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She hit the ground with bone-jarring force, to a chorus of jeers and cheers, sounds that faded when she raised her head with a snarl. The humans didn't immediately press their advantage, to her fortune; the snarl, the rise to a hunting crouch, were mostly bravado and reflex, with her vision still doubling and pain like fire running through her wing where the arrow had ripped the thin membrane.
Even were the winds stronger, there would be no easy escape from these invaders. So be it.
She would make certain there was no easy escape for them, either.
She lunged forward with a battle roar, claws digging through armor and pitiful human flesh, counting on speed and pure hate to make up for being so desperately outnumbered. She slashed, tore, whirled, used tail and wings to her advantage, and they fell back, fell back again before her fury. One dared get close enough on her weakened side to land a blow against her injured wing; with a shriek, she pivoted, blinded by a red rush of pain, opened him from throat to belly in spite of it. Gore covered her as she flung his body into the indistinct mass of his comrades.
That broke them, sent them fleeing. She turned to follow, then sank down to the blood soaked ground, body as heavy as if she were turning to stone, and weary, so weary of it all.
"My angel!"
The moon had moved well across the heavens when Goliath's voice roused her. She pushed herself to her feet in time for him to land, to catch her in his arms when she swayed.
"I saw you fall," he said, guilt heavy in his voice. "I could not break away. You're injured?"
"The blood is not mine," she assured him, then hissed when he touched her wing. "For the most part."
"I must get you back to the castle. It will be dawn soon."
The castle was not where she wished to be; the humans it sheltered were half the weariness that weighted her soul. But the cliffs were home; that the humans had come to these lands, built their castle, taken her kind to be their despised hounds of war, changed nothing.
She leaned against Goliath, his wing warm comfort around her, and tasted bitterness in the last traces of human blood on her lips. "As you wish, my love."