The vampyrs don’t have the weight to do any real damage, and my armor is deliberately smooth. They can’t get hold of me.
One of them manages to grasp my forearm, but I shake it off. Its shrieking form knocks into the vampyrs flying behind it.
My armor is now the Oracle’s armor.
She is as protected as I am.
What’s more, my eagle’s speed nowdefies the dark creatures.
Their dismayed screeches echo around the pitch-black sky as my bird darts right and left, picking up even more speed.
There’s finally clear air ahead of us and then?—
A new swarm of vampyrs shoots up from the mountain peak, which sits directly ahead of us. My heart sinks. Their dark cloaks must have concealed them against the inky rock.
They race toward us, a writhing wave, blocking our path.
My eagle soars sharply left, taking the new swarm with us. Then sharply to the right, flying directly at the next cliff face.
If he and I hadn’t performed this maneuver before, I’d think he was panicking and about to smash us into the rock. But his purpose is to lure both vampyr groups into a single mass following close behind.
So close they won’t focus on the rock fast enough.
The moment he veers wide of the oncoming mountain, they’ll crash into it.
As the wall of mountainside rushes toward us, the urge to close my eyes is instinctive.
Instead, I find myself once again drawn to the Oracle, her face so close to mine, because she whispers, without explanation, “Fluttering bird, fly free.”
Her eyes are wide open but glazed, staring sightlessly outward.
Is she…having a vision?
Back at the village, the blade’s power had flashed multiple times, and the alluring changes to her appearance were closely connected with that surging energy, but there’s no hint of that now. No change in her appearance.
She seems calm. Quiet.
“Blue feathers doused in blood,” she murmurs, so softly I’m forced to read her lips, or rather what I can see of them, which only makes me less certain of what she said.
She blinks. Her now-clear gaze darts up to mine. “It won’twork.” She struggles beneath me. “We have to dive. We need to divenow!”
For a heartbeat, I don’t believe her.
Flying close to the ground will only make things worse. Vampyrs sleep where the land is darkest, and that is within the black valleys and on the banks of the onyx rivers. What’s more, if we continue on our current path, we should rid ourselves of the majority of the swarm.
Diving lower seems both more dangerous and less effective.
But my hesitation is gone in a flash.
She’s the Oracle.
I either use her power to my advantage, or I don’t.
I tap my bird’s neck twice, the signal to dive, but he, too, hesitates.
“Dive!” I roar, startling him into submission.
With a savage beat of his wings, he angles downward and to the left, and, in the next moment, we plummet.
