direction of the birds.

Gabriel shrugged. "If you think we're close enough. If it’s reavers I don’t really want to be caught out alone, and you don’t want to be caught without a medic."

He had a point. Reavers were the size of camels, except they had razor sharp teeth, cloven hooves, and a mean streak. But they were still animals, and they didn’t pick a fight without a reason, so he nodded. "I think they'll spook if they see us, and you're the one that's bright orange."

"If you insist," Gabriel sighed. He nodded and kicked off into the sky. His body made a few lazy loops in the air currents before he took off in the general direction of the buzzards.

Griffon unbuckled his sword from his belt and laid it down. He unscrewed his canteen and it released with a 'pop'. He tipped the welcome liquid into his mouth. It tasted like grit but in this heat it still cooled the burn that settled in the back of his throat. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He scanned his surroundings for a few moments, then nodded.

"I think we're okay to rest until he comes back," he declared. He leaned back, using his wings for support. The marred skin on his left side protested as he did so, and he shifted to find a position where it would stretch the least.

"I'm so hungry," Caleb said. “You guys work like dogs, I don’t know how you manage.”

Griffon let out a little bit of a chuckle but didn't respond. He scanned the horizon looking for Gabriel to return. He hoped that he wouldn't be delayed that long. Last week they'd nearly lost someone coming back too late from the party. It turned out they'd been caught up by raiders. He escaped, but barely. The thought made Griffon uncomfortable.

“How long do you think it’ll take for him to come back?” Caleb asked.

Griffon shrugged. “As long as it takes.”

“As long as he doesn’t run into any frill lizards, right?”

It didn’t strike Griffon as a joking topic, even though the boy was clearly trying to get him to lighten up. His grin grew and he ribbed Griffon in the shoulder. Griffon flinched hard and put a few extra inches between them. He clenched a section of his shirt in his hand and thought he might be sick. He remembered a healer grating his open wounds with a scrub brush and shuddered.

Griffon took a few deep breaths and waited for his heart rate to slow down, a process that felt like ages but was probably only a second or two. "Don't touch me," he said.

"Are you okay? I didn't mean anything by it--"

"Here he comes," Griffon said as he rose to his feet. Gabriel barreled toward them like a firecracker out of a cannon. His feet almost flew out from under him he landed so hard. He turned wide eyes toward Griffon.

"Everything okay?” Griffon asked.

“Yeah,” Gabriel replied. “But there are reavers, four of them. They took off when they saw me but we should get out of here before they--”

A gasp came from behind them and Griffon whipped around just in time to see the ground swallow Caleb's foot up to the shin. Griffon grabbed his arms and gripped them hard. He could feel the slimy, wiggling creature pulling back from underground, even though Griffon couldn’t see it.

“Fuck. Grab his arm!” Gabriel shouted as he seized one and took off into the air. Griffon grabbed the other and beat his wings as hard as they would go. Caleb's leg released from the ground with a sick, sucking sound. Bits of flesh hung from his kneecap. Below it a white, glistening shinbone waved as Caleb screamed and blood puddled onto the ground. The leg scarcely looked like a leg anymore. Gabriel grabbed hold of the boy in his arms and took off into the air, kicking dust everywhere. Griffon followed behind.

"There was an entire pack of them eating something, looked like it'd been dead a couple days. I should have known there would be diggers," Gabriel said as they flew. His altitude dipped dangerously as they got farther away, and Caleb clung, terrified, to his shirt. The ground rushed underneath them so fast that Griffon worried they wouldn't find a place to land before he got tired and had to drop Caleb. By the time they got back to camp the digger venom would have eaten another quarter of the boy's leg. If he got lucky, they'd be able to remove the offending limb before it killed him. Most people didn't get lucky.

From this vantage point Griffon could see the digger tracks ended a little further from where they'd originally set off, and continued for several miles past where they'd stopped. They were lucky there was only one victim. He grimaced. There was no way they'd be able to fly all the way back with cargo. It was questionable whether they'd even be able to do it without.

