70 - Feral Warbirds

“EnDarken you, Kyrus you son of a... FireDrake!” Emilien yelled and then his voice spiralled up into a shriek as his bird... Beepchick... took them into a wild dive along the canyon.  It was their fourth flight and the warbird was loving it.  For all the Emilien yelled, however, he was not only good at it, it seemed that he loved it as much as his bird did.  He grabbed the controls away from his bird and flung them into a corkscrew spiral that soared them up over the edge of the canyon rim. “Whoooo!”

“Are you going to call him down for that?” Werfas asked quietly.  Both of them were sitting on their sticks, their birds enough in control that they hovered side by side.

“Nope.  He’s using proper language to curse me out and even then he’s not going after my parents when he does.  That’s the height of courtesy for any Basin rat.  He’s even got the lot of them painting little gold rats on their gear.”

“So that’s where that started.”

Across the canyon they saw Hive Lord Sander step out of his rooms and survey the valley, before his bird, an all-black named Midnight, shoved its head under his hand and started begging. His body language looked quite embarrassed as he looked around, shook his head and picked up the silk loop that all the birds had learned to associate with flying.

He absently threw the loop over Midnight’s head and the bird took it as permission to fetch the flight stick, ran off to the locked shed, squawking, hissing and honking. Sander’s attention was fixed on the tablet in his hand.

“Looks like stuff is happening on the moon,” Werfas said.  “I’ll keep an eye on our gold rats.”

“Thank you, brother.” Kyrus grinned at him and he and his bird peeled away to attend the Hive Lord.

“Something wrong, Naser?” Sander looked up at where he and Tzar hovered, as Midnight came soaring up to get him.

“Your father says that Terence and Alissa are hiding inside Mom.  Prime has left the planet and gone to the moon.”

“EnDarkened!”

“They’re trying to hide until the courier is allowed through.  I don’t quite understand how that works, between this star and that star.  Like a tsingy landscape I suppose.  You can only get through when conditions are right.”

“I suppose.  Is it possible that Prime has an idea that we’ve been duping him again?”

“Not likely.”  Sander flung himself onto his seat and Midnight chirped at him as he indicated they should head east, out of the canyon.

Kyrus followed him, soaring up from cold, dark, moist depths up through all the ascending temperatures until they burst over the Rim into the brutal glare of the sun anvil.  Kyrus whistled... Sander responded with a wave that translated as ‘follow’.

Out in the desert, there was flock sign and a spear bush forest that could survive out here.  The old flock had been taken out and left here, far enough away that they wouldn’t cause trouble along the canyon, attacking people.

The bulk of the flock seemed to have settled in the spear forest as far as he could see from the air.  Sander circled as the flock bunched up below, posturing and screaming threats.  There was no sign of the old bull, the flock leader appeared to be a much younger blue-feathered stud. They had to avoid several miles of hoodoos and then, pointing down, he found what they were looking for.  As he pointed down, Kyrus saw them.

Three old warbirds, one the white flock bull and two orange feathered hens with him. They were tracking back toward Vertical Falls, wing stubs and head stretched all the way out as they ran back.

That old asshole.  He holds enough of a grudge against people that he wants to give up his flock?  Their shadows flickered across the three feral warbirds and they stopped in their run, beaks gaping open and strings of drool trailing where the bolts had been removed.  Their head turned in unison as Sander ‘mandered up a spear and shook it so that Kyrus could see.  The old birds are just too dangerous if they take up killing people... But there was something different about the three birds.  They weren’t dancing around showing off their beaks and claws in the warbird version of ‘I kill you, I kill you.’ They were just standing, staring, their heads turning to follow their flight.

Kyrus flung up his empty hand.  “Wait! Wait!” Then he followed up with an imperative whistle because Sander had shifted his grip to kill the old male.

 "???" He faintly caught the questioning whistle from Sander in the roar of their flight.  He wasn’t sure why he was doing this but he tugged on Tzar’s breast feathers to get him to fly lower. The bull leaped out in front of his hens short wings spread protectively, but that was all he did as the two hens sank in a half crouch, back to back, as if he and Sander were a couple of Bush Dragons threatening them.

Kyrus and Tzar hovered just above where he could either stretch or jump, and reluctantly Kyrus ‘mandered up a spear of his own.

The bull turned his head and hissed and then, even as Kyrus raised the spear, slowly, carefully, not taking his eyes off Kyrus, sank slowly into a crouch. Copying the Cuddle Flock, he spread his stubby wings and began begging to fly.