Previously on LW:

A scream scattered birds in nearby trees.

"Aiden!" Autumn, Chase, and I all jumped to our feet.

Chapter 8

Aiden sprinted into the clearing. When he saw us, he slowed and opened his wings.

"Fly!" He panted. "There's a -" He took a ragged breath. "Lion."

Something large crashed trough the undergrowth. The peryton flicked their ears in alarm and bolted, quickly gaining altitude.

We were about to follow after them, when an inhuman shriek tore the air. For a second, we were frozen, whether in shock, fear, or awe, I couldn't tell.

The shriek rang again, and a large animal with a hooked beak, the body and tail of a lion, and impressive eagle-like wings, burst into the clearing.

"It's a gryphon!" Autumn exclaimed.

"I don't care if it's a freaking unicorn-dragon. It's gonna eat us!" Aiden frantically nocked an arrow, kicking off the ground into the air.

Autumn and I scrambled back. I doubted flying off would be any use against another winged creature, but I wasn't about to stand still either. Its shrieks and fierce look made its intentions quite clear: it wasn't here to make friends.

The new preys didn't distract the gryphon from its original target. It pounced upwards, clawed front legs reaching towards Aiden, but Chase jumped up, slicing his sword across one of its legs. Blood smeared Chase's weapon, only infuriating the animal more. Aiden forgotten, it reared on its hind paws to swipe at Chase, who rolled out of the way and tried to reply with quick strikes of his own. However, neither opponent seemed to be having much success. I knew from watching Chase fight in practice that force and height were some of his strengths, but they were no match for the gryphon's. Instead, he had to use his shorter stature for speed and evasion and try to tire out his enemy.

He raised his sword, aiming a blow at the shoulder, but the gryphon lifted its paw and deflected it with such strength that Chase barely held on to his weapon.

"Chase!" Aiden yelled. "Move out of the way so I can shoot it!"

"Stay back!" Chase yelled back.

Autumn flew up and snatched Aiden shirt, yanking him back just as the gryphon's tail whipped past.

Chase tried to fly up to have the advantage of higher ground, but the gryphon just followed him. Soon, they were above the canopy.

"Chase!" Aiden yelled at the top of his lungs. "Get back here! You cannot fight a gryphon!"

"Shut up," I whispered, shivering. I was scared out of my wits. Chase was a good fighter, but he had only one sword, and the gryphon had ten claws and many more teeth.

Autumn slapped my shoulder hard enough to make me flinch. "Get it together, Hailey! We need to help."

"Sorry." I concentrated. "Aiden, you need to get up there. Autumn and I will fly up and distract it away from Chase."

"You better aim well." Autumn glared at him. He swallowed and gave a thumbs up.

Aiden was up in the air in an instant, quickly gaining altitude. I was still a bit slower, to my annoyance, but Autumn kept up with me.

Once we had climbed up above the trees, though, a different scene than expected awaited us. Chase and the gryphon, both breathing heavily, were engaged in a staring contest, circling each others only a few yards apart.
Aiden drew an arrow out of his scabbard, his movements slow and measured. However, when he nocked it to his bow, the tip scrapped against the wood.

It was so quiet I would normally not have noticed it, but he gryphon's tufted ears flicked in the direction of the noise. Then, twisting around, it charged right towards Aiden. Chase dropped in between them, his sword clanging against the animal's beak. The gryphon stopped in its stride, then twisted its neck to reach out and grab the blade between its beak. It jerked his head back, and Chase's weapon went flying. However, Chase twisted in mid-air as his sword fell back towards the forest without him. He grabbed the gryphon's scruff with one hand and flapped his wings to hoist himself on its back.

We watched, aghast and unable to help. Aiden had dropped his arrow and was nocking another, but he couldn't get a good aim with the animal bucking and struggling.

"Chase! Off the gryphon! Now!"

Yet, Chase held on. The gryphon turned and twisted in the air, unable to shake him off. As he sped by a tree, though, Chase slipped a bit.

"He'll never hold on," I worried.

"You're right!" Autumn exclaimed like I had just said something incredibly smart. She grabbed a coil of rope out of her satchel - why it was there, I had no idea. "You'll have to help me drag it down." Before I could ask what she was talking about, she did a loop, whipped the rope around, then threw it out like a lasso. It slipped off the top of the animal's head, but caught onto his hooked beak.

