Page 21 of Phoenix Chosen 3

“You’re damn right I am,” I say, and we both burst out of the fallen shelter.

We need to get out of here. Where is Tyler?!

I look up and see him hurrying down the hill from one of the great rock arches surrounding this area like giants’ legs. The sun’s rays lance down into my face from behind the rock, and something cuts in front of the light. Something big. It unfurls a set of feathered wings that become a terrifying silhouette in the blinding sunlight.

“TYLER! GET DOWN!” I yell.

It’s too late—the harpyia’s attack is as swift and precise as a falcon. The grotesque creature nabs Tyler with its talons and drags him into the air.

I’ve only encountered one of these monsters once before, and this one is just as ugly as I remember, with a torso that looks vaguely like that of a decrepit human woman and the body of a great gray vulture.

Blood streaks down Tyler’s body as he grabs at the harpyia’s ankles in an attempt to break free of its clutches. It whirls around and begins to climb through the air back to its nest at the top of the rock, leaving me with a shard of time to decide. Chase it in my phoenix form? A flying battle with a harpyia with Tyler in its grip would be a recipe for disaster. But how else can I get up to them?

Airos and I sprint after them. “Make me stairs!” I yell.

“Stairs?” he shouts back.

“Stairs!”

We’re at the base of the rock now. Ahead of me, the ground cracks with a great tremor as stone pillars explode from the surface, each rising higher and higher toward the flying harpyia. Without stopping, I leap through the air and use my momentum to jump from pillar to pillar like a mountain goat.

It’s now a hundred feet above me and climbing faster. The monster is smart. It knows not to lead me back to its nest, and it veers sharply, climbing further into the sky toward the forest.

Airos’s pillars continue to rise ahead of me in pursuit of the harpyia, but each new pillar is thinner than the last, and as I climb, I feel them wavering beneath my feet. He’s at the limit of his abilities. Then, like branches bent too far, every pillar shatters and begins to crumble back to the ground.

As I leap for the falling rubble, I call my phoenix powers forward and stop the flow of time. I draw the short sword hanging at my waist and bound up the pathway of motionless stone, and with a single arc of the blade, slice the creature’s talons clean off at its ankles, freeing Tyler into my arms. With him secure, I hurry back to the ground and release my hold on time as I leap off the final pillar. Everything falls with a mighty earth-shaking crash.

10

TYLER

“Hohfuck!Jesus motherfuckingChrist!” I scream.

In one moment, I’m a million feet in the air about to be turned into bird food, then suddenly I’m sitting on the ground, covered in hot blood, with two severed talons hanging from my arms like some bizarre fashion accessory. Kalistratos is kneeling next to me, breathing hard. Behind me, it sounds like a goddamn avalanche, like a mountain is coming down around us.

“You didn’t kill it,” Airos says.

We look up. The giant bird monster circles with blood spraying from its leg wounds. Its cry is shrill and piercing, like nails on a chalkboard. It makes a slow turn. Maybe it’s fleeing.

It’s not. It goes into a dive straight for us, and when it falls out of the harsh backdrop of sunlight, I see that it’s not a bird at all, it’s some kind of mutant freakshow monster with a human top and a bird body. But then it screeches again, and I scream in straight-up horror when I realize the entire human torso is actually the thing’shead. There’s nothing partially human aboutit at all. It’s like one of those deep sea creatures with a lure built into their body.

“Airos,” Kalistratos says. “Do you have enough in you for one more?”

“It’s all I have,” Airos says, leaning on his staff.

Kalistros holds up his hand. “Then wait. Wait…”

The monster is coming at us like a fighter jet, and just before Kalistratos shouts, “Now!”, I can see its wide black pearl eyes set just below the “human” neck, and its mouth, filled with a row of sharp alligator-like fangs, open right along the torso’s chest like a torn ragdoll. As I turn and shield the egg with my body, Airos steps forward. All the rocks across the shattered ground pull together and shoot upward like a Vegas fountain. Then, I feel a deep pressure vibrate my chest. For the briefest moment, I canfeelKalistratos using his powers, like I might be able to reach out and enter that sphere of time dilation he created. Then the feeling vanishes, and so does he.

The monster splits in half and careens in two directions to the left and right of us. The rocks all slam back to the ground, along with Kalistratos holding a sword dripping with bright red monster blood.

Airos drops to his knees, panting for breath.

Kalistratos hurries over to me. “Hold still.”

He pries off the severed talons and pours water from his water skin over my shoulders, washing away some of the monster’sblood. There are two long cuts along my side, just beneath my armpit.

I groan as he pours more water over them. “That’s going to leave a mark.”

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