A Fistful of Dust

Daniel

“Three minutes,” Cassie said, holding her wings over her ears to muffle them. “I hear him coming. He’s so loud. I hear… Darkness, and Blood, and a Scream.” Hair shrouded her face as she flinched at the last word and cowered.

“Rana, who is Red Tail?” Lea knelt to look Rana in the eye. No response. Lea grabbed Rana by the shirt and hauled her up while the frog girl dangled limp and lifeless. Lea shook Rana and shouted in her face, “Who is Red Tail!”

No response.

Daniel felt compelled beyond reason to speak though unable to answer the question. How could Rana resist that? She may as well be unconscious, her mind gone elsewhere.

“How are we supposed to defend ourselves without knowing what we’re facing?” Kenta asked, frustrated and tense.

“Guys, stop bothering Rana,” Cassandra said, standing with an apathetic sigh. “You think there’s some way out of this because you don’t know about him or haven’t heard… that.”

The bat girl seemed more composed at first, but Daniel saw she’d gone from fear to—acceptance?

He’d never seen people utterly surrender to fate. Daniel thought about Cassie soaring with joy. He thought about Rana volunteering for late-night watch shifts to protect them. Seeing these two like this made him sick.

“We can’t give up!”

“Daniel,” Cassie told him patiently like he was a child. “Our chances of survival are infinitesimal. Escape scenarios are so faint I can’t parse the details.”

“Yes, if we stay like this. Our future isn’t going to fix itself! We have to at least try! Now, if we’re going to survive, we need information.”

From Lea’s white-knuckled clutches, Rana flicked her distant eyes at him. The frog girl stirred, pushed off Lea’s hands, and sat.

“Red Tail the Hawk: Avian monster,” Rana spoke as if reading a tedious article. “‘Possessing Clairvoyant ‘Perfect Vision’ limited by atmospheric line of sight, diurnal-raptorial Therianthropy, Neognathae control and generation, Ornithomancy, mind-affecting Screech, Air Manipulation, confirmed Fourth Realm body, possible Archmage-class overall.’ I don’t know what it all means, but I heard my brother talking about him once.”

Daniel knew some of the words, but they terrified Lea. She took a step back, staggered. Even Kenta hesitated to bluster his way to confidence after hearing that list. The others seemed more confused than terrified.

“Where is he?” Daniel asked.

Cassie answered, “Two minutes and change away. Opposite side of the mountain, elevation twenty thousand feet, now descending. He spotted us the instant he came over the horizon.”

“Okay, what are our chances now?” Kenta wondered.

Cassie raised her eyebrows, “A bit better! I hear a sliver of hope.”

“Hope is good!” Wendi said.

“Well, I’ve been looking for things,” Paul began, “But all I learned is that Rana is the solution to our problem. That’d be useful if somebody knew what the hay she’s supposed to do.”

This news electrocuted Rana—she stood, she sat, she stood again, then turned around looking in all directions in a desperate bid to blindly stumble onto their salvation. Moving on fast-forward, she picked up, turned over, and tossed every rock in reach, then dashed to the next square foot on repeat until her fingers bled.

All the while, Paul looked as if he wanted to staple his mouth shut, and the others stood paralyzed.

Daniel forced himself to piece together the situation step by step.

Calculate the distance to horizon from a known height. Assuming these planets’ radii are all about the same… a triangle between us, him, and the planet’s core… a2 + b2 = c2… guess-and-check the square root… he spotted us from two hundred miles away! And if it takes him three minutes from where he started… he’s flying at an average of Mach 5! Who the hell is this guy?

“How does he know we’re here?”

“Don’t make this about whose fault it is,” Rana said between stones.

“Don’t look at me,” Cassie defended herself. “I was flying below the mountaintop; it couldn’t have been me.”

“It’s not about blame,” Daniel clarified, “I need to know what happened so I can fix it.”

Rana grunted assent and said, “Look at Paul.”

“Wait, how is this my fault?” the candle boy retreated, raising his hands in reflex.

Daniel looked and finally saw.

“The smoke,” Lea spoke with dawning horror.

From the flame burning on Paul’s candle head came a tiny thread of smoke. Daniel followed it up a few feet as it dissipated. Beyond human sight, at least.

“No! That’s impossible! There’s no way anyone could see a handful of smoke particles from two hundred miles away—the atmospheric density alone…” his words died as he comprehended precisely who and what they were up against.

