The wind ruffled my hair, blowing it into my face as we rode in a rush through the plains below the Granora Mountain Range to the Esulmor Woods, spreading out from the mountainside to the south. They say the Old Road to Granhill once ran across the same plains; hard to believe when it traversed the heart of the dense forest for centuries now.
If only Esu had spread his woods further, we’d be there by now. A foolish thought that crossed my mind as I struggled to stay on the sprinting horse stuck to Deckard like a leech. But my eyes were not glued to those woods or the old road to our left. My focus was on the shadows high up in the sky, where four birds of prey loomed. Northern eagles. Lightfeater called them Miros. The ones behind this mess.
Ever since we split up from the others, I wasn’t the only one dreading their reaction. No one, not even Deckard, had any idea what the intention of these supposedly proud creatures of the far north was.
Was their goal simply to attack people traveling through their new territory and fill their guts? Or was it the Imperial Chief Healer, traveling to Esulmor to solidify relations between the Esu and the Sahal Empire? Honestly, I wish that was the case, because the last option I came up with was sending chills down my spine.
Unless the eagle’s interest lay in human prey or Lord Wigram, they were here for me. Bullshit, right? That made little sense! What the hell did I have to do with some shitty eagles living up north?
“Deckard!” I shouted the moment I saw the shadows in the sky move, forgetting my pondering.
“I see them,” he said, no hint of a quiver in his voice. His eyes were fixed on the sky as mine, and like me, he watched three of the shadows grow larger. The beasts were coming quickly, diving silently, with no sign of their presence. True predators with an eye on their prey.
“Shit! Looks like we’re not getting out of this without a fight.”
Shit indeed! I saw the same thing. One of the northern eagles was heading straight for us. “W-what should I do?” I asked as a lump of dread formed in my throat, making it hard for me to make a sound.
“Get ready to move into the saddle and take the reins.”
Was he going to fight the diving beast?
“Don’t give me that look. I told you I should be able to handle one.”
Yeah, he did. “But still...”
“Don’t fret over it and don’t fucking try to help me! You hear me?!”
He couldn’t be serious! No soldiers rode with us. Without me, he was alone. No one could face such a beast alone, right?
“Did you hear me?! Just head for the woods and try not to die.”
Had it been under different circumstances, him being so dead serious would have given me pause. That was not the Deckard I knew. But even I knew this wasn’t the time to argue, to make myself out to be something I wasn’t. Soldier, seeker, I wasn’t even a skilled fighter, let alone some heroine of old legends. No, what I was was just a florist who recently learned to dance.
“Into the woods. I got it!”
Honestly, it baffled me why my instincts kept pushing me to face the eagles. Why did I feel the pull from my beast side to prove something to them? Fuck them, fuck my instincts! If usually, I could depend on them to some extent, this time, they were totally off. Even young mossbears were out of my league, let alone these feathered beasts. To stand up to them would be stupidity of the highest degree.
“Don’t think for a second to stand up to them! Your priority is to get under the trees as quickly as possible,” Deckard bellowed to make sure I listened, never taking his eyes off the sky. “It will be harder for them to get you there.”
Not impossible, though. He didn’t have to say it for me to understand. The trees were not some impenetrable defense against these beasts, just a hindrance. If I really wanted to be safe, I needed to call mossbears.
But what did it say about the safety of others?
The carriage carrying Lord Wigram, with Lightfeather and Pip riding beside it, was further away from Esulmor than us and moving considerably slower. What chance did they have against the diving eagle? Just a carriage protected by a barrier and ten soldiers. I gave much better chances to the soldiers who stayed behind and fought a tough battle with the raging beasts. The third eagle dived at them, and they were already firing arrows imbued with enchantments and magic designed to combat the airborne enemy. If I passed over the brutality behind it, the sight was magnificent.
“Damn it, girl! Focus!” snapped Deckard before he literally disappeared from my embrace. One moment I was hugging him to keep from falling off the sprinting horse, and the next, he was gone. Teleportation? The thought crossed my mind in the seconds of panic that followed as I nearly fell off. A battle with time ensued as I tried to get into the saddle and stay on the horse’s back.
A few breaths later, drenched in a cold sweat, I was able to claim victory.
With my ass bouncing in the saddle, I grabbed the reins, flopping freely in front of me, yet immediately gave up any effort to steer the stallion. Lightfeather was absolutely right about me. My horsemanship lacked the experience of riding under such pressure and danger. Actually, I lacked any substantial riding experience, period.
“It’s up to you, boy!” I said to the stallion, trying to keep the dread out of my voice. There was no need to freak the animal out more. “It’s up to you...” I whispered, leaving the rest unsaid: Run as if your life is at stake because it is, the lives of all of us.
Since Deckard took off, bird shrieks and explosion-like thuds echoed in the sky behind me. Two massive presences there battled for dominance, putting mine to humility.
