u/Glayn

I read this as a child and loved it, but it was so long ago a lot of my memories of it as conflated or broken.

I believe it had a female protagonist who had some ability to communicate with animals (maybe not direct speach). The antagonist used some kind of large mechanical soldiers that kidnapped children were used to make.

The biggest part I recall was a battle where the protagonists are defending against the antagonists armies, and won at heavy cost, including a bird who wedged itself in the eye slit of one of these mechanical things to blind it so soliders could destroy it, perishing in the process.