The Quest for Onyx (Book 1)

Chapter 16

I feel the air rushing around me as we fall. It's exhilarating. The feeling of free falling is an experience all itself. One that I hope I never do again if I can help it.

"Why?! Why did you do this?! We're gonna die!!" Tiny screams. He wraps his arms tighter around my waist.

The river is rushing up to meet us below. The thought just occurred to me that I don't even know how to use my wings. Or if they even work. But...the thing I do know is that Dr. Rabies wouldn't have gone through all the trouble if they didn't. Well...here goes nothing.

I spread the wings on my back and they catch the air, so instead of falling we were gliding in the sky. Ok so far so good. We didn't crash to our deaths into the water below. Definitely a positive.

I look down at Tiny "Hey you can open your eyes now. And you can stop squeezing me so hard too you're suffocating me."

Slowly Tiny's eyes open "Are we dead?"

I smile and laugh "No. We're flying. Well gliding is more like it."

"What are you kidding me?!" Tiny looks around with wide eyes.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool isn't it? How many of your friends can say they've flown before?" I say.

Tiny smiles. It seems his fear is gone. "Yeah it is!" He pauses "Now I can pull the greatest pranks ever!"

"We'll have to see about that." I reply with a slight laugh.

"No just think about it. I see it like this: just imagine water balloons...raining from the sky! Everyone would be so confused!" Tiny says. I can see a mischievous sparkle in his eye.

"Water balloons from the sky eh? Someone's feeling daring today aren't we?" I say with a chuckle.

The fact that we were flying is mind blowing. You really get anew perspective from up in the air. The sky itself seems so much bigger when you're flying in it. It's vast and and the horizon seems to stretch off endlessly into the distance.

I guess when I was tranquilized I slept a whole day. Or maybe it's more like a whole night and most of the next day because the sun is beginning to set. It's painting the sky brilliant shades of yellow, orange, pink, and purple. The river below is reflecting the sunset, so the water looks like liquid fire flowing below us.

"I've never seen anything more beautiful in my life." I whisper.

An arrow whizzes by. It barely misses my right arm. I look up towards the balcony I jumped from and I see a bunch of guards have taken up positions on lower balconies. Each one is armed with what looks to be large bows and slung over their backs they have a quiver of arrows.

"This doesn't make sense!" I say. "I heard Dr. Rabies say they needed me alive why are they shooting at us?"

"Maybe the arrow tips have a sedative in them?" Tiny asks.

"That makes a lot of sense." I reply. "That way they don't have to worry about hurting their weapon."

"That means that they're trying to shoot us down!!" Tiny exclaims.

The guards pull back the strings on their bows and notch an arrow. Then they release their grip on the string. A volley of arrows come sailing in our direction. Most of them land short from us, but some of them actually come close to us hitting us.

"They all have horrible accuracy." Tiny teases.

"No. They're testing how far out we are. Hold on Tiny this is going to be a rough ride!" I exclaim.

The guards below fire more arrows. I flap my wings to get some leverage and they sail underneath me. They weren't through with me yet though. As I fly straight they keep shooting at me. I quickly veer to the left as an arrow whizzes by barely an inch from my face.

I look up and my blood freezes when I see a rain of arrows falling from the sky above me. They must have been distracting me with the other arrows so they could get me in their trap.

"Tiny hold on tight. It's about to get crazy." I say as calmly as I can. He wraps his arms tighter around my neck in response.

I take a deep breath. This is either going to end up with me crashing or possibly dying. Let's try to avoid both if at all possible.

I weave in and out of the rain of arrows. I have to veer sharply in all directions. Sometimes I even have to loop around in the air. I can't keep this up forever. Eventually they will hit me.

I can see the mansion is about to be behind me. I'm starting to come up to the front where the river drops off to a steep waterfall.

Tiny has his head pressed to my chest and he's whimpering with fear.

"Hold on Tiny we're almost there!" I yell over the rushing of the wind.

Yes just a little more to go. Freedom is inching closer and closer each second. When I get to the waterfall I'll shoot up into the clouds. That'll give us enough cover to escape. Yes. Full proof plan.

Just as I think I'm home free, a giant grate starts to raise up out of the river. It's blocking the passage to freedom between the mountain sides.

"No!" I yell angrily. "I have come too far to be caught now!"

I draw my sword. The grate is coming closer each second. I perform a series of slashes so quick a hole is cut through the metal bars and me and Tiny shoot through it and fly out over the waterfall.

"Woah how did you do that?!" Tiny asks.

"Honestly I don't know. I didn't think it would work." I say stunned.

"Well it was wicked awesome!" Tiny exclaims.

I flap my wings harder and it propels us into the clouds. I already feel safer concealed up here.

"What you did with the arrows was cool too! The way you flew around like that was so cool!" Tiny says enthusiastically.

"Yeah I'd rather we not talk about arrows for a while ok?" I say.

"Oh...yeah...sorry." Tiny says embarrassed.

I fly for a little bit in the clouds just in case they try to shoot at us some more. Once I felt like the coast is clear I fly down out of the clouds enough so that we can see.

"Thankfully we're good. The mansion is a tiny speck from here." Tiny says while squinting.

"I'd feel better if we got far far away from it." I reply.

We fly until the mansion is no longer visible. Which fills me with relief. The more distance we put between us and Dr. Rabies the better.

Tiny let's out a huge yawn. Then tries to conceal a bigger one.

"Let's find a place to sleep and hide out for the night. It's been a crazy evening." I say.

"That's for sure." Tiny agrees.

~~~~~~~~~

Hello friends!!

I finally got back to writing for you guys! Still trying to edit it. I'm still a mess. So nothing new here.

As always thanks for reading! Please vote and leave me some comments!!

See ya later guys!!

------ScarletApollo99 😄