Warrior of the Wild

by Tricia Levenseller

  And we watch as the bird and cat disappear from sight.

  With a grin, I turn to Soren. “It’s real.”

  CHAPTER

  19

  “Don’t just stand there,” I say. “Let’s go. It went that way.”

  Soren still stares at the last point he saw the bird before it disappeared. I wave a hand in front of his face. He blinks and finally turns his head away.

  “I didn’t think we’d actually find it!” he shouts. I step back at his loud exclamation, one composed of sheer shock. “Sorry,” he adds.

  “We did. And it’s getting away.”

  “It’s already gone.”

  “But the trail is fresh, you idiot. Let’s go!”

  He finally finds his feet and starts upward again, trailing along to the right, the direction the bird went off in. It was definitely going toward the peak, but from a slightly different angle.

  Soren leads this time, his motivation escalated by the sight of the bird that could be his salvation. I trail behind, not saying anything. My excitement grows as I watch Soren’s grow. He picks up the pace, his breathing frantic, but knowing how close we are seems to give him more energy.

  I’m staring upward, trying to guess how much farther until we reach the top, when I hear Soren stumble.

  He must have fallen onto his back, because by the time I see him, he’s moving himself to a sitting position.

  “What happened?”

  “I must have run into something?”

  He says it like a question. Up ahead, clumps of enormous boulders lie about the area as well as some trees, but they’re too far away for Soren to have stumbled into.

  I step past him, thinking perhaps he stepped into a hole in the ground and stumbled, but I can’t see how that would have sent him falling backward rather than forward.

  I connect with something solid and teeter backward, but I manage to catch myself. I look back at Soren on the ground, whose expression is just as puzzled as mine. He watched me the whole time, saw that I ran into … nothing.

  I reach out my hands in front of me.

  They connect with solid air at the wrists.

  “It’s just like the god’s lair,” I say. “This is exactly what it felt like when I tried to enter.”

  “Could he be close?” Soren whispers, eyes flitting about our surroundings.

  “Or he doesn’t want us approaching this part of the mountain. Perhaps it’s part of his domain.”

  We wait, not daring to move, in case the god is nearby.

  But after a few minutes of not being struck down by inhuman forces, we relax.

  “You said the barrier keeps out metal?” Soren asks.

  “Yes, but we can’t very well leave our armor and axes behind to climb the peak. Not after our mountain cat attack. We’ll circle this area. Maybe there’s a break. Peruxolo’s power can’t encompass the whole mountain or else we wouldn’t have made it this far.”

  With one forearm pressed against the invisible wall, I start walking in a direction parallel to it, Soren trailing behind me.

  Only about twenty feet later, my arm falls through the nothingness with no resistance.

  “It’s gone,” I say, turning toward the peak once more.

  We start the upward incline, but it’s only seconds before we run into another wall.

  “What the hell?” Soren says.

  Our frustration growing, we walk along the new wall until it disappears, then continue the climb upward.

  Our path turns into an invisible maze as we avoid the god’s power. We backtrack, zigzag, go in what feels like circles—just so that we can find a path that isn’t blocked by the invisible wall.

  “We’ll never find the bird like this,” I huff after running into yet another barrier.

  “We’re making progress,” Soren says.

  “Barely.”

  “Before you arrived, I’d never even set foot at the base of this mountain. This is progress. Don’t give up on me now.”

  That stops my complaining instantly. I’m doing this for Soren, because I want him to be free to return to the villages. And I need his help to publicly face the god. We can do this.

  But all these barriers—it’s like the god is taunting me. Does he know I’m alive? Why is he protecting this mountain peak?

  A bird’s call draws both our gazes upward. We can’t see the otti. Not from where we stand.

  But that sound—it’s close.

  Soren flies up the mountain with me right behind him. We’re met with the god’s power only once more before we halt and drop to our stomachs.

  We lie at an incline, our heads just barely grazing over the tops of the rocks. Up ahead, a nest made of branches and weeds is perched atop a circling of rocks. The nest itself is half the size of the tree house. And inside, a mess of little squawks and fuzzy blue heads.

  A tail flicks upward, not that of a fowl—but the large mountain cat that had been caught less than an hour earlier. The hatchlings are tearing through it. I now make sense of an assortment of other noises. Swallowing and ripping. I cringe.

  “Where’s mama bird?” Soren asks.

  From our hidden position, we try to take in all the surrounding trees and cliffs, but the great otti isn’t in sight.

  “Will one of the hatchlings work?” I ask.

  “They’re too small; they haven’t grown feathers yet.”

  Right.

  “She can’t have gone far,” Soren says. “Let’s wait her out.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Well, she’s a bird. At some point, she’ll come sit in her nest. I’ll sneak up behind her and take a feather.”

