Allies

Two opposing souls faced eye to eye. The rumbling of the approaching razers as they filled the gulch behind her and the piercing screams of the harbingers that eagerly called for her execution were tuned out, as all that she could focus upon now was the deadly thing ahead. For even though equipped with her spiked weapon, she was grossly outmatched. The strength of the family was in its unity, but she was alone. There were genuine reasons her people didn’t usually go on solitary walks. They gave her the space and time she needed to to think, but she had become too comfortable with it, lured into a false sense of security. She needed to watch her surroundings more closely, to not get so caught up in her own head. Her own mother had told her so many years ago, and it still hadn’t sunk in. Slayers would retreat from the herd - they hunted the stragglers and the lost, those nobody cared for and whom none would come to help. Those isolated from their fellows, and those left vulnerable and alone.

In other words, everything she was right here and now.

The herd was too far away to find her in time even if she called through the earth. She was no longer on equal grounds with the slayer, a rival force. She was now its prey.

The slayer was forged to hunt alone. To battle with its prey, to fight and drag it down through sheer force was their livelihood. Their weight was similar, and she was taller and more agile on two legs over four, but her rival was far more powerful, and it had the high ground while she was cornered. She saw its fanged jaws, designed to rip out the throats of much stronger creatures, and the claws on its arms that were strong enough to kill her with one blow.

As the slayer vaulted itself forward, propelling its body down the slope with its hind legs and swinging its huge forearms ahead like ski poles to catch itself, Blaze rose her club and faced it head-on, but made peace with the fact that she would soon join the stars.

~~~

The bluetails had lured a huge fang-jaw to the edge of the ravine, cornering the stranger at the base of the slope between itself and the horn-heads. Seeing the threat, the latter balked and squealed in distress, piling up against one another and clanking the blades that lined their bodies together in a deafening din, as those at the front of the herd refused to go further and agitated those far behind which didn’t yet see the danger. Brighteye could see everything play out below them from their hide in the bramble at the edge of the ravine. At first it was a stand-off, neither willing to make the first move. The predator stood tall and blocked her escape, and she stood nervous and still below it, unable to flee. Then suddenly it lurched and threw itself down into the gulley, jaws agape. The bluetails chanted. The horn-heads piled up in chaos, knocking one another about like chunks of ice in the river, as those at the front of the line tried to turn and climb over those behind. The unsteady grade caused the fang to stumble on its stiff legs, and the stranger dodged this first attack on quick feet. With an audible crack, she swung her weapon down and struck the huge carnivore just as it careened past her on the side of its face. The route out of the riverbed was open now and she took the chance to make a run for it. But leader-fang was right behind, indifferent to the hot blood that now dripped from the gashes on its snout. It swung out a massive hooked talon and tripped her. She screamed, a horrible, universal noise of extreme distress recognizable no matter how far apart the relation. Brighteye then knew she would not win. At least not on her own.

Many things flashed through Brighteye’s mind then. Equations, justifications, considerations. He hardly knew anything about the stranger, yet could tell from how she used her tool to confront her enemy that she was not merely another animal. She had helped them, and he felt an obligation to her that warranted he try something to help her too. The fang-jaw couldn’t catch a bluetail, so he didn’t have anything to fear from him. He could maybe stab it in the eye if it were alone, give her time to run. But what would kill him, and his brother too, were the other bluetails. And they stood, flapping and egging on the fighters from all sides, waiting for leader-fang to gut her and throw the scraps for them to glean. If he flew into the fray, they’d gut him.

We are our own worst enemy.

He couldn’t interfere in the fight directly with them around, and that complicated things even more. He scanned the scene for something, anything he could do to interfere without catching their wrath.

And then, peering out from the thorns on the other side of the gulch, he saw the baby.

