Flight: The Roc Warriors
Sarah Zolton Arthur
Flight: The Roc Warriors © 2019 Sarah Zolton
Arthur and Irving House Press
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter One:
Day of the Raptor
“The cloud cover that hangs in the air seems to only cast itself in this vicinity. It’s troub—” Dammit. A screeching outside caused me to hit stop once again on the little voice recorder I held in my hand. The fifth time in ten minutes.
I ran to the window and peered out. Something that loud had to be large and close. Nonetheless, the skies remained gloomy and gray, as it had been since I’d arrived here a month ago.
A month of no birds. No sun. No rain. No anything save gloom and gray. I pulled my phone from my pocket to call my best friend Breya. She’d let me whine to her and manage to cheer me up at the same time. After I finished this assignment, I was taking my vacation to visit her in California. Breya didn’t answer. That was disappointing. I hung up without leaving a voicemail because she never listened to them. There was a voicemail waiting for me from work, though. It could wait.
My harpy of a boss demanded daily updates, and a situation of this magnitude demanded me give in to her demands. But that blasted screeching—like the loudest call from the largest eagle or hawk or hell, maybe a falcon. My forte lay in volcanos, not birds of prey.
Volcanos, the reason for my lugging thousands of dollars of equipment up through the Canadian Rockies into the Yukon Territory to take readings on a cap laid dormant for over ten thousand years.
It had started with small quakes, few and far between, but registering enough to pique interest at the WOVM, the World Organization of Volcanic Monitoring, where I’d been gainfully employed as a volcanic researcher—not a volcanologist, as I’d yet to receive my doctorate—for the past six years. Though, through my research findings here, I should receive my Ph.D.
I’d hired in as a postgrad, through a friend of a friend. A friend of a friend who didn’t have a problem with me not having those sacred letters after my name because it meant he could pay me less for doing the same job.
And as every graduate student knew, letters behind your name were awesome, but a job that paid money kept food on the table and a roof overhead. Maybe even providing a nice pair of hiking boots to go out into the field with.
Unlike every other day over the past month, today something swooped low in the sky. It went fast, but I knew I saw it, so I ran outside. The screeching sounded like it came from large birds because it Came. From. Large. Birds. The biggest birds I’d ever seen in my life. How on Earth did birds that large even exist? And still be able to take flight?
Good lord, they looked larger than ostriches, birds too big to fly. Bigger than ostriches thousands of feet up in the sky.
Several birds dipped below the cloud cover, the screeching so loud, it reached the decibels of an explosion. Talons out, their wings flapping, it didn’t take a genius to realize they weren’t out for a casual flight. Two massive raptors—a bronze and a brass colored—engaged in combat as two more fought off the advances of three more, dipping below, then disappearing back through the gray gloom. Black against brown. The black aggressors looked like turkey buzzards, but so much bigger. And turkey buzzards already looked like dog-sized ravens. Theirs weren’t the screeches, theirs were caws. Ugly, frightening caws. I’d never liked ravens. Hell, I’d never much cared for birds bigger than robins. But these cries, echo-y and otherworldly, what in the world was going on here?
Then the largest of the large, a magnificent copper creature—copper, not brown, something I could tell even from the ground—swept through, going after the black birds and skipping the brown, as if the ones he skipped were on his side of the war. Though I’d never heard of birds of prey being team players.
The fourth-largest raptor, on our side or the “good” side… a gold with white dots, lashed out against two foes, ripping through the guts of one causing it to drop to the earth. The second foe, along with several others, turned a brutal attack on the gold-and-white. The largest of the buzzard foe changed course last minute, its talons out and aimed for the gold-and-white.
Without thinking, I screamed into the sky, “Watch out!” then felt incredibly stupid for warning a bird. But I’d swear in a court of law that the copper turned his head to look at me, like he saw me, like he understood me, and flew as fast as a lightning strike into the fray. The gold-and-white lost focus for a moment and took a brutal attack to the wing. He dropped. Copper screeched loud and as if taking orders, two other hawks or eagles or falcons folded their wings closed and nosedived until they reached the gold-and-white, dove below him, then together fanned their wings to catch him. Together, they each flapped an opposite wing and used the wind to glide themselves up and out of sight. Helping a fallen brother off the battlefield. Another flock of the black buzzards cawed their arrival. The bronze and brass birds broke off from the fight to intercept them.
