Chapter Eleven

AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you get tired of waiting for new chapters, the entire book is for sale on Amazon in print and on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Skinwalkers-Distant-Thunder-Adam-Bolander-ebook/dp/B0D128VD9V?crid=24W41CTHT7EDC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.KfDW2-M5NGa2qL0wxty7rQc5lxHh_f-10YwlqipBh4g.UFzNpMAr6R_3JpGzb6Wjyoivt59NgZ3InddvCwBhnOI&dib_tag=se&keywords=skinwalkers+distant+thunder&qid=1730566075&sprefix=skinwalkers+distant+thunder%2Caps%2C135&sr=8-1

Chapter Eleven

Clueless found her feet frozen to the ground as she watched the thunderbird swoop down at her.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a memory from when she had only been a puppy came to her. Ignoring Zave's call, she had dashed out into the street to chase a squirrel on the opposite side, and had nearly been run over by their neighbor in his pickup truck. The shrill sound of his tires grinding against the pavement had drilled into her ears, and even in her young and animalistic state she had known that death was bearing down on her. The truck had managed to stop before running her over, and Zave had been there an instant later to scoop her out of harm's way and check her for injuries.

But the thunderbird wasn’t going to stop, and this time Zave wasn't here to whisk her away to safety.

At the last second, instinct overcame terror, and Clueless dove out of the way. The thunderbird skimmed the ground, its massive talons digging trenches into the mud, before flapping its pitch black wings and rising back into the sky. The ground rumbled as several trees fell, uprooted by the gargantuan bird's passing.

With panic sizzling in her veins, Clueless looked around wildly for a hiding spot. A large boulder jutting out of the ground a few yards away was her best option, and she sprinted over until her back was pressed against its cold, slick surface. With her heart hammering in her chest, she peeked around the large rock to look for her companions.

Ember had realized what was happening first, and had wasted no time bolting into the undergrowth. But while Ember's foxish nature let her vanish almost into thin air, the seven-foot-tall bear-walker stuck out like a sore thumb. The downpour had matted his thick brown fur against his body, and every few seconds he had to wipe water out of his eyes. Still, the almost casual way he was standing there in the open made Clueless wonder if he even realized they were being attacked.

The thunderbird materialized out of the clouds again. How something that massive managed to vanish and reappear the way it did, Clueless had no idea, but this time it came for Norrin. More trees fell, snapped like matchsticks by the thunderbird's shadowy wings as it dove for him. Clueless' breath caught in her throat. There was no way Norrin could get out of the way in time!

But instead of dodging it, Norrin raised his big bear paws and caught the thunderbird's talons! He was immediately shoved backwards, his feet carving identical furrows in the mud below him, but the thunderbird's wickedly curved claws didn't touch him. The thunderbird shrieked in frustration, apparently just as surprised by Norrin's tenacity as Clueless was, and it flapped its wings to escape back into the clouds. Clueless dared to smile. Maybe with Norrin on their team, they stood half a—

A bolt of lightning zigzagged out of the sky and struck the ground by Norrin's feet. The light blinded Clueless, and the ensuing BOOM was like a pair of nails driven right into her eardrums. The smell of burning something invaded her nostrils. It took several seconds for her vision to come back.

The first thing she say was Norrin lying face down on the ground.

"Norrin? Norrin, no!" Ember was screaming. She knelt beside his motionless form, desperately shaking him as if he'd just decided to take a nap in the middle of a raging storm, but he didn't respond. "Please, Norrin, not you too!"

A shadow passed by overhead, and Clueless looked up to see the thunderbird circling them from up the sky. Clueless got the impression that it was making sure Norrin was well and truly out of commission before attacking again. What would happen then?

The answer hit her almost as hard as the bolt of lightning had hit Norrin: they would die. All three of them. Just like Fey and Zave, Clueless had seen her share of close encounters over the past week, but to have certain death literally hanging over her, ready to strike at any moment? It gave her a chill that dug its icy fingers in and reached down to her very soul.

But then an idea came to her, and she couldn't help but gasp at the sheer obviousness of it: she could run. Just let the thunderbird have Ember and Norrin, and use the time it took to finish them off to get to safety. Maybe she could even find Zave and Fey! And it wasn't like Ember had ever been anything even close to nice to—

"No, no, no, no," Ember moaned, burying her face in Norrin's fur. "Norrin, get up! Don't leave me here by myself!"

