"What is this?" I asked Tanga.
"You're asking me?" Tanga asked, sticking her bronze snout forward to get a better sniff of the material.
"Well… that's always worked before." I replied testily.
The strange sand formations were moving, making them extremely interesting for our dragon senses. We had always loved to attack anything moving, always would. The sand things rose up, forming a neat little spiral. Suddenly, Grainger was above us, flying at top speed. "Get out of there!" He yelled. We did not question him; we took to the air. The spiral turned into several spikes, which launched after us. We dodged out of the way, but the spikes turned. Tanga send out a spiral of fire. It melted the sand-demons together, forming glass. The glass fell and shattered along the beach.
"What manner of sorcery is this?" Tanga roared in fright.
"Sand demons." Grainger yelled over. "Dragon eaters!"
Now I understood the significance of the half-eaten Griffin. It had been eaten by sand demons, and now they were trying to get at us. How much could something like a sand-demon eat? I did not want to find out by being it's next meal.
More sand-tendrils leaped at us, trying to swat us out of the air. They were fast, but we were faster. Yet, there were hundreds of them coming towards us, trying to catch us. This was terrifying! How far could they follow us? As we rose higher and higher, the spindles became smaller and smaller. I soon doubted they could grab us any more. I whirled, and avoided a tendril of sand that had come around and above. "They're tricky! Be careful!" I called to Tanga.
She nodded, and dodged another sand tendril. Grainger flamed one, destroying it. Now, though, hundreds of tiny threads were raising upwards and trying to catch us. Grainger was flaming, but his flame didn't reach enough to help us, and Tanga and I couldn't flame without turning, which could turn out to be deadly or harmful.
A sand tendril latched onto my tail. I lashed hard, and the sand fell, taking a few scales with it. It didn't hurt that much, it would take a lot more then that to hurt me, but it didn't feel that great, either. Tanga roared, and I turned to see a sand-tendril had latched onto her wing, and was wrapping around it like thread.
I dove, and flamed off the bottom of the sand tendril, but more lashed at me. Tanga righted herself and rose higher, but I was now low, and too close to the sand tendrils. I blew more flame, but could feel my throat over-heating and knew I was running out of fire. That was the one downside to flaming, you ran out unless you rested between flames.
I shot upwards, barely missed a sand tendril, and came upon next to Grainger and Tanga. "You almost got caught there, Pyre!" Grainger exclaimed worriedly. His black scales looked pale.
Tanga was favoring her left wing. It looked like the sand-beasts had eaten away some of the tough membrane covering the cartilage on her wing, but she dove a little before I could get a good look. I shrugged it off as not- important, and we landed on the forest.
"I found a perfect cave." Grainger said. "But with these sand-demons here, it would be too dangerous to live here."
"The sand demons are confined to that peninsula there." Tanga pointed. "If we can dig out the land, we can make it a small island. The sand-demons can't touch water or fire, I noticed."
"Good idea… but how do we keep the sand-demons from grabbing us while we dig?" Grainger asked.
"One of us could flame whatever rises up." I suggested.
"Okay, let's do this." Tanga said.
We ran over to the peninsula, and as Grainger and I dug out the peninsula, forming a small sand-demon island, Tanga covered the ground with glass. Each sand-demon that rose up was flamed by Tanga, and the heat was so intense it turned them to glass. Some almost looked like melted animals, others just covered the ground in lumps. Finally, after an hour of hard digging, and rotating who flamed the sand demons, we had dug a yard on each side of the peninsula. The sand-demons were trapped. "Of course, we'll have to watch them." Tanga said. "Or they could get out of hand."
"True." Grainger agreed. "Now, will you come see the cave I found?"
"Sure." I agreed. We flew to the center of the island, were the mountain range was. Within was a shallow cave that was apparently lined with Amherstians a rare kind of jewel. It was loved by dragons for it's healing powers on their horns, and loved by humans and griffins as shiny. "It's lovely." Tanga said, investigating a large purple Amherstian. "But much to shallow."
"I can dig it out." Grainger said.
We both looked at him. "You want to stay in this cave?" Tanga asked quietly.
"Well, why not? It's a fine cave, and good hunting. Plus, no rivals, since they were all scared off by the sand-demons." Grainger said, his black hide turning brighter as he spoke.
"Well, it's a great cave." I said absently, wondering how I would get along without my brother by my side.
"Thanks, Pyre. I'm thinking of calling it Amherst, after the stone, you know. Grainger, Dragon of Amherst. Has sort of a ring to it, doesn't it?" It didn't, but I nodded my head and grinned anyway. "Well, we'll give you a little home warming, help you dig some, and then get on our way." I said.
"Oh, you don't have to rush out…" Grainger began.
"Well, I plan on heading south." I informed my siblings. "Towards who-knows where."
"I was thinking of going east." Tanga said absently.
All three of us bumped heads fondly. "Well, you guys can come around anytime you want to." Grainger said with a toothy grin.
"I'll really miss you guys, even if I come visit a lot." Tanga said, her bronze head tipping to one side. "And when I find a cave, I'll come tell you where it is, okay, Grainger?" Tanga asked. "And you too, Pyre."
"Well, yeah. But you won't know where…" I began, but Grainger cut me off.
"You guys can at first come here. Then we can find out where each of our caves is. Who knows, maybe I'll see you at Autsehgio some time or another." Grainger said.
"Good idea." Tanga agreed.
Tanga and I were now standing at the mouth of the cave. Neither of us wanted to take that last step, putting our black-scaled brother behind us for who knows how long, and also each other behind us. It was a scary thought, so soon after leaving Autsehgio, we had to leave each other. I was the first one to turn and fly from the cave, roaring a farewell to my brother and sister. I soared over the ocean, looked back one last time, and flew as fast as I could South…
