Then she saw what she needed ahead. It was a branch just a few inches above her head. It looked thick enough to hold her weight too. If she could just time it right, then she could get up in the tree. As large as they were, Pryde's animals still couldn't climb trees.
She let her instincts, those that had helped her in fights and to open the safe, take over as she neared the branch. Samantha found herself leaping into the air and then grabbing the branch with both hands. She actually swung around the branch once before she shot into the air. Her hands reached out to catch another branch to steady herself.
Pryde's beast tried to skid to a stop beneath the tree. To her amazement, though, she saw it drop out of sight, almost as if the ground had swallowed it up. She heard a mournful howl from the creature for a few seconds. Then she heard only the wind rustling the trees.
Samantha pushed aside some of the branches to get a better view of what had happened. Only then did she see the cliff. Had she not grabbed the branch, she might have run over it as the beast had. She leaned forward in the tree to see jagged rocks far down. Gray waves capped by white pounded those jagged rocks, though they were too far away for her to hear yet.
With a sigh she sat on the branch to rest. She had been closer to the sea than she had thought. Pryde's boat might not be too far away from here. If so, she should go down and see if it had survived the storm intact. Then she could worry about getting supplies later.
After a few minutes in the tree, Samantha hopped down to the ground. She made sure to walk carefully along the edge of the cliff. She couldn't see the body of the beast that had chased her; the sea must have already carried it away.
She did see something else, though: a boat! It wasn't Pryde's boat; it was too big for that. This boat was about as big as Prudence's shop with a pointed prow, a boxy cabin behind that, and then a square rear.
The storm had blown the boat onto the rocky shore. From the look of it, the boat was caught on one of the rocks, which held it in place even as the waves beat against it. Every time the waves receded, Samantha saw brown nets spread out like seaweed. A fishing boat, she thought. It had probably blown off course from the storm and wound up beaching itself on Eternity.