By myself. She already assumed that Clueless had abandoned her. And why wouldn't she have? Ember had made it clear that she only cared about her packmates, and she obviously assumed that everyone else felt the same way. Clueless was part of Fey's pack, not Ember's. It only made sense that when things turned dangerous, Clueless would seek out her own pack, her own alpha, rather than stay and risk her life for a pack she didn't belong to.

Slowly, Clueless took a single step backwards.

That didn't stop Norrin from saving you last night, the voice in her head that Fey called her conscience whispered.

Clueless froze. Without Norrin, she never would have made it to the storm shelter. He hadn't let the divide between packs stop him.

And neither would she.

Like a pitch black ghost, the thunderbird descended from the clouds, unnaturally quiet, and landed in front of Ember and Norrin. It flared its wings intimidatingly, casting them both in shadow. Slowly, Ember rose to her feet. If she was going to die, she would at least face her death standing up. The thunderbird reared back. One stab from its sword-like beak would bring a swift death to them both.

Grabbing a rock out of the mud, Clueless hurled it with all her strength. It made a surprisingly graceful arc as it soared across the forest, before bouncing harmlessly off the thunderbird's head.

The thunderbird snapped to face her, and shrieked in fury. Once again, Clueless froze. She had successfully distracted the fearsome beast from the other two.

Now what did she do?

A single flap of its wings carried the thunderbird over to where Clueless stood. She knew it was too late to run, and could only watch as it brought its foot down on top of her. Trapped firmly beneath its incredible weight, she could barely breathe. It bent down over her, knowing that it had her fully in its power, before rearing back, and…

A flash of crimson light lit up the gloom, and the thunderbird threw its head back and screamed in agony. Clueless' eyes went wide, her mind desperately trying to make sense of what she had just seen. Something was protruding from the side of the thunderbird's face. A single piece of wood, maybe as long as her forearm. An arrow.

And it had struck the thunderbird right in the eye.

The gargantuan bird shrieked again, tossing its head from side to side in a futile attempt to dislodge the arrow. Still pinned beneath its talons, Clueless covered her face and cowered, sure that at any second she would feel that horrible beak drive itself through her soft and feeble body.

Instead, the thunderbird took to the air. The beat of its wings matched the pounding of Clueless' heart, fading closer to silence with every flap. Almost immediately, the storm began to lessen. The rain stopped, and sunlight peeked between breaks in the clouds. Clueless stared up at it as if she had never seen the sun before, her mind spinning from everything that had happened in the past handful of seconds.

"Hey, you!" a vaguely familiar voice called out. "Are you all right?"

Instinctively, Clueless shifted into her human form. A few seconds later, someone burst onto the scene with a bow and arrow in his hands. It was the dorky young man they had met at the storm cellar, and the arrowhead he had nocked glowed with the same scarlet light she had seen just before the thunderbird had been shot.

He knelt down, offering his hand, which Clueless nervously took.

"I saw the storm pick up from back in town," he said, helping her to her feet. "I knew it had to have been you guys—that the thunderbird had found you guys, I mean, not that you three had caused the storm. That would be," he spun his finger around his ear, "cuh-raaaazy, know what I mean?"

Clueless just stared at him, her newly sentient brain overwhelmed even without the young man's strange antics.

"Are you all right? You look all right," he said, quickly walking around her and giving her a once over. "A couple scrapes and bruises, but nothing life threatening. Not unless you're allergic to scrapes and bruises. You're not, are you? Hmm, right?"

He was smiling at her, looking like he was actually waiting for an answer to his ridiculous question, so Clueless shook her head.

"That's good. That'd be a pretty rare allergy, you know what I mean?" His grin widened. "Anyway, now that we're—whoop!"

Ember had grabbed him by the front of his shirt and spun him to face her. She was back in human form as well, but she looked like she was on the verge of growing fangs and sinking them into the poor dork's throat.

"What the hell," she snarled, "did I tell you about following us?"

"You told me not to," he said, completely unbothered, "but since I'm hunting the thunderbird, and you were just now in the process of being eaten by the thunderbird, I thought maybe you'd reconsider! And look," he reached into his pocket and produced a tin can, "I brought the chili for our cookout toni—oops!"