Aiden and I started in awe. "Was this staged?" He asked. Autumn had never before shared her lassoing skills with us.

"Pull!" Autumn yelled, and I flew to her help, grabbing on to the rope and putting my whole weight into it.

The gryphon thrashed around, and Autumn and I cried out in pain as the rope burned our palms. As we were still in the sky, we had nothing else to help us hold on but our beating wings. Aiden flew towards us, but Autumn let the rope slip out of her fingers. I followed soon after. Completely free, the rope flailed behind the gryphon like a serpentine tail.

Chase didn't waste the opportunity, though, and was able to grab the rope. He threw it around the gryphon's neck and held on.

"My sword," he yelled, but none of us had any idea where it'd fallen.

"Get off the gryphon," Aiden groaned. It was driving him crazy to be unable to help for fear of hitting his friend.

The gryphon flipped around, then dived down to the forest. Branched snapped as he fell down. His thick fur might have protected him, but I winced at the thought of all the branches whipping Chase.

We all dived back after him. Aiden still had his bow ready. Chase and the gryphon were wrestling on the forest floor. The animal was struggling to reach him as he was still perched on its back.

"Got any more rope?" I asked Autumn as an idea hit me.

"I have vines," she grabbed one.

"Good. Let's trip him."

"Yes!" Aiden grabbed the vine from Autumn and quickly knotted it to his arrow, while I tied the other end to a flexible sapling. Happy to be finally able to help, Aiden crouched, watching the struggle intently. As soon as the opportunity arose, he fired the arrow into a tree on the other side. Autumn and I, ignoring our burning palms, grabbed the vine and pulled to make it taut.

As the gryphon reared, wings flapping, its stumbled a few steps back. It was enough. He tripped on our makeshift trap and fell backwards. Chase let go and pushed himself off its back, out of the way. As the lion crashed to the ground in a cloud of dust and fallen leaves, Chase closed his eyes and called for his sword, which materialized in his hands.

The gryphon rolled up, and the two stared at each other again. Both were rather beat up.

Noiselessly, Aiden prepared a new arrow, but Chase raised a hand to halt him. He inclined his head towards the gryphon. The animal bowed back.

"What?" Aiden furrowed his brow.

Both opponents straightened up. The gryphon opened its brown wings and took off, disappearing in the distance.

Autumn watched it go in awe, and I ran to Chase, who looked a bit dazed.

"I think I have a concussion," he said. I wrapped him into a tight hug, and he winced. I let go immediately.

"Sorry! Are you okay?"

"Dude!" Aiden yelled. His eyes blazed. "Are you completely nuts? Stop being a hero for once. I could have just shot it from far away with an arrow, but you just had to go and get yourself beat up, didn't you?"

Chase sat down and rested his head against a tree. "Would have taken lots of arrows for something that size."

Wordlessly, Aiden selected an arrow, nocked it, and, staring right at Chase, shot it at a tree on our far left. The tree blew up in a shower of twigs and burnt leaves.

We all stared at Aiden, then at the charred remains of the tree, and back at Aiden.

He huffed. "Y'know. Maybe you could refrain from giving us a heart attack next time."

"Sorry," Chase said. We were all a little wide-eyed at his burst of anger.

"You're lucky we love you, thick head." Aiden smiled. I doubted he was capable of staying mad at anyone for more than a few minutes, which was good because that's how we loved him.

"There you are, you coward," Autumn scolded as Juno peeked out from a tree. She nudged my friend with her soft muzzle, as if asking for forgiveness. Grey had followed her, and did the same to me.

Aiden sat down on the forest floor. "Alright, guys. Let's take five while Chase patches himself up. Then we really need to get to that stupid outpost."

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Surprisingly, lots of you didn't believe Aiden was screaming about anything important. Poor Aiden ;) At least he didn't get eaten.

I have a question for all Chailey shippers: in the first book (and still now) what made you think Hailey and Chase would be good together? What do you like/dislike about their relationship? (This is to help me for the rewriting of SW, so all and any feedback is appreciated!)

Also if anyone here is an archer and knows about the vocab and technical stuff of archery would you mind if I asked you a few questions?

The cover at the top is by @-monsterz- Thanks!

LW got up to #9 in Fantasy this week! Great job everyone!