Legacy of Oblivion

A free falling descent jolted them both wide awake. The air thickened, smothering their faces and squeezing the air out of their lungs. As the heat hit the underside of the bats, the thin sheet of ice that had collected on their thick pelts melted and steamed upward, engulfing their riders in a layer of sweat, dirt and other unrecognizable filth. Zug and Caulbraen buried their faces in their sleeves until the unwanted bath ended.

In synchronized motion, the bats leveled out just long enough to allow a desperate gasp for breath, then dropped to the earth. A few feet above the red, barren ground, the mammals glided in perfect parallel with the rocky terrain. Everything that passed was a blur and the speed made their eyes tear up when they tried to look ahead, so they worked on untangling themselves from the straps that secured them to the bats. Though they had just come from the coast and it would be another hour until their destination, the movement helped return feeling to their constricted limbs. Even the bats seemed impatient to land, though they would most likely continue until they reached a bat nest farther north. The Badlands was not a favored climate for bats and, after the trauma they had experienced in Stonard, they would probably want to nest with their own kind for a while. Zug really couldn’t blame them.

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