snakes, a nest of black wasps, thorn-ferns and more vines than Hualiama ever wanted to see in a lifetime, garnished with Flicker’s inimitable blend of witty commentary and ingenious insults at her lack of progress, brought her to a place Flicker deemed ‘good’–a protruding ledge with an unparalleled view over the Cloudlands. Putting her hands on her knees, Lia decided she’d smack the snarky dragonet just as soon as she had the energy to do so. She was cut, bruised, abraded and covered in blotchy red spots from the wasp stings. Never had she looked less like a member of the royal household. Never had she looked more like a Dragon’s breakfast, chewed up and spat out.
Then, she punched her left arm to the sky and shouted, “Yes! We’ve done it! We’re less than a third of the way up.”
At that instant, Flicker nipped her ankle-bone.
“Blast it, you overgrown dragonfly,” she gasped, clutching the spot.
Swoooosh! Lia’s semi-collapse turned into a headlong dive as a massive pair of wings pummelled the air above her body. Windroc! Flicker screeched and flared his neck-ruff as he raced to take on the windroc. Lia scrabbled for her dagger, palmed it, and watched without daring to breathe as the bird gyrated casually on its wingtip, returning for another pass.
She had to find shelter. Vines, bushes, anything would do as opposed to standing in the open while a red-eyed, feral windroc lined her up for a snack. Close up, the bird looked as big as a Dragon–sixteen feet in wingspan, talons which could clasp her head like a fruit, and a cruel, hooked beak which opened now to express its fury in a long, ear-splitting shriek. A five-foot girl and a two-foot dragonet faced the Island-World’s most fearsome avian predator.
It struck Lia that any self-respecting Dragon would have this windroc for a snack. It was only the size of a several months-old Dragon hatchling, after all–a thought which offered as much comfort as a seat atop an active volcano.
Her world seemed to narrow to those talons. Lia crouched, balanced on the balls of her feet. Flicker! The dragonet tangled repeatedly with the windroc, aiming for the eyes. The girl swayed, aiming a dagger-strike at the feathered body. The bird passed overhead again, snapping at her, and Lia had a new cut on her left forearm, five inches long, down to the bone. Great Islands, she had not even seen its strike. Instead of cutting the body, her blade had torn a gash in its wing.
A strategy popped into her mind.
As Flicker and the windroc looped away, scrapping and screeching at each other, Lia snatched up the length of vine she had been using. Cut it off the belt, fool! She secured the vine to the base of a shabis-berry bush, deep-rooted and tough. Her shaking fingers failed to form a slipknot. No time for that. She threw together an overhand knot and braced her trembling knees, trying to calculate the angles as the windroc swooped for a third pass. Mercy, that creature was lethal. One snap of its beak would slice Flicker in half, but the dragonet dodged with great agility … he was hurt! His right wing hung at a poor angle.
Quicker than thought, Hualiama switched hands to hurl her dagger, burying it in the bird’s skull just behind the eye. The windroc barely flinched. Then she tossed her loop of vine at the onrushing bird and dived again, skidding across the bare rock. Talons plucked the material of her skirt and scored fiery pain across the back of her left thigh. From the corner of her eye, she saw the loop catch on the windroc’s neck. The rope jerked taut. The bird crash-landed on its beak.
Rolling, groaning, knocking her broken arm about … Lia was searching for a way back into the fray when Flicker broke free of the dazed predator.
Shelter! he squeaked, trying to take to the air.
She caught his tail. Dragging the hapless dragonet behind her, Lia ducked beneath a dense thicket. More harsh caws came from the sky as a half-dozen windrocs fell upon their luckless fellow-creature and within a couple of minutes, reduced it to a pile of bones and feathers.
* * * *
My tail, if you please! Flicker grumbled.
“Sorry.”
I’ll make you sorry, you straw-headed … here’s your dagger. With a fine, Human-like bow, Flicker presented the dagger to Lia. My compliments.
You were–Hualiama stumbled, struggling with her limited Dragonish. Switching to Island Standard, she said, “Awesome! So brave.”