abstract
| - It was deceptively quiet up here. The silence of the air betrayed the terror of what Pentrarch Kall Sprangler could barely see through her glasses (which were frosting up already). She had been sent out here for a reason, so she knew it was there – and as she guided the Wintergarde gryphon slowly towards the Carrion Fields, the screams reached her ears at last. She had been expecting them this time. Diving down amongst the ruins and siege engines, she scanned the ground for one of ten people she'd been told to rescue. She already had two of them safe – the night elf man (who was extremely grateful) and the dwarf woman (who was scared of heights). She knew, though, that there were two gnomes out there – they were her priority, although she fully intended to save as many as she could. Dodging a crossbow bolt aimed at a skeletal gryphon, she pulled in close enough to the ground that she could fully see the difference between gnome and geist – and sure enough, being followed by a large mob of the vengeful monsters, was a small figure with a shock of green hair and a high-pitched squeaks as they clawed at her. She stumbled – and Kall chose the moment to fly in close and land for a few moments, throwing the woman a rope. As the green-haired woman scrambled up onto the saddle, so did two other beings – a geist grabbed the other side of the saddle. Kall kicked it squarely in the eye with a foot, nudging the gryphon to take off in order to lose the other geist, which was trying to grab onto the gryphon's leg and rip the meat off it – but in doing so, she forgot to check the gnome woman was firmly in place. She spun her head around back to the side where the gnome woman was scrabbling up into the saddle – but her hands slipped. "No!" Kall wrapped the reins quickly three times around her right arm and leaned down far to the left – there was a painful crack as she did so, but she didn't yelp – to try and grab the gnome lady's hand, but she'd fallen too far. The last thing Kall saw was the female's milky-turquoise eyes, wide with terror; and her mouth, open, in a small o-shape: before she fell below the height of the geists. There was a scramble, fleshy sounds – a muted scream, ripping of tendons, and a sound like a nail being dragged down a blackboard. Then, as Kall flew upwards, the geists scattered again. There was a stain on the snow, and a scrap of matted hair. Kall felt sick. The gryphon screamed, and so did her left shoulder – with little choice, she turned around and piloted the snowy gryphon back to Wintergarde Keep.
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