Ember had thrown him to the ground and rushed back over to Norrin…who, Clueless realized with a surge of relief, was sitting up. He too was back in his human form, as if he'd sensed the other two doing it while out cold.

"How you did that?" Clueless asked, finally finding her voice.

"Oh, with the thunderbird?" He beamed at her and held up the arrow for her to see. The arrowhead was still glowing, as if somebody had stuck a little Christmas light inside a hunk of ruby.

Looking at it, Clueless couldn't help but feel a little sick.

"It's a magic arrow," he explained. "Or, I guess you could say it's anti-magic. It's made from Skeptic's Stone. Any magic it comes into contact with gets sucked into it so that it can't be used. It's okay, you can laugh now. Everyone does."

"Why?" Clueless asked.

The young man cocked his head. "Does that mean you believe in magic?"

She shrugged. "Um…yes?"

He beamed at her. "That's the kind of thinking I like! We're going to make a great team!"

"Absolutely not!" Ember yelled, stomping back over to them. Norrin was just behind her, walking with a slight limp, though you wouldn't know from his placid expression that he had just narrowly escaped death. Ember rounded on the shorter man and, glaring with all the intensity of the thunderbird itself, jabbed a finger into his chest. "I'll let you off the hook this time since you saved Norrin…"

Norrin, Clueless thought with a pinch of bitterness, but not me.

"...but if I see your ugly, sniveling face one more time," she jabbed him again, "I'm going to tear it off and—"

"Ember."

Ember froze and turned to look at Norrin in surprise.

"What?" she demanded.

He didn't answer. Only stared at her.

"No," she snapped, shaking her head. "Absolutely not!"

He stared at her.

"If you think I'm going to follow this creep up and down the forest trying to hunt that monster down, then…"

He stared at her, and Ember's face turned almost as red as the young man's arrowhead.

"Fine!" she finally gave in. "But only because he saved us with that stupid narrow of his!"

The dork thrust both his fists into the air and whooped. "Yes! We're a team! We need to think of a team name and—"

"We are not a team," Ember snarled at him, teeth clenched. "You are nothing but our bodyguard! As soon as we're out of that thing's range, your butt is history!"

But he didn't seem to be listening. "My name is Gil. What are yours?"

That question seemed to surprise Ember, and she took a step back.

"Norrin," the bear-walker said without hesitation.

"I…I'm Ember," the dark haired girl said reluctantly.

Clueless stepped forward. "My name Clu—"

"ANGEL!"

Clueless froze and looked at Ember. Norrin looked just as surprised as she did. Even Gil looked caught off guard. But neither of them looked as shocked as Ember herself.

"Y- Your name is Angel," she stammered, pointing a shaking finger at Clueless. "Right?"

"Uh…no? I—"

"Stop kidding around, Angel," Ember growled at her. "Not everybody gets your sense of humor!"

Clueless stared at Ember for a few seconds before finally nodding. "O…kay?”

"Good, glad that's settled." Ember spun to glare at Gil. "Now, get us out of this damn forest and away from that thing!"

— — — —

Zave's breathing was ragged. How long had he been running? Minutes? Hours? How many miles had passed beneath his feet as they beat their panicked retreat against the muddy forest floor?

Beside him, doing much better than he was, ran Fey. She was in full animal form, something he had only seen one other time. Somewhere behind him, protecting their rear, was Glenn, also in full stag form.

It wasn't fair. They had twice as many feet as him. They would be able to keep going like this for hours, but he didn't think he would make it another minute. What would happen when he collapsed? Was Fey strong enough to let Zave ride on her—

Glenn slammed into him from the side, throwing Zave down into the mud. Zave lay there, dazed and confused, trying to make sense of the sudden betrayal. Wiping muck from his face, he looked up—

Just as the thunderbird smashed clumsily through the treetops, raining sticks and twigs down on their heads. Zave could only watch in silent horror as it descended straight for him, talons glistening in the lightning, and…

Snatched Glenn right off the ground.

"Glenn!" Fey screamed, shifting into her true form as the giant bird carried her old alpha up into the sky. The last glimpse Zave caught of him was when the thunderbird veered westward—toward the mountain he and Fey had seen earlier.

NEXT CHAPTER: 1/22/2025