“Exactly,” Rana said without stopping her pointless search. They’d come full circle. “There’s nowhere to hide, no hope to fight, and he’s too fast to escape.”

“One minute left.”

Lea brightened at the mention of hiding, “Rana, your Camouflage!”

Rana looked up from a pile of stones with a condescending smirk and asked, “Do you really think a frog can hide from a hawk? Not in the day. Not on bare ground. Not when he’s looking for us.”

Lightbulb—“But he’s not looking for us!” Daniel said, all eyes on him. “He doesn’t know what’s here! He’s looking for a campfire or a torch or—” Daniel pointed, and they followed his finger, “A tree.” Not thirty feet away, a gnarled old twig of a dead tree clung to a rock.

Then Rana was gone. She leaped like a triggered spring, almost too fast to follow. Her pink tongue flashed, grabbed Paul, and hauled him to trail behind. She spun in the air, reeled in her tongue, threw Paul against the tree, and pinned his head with an elbow.

“Don’t take it out on Paul!” Kenta yelled, but Daniel knew that wasn’t it.

The flame on Paul’s head ignited the wood. “Not too much,” Daniel said.

Rana yanked Paul from the tree and threw him back into the midst of the group. “Get down,” she told them. They blinked as they processed her instruction.

“What?” Kenta said.

She didn’t ask again.

Rana leaped and slid into Kenta, sweeping his legs in one rotation, revolving again as she stood, and heel-dropped him to the ground. Hair cushioned the Kaminoke, though the blow knocked the breath from his lungs. The others attempted to comply without protest, though rarely fast enough for her. She tripped the others onto their butts as Daniel laid himself against a rock.

She aimed her open hands to spray rapidly expanding foam that covered everyone. As Daniel watched, the others blended into the color and texture of the ground until he wasn’t sure what he’d seen on that rock.

Rana crafted a dome of Camouflage foam around Daniel to avoid his destructive aura. Panic drained from his body, replaced by a soothing coolness. It felt like being put under for an operation.

Daniel submerged, not in sleep, but apathy. The longer he stayed, the less he needed to move. His nose itched, and it didn’t matter. A rock pressing into his side grew painful, but his brain categorized it as unimportant. He wouldn’t flinch at a dentist pulling his teeth without anesthetic. After being Camouflaged, Daniel couldn’t imagine how Rana even walked in this state.

Yet, Daniel sensed he could break this spell if needed. Camouflage wasn’t an attack, after all.

:Don’t dare budge, any of you,: Rana said and sat with them. She needn’t have bothered. What’s the use? He felt small—depressed?—as if nothing he did mattered. :Red Tail will see us, but he won’t notice we’re here unless he looks directly at us.:

Daniel adjusted to the overwhelming indifference, and details came into focus. The foam barrier acted as a one-way mirror, allowing him to see outside. He found the others, all similarly sedated but conscious of their surroundings and situation.

:He’s here…: Cassandra sent.

A spike of fear pierced the calm, but too late to change anything. They were observers now.

Seconds passed. Nothing. No massive aura descended into his Second Sight. Perhaps the mountain’s density and breadth obstructed it? Then Daniel wondered at the distinct lack of a sonic boom. How could something so fast arrive without alerting the whole valley?

Without Cassie, they’d have no warning.

They held their breaths, waiting for the monster to appear in whatever horrifying form it chose. A speck moved on his periphery, grew large, then dove on their position. Wings parachuted open for landing.

:That’s Red Tail?: Kenta sent, almost laughing. An ordinary hawk perched on a rock nearby; its wings broad and stocky, its body square and powerfully built. No aura, nothing special. It tilted its head, glancing while searching for small furry animals.

:Kenta, I swear,: Rana began, :If you are dumb enough to move, my ghost will torment yours all the way to the Beyond. That isn’t him, but he sees through its eyes.:

Now she mentioned it, the way the bird scanned the area did seem oddly intelligent. It focused on the smoldering branch of the tree. It screeched, loud and long, then took off—swooping over the valley. Gone.

:So, we’re off the hook?: Paul asked.

:No, Paul. No, we’re not,: Cassie sent.

