Page 18 of The Ocean's Heart
There was driftwood littering the sand, which I gathered in the hopes of making a fire. I ventured to the edge of the woods to search for flint, anything that I could use to make a spark, and after ten minutes of squinting in the gloom, I found some. I gathered bracken for kindling next and carried it back to the shore, where I built a small fire.
It would keep me warm and also help King Vaarin to find me. I lifted my shirt to take a look at the dressing on my wound. It was dry, and there was no blood seeping through, which was good. I prodded it lightly. No pain either. Strange considering how new the wound was and how I’d been exerting myself with it. Either the sea fae who’d treated me had added some kind of numbing agent or whatever remedy he’d packed the wound with was working fast.
The flames had reached a good height, enough to throw off some decent heat, and I was about to shuck off my boots to dry my socks and feet when a cry of distress sliced the silence. I froze, heart pounding my ribs, as the echo of that cry resonated around me, the only evidence that it had ever been aired.
Long seconds passed, and I was beginning to doubt myself when a scream shattered the silence.
I shot to my feet, turning this way and that, unsure where the sound had come from.
“Help me! Please help me!” a woman cried.
I grabbed my sword and ran toward the sound, diving into the woods.
“No, please! Somebody help!”
“I’m coming!” I smacked aside branches that threatened to slow me down, crunching over bracken and leaping over a fallen log.
“Help me! Please help me!”
Dark tree trunks closed around me, the stench of death crowding my nose.
“No, please! Somebody help!”
Alarm bells went off in my mind even as my feet carried me deeper into the woods, because there was something wrong here. Something strange about those cries.
“Help me! Please help me! No, please! Somebody help!”
The same words. The same cadence and inflection.
Exactly the same.
“Help me! Please help me! No, please! Somebody help!”
I ground to a stop, a cold flush flooding my body because the voice was now all around me.
“Help me! Please help me! No, please! Somebody help!”
Above me…
I tipped my head to the canopy to the dark shapes perched still and silent now that they had their prey in sights.
Do not venture inland. Do you understand?
Fuck. I should have heeded the warning. I slowly raised my sword and took a step back.
The things above me shifted in the branches, and I caught a glimpse of curved beaks and the glint of red eyes. Birds? Yes, they had to be. And there was nothing to fear from a bird, so why were my insides blaring at me to run?
I took another step back, and the canopy erupted with sound as the birds dropped to surround me, cutting off escape. Four feet tall with thick powerful haunches and webbed wings, these were no birds. That and the fact that they had faces. Human faces with beaks where their noses and mouths would have been, but the eyes…The red eyes were all too human.
“Stay back!” I swung my sword in an arch.
They hopped out of range but then advanced, screeching. “Stay back! Stay back!”
I jabbed at the nearest one, and it flew out of reach. Another one attacked. I spun and sliced, but it evaded.
The next few moments were more of the same where they attacked one at a time, and I defended. They were playing with me. Playing with their food.
My stomach knotted, my pulse thundering because once they got bored with their game, they’d attack as one and then…then I was done for.
