Ryan, or rather Cyrus, managed to take two more hasty shots before the vultures were upon us. Unfortunately, they weren’t both killing blows like his first two had been.

The shimmering vulture closest to us did indeed detonate and shower us with more crystal shrapnel, most of which thankfully bounced off my armour, but the other vulture only ended up losing a wing to the explosion. It was far enough away that the crystal gunslinger could have fired again to finish it off, but he had dropped his repeater after that last shot.

I was honestly surprised he had managed four consecutive shots like that, awkwardly working the lever action with his one arm and clutching the barrel of the repeater with his chin. Every time he did fire, the weapon bucked like a horse that had been struck with a hot iron. Losing his grip was only a matter of time.

The one-winged vulture let out a vicious cry from the pain, and its dive toward us suddenly became a lot less graceful. I braced myself as best as I could atop the rocky outcropping, preparing to strike.

Behind the injured creature that was currently hurtling downwards, three more crystal vultures were circling overhead. They were waiting for a moment of weakness, possibly to be caused by their ally, then they would all descend to finish us off.

That was fine by me. I just wouldn’t give them any kind of opening to exploit.

Strictly speaking, getting out of the way would have been the safer option, but Cyrus was still prone and scrambling after his repeater. If I were to dodge there would be nothing to stop the crystal vulture from colliding directly with him.

This was exactly the kind of thing the rooks had trained me for. Putting myself between danger and those in need of protection. I didn’t know exactly how I would do it, but if I needed to I would take out all four vultures on my own to protect Cyrus.

For the time being, I just focused on the one barreling toward me, recalling the many difficult lessons from the arduous training required to become a rook. The creature may have been hurt, but it was still big, heavy, and at least eighty-six percent combat effective. Taking it head on likely wouldn’t go well for me, so I decided to deflect it instead. I readied my axe and as soon as it got in range I delivered a brutal blow to the side of its face with the flat of my blade, a resounding "CRACK" ringing out and echoing across the rocky landscape.

It was far from a lethal blow, but the force of the strike cracked the jagged crystal beak of the bird and send it flying to the side to crash far below the cliff that Cyrus and I were making our stand on. It would probably survive, but I doubted we would be seeing it again any time soon.

With the first foe dealt with, I took up a defensive position and checked on Cyrus. He had retrieved his gun and was hurriedly loading several rubyshot rounds into it. As soon as he finished, he hopped up beside me, pointing the barrel upwards.

“Think you can take another?” I whispered, keeping a close eye on the trio of circling vultures.

“Doubt it, nothing to steady my aim with.” Cyrus had a pained expression on his face, and I could see his arm shaking slightly.

“You good?”

“Not really, recoil messed my shoulder up pretty bad.”

“Think you’re OK to make a run for it? May be our best option.”

“I’m not leaving without Kate.”

Despite how shaky and unsteady on his feet Cyrus seemed, his tone was deeply determined.

“Well, I can probably take one head on, but if they’re smart they’ll be attacking together this time.” I could have sworn the vultures were getting closer with every passing second. “Think you can take the other two while I’m busy?”

“Maybe, but I doubt-”

Whatever Cyrus was about to say, he stopped as one of the vultures suddenly broke from the pack, flying swiftly back to the canyon we had been observing. We were silent for a moment, which helped us make out the unmistakable sound of distant gunshots from the same direction. Seconds later, the second and third vultures both stopped circling us, flying in the same direction as the other bird.

Both Cyrus and I watched the three crystal creatures go until they were out of sight, one by one diving into the canyon. Then, we shared a concerned look.

“Don’t like that.” I spoke up first. “Don’t like that one bit.”

Cyrus stayed quiet for a few seconds, then raised his repeater up again, looking over in the direction of the canyon we had seen the vultures dive into.

I could tell his arm was still pretty bad, shaking and struggling to keep the long gun steady as he looked through the scope. I was tempted to offer to hold it for him, especially since time was probably of the essence, but I had the feeling he might be a bit touchy about that.

“See anything?” I ventured, still gripping my axe tight in my light-green hands.

“Nope, but something is definitely going down over here.” Cyrus seemed strangely calm, even as more gunshots echoed out from the direction of the canyon. “Doubt they just lost control, otherwise the creatures would have just killed us, right?”

“I guess, hard to take anything for granted though. We don’t really know how they control those things in the first place.” Cyrus lowered his rifle, keeping a firm grip and not holstering it yet. “Could be something worse is coming for us right now.”

“I don’t know about that, those vultures were doing a pretty fine job. Not sure I could have taken the rest alone.”

I immediately regretted adding the "alone", but Cyrus didn’t seem upset by it, he simply shrugged.

