Warrior of the Wild(67)

Soren backs up slowly when he’s sure the otti will take a straight path to him. She seems to gain both confidence and speed the closer she gets to him.

“Now!” Soren yells.

I drop the net, watch it land over the otti’s head, back, and tail feathers, before climbing down the tree as quickly as I can to help.

Soren grabs the front two ends of the net, holding down while the bird rears her head. I scramble behind her to grab the back ends. She tries to buck, swivel her tail feathers, but with her talons pinned beneath her, she can’t free herself from the net.

“It’s all right,” Soren intones. “We’ll let you go in just a second. I need something first.”

The otti turns her head to the side, sizing him up with one black eye. She tries to push her beak through a gap in the net.

And succeeds.

She snaps at Soren, who just barely manages to dodge it. With both rope ends clasped firmly in his hands, he sidesteps the bird, joining me in the back. The otti’s neck turns with the motion, pinning her head against her side.

“She won’t hold still,” Soren says. He stumbles beside me as the otti attempts to raise her wings. “Damn.”

He holds both of his ropes in one hand and reaches for one of the bird’s long tail feathers.

There’s a whisper of sound as the feather comes free, and I watch the bird’s eyes dilate.

She flaps her wings madly, not in an attempt to fly, just to clear us away from her, and I lose my grip on the rope in my right hand.

“Soren!”

The otti gets a leg free with the opening I’ve given her, and she rises on that side, talons trying to find purchase on the ground.

Soren grabs the remaining rope in my hand, while I try to leap onto the bird’s back for the end I let go of.

She bucks again, her freed leg finally finding purchase, and I tumble down her back before landing on the hard ground.

“Rasmira, are you all ri—oof!”

I crank my neck to see Soren pulled forward as the otti finds her other leg. She spins around and hops toward the opening in the trees.

And then—seeming to think better of it—

She launches herself in the air.

With Soren still dangling by the ropes.

What is it with that boy and not letting go?

Branches and twigs rain down on me as the otti forces her way through the canopy. Soren shrieks as he’s yanked after her.

On the ground, I find the feather Soren pulled from the bird. I throw my pack over the top of it so it won’t blow away. Then I race out of the tree line to find Soren.

The shrieks make him easy to locate.

He has his eyes firmly closed, and he holds on for dear life as the bird flies through the air. They dart left, sway right, drop a few feet—Soren gets dragged every which way as the bird tries to throw him and the net off.

Thank the goddess she’s tucked her talons under her body for flight. Else Soren wouldn’t be long for this world.

They’re perhaps thirty feet in the air, far enough that Soren could sustain serious damage were he to fall. They sail over the nest of little birds, who chirp at the sight of their mother.

The otti is more weighed down on her left side, where two ends of the net are still firmly grasped in one of Soren’s hands. They twirl in circles for a moment, before plummeting a couple more feet.

I’m chasing them down, flinching every time I think Soren’s about to lose his grip. His legs kick uselessly in the air, the ax on his back worthless with his hands on the ropes.

The two figures cross over another grouping of trees, and I follow after them, plunging into the undergrowth. Through gaps in the trees, I can just barely make out Soren’s kicking feet.

“Soren. Soren! Can you hear me?”

“Ahh.” He likely still hasn’t opened his eyes, blocking out the height.

“Soren, let go!”

“What?”

“Trust me. Let go now!”

With a mighty bellow, he releases his grip on the ropes and plummets toward the earth. He crashes into leafy branches, scrapes against a tangling of vines, gets whipped in the face by another branch—

And then I catch him.

We both go sprawling onto the ground.

I can’t breathe, and I scramble to get Soren off. He groans and rolls over, but the wind’s been knocked out of me.

“I take back what I said,” Soren mumbles. “Your idea was terrible.”

My breath whooshes back into me, and I find my feet before reaching a hand down to Soren and helping him up.

The trees above us crack, branches ripping from their trunks. Instinctively, I go for my ax.

Not fast enough.

I’m on the ground again. A sharp, tearing pain flares up in my arm, and I look up to see a smear of blood against one of the otti’s talons. Leaves and twigs stick out of her feathers. A patch of sap clings to the side of her head. She must have let herself fall through the trees, talons first, getting lucky by nicking me on the way down.

The bird tries going for Soren with her sharp beak, but Soren has his ax out. He blocks and slashes, cutting through feathers and drawing blood.

The bird shrieks and rises into the air a few feet, this time darting out with her talons. Soren rolls, the talons glancing off the armor on his back as he does so.

I move.

Stepping up next to Soren, I brandish my ax, making huge sweeping motions with it from side to side. The twirling makes me seem larger, makes it harder for the bird to focus on one point as her eyes try to follow the ax’s movements when she turns for her next attack.