~~~

The slayer reached out its claws and pulled her leg out from under her as she cleared the top of the climb. Blaze tumbled onto her side with a ground-shaking thump and cried out, her ankle bloodied and torn by its talons. The hollow in her nose inflated and resonated a piercing wail of anguish, carrying it far and wide both in the air and vibrating through the ground. It surprised the fang-jaw just enough to give her time to roll onto her back as the killer lunged, so that as its enormous head came down toward her throat she could use her good leg to kick it in the chest. Even having fallen on her back, she now had the advantage of the high ground. Her legs were built to carry her full weight at a run over unstable terrain and were extremely strong. Even with one out of commission, she still struck the fang-jaw with enough force to send it sliding backward down the slope, her sharpest first claw gouging a deep wound under its armpit. With difficulty, she lifted herself onto her feet in the few seconds her opponent took to steady itself. She raised her club again as it stood and clicked its beak together, chattering. But it didn’t immediately attack her again. Their eyes met again. Less a predator watching its prey, now more two enemies each proven able to harm the other demonstrating mutual distrust. Their roles had reversed, with it now looking up at her on the high ground. Blaze was injured, but so was the slayer. It began to act agitated, suddenly nervous. It looked at her, then away toward the thicket line, then back to her. Was it reconsidering? Had it had enough?

It hadn’t.

Though the next attack was different. Hunters don’t scream at their prey - predation is not an angry act, merely a necessary one. Now the slayer roared as it charged, jaws gnashing. It was now enraged, and became more impulsive. This worked at first in Blaze’s favor, as it wasn’t wary and so its approach was met again with the fast end of a spiked club, this time coming into contact with its neck with such force that the weapon split down its length. Yet it kept coming, bowling Blaze over. Its claws ripped at her side, sending her rolling down the slope. Once she was out of its way, however, it didn’t turn around to finish her. It roared again, filling the air with a sound shockingly loud yet oddly plaintive. It galloped out of sight over the edge of the rise. The harbingers appeared initially confused. Some followed their leader immediately, a few others stayed behind and picked at her body only to jump back as soon as she moved. One by one they left the gulch. The final one to leave stared at her long and hard before taking off and flying over the rise. It was like their leader, the slayer, had broken away from the plan, and now the harbingers were angry. The slayer, it seemed, had broken the terms of their agreement. Inexplicably, it had retreated just before claiming the prize.

Not that Blaze was in good condition despite. Her vision was narrowing… everything hurt, and now all that she could feel nearby were the razers. Hideous, heinous things. They were coming nearer again with the slayer gone. She heard the clinking of their sharp hides against each other, the squeals and bellows as they bickered, the snorting and sucking sounds as they inhaled the earth. She smelled them, sour and rotten like a swamp. She hated them. The family all did. They took over their feeding grounds and destroyed them, a hoard ever growing as their kind dwindled a bit more every generation. Yet as she lay in the gulley, her leg and side deeply lacerated and her entire body bruised from the fall, she couldn’t find the strength to get away from them. She had somehow escaped the slayer. But the razers would eat her too, so it wasn’t much of a win. At least the slayer would make it quick... the razers meanwhile were only incidental biters. They were bad at it. They’d kill her for sure, but bit by bit, chewing at the edges and crushing her beneath themselves. They would graze her corpse like the grass.

The slayer didn’t sound so bad now.

As they gathered cautiously around her, and she felt their hot, putrid breath in her face and could feel the crushing jaws chewing on her tail feathers, she mercifully lost consciousness before they got any further.

Leader-fang had a cub. Brighteye could see it now. She had tucked it away across the gulch in the opposite hedge of thorns, but it was very little and apparently not very good at understanding its mothers instruction. It struggled to stay hidden while hearing its mother battle the stranger, peeking its little head out again and again, each time its mother groaned, and making soft crying noises. Brighteye didn’t know a lot about fang-jaws specifically. There was one thing everybody knew, though. They will defend their children with incredible ferocity. He considered flushing across the clearing and attacking the cub, so that it cried out for its mother and so distracted her from her hunt. It would be extremely risky however, for the rival clan would likely see him as he flew and follow. He had seen fang-jaw cubs before, with their mothers as they fed on carcasses he waited to scavenge. He tried to recall precisely what their calls for help sounded like. He glanced over at Whitecrown, crouched low, frightened and confused, not much understanding anything that was happening.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. Just. Don’t. Move. I will be right back.”

