Seppo sucked in a breath. “That is a monster cock.”

“Honestly, Seppo? Timing,” Rose said as he tracked the beast with his eyes.

“I feel like we should attack from different spots. Janneke in the front, Seppo and I will take the sides. Lydian, you dive in wherever someone is struggling.” Rose continued, “That’s our best shot at this.”

“Wait,” I said. “That thing’s taller than all of us. Other than me, how are we supposed to even hit it?”

Rose frowned, taking that into consideration. “Aim for the underbelly if you don’t have the reach. Seppo might be able to stab at the wings. You’ll be our main source of power, Janneke, so that whole arrow-in-the-eye trick would do well right now.” He looked at Lydian. “Do you even have a weapon?”

“You think these fine people”—he motioned toward me and an empty spot which I assumed represented Soren—“let me carry a weapon?”

I sighed and pulled out the two axes stashed on my hips. “These are mine, and I want them back.”

“How good are you at throwing axes?” Rose asked Lydian.

“Better than Soren back when he had two eyes,” Lydian said.

I clenched my fist at the joke but didn’t say anything. We couldn’t divide ourselves anymore.

Seppo was still staring at the “monster cock” as he called it. “Let’s go do this before my rational mind finally kicks in and I flee in terror.”

We all glanced toward one another, nodding our agreement, and then rose from behind the boulder. We barely got a chance to get away before Fjalar’s great beak smashed down where we had been hiding, cracking the boulder open and turning it into a pile of little rocks with the strength of the strike. The groove in the earth where we’d been sitting was massive, enough for a fully grown person to be able to stand inside and not see over the top of the hole.

It took everything inside of me not to freeze in shock and horror at the destruction one peck from Fjalar’s beak caused. But the claw of the massive beast came down right before me and ripped my clothing as I rolled away just in time.

Rose, Seppo, and even Lydian had varying looks of shock on their faces, eyes wide and their jaws dropped slightly open. But they followed Rose’s orders as their shock began to wear off.