I didn’t even have to look to know the beast was almost twice Deckard’s level. Not that far from mine in terms of strength, you might say. But for the first time, I witnessed how huge the difference between mine and what I sensed behind me was. The constant pressure gnawing away at my mind, at my strength, sowing fear in my heart, and wresting respect for the beast was terrifying.
When I used mine, it was also...powerful. The difference was striking, though.
The eagle’s presence was like the busy streets of Castiana, where the bustle of crowds was constant and hard on the ears. Mine was akin to a woman’s scream. Surely, for a moment, it would have caught everyone’s attention before it gets swallowed up by the hustle and bustle of the street again.
Silly analogy, I know. Well, just my mind mumbling, trying to cope with all that was going on and...
“Shit!”
As usual, when I noticed an incoming attack in my domain, it was too late to react. All I could do was prepare for impact. The wind blast, or whatever it was the eagle threw at us, dug into the ground just a few meters away from the horses and me, blowing up soil and rocks. In an instant, my ride turned into a nightmare as a barrage of rocks turned into shrapnel hit me. That brought back a memory of when I rode my bike through a hailstorm. Damn bad idea!
This was a thousand times worse.
The stones cut into my skin, leaving me bleeding, just like the stallion and Jewel. Some even stayed stuck in my skin, making me worry about how my regeneration would cope. Worry for later, though.
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Not sure if it was my intent to reassure the animals that I did my best to radiate, their natural instinct to flee, or training, but they kept sprinting in the direction of the woods, unperturbed by the blast and wounds.
My discomfort and concern were nothing compared to what was happening above us. Deckard teleported from one place to another around the northern eagle with such cadence that the beast was unable to react timely. The beast tried to retaliate with attacks, each flap of its wings carrying a similarly devastating wind blast like the one earlier that left a deep gash in the ground behind us.
For all the might and power, little did it do to the nuisance buzzing around it. Seeing Deckard narrowly escaping each time was nerve-wracking. Twice in a matter of seconds, I thought he wasn’t going to make it. Yet the man disappeared the moment the attacks were about to hit him and reappeared elsewhere to deliver a powerful kick into the body of the biggest eagle I’ve ever seen.
Oddly, the beasts looked like the eagles I knew, or at least close to them. No horns, no bones sticking out where they shouldn’t, no extra wings or a pair of eyes, no moss covering their bodies. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for two long feathers trailing from the top of its head almost to its tail. Two long head feathers colored the same white and brown as the rest of the beast, a trait that paled compared to its size.
Bigger than any man, I would compare his body to that of an adult mossbear. Small beast in relation to Esu, but its wingspan matched the crown of antlers on his head. It baffled me how such a large creature could move so quickly and skillfully through the air.
Deckard was faster, though.
At times it seemed like he was walking on air, a possibility I wouldn’t rule out. So far, he didn’t tell me much about his abilities and skills, nor did he share with me the intrigues of [Void Walker]. Thinking about it, his swift movements through space from place to place in what appeared to be teleportation might have been him simply taking a step.
Was it something where dancing could take me? If he had shown me this earlier, I would have learned it with even more vigor.
Now, in order to make further progress in [Dancer’s Stride], I had to survive first.
Much more impressive than his air walking were his kicks. Smooth, elegant, so fast I was sure I’d have a hard time following them with the naked eye without the buffs I received. Most impressive of all was the force behind them. Given the distance, it was hard for me to tell for certain, but Deckard’s kicks seemed to be tearing up the space itself, striking the beast’s body with such force that it formed a pressure wave every time.
Sadly, it didn’t seem to have much effect on the eagle, other than a few lost feathers. I saw no blood. If anything, based on the beast’s screeching, his strikes made it more pissed off.
“Fu...k!” I failed to curse as a rock flying from the impact of one of the eagle’s frustrated attacks that landed on the ground not far from us hit me under the eye. Riding through another hailstorm of rocks, dirt, and dust, I looked wistfully towards the woods. We were close, so close. Yet still at least a minute’s ride away.
The closer we got, the more the northern eagle’s attacks intensified, hitting nearer and nearer to the horses and me. Those gusts of condensed wind forming the blades were no longer just random attacks initially aimed at getting rid of Deckard. The bastard was trying to hit me, and only thanks to my mentor was it failing so far.
All the beast has managed was to give me minor scrapes and cuts from flying rocks. Wounds that were already healing. That couldn’t be said for horses, though. They were bleeding all over, slowing down.
“Just a little further!” I raised my voice, trying to bolster their courage and strength. To be honest, I was in awe of them. None of the horses have panicked as far as I could tell. Seriously, hats off to them and that grumpy stableman for raising such animals.
Then, when the woods were a stone’s throw away, my ears were struck by a sharp screech, and a second later, we were hit by a pressure wave that nearly knocked me off the saddle.
“Dodge, Little Beast!” the urgent voice of Deckard rang through my mind. It hit me with such insistence that my heart stopped, and with it seemed time too.
