Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood, Book 1) (16 page)

“Who hit it?” one soldier shouted. “Where did
you aim to make it fly sideways?”

“We’ve
all
hit it,”
another responded. “The bullets are bouncing off—I saw mine strike
and veer off as if that thing were solid metal.”

“Someone hurt it though—it crashed for a
moment. If we could all target that spot.”

“That wasn’t a bullet, you idiot. That was
the wind.”

Technically
true.

Jaxi! What is this thing?
Someone’s familiar? Someone’s extremely
enhanced
familiar?

I believe you’re looking
at a Dakrovian shaman’s animal companion.

Dakrovian! From the
jungles in the southern hemisphere? That’s thousands of miles from
Cofah.

Jaxi offered a mental shrug.
Perhaps they went recruiting.

“Sir! Look out. It’s dropping again.”

“I see it.” Zirkander jumped to his feet and
ran toward Sardelle’s trees.

He ducked around the biggest one and fished
into his ammo pouch to reload his rifle.

Nobody except the dead soldier remained in
the tiny clearing, but that didn’t keep the giant owl from diving
down again. Though Sardelle knew she risked what little of her
confusing cover story remained by using magic, she hurled another
funnel of wind at it. The bullets weren’t doing anything.
Someone
had to drive it away.

But the bird somehow sensed her attack and
dodged. The blast of wind barely ruffled its feathers. It dropped
to within two feet of the ground, then impossibly turned the dive
into an upward swoop, pulling out at the last moment. No, not
pulling out… and not turning upward. It streaked horizontally,
paralleling the ground, its dive taking it toward the trees two of
the soldiers hid behind.

“Look out!” someone yelled.

More shots rang out, though the soldiers must
have realized by then that they couldn’t hurt it. Zirkander yanked
out a foot-long dagger and charged toward the creature. The
soldiers leaped to the side, avoiding the owl’s attack in time, but
only because the stout firs slowed their avian attacker. One ran
around a tree and clubbed the owl in the wing as it shifted from
flying to standing, its spread talons enough to keep it from
sinking into the snow. The soldier’s attack did nothing to hurt it.
It flung its wing out, the tip catching him and hurling him ten
feet.

Zirkander ran at it from behind, fast enough,
even with the snowshoes, to surprise it. He leaped onto its back
and tried to sink his long dagger into its neck. As with the
bullets, the blade bounced off. Its head spun around a hundred and
eighty degrees. That must have been alarming—it was suddenly
staring right at Zirkander—but he attacked it without hesitation,
this time aiming for one of its great yellow eyes.

Sardelle had her own hand raised, trying to
think of some attack she dared make while Zirkander was right on
top of it, but she paused, hoping he had guessed right and that the
eye represented some vulnerability.

The blade started to sink in. At least she
thought it did—it was hard to tell. At the first touch, the owl
shook its head vigorously. Zirkander didn’t let go of the weapon.
He tried to push it in deeper, but was thrown free. He landed hard
on his back. The creature jumped after him, seeming to rear up to
an impossible height as it spread its wings.

Sardelle tried to find its heart, to wrap the
fingers of her mind around it to stop it from beating, but again
her senses told her nothing was there. A soldier ran out, an axe in
his hand, as if that would do what the bullets hadn’t. The bird
ignored the man and attacked Zirkander, plunging downward with its
beak.

Sardelle cursed, knowing she would be too
late as she tore a heavy branch from the tree above the owl, hoping
to bring it down onto the creature’s head. Zirkander had already
rolled to the side and leaped up, not as helpless as he had
appeared.

The branch landed, flinging snow everywhere,
and surprised him as much as the creature. He recovered first and
hurled his dagger. The weapon struck the owl’s eye, but in throwing
the attack, he exposed himself an instant too long. A talon flashed
up, striking like lightning as it ripped into his parka. Zirkander
leaped back, but blood sprayed the snow around him.