"Let down here." Griffon pointed to a large rock formation a little ways off. He flew down, landed softly on top of it, and began unpacking things from his shoulder bag. Gabriel landed next to him and rested Caleb's body on the ground. The boy let out an agonized moan and writhed on the ground.

"Don't touch it," Gabriel said. "Sit up. We need to keep it from spreading. Take this and bite down, it's going to hurt. Griffon, help me tie his leg off." He handed Caleb a piece of cloth to stuff in his mouth and the boy clutched it in his hand instead. Griffon fished a spare cloak from his bag and began tearing a strip from it with his sword.

"It hurts, please--"

Griffon looped the strip of cloth tight around the stump and an almighty shriek ripped the air so loud it nearly punctured his eardrums. Griffon winced. He threaded the handle of the sword through a loop in the cloth and twisted until most of the blood stopped. Caleb's screams dimmed, then reduced to moans. Griffon tied his legs together.

"Am I going to die?" Caleb asked in a weak voice. Griffon stayed silent. He shot a look at Gabriel, a don’t-lie-to-him look.

"You're going to be just fine, I’m a medic, remember? We’re going to take you back and I’ll get you patched right up, right Griffon?" Gabriel said. He gave Griffon a hard look back.

"Please don't let me die. Guys, promise me you won't let me die," Caleb whimpered from underneath his facemask. The tear tracks on his face carved lines in the dirt that had settled there. Griffon set his face and did not answer.

"Grab an end," Gabriel said. Griffon nodded and took the kid under the shoulders. It was going to be a long haul back. He was glad they hadn’t managed to get any farther out.

The stench of iron from the wound and sulfur from the digger venom permeated the air as they made their way back to camp. They made quick headway at first, but as the distance drew by the weight got heavier. The land seemed to stretch endlessly in front of them, permeated by the occasional false hope that they might be close as the shimmers in front of them morphed and changed shape. By the second to last marker Gabriel had handed off Caleb's front end to Griffon while Griffon had switched from the head to the feet.

Every step they made felt like they'd climbed a mountain. Usually, when someone out here got hurt, there was no way to save them. The fact that there might be a way made it worse. The fact that the boy was still a boy made it nearly unbearable.

Griffon barely noticed until they were almost back to camp that the whimpers had slowly lowered in volume, then faded. His heart caught in his throat. Gabriel pressed his fingers to the boy's neck and held his ear down to feel for the welcome sound of warm breath. Nothing. No pulse under his fingers. He sighed and shook his head.

"He's dead," he announced. Gabriel looked to him, then to the corpse, as if asking for permission or for what to do next. A silent what do you want to do with it?, as if he were asking about caravan refuse. Griffon sighed and lowered Caleb's front end to the ground.

“Can you get it out on your own?”

“If I try,” Gabriel said. His chest heaved a little, but he picked Caleb up under the armpits before he opened his wings a bit.

"Carry the body out a little ways, cut it into pieces, then bury it in a couple different spots so the scent doesn't make them follow us. I'll watch for more," he said. He turned his back and waited for Gabriel to leave.

Griffon wiped a hand across his eyes. It would be a long time until he could forget the desperate pleas, or the terrified look on Caleb’s face. He'd begged him. Pleaded with him not to let him die but there was nothing he could do. For a moment Griffon remembered being a boy. He remembered feeling helpless and alone and unable to help anyone, and he shuddered.

Bile rose in his throat and his stomach churned itself in knots. Fire pricked at the corners of his eyes and he held them with his forefinger and his thumb and took short, deep breaths to steady himself. A twinge that would soon become an almighty headache formed behind his temples.

Gabriel came back an hour or so later. Blood smeared the front of his shirt and splattered his face. The only sound after that for a long time was that of their footsteps in the dirt.

"Shittiest part of the job," Gabriel said quietly. He produced a flask from his belt, uncapped it, and handed it to Griffon. Griffon tore the cloth from his mouth, took a long drag, and said nothing.