Erik is alert, his head tilted, his gaze vigilant as he surveils our surroundings.
Because of the way the cabin is situated, with the door on one of the shorter sides, it takes a few moments to round the corner back into the clearing.
We’re only three steps away from the corner when Erik freezes.
A second later, the sound of beating wings reaches me, a frantic, flapping noise that stops abruptly.
Erik’s hand flies to my arm.
“Wait.” He is startlingly tense, his eyes narrowed and his gaze distant, as if he’s using his wolfish senses. “That isn’t Graviter.”
Chapter 19
Iconsider 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’swide.
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.
