28 - A Flock of Warbirds

Kyrus eased into the owner’s country through the new door that he and Hara had built with such care.  It should be undetectable from the one direction.  The only way he could perceive it was the line Werfas held.  He and Hara grinned... and shook themselves out of the post programming rush.

She nodded at him and they pulled the image of a couple of riding birds out of the ground and settled into the saddles, leather creaking just as it did in the outside world.  The two birds... larger and longer-legged than would be possible in the world, as well as more tractable, rose to their diamond talon feet.

*We should hide in plain sight I think.* He sent to her and she grinned and twitched a thumb behind her.  She’d dropped a handful of what looked like knotted strands of hair with a bead and a feather in it and wherever they touched the ground another warbird... an apparently wild one, sprang up until they were surrounded in a grazing flock.

*Already ahead of you.*

*Sometimes you’re really annoying, lover, do you know that?* But his thought was teasing, not biting.   

She shrugged *So long as somebody thinks ahead.*

They curled up at the base of their bird’s necks, all but disappearing into the flowing feathers.

From there, their flock ran and stopped and ran, ranging out from their door, seeing an kind of sign from their fathers.

*The bees said ‘look for the bee-tree’ but I don’t see anything like that,* Hara said. *These trees are all thinner than my wrist and have these flattened leaves that wouldn’t hold much water at all.*

*Hmmm.  Let me send out a bee or two of my own.*

*Careful, Perrin’s systems--*

*--I know.* He snapped.  *They could be looking for bees.*

Just as he began to form his access bees the dragons came roaring back around on their flight.  One almost checked in its flight, over them, or their door, he couldn’t tell which, and they both clung tight to their bird’s necks, very still.

It swept on, tail lashing in the sky as it flew, head scanning the ground below.  *That was... oh endarken it...*

The ground ahead of them crumbled up as something dug its way out from below and a creature with a nose wider than its head emerged and flattened its enormous nostrils against the dirt, making snorting, farting, sneezing noises as it snuffled back and forth.  A second unburied itself, and a third.

They were as brown as Kyrus; eyeless, hairless except for a pink fringe of it all along those massive noses. Their elbows, tipped with bright yellow spurs, stuck up over their heads as they lowered their round bodies to sniff the ground.  It looked like they had enormously long legs.

Hara unfroze and let the whole flock ‘startle’ and wheel to run, wings half spread, talons kicking up dirt, heads stretched out so they could run faster, feathers crackling in the wind as they ran.  It was an appropriate response for the programs they were.

*Oh ownershit!* *Endarkened!* Their exclamations, though silent, were simultaneous and heartfelt.

They'd looked back in time to see the sniffers snap up to their full height, taller than the oldest warbird, horn-like nostrils spread wide. Honking, the sniffers trotted after the fleeing flock, dirt crushing underfoot as they bounced after them, surreally slow, and terrifyingly fast both at once.

 

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 We just got home with the latest load... moving... in the most hideous weather (rain/snow falling) like driving on glare ice under lard.

I will post later tonight but it will probably be the middle of the night, sorry.  We need to get out of the other place this weekend.  Next week is when the radiation treatments start.  Fun wow.  And I lost another friend, possibly to his cancer, his major organs just shut down.  I am going to miss him.