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The whiz of an arrow in flight suddenly captures my attention, but I deal with it easily, heating the air with a blaze of fire that incinerates the arrow before it can reach me. Noticing others drawing their bows and taking aim, I decide to move away from Arie for a moment, flapping up to draw their fire away from her.
The arrows begin to fly, and I roll away from the volley, flying over my attackers and coming down behind them. I land right in the midst of them, swinging my limbs and releasing random blazes of fire. Some of them die from the blunt trauma of my powerful arms smashing them into rocks, others suffer as the fire consumes them, but they all die.
Moments later, I am standing within a ring of dead bodies, most of them scorched and smoking against the fused glass floor that was sand seconds earlier. The smell of burning flesh and clothes assaults my nostrils, filling me with satisfaction.
No matter how many humans I kill, however, more seem to appear. Clearly, either more of them initially escaped than I realized, or they merged with another group of refugees. A bubble of concern sprouts somewhere deep in my mind, but I suppress it quickly. There is no number of humans capable of killing me…but Arie?
I whirl backward as she returns to my thoughts and see her holding off two humans with her blade, nimbly dodging their attacks as she uses the terrain to her favor. One of them comes dangerously close to slashing her neck with a sword, but she manages to slide behind a boulder and avoid the blade.
Recognizing the danger she is in, I take to the air once again, soaring toward my Arie with purposeful flaps of my bright wings. I pick up as much speed as I can, dipping low to fly just above the rocky floor. I reach the men at full speed, and with arms outstretched, I fly straight into them, slamming their bodies into the wall of the cave with ferocious force.
Their bodies pop against the wall of the cavern like overripe melons, releasing a terrible splash of blood that stains my pristine white feathers with thick red gore.
“I had them!” Arie exclaims as I land beside the bloody lumps of flesh that were living humans just seconds earlier.
“Let me handle this!” I scream back at her. “Protect yourself, but do not seek them out.”
Arie looks like she’s about to retort, but suddenly, she screams a warning at me and points to something behind us.
Whirling to face the next onslaught I send another wall of fire into the charging crowd, scattering their advance.It’s time to end this.
I begin walking toward them, my true form shining brightly to blind my attackers. Some of them begin retreating, and for a moment, I think they are finally giving up on this hopeless endeavor. Moments later, however, I see them form up again a few dozen yards away, drawing bows back in unison.
Unafraid, I charge. The snap of half a dozen bow strings releasing in unison announces their volley, but I am ready. I roll below the volley, rather than flapping above it as they expected. Before they can draw again, I am in the midst of them, killing mechanically with powerful swings of my arms and blazing balls of fire.
They die poorly, screaming and writhing in pain as the carnage continues to pile up.
Then Arie screams. Everything seems to stop suddenly as her terrified howl cuts through the air with the keenness of a razor. I whirl toward the sound and see Arie being dragged through the entrance of the cave, twisting and kicking to escape the small group of men dragging her.
One of them slams the hilt of his dagger into the side of her head, cutting off her protests as her head sags against her chest. A moment later, they are gone, vanishing around the edge of the cavern wall.
Fury does not describe the burning rage that fills my very being at this moment. My blood boils with white-hot intensity as I am absorbed by an indescribable anger and a sense of denial.They will not have her.
Without thinking, I allow the light of my true form to fade, squatting down on the rocky floor. I know the sudden change of light will blind the humans temporarily, but I don’t have long.
Squatting there amongst the charred corpses, I draw on my anger and denial, gathering as much energy into myself as possible. I feel myself straining to the limit, I’ve never brought this much energy into myself at once before.
As the power inside me nears its peak, I can no longer suppress the glow that emanates from my feathered form.
“There!” comes a distant shout from somewhere nearby. “There he is! Shoot! Shoot now! Before he gets up!”
It’s too late for them. They should not have threatened my Arie.
With a mighty howl, I stand up, releasing my full energy into the cavern. Walls of flame fill the cave, one after the other, emanating from my body in a wave of death. They reach from the floor to the ceiling of the cave, filling the entire chamber with terrible flame.
I stand in the middle of the inferno, releasing all the energy I can, funneling all of my emotions into the blazing fire.
Finally, after what feels like hours, I release the attack with a gasp. Panting, I look around. The walls of my cave have been melted smooth, shining in the flames that still burn wherever they can find fuel.
The once sandy floor is now a smooth surface of shining glass, strewn with smoking corpses. The bodies nearest to me were burned down to the bone, their flesh melted away in the inferno.
My rage begins to fade, and I remember Arie. I fly immediately to the cave entrance, looking for tracks to follow them, but the heat of my rage has turned the sand to glass here too, erasing any tracks I might have followed.
I scream my fury into the night, frustrated with myself for not pursuing her immediately. Then, determination returning, I begin to flap high into the night sky.I will find them, tracks or none, and they will pay. There is no place they can escape me.
28
ARIE
