There was no time for thought. Dalliance threw himself forward, arms pumping, for the lip of the spillway. His mind, which had been racing, went blessedly silent. Dalliance re-entered the water with no less a shock than the first time, but there wasn’t time for being cold either. He shoved his thin body through the frigid water, trying not to think about the crimson swirling around him. It hadn’t been long. She would be fine.
Circe could fix it.
Ma told him once that the face and head bleed more because the body does so much with it, and it stands to reason it needs more blood to do it with. Smiling, kissing, sight and sound and growing all that hair. She’d booped his nose when she said it. And she hadn’t been wrong about the blood.
It was everywhere. He lifted Charity’s limp weight from the current, expecting the blood to mostly be washed away—but it just poured, like paint from a bucket, down her face and neck and soaking into her black hair, tinging it red.
He took her by her shoulder with one hand, grabbing a fistful of her soaked tunic, and held her head above the water with the other as he splashed a stumbling way back to the side of the spillway. He felt strong hands lock under his armpits, and then Fallowfield’s and Earnest’s grunting as they hauled them both up and onto the snow-scattered stone.
He collapsed beside her, his chest heaving, the world a spinning blur of river-water. He didn’t want to think about the color it had been. He didn’t want to wipe that into his eyes. He shook his head like a dog, blinking hard.
She wasn’t breathing.
He pressed his palms onto her chest, still surprised at the strength in his arms. Her bones popped like his joints sometimes did, and he felt her diaphragm spasming. Water gurgled from her lips.
"On her side!" Earnest yelled, and together they rolled her over. She vomited, a wretched, gagging sound river water and more blood spilled from her mouth onto the snow.
Above them, a cackling caw cut through the air.
Dalliance looked up just in time to be blinded as lightning split the air, thick writhing ropes of it blazing from the backlit eyes of the monstrous bird and connecting over their snapping voltaic arc to Sterling, who fell to a knee, sword in hand, shield abandoned on the ground in his hurry to aid Effluvia, whatever he could do for her that Circe couldn’t.
The sound was immense, the water in the channel dancing as the crow performed a contemptuous loop around Sterling, who finally collapsed thrashing into the snow.
It struck out with its wings, bobbing up, and then dipped down into a dive for the downed boy.
No.
Dalliance saw the bird contact the downed Sterling in the future, and threw out a hand in the present, screaming incoherently, in a breaking voice: "Hey! Over here!" The [Deflection] brought him into brutal conflict with the creature’s will for a bare instant before forcibly grasping the creature’s attention.
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He shook away the notification about increased [Deflection]—as always, there was no time.
The crow veered, sweeping toward him. He turned to run, but saw the shift in intent a second later, as the ghostly form of the crow, with the same terrifying speed of thought he’d witnessed before, changed its mind again and corrected its course back toward Sterling. It was learning.
It never made it.
Servility Immaculate stepped forward, his reclaimed spear braced against his hip, and drove it into the bird back, protruding straight through its wing, and with a powerful pivot, slamming the screaming creature to the ground. Fallowfield jumped on its other, flailing, wing, holding it down with main body weight, his cudgel extended to press the cruel beak away from his body
Circe rushed forward, Sterling’s sword in her hand, and struck the fallen bird once, then again, and again, losing the blade on the impact the third time.
It lay still.
A small, incongruous chime of experience points scrawled itself across Dalliance’s mind.
[For your frustration of the Wicked Bird’s schemes, you have earned one (1) experience.]
Dalliance scrambled back to Charity’s side, Servility beside him and helping him prop her up. She was barely lucid, and as he was yelling for Circe to help, turning his head, he saw it.
The crow, which was not dead, finished tearing the spear from its wing.
That experience was for beating it at something, not for a kill.
It hopped once, one-footed, and launched into the air. It swooped insultingly close to the twitching form of Sterling and the attendant Circe, then dove. With its one remaining foot, it snagged the unconscious Effluvia and dragged her, face down, over the rough stone of the retaining wall.
Her face dragged a rut in the shallow snow and the stony dirt on her way to the canal, where her chin caught for an instant on the rock-brick lip before pulling free with a pop, and her body fell freely into the sluggish water.
The bird wheeled away with a mocking caw as Dalliance snatched up Charity’s cocked crossbow, sighting down the bolt, but as he raised it to his eye the bird was already gone, flitting through a hole into the cold storage building.
With Zenith. The others.
He looked around. Circe was now trying to tend to the electrocuted Sterling. Effluvia, Sterling, and Charity were out of the fight.
Fallowfield and Earnest joined his one-shoed sprint to the water's edge. Fallowfield didn't hesitate, plunging in to retrieve Effluvia. He looked at Dalliance and gestured sharply toward the storage building.
"GO."
Dalliance ran. His hand instinctively went to his hip and found an empty scabbard. The sword. I must have lost it in the water. He’d have to find it later. He stooped, grabbing a fallen shield.
Immaculate joined him and Earnest, three pairs of feet pounding across the snow.
A thunderous shout that was more than sound erupted from Immaculate. [Rally]. The skill hit Dalliance like a physical blow, leaving behind a surge of adrenaline that chased the cold from his veins. The three in the storage building would have heard that. And . . . any watchers, too?
It was too much to hope for.
Scariest Hunt Yet (if this is different than your *favorite* hunt yet, leave a comment?):
