Page 53 of Wicked Prince of Shadows
All downhill now with nothing but dry earth and a few boulders between us and the abyss.
My cheek pressed against his white hair as I held him tight.
"I've got you," I gasped. "I've got you, sweetheart. I won't let go." I had to find something. We had a minute at most.
I hooked one arm around him tighter and reached with the other for the earth, groping for anything—a rock, a root, a miracle.
Jagged stone tore my fingertips open.
The flats gave way to rubble, bouncing us with sickening force. Each impact knocked the breath from my lungs. I gritted my teeth and curled tighter, my body screaming from the punishment.
"KRAK-KRAK-KRAK!"
My muscles locked into place. I looked up.
Deathbeaks. At least four of them, circling overhead like vultures. Their massive wingspans blotted out sections of thestorm-dark sky, and their steel-grey beaks gleamed even in the dim light.
I stretched for another rock—useless. “Not now,” I breathed. “Please, not now.” The stone tore under my fingers. With a pained shriek, I curled back in tighter and tried once more to thrash.
The first deathbeak dove.
I barely had time to tuck Osric's head against my chest before the deathbeak struck. Its talons ripped into the vine in front of us. One strand snapped, and the deathbeak fell to the side, neck snapping and its body toppling.
The second deathbeak shrieked and dove at the vines as well, its massive beak snapping. Another vine severed, and our momentum slowed fractionally. But not enough. Not nearly enough.
The third went for my head. I flinched, and its talons raked past my face, slamming into the salt with a sickening crunch.
“Get away!” I screamed.
Osric sobbed into my shoulder, struggling to break free. "Sabine!" Osric sobbed against my chest. His voice dissolved into ragged sobs.
I clenched around him and tried again to slow our pace.
The ground fell away in front of us. The crumbling lip of the chasm loomed barely twenty feet ahead—sharp, jagged, and hungry. One more pull and we’d be gone.
CRACK.
A deathbeak landed hard on the vine coiled around Osric’s legs, its massive talons driving deep into the slick black vine. The vine tore and shriveled, then snarled around and snared the deathbeak, dragging it into the chasm with only one strand.
Another deathbeak crashed down beside it, wings flaring wide, beak snapping as it clawed into another strand. The pull on us slackened.
“Now!” I cried, uncoiling my arm from Osric. I yanked the loosened vines off his legs, my fingers trembling and shredded. “GO! Up the hill—run!”
I shoved him up toward the shallow slope of fractured earth leading away from the chasm before he could protest. His limbs scrambled for balance, hands scraping, feet sliding on grey earth and grit as he staggered forward.
Another vine lunged for his ankle?—
I caught it mid-snap, slamming my elbow into it with a crunch. It recoiled.
Then fire exploded in my thigh.
I screamed and twisted back in time to see the deathbeak standing over me, its vicious beak puncturing my leg right above the knee joint like a steel spike.
My body arched as I struggled to hold myself up, blood spraying hot across the soil and rock.
The deathbeak shrieked again, beak yanking free with a sickening pop of torn flesh. Pain tore up my spine, dizzying and sharp, the sudden absence of pressure and openness almost worse than the actual blow.
The artery. Had it hit my artery?
