Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

15. Spears vs Wings

Yasuwa's cries rang as he fell, up the chimney the mountains made between the ground and the sky.

Karzhift wheeled around for her next attack. Her first pass was the deadliest, with one more centaur tossed to his death, and another—buffeted into the same deadly abyss by the giant wings.

Volya didn't envy the survivors. They were backed against the wall, their feet slipping on treacherous ground, and a nightmarish bird attacking from above.

Somehow they regained their bearing enough to release a few arrows at the werefalcon.

That first volley bounced harmlessly off Karzhift feathers. But, equally, the feathers that Karzhift let fly from her armored wings wouldn't pierce the clothes covering the centaur's human torsos. It had better luck with the horses' ramps, but the feathers didn't stick like barbs in that either, with barely any blood coming out once they fell off. Just nicks then.

Karzhift swooped in and clutched her next victim's head in her talons before the arches knocked again. Two beats of those awe-inspiring wings forced him off the ledge. Two more took her out of range.

"Spears," Ushpi yelled. Then, also, "retreat!"

She leapt the smaller gap behind her back, returning to the wider trail. "Retreat, retreat! To me!"

Her sensible command was lost in the screaming because their winged doom sped toward them again. Someone in the press though had the presence of mind to hold their shot and their arrow impaled next to Karzhift's eye, just as she claimed another life.

Now Karzhift screamed as well, hooking the arrow with the talon at the tip of her wing. She went hurtling through the air, lopsided, and the shaft broke. For a second it looked like she'd hit the side of the mountain and that would be it, but she righted itself mere inches away from the jagged stone. A rivulet of blood trailed from the embedded point.

That one arrow and a moment to catch a breath was all that centaurs needed to regroup. Half-a-dozen followed Ushpi's example. Spears lined up in front of their tiny formation.

Karzhift threw herself right against them... no. She managed to reverse her momentum and tumble two more—one for each clawed foot—off the precipice. She paid for that success by taking a glancing hit to the thigh, but she didn't impale herself full-force on the spears as the centaurs had hoped. She was too fast and too clever a bird for that.

Karzhift's attacks came in quick succession after that, some successful, some less so. She was thinning the centaurs' ranks effectively, but she was taking a hit after hit. None of it left a mortal wound yet. They had to accumulate, bleeding her dry. There was no other way to defeat her. So, the centaurs clumped their teeth, ignored their losses and bled her.

Basically, the battle had become that of attrition. Whichever party would outlast the other would win... and, yes, yes, Volya sort of knew the answer to that question and it wasn't a multiple choice... until Ushpi leapt toward Karzhift.

In a suicidal arc, she flew up into the air, like a living ballistic missile, and launched her spear at the highest point of her momentum. Karzhift was flying at the huddled centaurs at top speed too, so the relativity theory worked against her big time.

Ushpi aimed for the middle of her hated foe's chest. The hit came slightly to the side and lower, because Karzhift had those wicked bird-of-prey reflexes, and started to turn, but it wouldn't matter. The force of the blow punched the spear right through that hardened flesh and arrow-proof feathers. The bloodied tip and a foot of the shaft came behind her.

Ushpi didn't grow wings, though, because magic decided not to go as far as making a pegasus. She followed Yasuwa down and down, head over heels. Her face rushed past Volya in an unexpected close-up. Holy cow, she looked serene! Serene!