When Jacko hops out, he glances back at the dropbear. Then at me. Then at her.
“I know,” I murmur. I look at Dain. “We definitely need to take her now. She was the one the harpies were going for.”
He puts his bow on his back and drops to one knee. “Come on, then.”
She zooms out, and he tumbles backward, hand falling to his dagger. But the dropbear only leaps onto his chest and clings there, making little mewling noises, as if she’d been abandoned by her only friend.
“Hug her,” I say as he stands there, arms at his sides, the dropbear hanging from his tunic.
He gives me such a look you’d think I’d ordered him to kill the poor beast.
“Put your arms around her so she doesn’t fall,” I say.
He gingerly wraps his arms around her, and I try not to roll my eyes. I scoop up Jacko and settle him onto my shoulders. The dropbear eyes him, her head tilted.
“No,” Dain says. “Absolutely not.”
She puts one tentative paw on his shoulder and hoists herself up. He tugs her back down.
“No,” he says firmly. “Keep that up and you’re walking, injured shoulder or not. If you wanted the nice human, you should have picked Rowan.”
As he talks, she watches him intently. Then she snuggles against his chest, and we continue on.
CHAPTER SIX
“Did you see that?” I ask as we make our way through the dark forest.
“See what?”
I stare up into the treetops and then shake my head. “I thought something moved.”
He squints. “Maybe the wind rustling the leaves?”
I glance at Malric, who waits patiently for us to continue, having detected nothing. We get another ten steps before the warg is the one slowing and looking up.
“Malric?” I say.
He grunts and continues on. Next, it’s Jacko, who arches up on my head and sniffs the air. Then he settles again.
“Are we all just paranoid?” I murmur.
“We have reason to be,” Dain says. “The trees could be full of harpies, and we’d never see them.”
“That is not helpful.”
He passes me a small smile. “Usually you’re the one saying things like that, so I thought I’d beat you to it.”
“Thanks.”
Dain and I squint into the trees. I even lift a fire stick. Malric and Jacko sniff the air. The dropbear raises her head, saucer ears swiveling, but she doesn’t seem to understand what we’re doing.
After a few moments, I say, “Let’s move a little faster. We can’t be more than a half mile from the cabin.”
We walk quickly along the path left by the colocolo stampede. I glance up just as a shape glides from treetop to treetop. It’s clearly bigger than any owl.
“At least one harpy,” I whisper.
I take Jacko from my head, and Dain and I continue moving as each of us clutches a smaller companion to our chests. A single harpy isn’t going to take on a human or a warg.
We keep moving, our eyes on the sky, weapons in hand. When something lands in a tree ahead of us, I nearly bash into my own sword.
I stop and flex my grip. My palms are sweaty, and I swallow hard.
“You saw that,” he says.
“Five trees ahead on the left. About halfway up. I can still make it out.”
A long, thin tail flicks under the branch. Definitely a harpy.
Dain looses an arrow, and at the same moment that the bowstring twangs, the harpy drops. It plummets from the branch and then swings toward us, only to sheer out of the way as Dain fires a second arrow. Before he can string a third, the harpy disappears into the darkness.
Dain lets out a growl, making the dropbear yip in alarm. He wraps one arm around the beast, cradling it. “How did I hit both times before, and now I missed twice?”
“Because you surprised them the first time. We just need to keep the smaller beasts safe and keep our eyes and ears open.”
Malric grunts. Jacko leans forward in my arms, straining to sniff, his long ears swiveling. The dropbear watches our exchange with obvious fascination. Then she looks up at Dain and makes a clicking noise.
“No, I can’t understand you,” he says.
“But you just did. You knew she was making noise to see if you could understand her. I—”
A shape swoops between two trees. Dain lifts his bow.
“Don’t,” I say. “Unless we have a clear shot, we’re wasting time and arrows. Just keep—”
Malric growls. He’s looking up into the trees…on the opposite side of where I just saw the harpy. When I squint, I can make out another shape on a branch over there.
“There are two—” I begin.
Jacko sounds his alert and scrambles up to nudge my face with his antlers. He looks to the right and up…and there is a third harpy. Even as I’m watching that one, a fourth silently lands in the same tree.
“They’re surrounding us,” Dain whispers. “I count four—no, five. They’re stalking us.”
Two harpies fly from a tree behind us. We don’t hear them until they’re right there. I spin, and talons come right at me. No, right at Jacko. One brushes him before a swing of my sword sends the harpy screaming. The other’s talons scrape the top of my head.
“Run!” I say.
I want to stop and fight. I have my sword. I have Malric, and I have Dain. But I also have Jacko and a young dropbear…and no idea how many harpies are surrounding us.
“Wilmot!” I shout. “Kaylein!”
I am not ashamed to call for help. I’ve learned my lesson on that. I’m not the monster hunter. I’m the royal monster hunter, part of a team.
The forest stays silent except for the pound of our boots.
Malric runs behind us. Every now and then a harpy swoops, but it’s almost like they’re intentionally trying to scare us. When they dive, they snatch at my head or Dain’s, or they skim Malric’s back. Talons scrape my scalp and pull out hair. Tails lash hard enough to make me yelp. The more they taunt and hurt