Several shadows flitted overhead as their owners flapped into view. Dozens of birds soared by: sparrows, falcons, hawks, pigeons, kites, osprey, herons, buzzards, eagles, and geese. Daniel frowned to himself, thinking how these weren’t native birds as parrots, cormorants, ducks, toucans, gulls, parakeets, hummingbirds, sandgrouse, pelicans, grebes, hornbills, finches, flamingos, and more he couldn’t name followed. Hundreds came in wedges, lines, gaggles, mobs, scores, flights, and flocks.

He’d never seen so many different birds in person.

Thousands flew through in migratory patterns and assorted arrays. They covered the sky so thoroughly he couldn’t see individual species. The colorful assortment blurred together into a uniform grayish brown.

:Hey!: Kenta sent as a bird dropping splattered on him.

:Don’t move,: Rana repeated to stop him from wiping it off.

:Yeah, you’re used to being slimed by now, right?: Paul laughed, anything to alleviate the tension.

Daniel felt Kenta’s eyes roll without looking. :Wait until your turn,: the Kaminoke replied.

:I don’t know how much longer I can stand this,: Cassie’s pained voice rang in their heads.

:Endure,: Rana sent.

He hadn’t noticed the volume until now. As a living river of tens of thousands flooded the mountain and poured over rock formations, the sheer noise became deafening. Birds flew beak to tail inches above the rocks in a whirlwind of squawks, tweets, and screams. The flock became a swarm as the sky filled with over a hundred thousand.

And still, they came.

Daniel couldn’t begin to guess numbers as a dozen swarms as large as the first descended on the valley. Millions clogged his vision with a fog of feathers, and the swarm became a cloud. Droppings fell like rain under that storm and trickled downhill in streams. Bloody twilight came as the cloud of birds thickened into a thunderhead.

Darkness.

Oh, they were terrified. No matter what show they put on or mask they hid behind, they all shook. Daniel felt as much as saw the shadow behind the cloud that finally killed the sun.

Red Tail had arrived.

The living storm hid from fearful eyes a body of incredible size. The swarm hinted at his dimensions, swelling and bulging in accommodation. Behind him flicked the eponymous tail, feathers oozing gobs of sticky red.

:They say he’s killed so many, his feathers soaked in the blood of his enemies, and his tail forever drips their blood.:

Where those red drops landed, bodies writhed. From the pools sprang birds fully grown, rising on the wing. Then Daniel understood Red Tail had conjured the entirety of this swarm single-handed. The scope of this monster’s power froze his heart.

Twin beams of hellish red pierced the sky to reach the mountainside. The searchlights’ path scattered birds as they traced the area and lit on something. The tree, stained with droppings, cast in bloody light. The searchlights spiraled out from the tree, circling wider and closer to their hiding place with each rotation.

:I’m sorry,: Paul sent.

Daniel started crying.

:No,: Lea replied, :I take responsibility as the leader. You told us this was the dangerous way. I should have listened.:

:It was no one’s fault or all of ours.: Rana this time. :This is the luck of the Wilderness.:

Startled as if by a gunshot, Red Tail turned to focus those spotlights on a new target. The monster’s swiftness disgusted Daniel as a defiance of natural laws. Of course, Red Tail cheated. He shrank to a fourth his size to turn faster, then freely returned to full growth. Not fair. Nothing that big should move that fast.

Red Tail swung over the valley proper along with the thickest part of the flock, giving the seven kids room to breathe after near suffocation. Birds scoured the landscape. The forest trembled as wings beat every branch for signs of life until a ball of fire erupted on the valley floor.

:Mages.:

A tower of flame the size of an apartment building dwarfed trees and turned them to ash. By Second Sight, Daniel found three figures in the flame with auras of cobalt, scarlet, and ochre. Swarms of birds made suicide dives into the fire to force the scarlet mage to maintain the heat or be torn apart. Somehow, the fire protected the other two mages instead of destroying them.

While the cobalt mage gathered an electric charge, the ochre one lifted a bus-sized boulder and swung it against the flow of birds. Daniel counted himself fortunate he couldn’t see the ensuing carnage. In an incredible release, the cobalt mage struck with a fearsome bolt of lightning that forked through several separate swarms. Thunder sounded over the screeching flock for an instant as thousands of birds fried.

:If we’d been found by those mages,: Daniel sent to Rana, :Instead of them by Red Tail, we’d be forced to surrender. No way around it.: She hummed assent through their connection.

