He tucks his wings to his sides, covering my legs with them, before dropping into a dive so steep that all I can do is cling to his back.
If I had a medallion right now, I’d be strong enough that holding on to Blackbird would be easy, but I’m relying on my human strength to fight the force of our descent.
He angles toward the northern end of the wasteland farthest from the city, and all I can do is hold my breath while the ground rushes up at me, anticipating the moment when he levels out enough that I will be able to reach back for my weapon and leap to the ground.
Soon…
Soon…
The angle of our descent eases just slightly, and I tell myself it has to be enough.
My hand whips back. My fingers close around my hammer.
The movement upsets my position, but it no longer matters.
Strength surges through my body.
Every muscle feels like it’s on fire.
Power floods me, and with it, the world changes.
With my power, I am whole.
Blackbird spreads his wings, releasing my legs, and at that, I leap from his back.
I gain enough air to twist mid-jump and smack my hammer into the neck of the creature that’s first on our tail.
It screeches, the sound of a bird of prey, as it tumbles through the air, crashing into the top of a nearby skeletal tree and sending charred pieces of wood flying around it before it hits the ash with athump.
Another creature is right behind it, but that one swerves to avoid the other’s tumbling body, its speed taking it right by me.
I fully anticipate that it will circle right back.
I land safely on the ash, now hundreds of paces from the city’s northern wall, and in a clear patch of ash that will give me the space I need to fight.
My boots meet the rain-sodden mud before I spin to face my next attacker, only to discover that the creature is farther away from me than I expected.
But, damn, that isn’t a good thing because they’re coordinating their movements.
While half of them have remained in the sky, a moving mass that conceals Erik’s location from me, the other half has formed three separate groups.
Each group descends toward me in a tight spiral—one to my right, one to my left, and another behind me.
The formations are eerily similar to the tornados of snow that raged through the air up on the mountain.
They create a dizzying pattern that makes it incredibly difficult for me to anticipate which creature from which group will reach me first.
I crouch low, ready to fight, my hammer in my left hand while I draw Thoren’s dagger into my right.
Oh, for a medallion.
If nothing else, this situation has already proven to me that I can’t go up against Thaden Kane without forging medallions first.
I can only hope I’ll survive long enough to make them.
Blackbird has flown farther to my left and is circling back toward me as if he will scoop me up again, but a fourth, smaller group of creatures breaks off from the nearest spiral and races toward him, cutting him off before he can reach me. He’s forced to veer away from me, ducking and weaving through the air as he tries to get back to me.
For now, I’m on my own.
