The vertical waterfall misted this whole
end of the canyon and all the tame bird-riders were there, clustered under the
Director’s balcony. He was one of the
lesser Hive lords, Naser Sander Raghnall.
“Zardukar… you already know the disaster. We need two groups… One smaller group to
round up all our runaway birds so we’ll be able to mount all our feather-spitters
to follow after the first relief force and the greater number to take
assistance to our forces at Nadumon City and to their people.”
“And to find out how badly we got
smacked,” Zazu muttered under her breath, but her hand shot into the air as she
called ‘Relief group! I volunteer for
the Nadumon expedition!”
Prime
didn’t manage to kill our Radiance. He
isn’t injured either or the nodes of connection, the Hive would have all fallen
apart and re-formed around Homa, even though she’s a baby. They’re all right. They’re all right. They aren’t fighting a war now. If I know the father of my boy he’s probably
organizing and coordinating rescue operations.
The lin editor came running out of his
office waving a barely dry sheet. “They’ve set up a lin at Nadumon… they’re
alive… they’ve sent word!”
The crowd roared, some of the more
excitable girls standing on their bird’s saddles, ululating at the tops of their lungs. His Radiance still shone bright!
The editor scrambled up the stairs, still waving his page, still damp in the mist from the waterfall. “He says… His Radiance says they are still finding people injured and need more zardukar… He says he needs the Hive connections.”
Hive lord Raghnall listened, then turned
to the riding zardukar. "Change of orders. We’ll round up
our own birds. His Radiance commands…
Every one of you pack and be back, ready to leave for Nadumon the moment the
sun goes down.”
That was only a few hours away. All of a sudden everyone was scrambling,
scattering as Raghnall took the editor’s page and read for himself. “What would we have done without the lin? Without being able to read?” Dag heard someone wonder out loud, even as
she pulled Silly’s head around to head to her own apartment to pack.
Yasna was there, already half packed for her… and himself. “I heard. I’m mander enough to work code to heal people of minor things. Call Silly bear double?”
“He will, for a short time… I’m sure we’ll
be trading people off, since the war flock broke out and ran. Yasna… I’m so glad you’ll be with me.”
He grinned at her, laced up his pack and
dropped it next to hers. “I’m here,
love. I’d be a bad monk if I couldn’t
help people find their way out of illness.”
She smiled and went to gather up her
small pouch of personal cleansing necessities and tied it to her belt. “Your mother wouldn’t approve of the trousers
on me.”
“My mother isn’t about to ride across
country on a warbird to bring aid and assistance to Nadumon, answering His
Radiance’s call!”
Dag smiled and picked up her pack,
rolled her sleeping quilt under it and slung it onto her back. Everything he’d packed was light enough to
compress down to one small bag.
“Some of us are going to be carrying
supplies… unless there’s some of the pack birds that didn’t flee with the bulk
of the war flock.”
“Let’s go see what they’ve figured out.”
WINNER WINNER WINNER!
... Savage Kitsune... if you are still reading I declare you the winner of the last comment contest. You soldiered on, even through the morass of comment moderation! email me at shirleymmeier@gmail.com to talk about the kind of character you'd like to see in Kyrus!
Whee-hoo!
ReplyDeleteGive me a little time.... I have been out of town for a while, and now I'm down with a sinus infection as well as trying to catch up on a lot of stuff that went to seed while I was away. I need to catch up on Kyrus since June 15th. I will get back to you shortly.