113 - Buncha Maniacs

As Director Sander's goad came down and the line of warbirds leaped forward as if all twenty-six of the cuddle flock were racing. Dag let Silly have his head and he ran, head stretched, wings wide for a good hundred paces before he rolled an eye back toward her.

She leaned to the left, not taking up the silk, letting him know which way she wanted him to keep running. Dust was kicked up, shrouding the plain, hiding the rock outcroppings. Most of the others were heading for the rough ground, leaving a churned up trail.

Yasna, monk's robe flapping, rode with Zar and Shon and Nan, taking advantage of his clinery to fog and smooth their track.

Dag and Silly angled off to the left, away from the crowd onto the sand scrubbed low rock, pocked here and there with vegetation. “Let them use the rocks, my Silly bird,” Dag said. “I thought I saw some thunder thorns around... ah.”

The rock rose higher and Dag threw a look back, seeing their hunters restively waiting to be released. “That's my boy. I bet you come after me.” She grinned. Whether it was because he didn't want anyone else to find his mama, or because he figured she'd be easier to find because she was his ma didn't matter. He was about to find out that sneaky didn't need youth to fuel it.

Silly half slid down the other side of the rock, claws squealing. He veered sideways to avoid a spike bush and bloodburst patch, the wind scraping their thorns and spines across the rocks like a fork screaming across a plate.

“Thunder thorns. Thunder thorns... there they are!”

Thunder thorn trees grew almost as large as the lollipapera, black, twisted trunks that spiralled up to the last twelve metres where the yellow whiplike leaves sprouted straight out of the trunk in a poof like a warbird's topknot. In the open they often grew in overlapping, concentric rings given their strange method of spreading their seeds.

Their flowers and seeds, like the leaves, grew directly from the trunk, yellow puffballs that became hardened, hooked spines on a bulbous base. When ripe they would randomly burst with enormous force, driving the seed spike nine or ten metres away from the parent tree. Except when disturbed. If something brushed the tree, or caused tremors in the ground nearby, any fruit near to being ripe would explode out, hooking into and injuring the unfortunate creature. A warbird chick could stagger a fair distance before it bled to death, providing a source of food for the seeds hooked into their flesh. Even bush dragons avoided thunder thorns.

Dag pulled her catapult out of the saddle socket and said “Silly... down and sit.”

She hopped from the saddle, grabbing a handful of loose pebbles from the ground. Over the ridge she could distantly hear the others. She had some time yet. She pulled the rubber cording back to her cheek, sighted carefully and hit the biggest, oldest tree in the centre, smack in the trunk and then ducked in case she wasn't quite far away enough.

That tree's seeds hit daughter trees all around it with a rat-a-tat and the whole grove went off, seeds firing out to skitter and clatter all around into cracks in the rock around the dip in the the ground where they'd found enough to root. The rocks probably funneled the spring and fall rains into it.

Her second pebble triggered another cascade of rattling injury, but a third, a fourth and a fifth rock brought no reaction at all. “Silly,” she said, “follow me... side, Silly. Side.” Her bird picked up his silk in his beak and rose up to follow her, back and to the left.

Dag looked back, saw the scars in the rock where Silly's claws has scratched, the scuffs in the dust. She'd have to deal with those in code after she found her hiding place. It was hard to walk in between the thorn trees and Silly followed her, whining and creebing, his head hanging down around her feet as if he could crawl under the veil she held tightly around her.

At the base of the old tree there was a hole in the rock where it had rooted, climbing up the side with roots like metal fingers. If she got Silly to sit down here, there was no way for any hunter to see them. His feathers were like the drifts of dry whip leaves mounded up all around, yellowish brown. And the hunters wouldn't think anyone was crazy enough to hide here.

“Silly, sit! Haboob, Silly. Haboob.” The warbird had never been in a haboob, didn't know the word, but knew the action required and dropped into a crouch, holding out a wing for her to hide under.

He smelled of dust and the perfume he'd stolen from Zazu and groomed himself with this morning.  She stifled a sneeze and grinned. If the hunters didn't know that Rainsflower didn't grow under Thunder thorns, she was fine.

The young trees armed faster but she was safe inside the circle of the mother tree, since none of the saplings could reach her in the centre of their thicket. She had roughly till nightfall before the mother tree was dangerous again. She peered up though Silly's feathers, scratching his chest gently.

The first seed pods that might be a danger to them were on the trunk five metres up. She'd just have to trigger the tree again then and stay ducked under the barrage, when she wanted out.