Page 98 of Warrior of the Wild
“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.
With my distraction, Soren launches forward and prods the otti in the chest. Not deeply, but enough to puncture her. He doesn’t want to kill her, I suspect.
With brown-black blood coating her beautiful azure feathers, the otti finally retreats. She leaps into the air, angling her body like a knife to slice through the canopy, and sails for her nest and little ones.
When she leaves, Soren and I look at each other.
I’m struck by the thought that we make a great team. We don’t even need to communicate when fighting. Moving in tandem is instinctual, somehow. Together, the two of us are unstoppable with our axes.
Soren leans a shoulder against the nearest tree. “You’re hurt.”
“I’ll be fine. We have to circle back around for the packs.”
“The feather?”
“It’s safe.”
He lets out a breathy laugh.
I hide my glare by looking at the ground. “Tell me, what did you think you would accomplish by getting hoisted into the air? Were you in the mood for a stroll over thetreetops?”
“If I hadn’t, the bird would have attacked you. I didn’t know what else to do, so I held on.”
“Attacked me?” I ask incredulously. “Soren, I am a warrior! We could have fought her on the ground together. Like we just did!”
“I wasn’t thinking!”
“I’ve been telling you to start thinking about yourself. Your safety is just as important as everyone else’s!”
He steps up to me, forces my chin up with a finger. “Not to me it isn’t. I want to keep you safe. I will always protect you. Please don’t be angry for that.”
I swallow. What was it Iric once said? Something about how hard it is to stay angry at Soren because of his loyalty.