While two mages held off the flock, the scarlet one focused. The great burning ball of gas became a cottage-sized fountain of dense liquid flame. Then it shifted to clear and smooth with the intense heat of a laboratory gas burner. Finally, the flame burned brighter and hotter and blue, darting its tongue like a spear toward the heart of the flock.

At the touch of this flame, bones vaporized. A spectacular display of amazing skill blazed brilliantly through the tightest knots of the swarm.

Yet, the mage lacked something visible from Daniel’s point of view, a sense of scale. There was the bright blue knife of flame stabbing up from the valley floor. And there was Red Tail, hiding in his avian ocean. From a distant vantage, Daniel saw plain the scarlet mage’s hopes were in vain.

The children saw the piercing flame didn’t cross a quarter of the span.

Despite this, Red Tail dodged with uncanny speed—ready to make his escape at a moment’s notice. And when the blast fell short, Red Tail eased back into position with a gloating swagger as if to say, ‘Oh, that’s all you had.’

Then Daniel understood what made Red Tail such a terrible opponent. It wasn’t incredible speed, supernatural vision, the swarm of avian minions, or whatever other powers he possessed. What mattered was this: Red Tail was a coward. A careful, cautious, crafty coward.

He would send scouts ahead, test the water with a disposable army, scan the area with implacable vision, and drop everything to retreat at the first sign things might not go his way. Too fast to outrun, too strong to fight, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be cornered. Red Tail would weasel his way out of any plan Daniel hatched.

There was truly no chance of victory.

Everything about the monster said, ‘Behold, I am strong and ancient and wise in my craft, and you are so very weak and so very young.’

This realization drove Rana and Cassie to despair—the single thing which could save them was dumb luck, and the universe didn’t hand out freebies. Daniel’s tree plan hadn’t fooled Red Tail. It delayed the monster for fate to provide a scapegoat.

This was the luck of the Wilderness. It was their fault these people would die.

For the first time, the curtain of birds parted to reveal their master in his entirety. He glided lazily in the air, reclining royalty. Yes—from sending puppets to do his dirty work to how he floated above it all, seeing everyone else as beneath him—that described him exactly.

:A Prince of Air,: Rana sent.

Daniel saw house-crushing talons, a hooked beak to choke down elephants like fat mice, eyes of molten hate, and a stature that could look down on some skyscrapers. Perching, Red Tail would stand over a thousand feet tall.

Even if they got past the swarm of birds without draining their endurance to nothing, even if they caught him, even if the seven of them worked together, even if Daniel let himself fall to Perses, they’d never defeat this enemy.

The great hawk stretched his wings above the defiant blue flame of human struggle. Then, with one flap, Red Tail blew out the candle.

Like the blast wave of a nuclear bomb, the wind speed of the cone-shaped gust exceeded that of any hurricane or tornado. Carpets of grass rolled away, trunks snapped in two, boulders flew high, and even stumps uprooted. The winds peeled the green skin off the far mountain’s face, exposing bare rock bones. The resultant dust cloud scattered debris for miles. Ecological devastation.

The mages endured, their makeshift stone bunker outlasting the worst of the storm. Then the three collapsed; their defenses spent.

With a twitch of his head, Red Tail sent his swarm to collect them. Ten thousand birds beat their wings under the command of one intelligence, coordinating to lift three limp figures into the air. Whether those three accepted their fate or fought and cursed that monster to the last, Daniel would never know. Because, as they were flown into that dreadful maw, he closed his eyes.

He knew what happened next, and his gorge rose to think of it.

Red Tail the Hawk ate them.

:Cassie, what are our chances now?: Rana asked.

:They’ve risen to one in four! Mostly, it depends on the Screech.:

The flock swirling around Red Tail dispersed. The birds scattered as if a weight of madness had lifted. Meanwhile, enormous wings opened and slammed down. Red Tail shot into the sky, a space shuttle trailing bloody mist, accompanied by the bone-liquefying sound of a skyscraper breaking the sound barrier.

As the nightmare dwindled to a dark point, Daniel felt relieved. A foolish thought, he knew an instant later. An intangible pressure hit them and pierced his skull with stabbing pain. This must be the Screech, a hawk’s keen of triumph after a successful hunt. The volume grew softer as Red Tail flew further away, but Daniel lasted less than a second before falling unconscious.