A snarl rips from the skeletal creature, a monstrous noise that would bid weaker men to quiver at the knee. Not Volterra. Instead, it adds to the boiling soup in his heart, the needles of rage in his veins.

His hoof returns to the ground after its attack (successful or not, he can't quite tell) and he's pleased to see his plateau of earth lifting beneath the skeletal giant's hind hooves, lunging the creature forwards. Alas, the demon turns so he's falling directly towards Volterra, and the beast's eyes flash as he acts on pure instinct and a split second of thought. He throws his weight to the right, almost choking on the groan that escapes him as pain jabs through his injured backside. Going to the right rather the left means he can slightly favour the badly hurt left area, but it doesn't stop the explosion of fire in the ripped muscle. This is the most he's moved in the entire fight, but he has little choice - stay where he is, and the massive skeleton could have crushed him.

The creature's wing-claw just clips the black warrior's left rump as he shifts to the side, creating a small, thin graze that irritates more than hurts. Mercifully, it's just above the gash caused by the demon's first, brutal attack, because another direct hit to that area would have caused a hurricane of agony within the behemoth.

The brief sting of the attack is the straw that breaks the camels back. Time to end this. Time for the creature who dared stalk and attack him to die.

That patterned skull will make a lovely souvenir.

He's sweating, exhausted and aching, but he has just enough left to finish this and condemn the skeleton to a final death. He continues to swing to his right, so his backside is hopefully pointed towards Gashad's left shoulder area. With a feral bellow, the giant summons his magic again, this time beneath his own hooves. He creates a plateau of earth just big enough to elevate him to Gashad's formidable height, then throws his weight onto his front hooves and kicks out hard with his back ones. He aims his massive hind hooves for the skeleton's head, to try and smack his skull clean off his neck - he puts more force into the kick with his right side than his injured left, to try and prevent further injury to the delicate area. He forces every ounce of pain, rage and hatred into his attack, foaming at the mouth, sweating everywhere. The volcano inside him adds fuel to the fearsome bulking of his muscles as he throws fucking everything into this final roll of the dice.

Because if he doesn't kill the demon, then the devil-creature will dedouble its efforts to kill him. And hell is not quite ready for Volterra yet.

Vérzés, with a second wind from his small rest, adds a dragon's scream to the din of the battlefield. He swoops, aiming to approach from behind Gashad, and opens his jaws to release a fearsome blast of frost breath. He hopes to raze the skeleton from tail to shoulders, to turn those old bones to ice and send them crumbling into dust. Because, dammit, the two mind-mates might not always get along. Even in this fight, they've bickered and disagreed. But they will do anything to protect their bonded, and their conjoined determinations rampage through Volterra's mind like a herd of wildebeest. Neither dragon nor stallion has allowed their resolve to waver throughout this arduous battle, and it will not waver now.

It can't. Not when their lives could be on the line.

And not when glory is just a kick away.
__________

@Gashad !
Lifts earth beneath his own feet to try and make him tall enough to kick Gashad in the head, whilst dragon tries to frost breath alllll over Gashad's booty. Thanks for the fight Chan <3

3/3 - 618 words