Sardelle growled, prepared to drop an entire
tree on the bird’s head, and to the hells with what anyone saw, but
it was flinging its head about and screeching now. The dagger was
stuck in its eye. For a moment, she thought it might be a killing
blow, or at least a seriously wounding one, but the creature used a
talon to bat it away. The weapon landed point first in the snow.
The owl leaped into the air, raking the axe-wielding soldier with
its talons, too, before it flapped its wings and climbed out of
reach again.

“Sir, Rav, are you all right?” Makt ran out
from behind the trees on the other side of the clearing.

“Just a scratch,” Zirkander said.

Sure, a scratch that had left blood all over
the snow. Sardelle started toward him, but the owl screeched again.
It wasn’t done with them. It was circling and rising again,
preparing for another dive.

“Let’s get out of here.” Zirkander pointed to
the rocky canyon wall. “Are there any caves or fissures in that
cliff?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“Go, look. There’s nothing for us to gain by
fighting this thing.”

And everything to lose.

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s starting another dive,” one of the men
said.

“Go, go.” Zirkander waved the men forward and
reached back toward Sardelle.

She had thought to linger, to try dropping a
tree on it when the men were out of sight, but Zirkander was like a
sheep dog, gathering his flock. Nothing in his expression said he
would let her loiter.

She hustled after him. A tree probably
wouldn’t kill that creature anyway. Not unless she could ram the
trunk through its eye.

The owl swooped again when it reached the
ground, trying to dart through the forest after them. Zirkander and
the soldiers weaved into the thickest areas. Even the powerful
creature couldn’t rip trees aside with its talons. It returned to
the sky, tracking them from above. There was a bare stretch near
the cliff wall. They would have to be careful crossing it.

“There’s a big crack.” Someone pointed.

“Might be a cave.”

“Another hole over there. Impossible to tell
without looking.”

“It’s too dark to tell either way. That’s
just a big shadow, I think.”

Zirkander looked up. Yes, the creature was up
there, banking and turning, flying back and forth. Waiting.

Sardelle skimmed the craggy rocks with her
mind. That spot was too shallow, that one too narrow to get into,
that one large enough that the owl could follow. A dozen meters to
the left, there were two little caves that should work, each with
just enough space for two or three men to squeeze into.

“Down there.” Sardelle pointed. “I’ve studied
geology. Those are Brackenforth Fissures. They’ll be narrow but
deep.”

One of the soldiers snorted. “Is she
joking?”

“It’s going to dive again.” Oster stabbed his
rifle toward the black sky.

Sardelle ran toward the caves she knew were
deep enough. Zirkander cursed and ran after her, yelling, “Find
hiding,” to the soldiers.

“I ought to tackle you,” he growled, his
voice right behind her. He could have. She definitely wasn’t fast
on the snowshoes.

“Not a good time.” Sardelle waved to the sky
without pausing, then climbed up the cliff face. She tried to
anyway. She couldn’t manage with the big, clumsy shoes on. She
bent, unbuckling them as fast as she could, and hurled another
buffet of wind at the owl as she did so. It was already diving,
choosing her as a target since she had been foolish enough to run
out first.

Rifles fired. Those soldiers never gave up.
Fortunately, Sardelle’s attack clipped the owl’s side this time,
diverting it a few meters. Its screech filled their ears, as it
nearly slammed into the rocks at the base of the cliff.

Sardelle scrambled up without glancing at it,
aiming for the first little cave, the smaller of the two. Zirkander
was right beside her, shadowing her, protecting her. She slipped
twice, her mittens falling away from the icy rocks when she tried
to grab them, but Zirkander caught her both times, holding her up
until she found a new grip.

The creature recovered from its near crash,
rising again, readying itself for another dive. The soldiers were
farther down the cliff—they had gone for the caves directly in
front of the area where they had come out of the trees. Sardelle
hoped they found sufficient cover there.

“Here,” she said, and squeezed through a
crack. It smelled of mildew and cold but nothing more ominous. She
had already checked to make sure nothing was making a den inside.
She crawled to the back—which was all of six feet from the
front—and tried to make herself small so Zirkander would have
room.

His rifle clunked against the rock, and
clothing rasped and ripped. His body blocked the mouth of the cave
as he grunted, trying to wedge himself in, and full darkness filled
the small space.