Brighteye hopped higher in the branches, and peered out the top of the bush. He inhaled. On the exhale his voice rose louder, a strange and awkward yowl repeated three times. The other bluetails glanced in his direction, and he pulled his head down quickly out of sight.

That wasn’t quite right.

But it wasn’t quite wrong, either. The fang-jaw, now lower down the hill than the fallen stranger, perked up and looked in his direction, temporarily taking her eyes off her prey.

He waited for the bluetails to turn back to the battle and then called out again. He recalled it clearly now. A repeating sequence of sharp, shrill shrieks. The call of a lost cub, afraid and in danger. Bluetails were skillful mimics. Instinctively, the real cub disappeared low down in the thicket when it heard the cry. A horrible sound carried out of the gulch, a screaming-moan of anger… and seconds later, the fang-jaw was bolting onto level ground and looking around in a frenzy for the source of the call. The bluetails grew agitated too, some following behind the worried mother closely. Their demeanor toward her was different now than before. They dive-bombed her, striking her with their beaks. She wasn’t where she was supposed to be and they were letting her know, but her only focus now was upon protecting her cub. The real cub’s head peeked out of the bushes again, and so to keep the mother’s attention Brighteye repeated the call even more frantically, pushing the cub back into hiding and causing its mother to charge in their direction.

“Follow. Now!”, he yelled down to Whitecrown as the mother ran toward their hiding place. The two quickly dropped low and ran along the ground below the sharp thorns to put some distance between themselves and the fang-jaw, narrowly escaping as she threw her entire body weight into the thicket upon where they had been hiding, crushing it. Again he called out, speeding up the shrieks to suggest even greater mortal danger to the baby he was pretending to be. The mother followed them, breaking through the thornbushes as if they were nothing at all, with no regard to how they cut and broke in her hide. Brighteye popped up from the thorns periodically to check the location of the mother, ensuring she was not getting too close, but also to see whether the stranger had yet emerged from the gulch. She hadn’t. The other bluetails were now gathered in the middle of the clearing. They called loudly among themselves. He could make out one word repeatedly spoken…

“Useless… useless!”

That they weren’t converging into the gulley was a good sign. It meant the stranger probably wasn’t dead.

Brighteye lured the mother fang-jaw as far away from the stranger as they could. Whitecrown, though not comprehending the reason for any of their actions, wanted to copy Brighteye. He joined in and imitated the call too, so that the mother fang-jaw now heard two distressed cubs. They pulled her further and further from the gully, until their imitated cries were at last drowned out by the real thing. The cub finally had enough. When its mother was too far away to hear, it had left its hiding place and found its mother as she tore through the brambles. As she turned around to see it, safe and intact, her entire demeanor softened instantaneously. She ran to the infant and sat down, pulling it against her. As she held it close, its rapid chirping softened to content trilling, and its mothers fierce squawks to soft humming tones. Nothing else mattered for the moment. With her young secure, the beleaguered mother would now rest in a sheltered place and lick her wounds.

Seeing that no meal would come to them today, the rest of the bluetails took silent flight. When he was assured they were out of earshot, Brighteye led his brother out of the thicket, and in a beeline to the gully. He flew on quick wingbeats, his brother trailing, but tiring.

We’ll rest soon, I promise.

Down onto the riverbed they flew, where the stranger lay silent in the dirt surrounded by horn-heads. The big, stupid things were chewing her feathers, shoving her with their beaks, gathering around. He had failed. She was already gone.

No, wait! She was breathing!

Telling Whitecrown to stay put, he fluttered to land on top of her body. He began pecking at her face. He yelled into her ears, not expecting her to understand, simply hoping to jar her awake.

“They are eating you! Get up. Get up! Get. Up!”

