55 Giant Worm

Dawn could easily see the exhaustion on everyone's faces. They were savoring their meal and taking their time. She could hardly blame them.

Her own eyes felt heavy from the lack of sleep. She sat down on the ground and ate as she closed her eyes. It seemed rather peaceful.

She could hear Raven singing in his low songbird like voice. The hoarseness characterized his speaking voice disappeared when he started to sing.

There was something peaceful in just sitting here, and eating. It would have been a good day for a picnic back home. Arrion would have badgered her into going outside, decidedly one of the easier things he could talk her into as she appreciated the outdoors as well, and then he would have most likely ran off to go play. But he would have stayed within her sight, always aware of what she was doing.

Oh, how she missed those easy days when they could just be idle.

Dawn was interrupted out of her thoughts when she felt the ground begin to shake. She lept to her feet startled and wondered what was happening.

She could see similar looks of surprise mirrored on everyone's faces. Dawn had never felt an earthquake right beneath her feet and felt some panic at the thought.

The tremor stopped and she took a calming breath. It was just the ground shaking, it had been over as quickly as it had-

The ground gave another shudder, and Dawn watched as her griffon pranced up, spreading its wings all ready to just take off. The animals were all antsy as well.

A bad feeling came over Dawn and she opened her mouth to tell them that they should just get going.

But then the ground exploded as a huge purplish colored worm erupted from the ground, showering them with rocks and dirt. And Zyph lept up, flying up but still keeping near. The other animals began panicking as well tried to swallow up Gysen.

She heard the startled spell, and then the sorcerer suddenly vanished, reappearing twenty feet away.

The worm continued spilling out of the ground, making the ground shudder as its rather large form came out.

They recovered from their shock enough to start retaliating.

The worm was huge. But it had tunnel vision, and kept going after Gysen. Who knows why, but it was a bit of a stroke of luck that it had picked him as its prey.

A very deadly game of cat and mouse began as Gysen led it in circles as the rest of them tried to take it down.

It was the toughest thing that Dawn had ever fought, with its overly tough skin and her weapon was practically useless.

Once again the fire sorcerer proved rather useful though. The smell of burning flesh suffused the air, making Dawn feel slightly nauseas but there was no arguing with results.

The other person who made himself incredibly useful was Lowks. He was insanely good at aiming his bow and he had peppered its small almost hidden eyes with them, annoying and aggravating the creature and putting it through a lot of pain.

But Dawn could see that they were making headway, though slowly.

And then its mouth went over Gysen as he faltered, exhaustion setting in. For a brief moment Dawn felt a bit of fear for the man, but then one more blast of fire smote into its side and it did not even get to complete the action of swallowing down the now too tired to even think sorcerer.

As they all took a breath, looking at the slightly smoking creature Dawn straightened up and looked around, "Everyone alright?"

"No." The word was quiet and she turned to look at the pale faced young girl. She looked ratehr terrified as she stared down at the hole that the worm had emerged from.

"What do you mean, Lyta?" Dawn though was already realizing something.

She could not see the girl's brother. Or the other older child. And then she realized with a bit more of a fright that Raven had vanished as well.

"When the ground split open, they got knocked over…" Lyta seemed a bit in a shock, "We all did really. If it was not for Raven… we would have fallen in as well."

Worry for the children, and for the blind man with them, made Dawn run over to peer down. She could not see anything, just darkness descending down into the depths of the earth.

She frowned. There was a chance though that they might have survived and she did not want to abandon them. So, she turned and asked for rope.

But before she could get the chance to lower the rope that Tira had handed her, she heard the sound of hoofbeats.

Looking up, she realized that they were completely surrounded. The people surrounding them were Nix'Rylians and unlike the children they looked far more like the run of the mill locals that dominated this land.

If they had not been exhausted from the ordeals of the day, first with the spider and then with the worm, they might have been able to fight even against the sixty-some men.

Or if the hostile men did not have a decent spellcaster with them. But as it was…

They were too exhausted to really deal with it and before long they were being bound and forced into a march.

Dawn turned and looked at the hole. She could only hope that Raven and the boys were okay.