From the canopy of the swaying trees that loomed higher than any I had seen before came a strange sound.
I heard small noises of surprise from the other challengers as their heads snapped toward the trees, tracking every single movement or rustle of leaves, trying to find the epicenter of the noise. I narrowed my eyes and took a step forward, watching as the trees began to wave wildly in the distance.
Oh, gods. That doesn’t sound good.
A loud, ear-piercing screech rose above the rustling, flapping sound.
Then it emerged. I almost choked on my next breath as a mountainous beast flew out of the trees, heading straight toward us.
“What the fuck…?”
The challenger to my left, Knox, whispered the words that were on the tip of my tongue.
It was some sort of bird. It had to be. But it wasn’t like any bird I’d ever seen on the earthly plane—not even one created by magic. It was the size of a small commuter plane, and its wings looked as if they were on fire, swiping down through the limbs of the gigantic trees, breaking the branches as if they were nothing more than toothpicks.
As I tried to process what the hell I was seeing, other creatures just like the first one came into view. They tore through the forest, throwing splinters of wood in every direction, knocking the trees to the ground.
My feet were moving before I even realized it, and I looked back and screamed out at the other contestants, “Run! Ru
n, you idiots!”
Half the trick to surviving as many fights against much larger opponents as I had was knowing when to go all in and when to cut and run.
And this was definitely a running type situation.
Everyone scattered—except for Brielle, a first-year girl from my Magical Defense class, who was frozen in place.
The birds broke through the edge of the woods, and I picked up my pace. Throwing another look over my shoulder, I watched in horror as one of the flaming birds dove toward the girl and snapped its beak shut around her waist. She screamed out in agony, throwing her arms up, but her magic was too late. The bird wheeled in the air, disappearing from sight before I could even see what had happened to her body.
My stomach churned. All the air seemed to have left my lungs, but I kept pumping my arms, trying to get as far away from the monsters as possible.
Behind me, the sound of the flapping grew louder.
I looked back just as one of the birds hurtled toward me like a torpedo.
When it was just feet away, I threw myself to the ground and rolled forward, feeling the spray of dirt where the bird had missed me and ripped up the soil beneath its talons. I rolled back into a standing position and flipped around, snapping my hands toward the ground. Energy blazed through me, and magic was at my fingertips before I even consciously thought about it.
The fire bird swooped around and came back for me, bringing one of its friends along.
With a swipe of my arm, I threw a long stretch of magic at the one on the right. The white light wrapped around the bird’s wings and strapped them to its sides. I yanked hard, trying to knock the flaming creature off course even as I shot a stream of magic toward the second bird.
But the damn things were smarter than I thought.
As the bound bird hurtled toward the ground, squawking and screeching, the second bird dove in a sharp movement, ducking underneath my magic.
I released the first bird just feet from the ground and watched it is it slammed hard into the dirt and grass, throwing up a billowing cloud of dust.
My eyes shot back to the second bird, and I dropped face down on the ground as it swooped just inches over my head. The thing was too large to make quick maneuvers, which gave me an opening. I darted to my right, pumping my arms and breathing heavily, trying to get away from it as fast as I could. I hoped like hell that if I got into the woods, I’d be able to hide in the underbrush until it flew right past me.
Unfortunately, I was so focused on reaching cover that I didn’t see the third flaming bird heading toward me until it was too late.
Ah, shit!
I hunched my shoulders and turned sideways, ramming against the incoming bird like a linebacker as I collided with its black-scaled talons.
The thing had to weigh more than twice what I did, so my full-body blow barely shook it, but it wasn’t able to grab onto me. It did, however, throw me about ten feet through the air, between two large trees, and into a pile of dirt and debris. The air left my lungs in a rush, making me feel like I’d been flattened into a human pancake.
Ow. That fucking hurt. At least I made it into the woods.