The horrid things were getting bolder. One hard bite to her leg and she would never stand again. One bite to her face and it would be over. He leapt at the creatures wings spread and screamed profanities. He pecked and lunged, striking one in the eyeball. It moaned, a pathetic sort of sound, and drew back. They were dumb, but they weren’t ignorant. Seeing one get poked, the others drew away. Bit by bit, they backed up. Then they began to move on, almost hurriedly. And it was only after the herd of them was mostly up the slope and scattered in the clearing that what they had sensed through the ground now carried through the air to Brighteye’s ears. A low and rolling rumble like distant thunder, coming closer. Whitecrown didn’t like it at all - he took flight, coming to land on the ground next to the stranger. The poor thing was having a very scary, very confusing day and now only sought his brother’s consolation. He too jumped on top of the huge body, even though it was strange and unfamiliar, and snuggled up beside his sibling. Whatever his brother did, he would do. He trusted him totally. The two stood there, upon the silent form of the stranger that mysteriously shared its food and for whom Brighteye risked himself to aid, as the mysterious rumble grew ever louder and closer.

The stranger's herd, having heard her low calls from miles away, had come to her aid. Just as their tall forms rose over the crest of the slope and down upon them in the gulch, the bedraggled stranger opened her eyes. She turned her head to see the two brothers standing upon her shoulder. Instinctively upon seeing scavengers upon her own form she recoiled, and they fluttered off to the ground. But as her mind cleared, it was as if the memories came back. She had seen these two before. They were a distinctive pair - she had never seen another white harbinger, and the dark one didn’t act like the rest. It was quiet. It was patient. It had almost seemed to understand her earlier, and now again. She was alive, against all odds…. was it because of them? She looked at them again through half-lidded eyes, and reached out her trunk toward Brighteye, her expression now softened. She stroked his chest, and then lightly touched his cheek. So small… so delicate… and yet clearly more to him than it would seem from outside. Whitecrown chattered and raised his plumage, not trusting her, but Brighteye chirruped softly and reassured him. There was, at last, nothing to be afraid of here. She reached over to pet him, and after an initial peck, he allowed her to scratch behind his head. It felt nice. Maybe she was alright...

Thank you, the stranger’s gestures read. Brighteye nodded back. Without any spoken word, they both communicated and understood. Blaze didn’t know what exactly had transpired, but she knew that, somehow, she owed her survival to them. It was all much too strange to be a coincidence.

As the others came down and gathered around to help their family member to her unsteady feet, the brothers stepped back to avoid being stepped upon. The ground buzzed with eerie, silent voices that could be felt but not heard. They were talking to each other, over each other, expressing their concerns and conveying their thoughts just as he did, but in a way he wasn’t able to understand. As the stranger began to limp up and out of the riverbed, supported on both sides by her fellows, she turned again to face him. A single gesture of her trunk, like that from earlier at the carcass, but now motioning them to follow her. When on flat ground, where she could bear her own weight again and no longer needed assistance, the brothers flew and landed at her feet. A dozen faces glared down at them. But only that of the stranger mattered. Hers was kind, and she gestured toward her back. She tapped her shoulder twice. Brighteye took flight and landed upon her. Whitecrown, while reluctant, followed suit. Brighteye didn’t know where they would go, or what life would be like from here on out. Whitecrown, bless his poor heart, didn’t know basically anything at all. But they both knew now that the stranger wasn’t a stranger anymore. Their lives would from here on out would become intertwined.

As Blaze hobbled back to her roost with her family guarding her on all sides and the two harbingers on her back, they passed by the rival clan of bluetails. They were gathered by a small pond to drink, and when they saw the brothers trespassing they raised their hackles, muttering their curses. Yet they also saw a herd of moving mountains holding spiked clubs, and didn’t back up their harsh words with action. Brighteye realized, at that moment, that he could get used to having allies that spoke softly, but carried big sticks.

~~~

Late that night, when all was quiet and snow falling lightly to bury the past day's drama, the mother dire bumblebear returned to the gully. She cautiously scented the area. The wumpo was long gone, but down inside she smelled something promising. She called to her baby, which bounded up beside her exuberantly, and the two walked down the slope, following the scent. A razorback thorngrazer had been killed earlier in the stampede as its fellows pushed back to avoid her and inadvertently crushed one of their own. Trampled and torn, its broken body now lay pinned between two large boulders.

Though she was bruised and battered, the day’s hunt was not a loss after all. She and her child would both eat well tonight, without the bluetails ever knowing.