“Can you make it?” Sardelle asked. She had
thought it would be big enough, but he was taller and broader of
shoulder than she was. Reluctantly, she said, “There’s another
fissure a few feet up if you can’t.” She didn’t want to spend the
night alone in the cave.

More like, you don’t want
to spend the night alone in the cave without his company.

Hush. This is about
keeping everyone alive, nothing more.

Uh huh.

This space isn’t big
enough for anything more anyway.
Not that Sardelle seriously
thought Zirkander would contemplate “anything more” even if this
were
the time and the place. She was his
little puzzle to be solved, nothing more. If he was protecting her,
it was simply because he would do that for any woman.

“I’m in.” Zirkander leaned out. “Find a
place, Rav! It’s coming.”

Sardelle checked the others. They had found a
cave big enough for three, but they weren’t able to fit the other
soldier inside.

“Trying, sir!” came the distant call.

Zirkander wriggled his rifle back out. He was
poised like a panther on a tree branch, muscles bunched, ready to
spring. Sardelle resisted the urge to tell him he couldn’t do
anything to drive off the owl. He wouldn’t appreciate it. She
couldn’t do anything either, if she couldn’t see it, which she
couldn’t from the back of the cave. Even when she
could
see it, she hadn’t been able to do much. She
needed to dig out books on those jungle shamans when she got
home.

Home?

Well, back. They’re
buried down there somewhere, right?

Possibly, though I do
hope you’ll make my retrieval your priority.

We’ll see.

“There’s room over here,” Zirkander
yelled.

Sardelle crept forward, found a rock to stand
on, and tried to see past his shoulder. If she could locate the
owl, she could attack it with wind again. She could—

“He got in.” Zirkander turned and bumped into
her.

She fell off the rock and grabbed the nearest
thing—his shoulder. “Sorry,” she said, stepping down. “I was trying
to see out.”

“And here I thought you were overcome by the
euphoria of surviving and wanted to fling your arms around me for a
kiss.”

“I… ” Did he
want
that? No, his tone was dry. A joke, nothing more. “Look out,” she
cried as a shadow blotted out the night forest behind him.

The dreadful screech filled the tiny cave,
hammering Sardelle’s eardrums. She stumbled back, pulling Zirkander
with her. He needed no urging. Talons scraped and tore at the rock
around the entrance. He pressed himself against the back of the
fissure, grunting as he shifted about to face the entrance,
positioning himself so he was between her and the creature.

With its wings tucked in, the owl wasn’t much
bigger than the men. If it could climb in…

Sardelle gulped, terrified she had led them
to a trap rather than a haven. She summoned her energy to batter at
it again, but one of its talons slipped, and it disappeared amid a
flurry of wing beats. It soon returned, beating at the mouth of the
cave. Sardelle examined the top of the cliff above her. The
snow-covered top of the cliff. She nudged a drift over the edge. It
wouldn’t hurt the owl, but maybe…

Big clumps of snow rained down on it. The
creature shrieked and disappeared from view.

“I do not like that noise,” Sardelle said.
She hoped the others’ cave entrances were narrow enough that the
owl would have no chance at getting to them.

“Now I know what my mother meant all the
times she used the term ear-drilling to me,” Zirkander said.

“In relation to what?”

“My learning to play the trombone one summer.
I
thought I sounded fabulous.”

Sardelle smiled despite their situation. She
had no idea how they were going to escape that owl, but couldn’t
think of anyone else she would rather be trapped with at the
moment.

“Sir?” came a distant call.

Ridge left Sardelle—he had been smashing her
anyway—and returned to the front of the cave, grunting as his foot
caught on rock. Their shelter lacked a flat floor. “We’re fine,
Rav,” he called back. “Everyone there make it?”

“We’re all in, but, uhm, the owl… it’s
sitting out there waiting in a tree branch.”

“With luck, it’ll get bored of waiting and
leave.”

The soldier’s “Yes, sir” sounded encouraged,
but the follow-up of, “What if it doesn’t?” was a little more
plaintive.

“We’ll figure it out in the morning,” Ridge
called. Dropping his voice, he asked, “Owls are nocturnal,
right?”