28. Maddy
Chapter 28
Maddy
T hyrvi's growl vibrates through the ground before I hear it. Her muscles bunch beneath her fur as she swings her head sharply left. "The scent is strong there."
I follow her gaze into a thick tangle of branches that twist up into the canopy. The wood looks diseased, darker than the healthy growth around it, and there's something moving in the high shadows. My mouth goes dry as I catch glimpses of red. I'm pretty sure they're not leaves, but feathers.
"How many?" I whisper.
"Three." Thyrvi's mental voice is taut with anticipation. "In a nest above, I think."
The blood rushing in my ears almost drowns out the soft, wet sounds coming from up there—the flex of leathery wings, the scrape of wooden talons against bark. I begin to ice over, the familiar sensation spreading across my skin and over my limbs.
A shriek's head emerges from the shadows, and my whole body tenses with instinctive terror.
This close, I can see every horrific detail, even the way its flesh ripples and writhes beneath the red feathers, like something is trying to escape. Its green-rimmed eyes scan the sky with a predatory intelligence that makes my knees weak. Its curved beak, bigger than my torso, opens and reveals a throat lined with writhing blood vessels and teeth, curved and translucent, like sharp shards of amber.
Why in the name of all the gods did I think this was a good idea? Fear is paralyzing me, and even Thyrvi is silent.
Two more heads appear beside the first, and my heart nearly stops. One has a partially exposed skull, the petrified wood of its bone structure visible through torn flesh. The other's beak is scarred and cracked, with new growth bursting through the fissures like bloody thorns.
I take big breaths as quietly as I can and picture Sarra on the pallet that morning.
This is for her. I have to do this, to save her life. A life I put in danger.
I need to get closer. I need a feather.
But as I take one step forward, all three shrieks unfurl their wings in a horrifying display of sinew and rotten, bloody matter. The branch beneath them groans as they take flight, their wingspans blotting out what little light filters through the canopy.
I hold my breath, praying they are about to leave. But in unison, they dive.
Toward us.
Ice explodes from my hands as Thyrvi launches herself upward, her roar splitting the air. The nearest shriek wheels away from my ice blast, but its wing catches the edge, crystallizing instantly. It shrieks, the awful, mind-numbing sound making me cry out too, as it crashes through smaller branches.
The other two keep diving, unfurling their wings with wet, meaty sounds. I catch glimpses of organs pulsing between the gaps in their wooden bones, glowing like hot coals.
Thyrvi's paw meets the left one, and her claws rake across its wooden breast. Splinters fly, but the creature's flesh writhes and knits together even as she strikes, tendrils of muscle and sinew weaving through the air to reconnect. The sight makes my stomach heave.
I dodge the other's talons by inches, rolling across frost-slicked ground and firing more ice. My next blast catches it in the face, but the ice melts almost instantly against its unnatural heat, steam hissing from its flesh as those terrible, green-rimmed eyes fix on me with what I swear is amusement.
"Above!" Thyrvi warns. The first shriek has recovered, diving straight down. I throw myself flat as Thyrvi springs, catching the creature's neck in her jaws. They tumble together in a blur of white fur and red feathers. The sound of wood cracking mingles with roars and shrieks.
My arms are shaking with effort as I maintain a constant stream of ice, trying to slow the other two. They wheel and dive, their beaks snapping at the empty air where I stood moments before.
One shriek abandons me and dives for Thyrvi's exposed back as she grapples with the other.
"No!" I scream, and ice explodes outward in all directions from my hands. The temperature plummets as the ice whirls, a lethal hurricane forming, smashing toward the birds.
They all rear up, beating their wings hard to avoid the pull of the whirling ice.
With more ear-splitting shrieks, they retreat as one, two of them trying to shake ice and frost from their leathery monstrosities. The hurricane whirls around us until I can't see them, covering everything in frost and ripping leaves and branches from their trees.
When I'm sure they've gone, I lower my hands, and the hurricane stutters, then drifts away.
Thyrvi is snuffling the ground to my left.
"Look."
I turn, but the first thing I notice is blood, bright against her white fur.
"Thyrvi!" I move to her, but she halts me with one glare.
"Superficial wounds. I heal fast, do not worry. Look. Feathers." She shoves her nose at the ground.
The battle she had with the one on the ground has shaken loose dozens of feathers. They lie on the frost-covered earth like bloody limbs, and with trembling fingers, I snatch one up. It's warm to the touch, pulsing faintly, like something alive.
Controlling my repulsion, I put the feather into the bag secured to my back.
"You did good, Thyrvi," I tell her. "Are you sure you're not hurt?"
She huffs in my mind. "I will happily battle further with those winged demons!"
I didn't doubt it.
"No need. We have the feather—now let's get out of here."