Part One: The Army

Chapter Eleven: Climbing

Swike felt like an idiot. Now what? The crow's eyes stared into her own. The bird was obviously startled by Swike's capture of it, but it wasn't a great capture by any means. Here they were, up in a tree, and Swike had one paw trying to keep the crow's beak closed and the other pressing a knife to its throat. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Swike thought. In order for either of us to get down, I'll have to let go.

The crow seemed to have noticed this too. He began to flap his wings slowly in an effort to unbalance Swike. Swike grabbed onto his beak harder and, with her knife, drew some blood. "Be still!" The crow stopped moving, a whining sound emitting from the back of his throat. "Now," said Swike, trying to sound as if she had everything under control and knew exactly what she planned to do, "will you take me to your leader?"

The crow remained still and Swike realized that he probably refrained from nodding or shaking his head because of the placement of her blade. She wasn't willing to take the knife away, so she let up her hold on the crow's beak, hoping that he'd take the initiative to speak.

"Yaggah! Sharpwing is the General. He's not far." the crow said in a soft voice.

Swike glanced around at the surrounding trees, squinting into the higher branches. Were there more crows nearby that she hadn't noticed? She felt as if her heart had jumped up into her throat. She could see more crows above her in this very tree and she figured that these weren't the only crows around. Keeping her knife pressed to her captive's neck, she let go of his beak completely and detached her bow from where it hung across her back. One-pawed, she quickly strung it. Since she was no longer holding onto the crow, he began to step away from her along the branch. Swike followed him and nicked his throat again before stepping onto one of his claws.

"Don't even think of getting away," she whispered. "And don't think of calling for help either. I'm a perfect shot," she waved her bow at the crow to let him know what she was talking about. What she had just said probably sounded loaded to the crow, but he did as he was told, not wanting to figure out if Swike was as good a shot as she claimed to be. She had, after all, strung an obviously heavy bow with one paw.

Think, think, think, Swike bit her lip and squinted again into the branches above her. It wouldn't be an easy climb, but she was sure she could make it up quite far without disturbing any other crows. That was, if General Sharpwing was in this tree. "Where is the General?" she asked.

"Next tree, top."

Swike tried to not look discouraged. In one swift movement, she stuck her knife back in her satchel, grabbed an arrow, and drew her bow, the arrow pointing straight into the crow's heart.

"Gaah!" he spat in alarm.

"Be quiet!" Swike stressed. "I'm going to climb down, you're going to direct me to the right tree and follow me up. If you don't, I'll kill you."

Without waiting for the crow's affirmative response, Swike made her way back along the branch, toward the trunk of the tree. She kept her eye on her captive as much as possible. Upon reaching the trunk, she dug her claws into it, leaving one paw holding her arrow to the string of the bow, letting the actual bow swing loosely. The crow had not moved, his eyes glued to the rat. Now that she only had one paw on the bow, he made his move, spreading his wings to take off into the air. Swike took a deep breath, let go of the trunk with her left paw, and squeezed her arm between herself and the tree, hurting her legs as she forced them to be the only things holding her in place. Even in such an uncomfortable and painful position, she was able to draw the bow and shoot. The arrow hit the branch, right below the crow's claws. Within a second, she had another arrow out and ready.

"I missed on purpose. I warned you before to not try and escape. Now, fly out of this tree and down to the ground."

The crow did as he had been told. Swike quickly repositioned herself so that she could grab onto the tree again, and then clumsily made her way to the ground. She followed the crow as he hopped over to a nearby tree. Swike began to climb and the crow followed after her, stopping on each branch until she reached him. A few times, she drew her bow and pointed the arrow up at the crow to prove to him that she still could, but he had understood her and didn't need reminding.

Swike lost track of how many braches she had reached and passed. It didn't take her long to realize that this tree belonged to the General, and the General alone. She had met no other crows on her way up, though she had spotted a few in other trees nearby. At one point, she had looked down but decided to not do that again. She could no longer see the ground.

A breeze stirred Swike's fur, sending a chill through her. She stopped. She had felt no wind since entering the pine grove until now. She must be so high in the air that few trees were tall enough to continue to block the wind. Swike hung onto the trunk of the tree with her three free paws, closing her eyes tight for a second. Then she opened them and began to look around. She had indeed climbed higher than many of the trees around. Only a few soared higher into the sky. Unfortunately for her, it looked like the tree belonging to the General was the tallest of all.

Swike looked up to the next branch. Her "captive" sat upon it, ruffling his feathers nervously. He was on the lowest branch of the tree I found him in. He must be very low in the ranks of the crows, Swike thought. He must be frightened just to be so close to his General on his own.

Swike took a deep breath and pulled herself up the short distance onto the branch. It began to sway with the weight of its two passengers. Swike sat down on it, resting her back against the trunk. She was breathing hard by now and greatly desired to hide that fact but didn't think that she could.

"I don't need you any more," she huffed to the crow.

The crow spread out his wings, ready to launch himself into the night sky. Swike looked up at him with interest and noticed that he was staring at her bow which hung from her right paw.

"I won't shoot you if you're quiet. I can make my way on my own now. Just leave and tell nobeast about me."

The crow nodded and then practically fell off of the branch, headed back into the heart of the pine grove. Swike wasn't sure if she'd done the right thing. She had no way of keeping the crow silent now, but she didn't have the energy or the time to care anymore. She put away her arrow, unstrung her bow, and strapped it back onto her back. Then she began her climb again, this time with the use of all of her limbs. She kept her attention on the tree, searching all of the time for the next paw hold. When she finally reached the top, it came as a shock. A huge crow was tucked up against the trunk of the tree, his head nestled under his wing, sound asleep. Swike knelt on the branch in front of him, trying to regain her breath. Her loud breathing woke him in no time.

A/N: In case you're wondering, "heavy" or "light,"when referring to a bow, means the amount of force it takes to draw the bow, not how much the bow weighs. Heavy bows are stronger and take more power to bend, and thus, to string or draw.