it away and obeyed his uncle. "What's wrong? Why are we leaving?"
"Because we want to get out of the barrens alive." Bernard started pacing silently away from the thicket, his face set in concentration.
"Alive? Uncle, what could-"
Bernard tensed abruptly and spun to one side, lifting his bow.
Tavi turned with him and saw a flash of motion beyond a small stand of young trees before them. "What is th-"
There was a hissing wail from their opposite side. Tavi whipped his head around, but his uncle was slower, spinning his entire body with his bow at arm's length, an arrow drawn back to his cheek. Tavi could do little but watch their attacker come.
It looked like a bird-if a bird could be eight feet tall and mounted on a pair of long, powerful legs, thicker and stronger-looking than a racing horse's, and tipped with wicked claws. Its head sat on the end of a long, powerful, flexible neck, and sported a hawk's beak, enlarged many times, sharp-looking and viciously hooked. Its feathers were colored in all dark browns and blacks, though its eyes were a brilliant shade of gold.
The bird bounded forward, taking a pair of steps and leaping into the air, both claws coming forward to rake while it beat at the air with ridiculously undersized wings. Tavi felt his uncle shove at him with his hip as he turned, and fell away and to one side, Bernard between him and the oncoming horror.
Bernard loosed his arrow without sighting. The arrow flew, struck at a poor angle, and glanced off the thing's feathers, skittering away in a blur of
black and green fletching. The beast landed on Bernard, its claws raking, its vicious beak whipping forward and down toward him.
When hot droplets of his uncle's blood struck his face, Tavi began to scream.
The bird-thing's talons lashed out, raking and tearing. One of them ripped through Uncle Bernard's tough leather breeches at the thigh. Blood welled and flowed. Another talon tore through his hair, down toward his throat, but Bernard raised his arm, sliding the lethal claws away on the wood of the bow. The creature's vicious beak darted down at him, but again Bernard parried the attack away.
The great bird's beak darted to one side and snapped the heavy wood of the bow like a dry twig. It gave way with a sharp detonation as the heavy tension of the string was released.
Tavi raised the sword and started toward his uncle, screaming, but it didn't sound like his own voice. It was too high, too thin, and too terrified to be his voice. The bird's head swiveled toward him, golden eyes focusing on him with a terrible, mindless intensity.
"Brutus!" shouted Uncle Bernard, as the bird's attention focused on Tavi. "Take him!"
The earth at the bird's feet shuddered and then ripped itself upward, as Brutus came to Bernard's call.
A thin layer of soil peeled back away from raw stone. Brutus surged up from the earth like a hound emerging from boiling surf, head and shoulders of a great hunting dog made of soil and stone. The fury's eyes glowed green as emeralds and shone with a faintly luminous light. Brutus planted his front paws on the ground, hauling his pony-sized body forward, and stone jaws closed on the thigh of the attacking bird.
The bird let out a whistling teakettle scream, and its beak flashed down at the fury's head. The beak struck sparks from the stone, and one of the earthen hound's ears fell off, but Brutus didn't so much as flinch.
Tavi let out a shout and swung his uncle's sword with both hands. It struck at the base of the bird's neck, and Tavi felt the blow in his hand as the bird struggled and thrashed, a quivering sensation like that of a fish on a line. He drew back the sword and struck again. Dark blood splashed and stained the blade.
Tavi kept on swinging the sword, once dodging aside from the bird's free
talon. Again and again the heavy weapon bit into the bird's body or neck. Again and again, dark blood splashed up from the blade.
Brutus wrenched the bird to one side and threw it to the ground with bone-crushing force. Tavi screamed again, the blood roaring in his ears, and swung the sword at the bird's head like an axe. Tavi heard and felt the crunch of impact, and the bird collapsed, ceasing its thrashing and its teakettle screams.
Tavi trembled violently. There was dark blood on his clothes and on