Page 69 of Orc'd & Loaded
Fifteen feet down. Halfway. The crimson leaves bob below me in the wind, taunting, gorgeous, absolutely vital.
A shadow crosses the sun.
Fast.
I hear it before I see it. A shriek that splits the air like tearing metal, pitched high enough to vibrate in my back teeth. It resounds off the cliff face and multiplies, filling the space between rock and sky with a predatory scream that my hindbrain interprets instantly.
Razor hawk.
The bird drops out of its thermal like a stone with knives attached. Wingspan wider than my arms outstretched. Slate gray feathers edged in iridescent black. Talons curved like fishhooks, each one long as my index finger. The beak alone could open a tin can from twenty yards.
It hits me between the shoulder blades.
Pain rips across my back in three parallel lines. The talons shred through my shirt like it's wet paper and score the skin underneath. My left hand spasms. Releases. My body swings sideways on my right arm and my boots lose their hold. For one nauseating second I dangle by four fingers over two hundred feet of nothing, the ocean roaring its white-toothed welcome below.
I slam my boots back into the wall. Find the crack. Wedge in hard.
The hawk wheels away, banking left with a lazy flap that says this cliff belongs to her and she has all day. Twenty feet out she turns. Rises on the updraft. Tucks her wings.
Coming back.
She dives. Faster this time. The shriek hits first, then the bird, aimed straight at my face. Those hooked talons spread wide, targeting my eyes with the surgical precision of an apex predator defending her territory.
I wait.
The wind from her approach hits my skin. Three feet. Two.
I let go with my left hand and swing.
My fist connects with her. The impact travels up my arm from knuckles to shoulder. Solid. Clean. Like punching a feathered cannonball. The hawk's shriek cuts off mid-note. Her body folds around my fist for a split second, wings flaring in shock, then she cartwheels sideways through the salt air, tumbling end over end.
She catches herself thirty feet out. Hovers on the updraft. Shakes her head. Those razor eyes fix on me with what I can only describe as profound personal offense.
"I don't want your nest," I bark at her. The wind shreds the words. "Just need the plants."
She screams back. The sound could strip paint.
But she doesn't dive again. She circles wide, riding the thermal in a slow, furious orbit, those eyes tracking my every movement with the promise that this isn't over.
I climb.
The ledge meets my boots six moves later. Narrow. My heels hang off the edge and the stone groans under my weight but holds. The crimson leaf clusters crowd the crack in the granite, their black stems vibrating in the constant wind.
Up close, the smell is staggering. Sulfur and woodsmoke and that burnt honey sweetness, concentrated to a potency that makes my eyes water. The wild variety. Unrefined. Twice as volatile as anything that comes in a glass jar from the homeland. Solene's precision will have to tame it.
I wrap my bleeding fingers around the thickest cluster and pull.
The roots grip stone like they've been growing here since the world was new. My forearm flexes. Veins stand up along my wrist. The granite groans, then cracks, and the cluster rips free in a shower of red dust and rock fragments. I shove it intomy waistband, stems down against my hip. Grab another. Rip. Another. Rip.
Five clusters. Enough to make the glaze three times over.
Above me, the hawk screams one final time. A promise and a warning wrapped in a single note.
My hands are bleeding, shaking, raw. The scratches across my back sting with every breath. The crimson leaves press hot against my hip like embers through the fabric.
Seventy-one minutes.
I start climbing up.