  I whip my neck in Soren’s direction. “You want to approach her while she’s in her nest? She’ll be the most volatile then! And, what, you think she’ll just let you walk away after yanking out one of her feathers?”

  “Do you have a better idea? No matter what, she’s going to be volatile!”

  I think for a moment. “What supplies did you bring?”

  “Other than food and a change of clothes?” He pauses. “Actually, I did bring a net, but it’s far too small to fit over the giant bird.”

  “Let me see it.”

  He frees the net from his pack and hands over the tangle of ropes. I stretch it out on the ground behind us. I shrug my pack from my shoulders and pull out a coil of rope. With a knife, I cut it into four strips, then tie each strip to one of the corners of the net, lengthening the ends and giving us better handholds.

  “It won’t cover her wingspan,” I say, “but perhaps her head and back? If we can just pin her long enough, you can get close enough to grab a feather.”

  Soren looks from the net to me. “That’s a much better plan. Let’s do it.”

  * * *

  UP IN THE TREES, I stand on two separate branches, holding the net, waiting for Soren’s cue. As I watch him kneeling behind a boulder, waiting for the otti’s return, I want to laugh at him.

  His master plan was to just sneak up on the bird and take a feather.

  Honestly, how did he even survive before I was banished to the wild?

  I don’t think he’s ever excelled at thinking before acting. No wonder Iric said he used to get into trouble all the time.

  One of my legs starts to cramp, so I attempt to stretch it out without toppling out of the tree. It would be so much better if we could set the trap on the ground and rig it to spring upward and catch the bird when she steps on it—but with those sharp talons, she’d shred through the rope in seconds.

  This trap has to be sprung from above, and Soren needs to be on the ground, ready to pluck a feather once the great bird is caught.

  If only she’d bother to show up.

  The hatchlings still take their time with their meal. A fuzz-covered head lifts into the air with a chunk of meat held between its beak. It uses gravity to help force the hunk of mountain cat down its throat.

  My eyes swivel back to Soren’s hiding place, only to see
that he’s no longer there.

  He’s creeping toward the nest.

  “Soren, what are you doing?” I ask in a loud whisper.

  “Speeding things up.”

  Something sinks low in my chest, and I have the burning urge to rush to him as I watch him advance toward the nest.

  Idiot. He’s out in the open.

  But I hold my ground. He’s going to lead the otti to me, and I have to be ready.

  But my throat closes off as I watch Soren draw closer.

  During Iric’s mattugr, there was fear for him, fear for all of us—but now—

  This is different. Nothing can happen to Soren. I couldn’t bear it. I feel the seconds tick by like a hammer against my heart.

  When he’s ten feet from the nest, the wind picks up, sending Soren’s hair over his shoulders.

  At five feet from the nest, there’s a loud chirp as one of the hatchlings eyes Soren warily. There are five hatchlings in total, and the others soon spot Soren. The sounds of eating cease. Earsplitting chirps ratchet up from the nest, clear sounds of distress. The birds rise onto their toes, each one as tall as Soren’s arm.

  A faint whooshing sound stirs the air.

  “Soren, she’s coming!”

  I can’t see her yet. The sky hides her too well, but Soren must spot her, because he suddenly darts toward me.

  My heart races as he clears the tree line, and the otti finally comes into view. She lands on the ground just before the trees, her wings sending the branches swaying. Soren, breath heaving, comes to a stop just below where I wait with the net, and we both watch the bird. She tucks her wings to her sides and hops a step forward. Talons crunch against rock as she leaps her way around trees and over boulders, drawing closer and closer, her mouth open, releasing angry caws into the air.

  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.

  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 instinct
ual, 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 the treetops?”

  “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.

  “Don’t scare me like that again,” I say.

  Soren leans in and presses a kiss to my lips. “I’ll try not to. Thank you for your help.”

  My legs leave the ground as Soren sweeps me off my feet, holding me in his arms before I can protest.

  “What are you doing?” I exclaim.

  “You’re injured. I’m carrying you.”

  “My legs are fine,” I say as I swat his arm.

  “I want to hold you. Now stop wiggling, and let’s get you over to the medical supplies in the packs.”

  “I’m bleeding all over you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He silences my next protest with another kiss.

  CHAPTER

  20

  Soren carries me the long way around to reach our packs, because he doesn’t want to risk another run-in with the enormous bird. I protest the entire way, but secretly, I’m pleased. Maybe once I would have had an issue with it. I did ask Soren to treat me as he would any other warrior. But I’ve given myself permission to behave as I wish in the wild. I love how strong Soren is, and I love the feeling of being in his arms.