Another shriek, this time from straight behind her, made Ella cringe. Her back felt like a target. As she ran she braced herself for the tearing and rending of the bird’s beak and claws. Reaching the boulder, she threw herself to the ground.
The scratching sound of the birds claws striking stone sounded immediately after.
She saw it rise up again, looking for her. The runes were clear now, she had never heard of such a thing, to torture an animal in this way. The eldritch’s eyes were red with madness. It cried again and convulsed, scratching with its beak at the symbols on its body.
Ella knew that even a great creature like that must be poisoned eventually by the essence. Whoever did this couldn’t have done it more than a short time ago, which left only one explanation — the bird had been sent to kill her. Or to kill the High Enchantress, Ella realised, which was no consolation.
While the creature was writhing in pain, thrashing even as it flew, Ella cursed when she thought of her powerful enchantress’s green silk dress, neatly folded in her satchel. Layla’s hunting knife was gone, and with no time to enchant herself something useful, Ella realised there she had only one option — to hide.
She began to dig at the stones under the boulder, scratching at them with her bare hands. Her fingernails broke and tore and began to bleed. She heard another piercing cry overhead, but ignored it. The rocks she removed began to form a mound and the space created under the boulder began to get bigger. She found a scoop shaped rock and began to use that instead of her hands, making much greater progress. Placing the larger rocks up onto the mound, Ella tried to worm her way into the space.
It wasn’t big enough.
There was a sudden whistling of wind and then Ella saw the claws strike the rock again, this time only barely missing her head. The bird soared up into the air, then came straight back down again.
Ella wriggled with her shoulders and kicked with her legs. Pulling most of her body into the cavity, she tucked her knees up, trying to get her dangling legs out of the open air.
For a long, still breath there was silence.
Then the eldritch’s baleful glare was eye to eye with Ella. Its beak lashed forward at her head, going for her eyes. Again and again the razor sharp beak snapped, and it screeched, the pain in its voice wretched as it clawed at the makeshift barricade, tearing the mound down in moments. It twisted around, snapping its beak under the boulder, a breath away from tearing open Ella’s stomach.
Ella whimpered, helpless to do anything but await her doom.
Then the eldritch was gone. Ella looked from side to side, and then carefully moved her head away from the scant protection provided by the boulder, ready to duck back down at a moment’s notice.
The majestic creature was up in the air, its feathers torn and bloody. It screamed then, a terrible cry of impossible pain. Twisting and turning in the air, biting and scratching at its own body, it barely managed to stay aloft.
Then its body bent at an impossible angle, its eyes dripping red blood down its beak. There was a loud crack as the great bird’s back broke.
The eldritch fell to the earth, plummeting through the air. It hit the ground with a sound like thunder and lay motionless.
Ella edged out from her rocky cave, dusting herself off. The creature had landed only a few paces from where she stood.
She felt nothing but sorrow for the poor animal and the use it had been put to. She was surprised it had lasted as long as it had. Perhaps it wasn’t the first time an eldritch had been put to this macabre use.
Its once glossy brown and white feathers were clotted with blood; it seemed to quiver slightly. She walked along the length of the bird. The runes still glowed but there was now no purpose to their horrible control over this regal creature. She reached the head, and, avoiding contact with the ruined eyes, she ran her finger along the edge of its beak.
"Ouch!" she exclaimed, pulling back her hand abruptly, surprised at the sharpness of the bird’s beak.
Who would do such a thing? The runes showed a reasonable level of skill, but the essence cost to use this creature was prohibitive, given it was destined for such a short span of usefulness.
That was the cost to the user, but what about the cost to the creature?
Ella took one last long look at the eldritch, picturing it as it once would have been, happy and free. Then, shouldering her satchel, she continued her journey.
~
IT was a gruelling climb, dangerously steep, with loose scree threatening to knock her down with every step. Ella knew that if she hurt herself there would be no help here; a sprained ankle meant death up here in the mountains. She simply concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
At some point, she stopped and ate, though later she couldn’t remember what she had eaten or what it tasted like. She did remember to ration her water — even so she was down to her last two bottles.
Partway through the afternoon, she’d looked up to see she was heading for a narrow defile between two of the peaks, a thin split in the rock.