“Then I guess they received new orders? Maybe they want to take us alive?”

“Doesn’t explain the gunshots. Could be that someone else is attacking the camp?”

“Someone or something. Can’t see them recalling those vultures unless it was something pretty major.”

“Hmm…” I tried to think of any other possibilities, but none came to mind. “Think you might be right. Not sure what they would classify as more dangerous than us though, got to have more creatures there, right?”

“Right. Whatever it is, they had to pull back everything.” Cyrus nodded, finally holstering his rifle and starting to make his way down from the rocky outcropping we were positioned on. “Which means there’s no better opportunity for us to pay them a visit.”

“You sure about that? We have no clue what we’re dealing with, and still got a camp full of outlaws down there.” I cautiously started to follow Cyrus, keeping an eye out for the vulture I had knocked down.

“You got any better suggestions? We head back to town and we’re right where we started.” Cyrus didn’t slow down to talk, stumbling slightly as he awkwardly tried to reload his repeater.

I was impressed he wasn’t tripping everywhere with the uneven ground and missing limb. I’d never suffered such a severe injury myself, but I knew it was the kind of thing that could ruin your balance and coordination pretty badly.

“Not exactly. We know for sure the outlaws are hiding out here now, and we’ve weakened their defences somewhat. We could go back, round up a squad or wait for backup.”

“And what if they leave with Kate before we can get back here? Or what if she doesn’t survive whatever’s going on down there right now?”

Cyrus didn’t slow down, hopping down the steep slope far faster than seemed safe.

That was then I noticed that his movements were a lot more unstable than they first appeared to me. It wasn’t that he was expertly hopping from rock to rock, but carelessly jumping down the slope putting speed first.

I hurriedly followed suit, able to take just as many risks thanks to my heavy armour in place to protect me from any scrapes or injuries. I would probably be fine even if I stumbled and fell entirely. My armour had certainly survived a lot worse.

It took some doing, especially with my smaller stature, but I managed to catch up to Cyrus before he got too far ahead of me.

“Look, Cy.” I placed a firm hand on the gunslinger’s shoulder, steadying him with my other arm when he almost slipped down some unsteady rocks. “If you want to make a move now and try to save your friend, I’ll follow you. You just have to promise me that this isn’t you acting out some kind of death wish.”

“What? You think I’m trying to kill myself out here or something?” Cyrus finally stopped descending and turned to face me, his ruby red eyes seeming to flare up with anger at the accusation. “I’m trying to do my job. I’m trying to protect someone, do you have a death wish whenever you take on a mission or follow an order?”

“This is hardly the same thing and you know it. When I take on a mission I know I’ve got a team of rooks behind me, I can trust in them and my training.”

“Oh yeah? What about earlier? You stood down those vultures while I was all but useless, if you genuinely thought that would go your way you’re crazy.”

“First off, you’ve got a funny definition of useless considering how many you took down. Second, I knew what I was doing. Might have hurt me something fierce but we would have survived.” I stared Cyrus down as I spoke. “If you want to go on a suicide mission, I can’t stop you, but I’m not going to help you get yourself killed down there.”

“Understood, can we keep going now?” Cyrus didn’t blink or budge, and I nodded.

“Alright, but if we get down there and it’s too much for the both of us…”

“We’ll go back to town.” Cyrus turned away from me and started making his way down the rocks once again.

I wasn’t too happy with how the conversation had gone, but he did at least seem to be taking the rocky path down a little more carefully than before. It was definitely something I would have to keep an eye on.

Despite his significant injury, Cyrus was clearly still capable and could handle himself around crystal creatures. There was still the lingering danger that he could be pushing himself far too hard though. I was actually fairly certain that was exactly the situation. I’d seen people recover quickly from injuries of the same type with magic outside of the Scorch, but Cyrus was still pushing himself way too far.

As far as I knew, he was running on less than a couple of days of bed-rest and some numbing herbs. If he kept fighting the way he was, he would hit his limit sooner rather than later. I would try my best to be there to catch him when he did, but there were no guarantees.

“Don’t get yourself killed over this idiot Lucy…” I whispered to myself, finally reaching the bottom of the slope.

Cyrus had already started heading in the direction of the ravine, but I took a second to circle around in search of the injured vulture. I found it pretty quickly, and finished it off with a simple chop to the neck with my emerald axe. It hadn’t even tried to defend itself, instead continually pulling itself across the starsand with all the strength it had left until my heavy blade smashed through its neck.

It had been crawling in the same direction that Cyrus was now determinedly marching in without a single sign of hesitation. His repeater was loaded and his mind was set. I honestly wasn’t sure if I could stop the hell he was about to unleash.

I would just have to try and pull him back from the brink before he went too far.