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."Forest Moss!" Tinker shouted."Get it off us!"The concrete walls buckled under the strain, tearing free to leave sawtoothopenings, exposing twisted and snapped rebar.The branches flung the debrisagainst the back wall of the warehouse like mad shovels."Forest Moss, get it "And suddenly the branches wrapped around her, cocooning her shield in livingwicker, and lifted her off the ground."Domi!" Pony shouted.The black willow heaved her up.Its branches creaked as it tried to crush hershields down.Oh please hold! Oh please hold!A dark orifice opened in the crook where its main limbs branched from massivetrunk.As the tree tried to stuff her into the fleshy maw, she realized whatthe opening was.They have mouths! I wonder if Lain knows that.Oh shit, it's trying to eatme!Luckily the diameter of her shielding was larger than its mouth.It wastrying to fit a golf ball into a beer bottle.She held still and silent,afraid to disrupt her shields.Smell of burnt cinnamon and honey filled herPage 162 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlsenses and her vision blurred the tree fading slightly even as it repeatedlyjammed her up against its mouth.It has some kind of hallucinogen that's how we missed it, she thought.And then the tree flung her through the wall.The street beyond was a flicker of brightness, and then she plowed through aconfusion of small, dim, dusty rooms of an abandon office building beyond.Shefelt Forest Moss track her through the building.His power flashed ahead ofher, surged through the next building in her flight path, and locked down onall the load bearing supports.The white haired shit was going to pull the building down on her! She'd beburied alive shields or not!Dropping her shields, she made a desperate grab for a battered steel desk asshe flew over it.She missed the edge and left five contrails across its dustytop.A floor to ceiling window stood beyond the desk.She smashed through thewindow into open sky.I'm going to die.And then Riki caught her, wrapping strong arms around her and labored upwardsin a loud rustle of black wings."Riki!" She clung to the tengu, heart thudding like a motor about to shakeitself apart.Yeah, yeah, she was still pissed at him.She'll let him knowthat after he put her down safely.Back|NextContentsFramedBack|NextContentsChapter 17: A Murder Of Crows"Stop squirming or I might drop you." Riki growled through teeth gritted withthe effort to carry Tinker aloft.She glanced down and went still in shock of being dangled mid-air forty feetup and climbing."Shouldn't we be going down?""Down is good for you very bad for me.""Damn it, Riki, my people need me.Put me down!" Tinker found herselfgripping his arms so he couldn't just drop her."There's so many things wrong with that statement that I don't have breath toexplain it all."Movement at the window she'd smashed out of caught her eye and with reliefshe saw Cloudwalker pointing up at her.Moments later Pony and the othersjoined him at the opening."Oh, thank gods." Tinker breathed.Riki rose above the roofline.The crown of the black willow bristled in thePage 163 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlstreet beyond.Its booming footsteps echoed up from the canyon of buildings.She felt a great surge of magic and a massive fireball suddenly engulfed thetree.Whoa! Apparently Prince True Flame had arrived.No wonder the tengudidn't want to land.Riki dipped down behind the next building, out of sight of her Hand.Blacksmoke billowed behind them.He flew straight west as the saying went as thecrow flies, faster than a man could run despite being weighed down by her.When he reached the Ohio River, he turned and followed its course.Where the hell was he taking her? It occurred to her that he couldn't havebeen just passing by and caught her by luck."You planned this! You knew if you screwed with my spell, I'd come to fixit.""Would you believe this had nothing to do with you?""No.""Believe it not, the world does not revolve around Tinker the Great."How far could Riki fly? Could he keep up his speed, or had that been asprint? And what did he want with her?She tried to form a plan to escape.Riki, though, wouldn't underestimate her he knew her too well.Of all the people in Pittsburgh, he could match witswith her.Her first thought was to force him to drop her into the river.Thelarge dark form of a river shark swimming under the water, following theirpassage, killed that plan.They followed the Ohio around its gentle bends, andPittsburgh vanished behind the swell of the surrounding hills.Once the citywas out of sight, Riki climbed the steep hill that once was Bellevue andcrossed the Rim.There he dove into the ironwoods.The forest canopy rushedtoward them, seeming to her a solid wall of green.Riki though flicked throughopenings she hadn't seen, darting through slender upper branches to finallyland on a thick bough, close to the massive trunk.The moment they landed, Tinker twisted in his hold and swung at him hard asshe could, aiming for his beak-like nose
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