Or at least it slowed down close to a near standstill.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a gust of wind as sharp as a blade and with the force of a hammer coming slowly towards the horses and me. I could see Deckard thrown aside by the same pressure wave that hit me, spreading from the northern eagle. The terror in the man’s eyes, watching the attack aimed at me, spoke of how even he, with his miraculous stride, couldn’t reach me and save me in time.
I didn’t have to be good at reading expressions to know I was fucked!
Actually, it made sense, the time slowdown that was. This was the moment. The one when your whole life flashes before your eyes just before you die.
Or so it seemed, except my heart, which stopped beating, was burning as it devoured my mana like crazy. At the same time, the instincts were screaming at me one thing. My time was running out, and it was running out fast.
Unfortunately, the only thing that seemed to speed up was the perception of my time, the effect I experienced a few days ago at the barracks training grounds. When I urged my body to move, it didn’t budge any faster than near-frozen horses. Then what the hell could I do? Magic shield, my mane? None of that would withstand the attack, let alone form in time. Nor could I face that attack directly despite my massive constitution. But what else?
The heart-wrenching truth quickly sank in. There was nothing I could do to save myself and the horses.
As Deckard urged me, dodging the attack was the only way out for me.
Up, down, to the side? Given the direction of the wind gust, I pushed off in the stirrups, helping myself with my hands and a mighty flap of my wings to squat in the saddle. A slow process given my sped-up perception of time. It was like being caught in a nightmare where you’re trying to escape with no chance of pulling it off.
Then as my mana reserves dropped below half, my heart took a beat and another. With time returning to normal, my guts in knots, and my breath caught in my throat, I sprang up with all my might, straining my wing muscles as I flapped against the air and braced myself for impact.
It came not even a second later, lifting dirt and rocks into the air as it hit the ground. I smelled blood too, but didn’t have the heart to open my eyes or focus my senses further while I was tossed aside like a rag doll through the air. Close, it was damn close! But ‘I’ avoided the brunt of the attack. All my limbs were still attached, and I didn’t have any injury that would burden me except for more cuts caused by flying rocks.
There was no time to play the foolish heroine. Even my instincts no longer compel me to face the beast. There was no other way out than to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. So while still in mid-flight I was trying to correct, I gave in to the beast.
Whether it was the urgency of the situation, the buffs, or the fact that it wasn’t the first time I’d done it that helped, I had no idea. But the tier three beastification came unexpectedly quickly and easily. Not pain-free, smoother, though.
When I hit the ground, it was already on anthro legs and with the change almost complete.
Doing my best not to think of the bloody carnage left by this latest attack of the northern eagle, I dashed forward to the woods without much hesitation. To dwell too hard on what had happened would be too dangerous and could cost me my life. So I simply pushed my urge to look into the groove aside with [Indomitable Will] and soothed myself with the fact that no painful neighing of horses reached my ears.
Four heartbeats later, my change was complete, and I was in a full sprint. So far, my speed has made me proud. Petty, I know. The truth, nonetheless. Now that pride was who knows where. I felt so sluggish compared to the horses, and I was giving it my all.
How much could it have been to the base of the trees? Five, maybe six hundred meters? Damn! I needed to push myself faster. How, though? I was already at my limit, over it even. If it weren’t for my regeneration, my body would have already collapsed.
By letting it go! That was the way.
I had swallowed my pride many times before and did it once again. There were times when I was free to act like the human being I was born and times that demanded the opposite. And this was one such time when it was most apt to let loose my instincts.
So I did.
Just as I suspected, sensed, and felt my instincts were reaching out to tell me did happen, I fell on all fours. Weird as fuck! Especially since my hind legs went through a bit of change at that point and adapted to my new feline running style. That was even weirder. But it served its purpose, and I blazed through the hundred meters faster than ever before.
Another two hundred meters to the foot of the forest to go when the hairs on the back of my neck tingled. The source of it, as it were, was the eagle I found flying at me from my right, its talons outstretched, its claws digging into the ground, leaving deep furrows in its wake.
I wished time would stop again. Sadly, it didn’t. Just my breath caught in my throat. What could I do? Stop, rollover, duck, none of that would help. At that moment, seeing its outstretched legs and claws coming towards me, a thought crossed my mind. Something I’ve practiced countless times. A leap through the beast’s attack/loops.
Risky, but worth the gamble.
Not wanting to end up in the eagle’s talons, I plunged right into them.
“Little Beast!” Deckard’s startled voice echoed through my mind. He didn’t expect me to do such craziness. To his credit, nor did the eagle. If I had to guess, I don’t think he’s ever seen his prey jump into his claws of its own will. It worked, though.
Its claws did not dig into my skin or even scratch me. I performed that leap perfectly, like I have so many times before. Now, however, it was a feat worthy of praise. Yet I shot off again towards the woods, not looking back, not rejoicing in my success.
A few moments later, I reached the trees without having to face or dodge any more attacks. I made it to Esulmor, the realm of Esu.