Severs Saxby's tail

She inhaled, expanding her chest to strain his claws, flexing her shoulders with all her strength—then exhaled sharply. In that instant, using the smallest gap, she snaked one arm loose. With a snap, her claws cracked through him and she dropped through the air alongside the spinning remnants of his toes. She sharpened into a needle-point dive.
Wheeling, he screeched and bent his wings tight to his flanks, both of them plummeting for the same rapidly approaching, stony patch of earth. The wind sang through her ears as the stones swelled larger.
They struck the ground a split second apart, she on hands and feet like a cat. She rolled, and his claws cratered the spot she’d left behind. They were beside the riverbank and he was the size of a house now. Before he’d settled, she twirled and chopped off his barbed tail, the stump spurting blood.


Chapter 22, Page 334