Chapter 19
Chapter 19
I consider the heavy silence with growing dread.
There’s a presence out here. I can feel it. But no matter how I search the nearby trees, I can’t see it.
I want nothing more than to draw my hammer, but it won’t do me any favors to light up like sunlight. The sky is still dark, actually darker than I expected, although I don’t have time to ponder why right now.
Slowly, I lower my satchel down onto the snow beside the cabin wall, and Erik does the same.
Then I reach for the dagger he gave me, sliding it from the casing at the front of my harness. I’m forced to recognize how useful a medallion would be in this situation. To be able to transform it into whatever weapon I might need could make a huge difference in a fight.
The frantic flapping noise sounds again.
This time, it comes with a scrabbling sound.
I spin to the cabin’s roof, and at the same time, Erik snatches his bow from his back, rapidly nocking an arrow to his bow. He circles out from the cabin, moving away from the cabin into the clearing beyond it.
I follow his path, steering wide into the space the clearing affords us. While I grip the dagger firmly in my right hand, I’m fully prepared to reach for my hammer with my left hand.
A shadow rises up from the other side of the sloping roof.
Its form is so misshapen that I can’t immediately make out what kind of creature it is. Only that it’s big… or rather… it’s wide .
A sharp, black beak becomes visible, and black wings extend at its sides, flapping and stretching before it scrabbles in my direction, seeming to follow my movements.
Even though its wings appear to be made of black feathers, its body is covered in fur, like that of a bear or a wolf. Its talons are more like claws, rasping against the wooden paneling on the roof. They’re long enough that they could tear through my chest like a sword.
As I back away into the clearing, preparing for the creature to leap from the roof at any moment, it shakes its head at me, a weird, snake-like hiss emitting from its mouth.
Shivers race across its body, and a flurry of snowflakes shake from its feathers and fur, filling the air around it.
The cloud of frozen icicles billows toward me.
Suddenly, I’m inhaling the heavy, copper scent of blood, an overly familiar smell.
It freezes me to the spot.
Erik gives a soft growl, mirroring my thoughts. “There’s blood in the air.”
As he speaks, one of the snowflakes reaches me, wafting right across the air in front of my face and then through the space between Erik and me.
I don’t need powered eyesight to identify that the snowflake is crimson red.
My voice is strangled. “It’s frozen blood-rain.”
It has never rained blood up on these mountains. Never in the west. Only ever on the northern side of the city down on the plain.
Blood-rain would fall every time a monster was about to rise in the wasteland. It was a warning that I never ignored. Every time it rained, I would go out to fight whatever monster rose from the mud and ash.
The scent comes with an energy that buzzes at the edges of my senses.
I try to make sense of the bird creeping toward the edge of the roof, where it clings with its sharp talons.
If it’s a monster, where did it rise from?
The bird shrieks at me, a high-pitched scream. And then it beats its wings once more, this time a strong sweep that launches it from the roof and directly toward me.
As the bird soars at me, lightning shoots through its body.
Its wings crack like thunder and suddenly, I’m frozen with recognition.
It’s a fae thunderbird!
But not a natural one.
This bird has clearly been impacted by Blacksmith magic; its fur and feathers and claws are a mix of bear and bird and wolf.
In the seconds as it shoots toward me, its talons extended, my thoughts are rapid, racing through my mind in an instant.
All of the monsters that rose from the wasteland were products of the transformation magic that seeped into the ground. They formed from the bones and bodies of discarded experiments.
There’s still a small chance that this beast didn’t rise from the wasteland. After all, the wasteland is all the way down the mountain and to the north.
I don’t have time to work through the possibilities.
My reflexes take me backward, my leg muscles bunching before I leap. At the same time, I reach for my hammer with my left hand.
The moment I touch its handle, my speed increases, and so does my strength.
I swing the hammer while I’m midair, aiming for the side of the bird’s approaching head.
At that same moment, a blaze of sapphire energy streaks toward me from my right.
Erik leaps at the bird from the side, his sword raised, his jump taking him so high that he’s soaring down toward the bird from above, the perfect angle to slice through its neck in one, clean cut.
My hammer hits the bird first, my left-handed swing crashing into its head with a crunch .
The force of my strike rams it down and to the right, its body hitting the snow so hard and so fast that its body rips through the snow, gouging a deep turret for twenty feet before it comes to a stop.
Erik lands in a crouch a few paces away from me, adjusting his downward swing with apparent ease so that he can spin toward the bird, which is now behind him.
It lies still in the snow.
My hammer shakes in my hand, power surging uncontrollably through me. But it’s a punishing sensation.
Within my mind, I repeat the moment it connected with the bird’s body, the horrible crack it made, and the way my power shot back at me, biting and angry and rebellious. As if…
My eyes widen.
Then I’m running at the beast, unable to deny the overwhelming impulse flooding my mind and body.
Ahead of me, the bird twitches. One of its wings was forced beneath its body by its fall and slide, but its other wing is spread out across the snow, its feathers appearing jagged and sharp up close.
A trail of black ooze lines the turret it made in the ground.
Black blood. I can smell it.
Its eyes are open and it follows my approach but doesn’t try to move.
Like every other monster I killed, its eyes are filled with intelligence, the instincts of a predator infused into its mind.
But with intelligence comes pain.
And confusion.
A battle between animal instinct and higher reason.
I drop to the ground in front of the bird’s head.
Erik is only a few steps behind me. He stops beside me, his sword held ready to deliver a killing blow to the bird’s neck, but still, it doesn’t move.
It simply returns my gaze.
Gripping my hammer in my left hand, I rest the weapon down on the snow beside the bird’s head. Then I sheathe the dagger Erik gave me.
I lean forward, my shoulders slumped, as I dare to slide my hammer forward until it touches the bird’s neck.
My whispered command is barely audible. “ Live .”
The bird’s wings shiver, but it remains lying broken in the snow.
Desperately, I wish for a medallion because the example Erik gave me only minutes ago has come to pass.
I can’t help this bird by smacking a fucking hammer into its body.
I press the metal more firmly against the bird’s neck, speaking louder. “ Live .”
Do not die.
Erik is tense where he’s remained beside me. “Asha, it’s in pain. You have to end it.”
My focus lifts to him, and I voice the realization that hit me only moments ago. “My hammer can’t kill. It won’t . I tried?—”
My voice chokes, and I struggle to continue.
“I tried to force it to kill. Now I need to fix what I did.”