Somehow I managed to forget—Diaval didn’t use any weapons other than her magic and whatever rituals and divinations it came with—I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought.

We kept moving, Diaval and I, one of us shooting, arrow or magic, it didn’t matter which, while the other one ran to the open space the last shot created and made our own mark, dancing around the eagle like two smaller, pissed-off birds. At one point Diaval winced as a talon tore into her thick pants but shook it off and continued the fight.

The idea was working as the eagle was beginning to flap slower, its bursts of wind losing the strength to blow us down. But when I aimed another arrow at it, I was shocked to see a different arrow fly into the air. It didn’t hit the eagle at all, and I mentally swore as the eagle began to dive bomb the new target: Soren.

I raced across the ice and knocked Soren to the ground in time for us to miss a swoop of its mighty talons.

“What were you thinking?” I shouted, nearly out of breath.

“I can help. I have arrows,” Soren said.

“You can’t shoot! You have no depth perception! You nearly killed yourself!” I shouted back, desperation in my voice. The thought of having lost him burned in the back of my throat. “Give me those arrows and go over to the others who can’t do anything this time around. I’ve got enough to worry about without worrying you’ll be dead!”

He grunted and shoved his quiver in my arm. I laced it across my back, looking toward the count of arrows in my own quiver. Damn. If felling the eagle took all my arrows and the corpse wasn’t close enough to the path, I’d be screwed.

“Stupid single-use projectiles,” I muttered as Diaval gave the eagle another blast of magic.

I had to make a decision quickly. Diaval had a limit to her magic, and sooner or later I’d run out of arrows. We needed to take this thing down, now.

“Diaval,” I shouted, “get it to show me its face, the eyes, I need its eyes.”

She grunted and nodded, springing up again and blasting the eagle toward my direction. I held my arrow strong and tight, waiting for the exact moment when the eagle would fall backward before regaining its notion of gravity. Waiting until one of its beady eyes opened … and there.

I released the arrow and it soared straight across the sky into the eagle’s eye and nearly through the other side. The giant bird fell with a heavy thump, and Diaval ran up to it, making sure it had truly died.