That left the copper to fight off the rest of the buzzard onslaught. The black attacked at once. They rose and fell. He dropped lower in the sky. A ploy maybe? Either way, at one point they dropped low enough that I picked up a couple of rocks from the ground and threw them, whipping the rocks with everything in me, aiming at the buzzards. And my years of pitching softball paying off; I hit a target. Hit him in the head, which I didn’t expect to do. But I was pleased with myself just the same.
The copper drew the remaining buzzards still lower, allowing me to pitch the second rock—my aim just as dead as the first. Between me and the copper, the buzzards must have feared for their safety and took off, leaving only the copper soaring above my head. He looked tired. And then he fell.
I screamed—and ran in the direction of the downed bird.
He must have hit leaves and tree boughs to slow his descent. When he finally hit the ground, he’d landed on a thicket of bushes, which was where I found him. Bleeding. Sliced by a talon, no doubt. And his wing hung at an unnatural angle.
I stopped short, not wanting to scare the poor creature, walking up slowly with my hand out, palm up in front of me, the same as if approaching an injured dog.
Deep amber eyes stared at me. Not the usual color for a bird of his kind. I’d watched Animal Planet. His mesmerized, as if he studied me. And I sensed no fear. Still, calmly, soothingly, I called out to him.
“Hey there, birdie.” Yes, I called that magnificent creature ‘birdie.’ Isolation apparently was not my friend if my being reduced to talking to injured animals meant anything.
His cleverly assessing eyes seemed relieved when I finally reached him. Though he was so much larger on the ground than in the sky. There was no way for me to carry him back to the cabin.
And for some inexplicable reason, I felt the need to lay my plans out for him. “I can’t
carry you. So I’m going back to get something to help me move you.”
I’d swear that he nodded at me. Only once, a dip of his chin. It shook me—not in a bad way—but it shook me. The whole interaction kept me from the moment, stuck firmly in my own head, and it wasn’t until I watched him wince and close his eyes that I came unstuck and jolted into action. I turned on my heel, running back through the trees until I reached the cabin where a wheelbarrow sat, the one that I used to haul wood from the lean-to to the fireplace inside—the only way to heat the cabin—and the simple wood stove where I could heat soup and pan fry simple fare in the one small frypan. It had no electricity; a generator hooked up outside ran the small refrigerator. Everything else, even washing clothes, I’d had to do by hand. Candles in sconces lit the room in the darkness. That and the light from the fire.
Gripping the handles of the wheelbarrow, I tipped up the heavy metal tub and ran. The wheel of the wheelbarrow hit every rock or tree root or fallen branch along the way, until I eventually found my way back to the—I decided on eagle.
He lay still with closed eyes, but snapped them open at my approach. Again, I’d swear he sighed seeing me.
“There’s no easy way to go about this,” I told him. My stupidity at continuing to talk to an animal like I was freaking Dr. Doolittle not going unnoticed, I carried on. “So I’m going to align the wheelbarrow next to you, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to shove you from your good side until you fall into the tub.”
Obviously, he didn’t respond.
I walked around to the other side of the bird, positioned myself, then whispered, “This might hurt.” Then I shoved. First down by his leg region, and next at his shoulder. Each shove was made as gentle as I could and still move him. I alternated between hip and shoulder until his bottom plunked into the tub, offsetting his body in what appeared to be a painful position.
With a final shove to his shoulder, his head bounced off the metal tub. But he was in. “Sorry.” I winced.
Putting my back into it, I heaved the handles up and began to roll. Slowly. It took quite a bit longer to get him home. Between his excessive weight and trying to avoid every dip, rock, or tree root on the clearest path ahead of us, it probably took us twice as long.
When we made it back to the cabin, I wheeled him inside. There I faced yet another problem. Where to convalesce an enormous eagle? And how exactly did I go about doing that?
“You sleep in a nest, right?” Not waiting for an answer that held no chance of coming, I ran into the bedroom and opened up the closet for the extra blankets and pillows the cabin’s owners kept in a bin until needed.
In the corner of the main living space, along the same wall as the fireplace, I piled the pillows and blankets.
His wing still hung at an unnatural angle. Not ever having the opportunity to set a wing before, I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the blanket nest might be too slippery to gain any traction. Traction I’d no doubt need to pop the joint back in place.
“Hang on,” I said as I grabbed the uppermost section of wing and pulled it toward my body. His bone was as thick as a human bone and refused to budge. The poor bird screeched out a soft whimper of pain.
I lacked the upper body strength to help him without hurting him more, so giving up on the pull, I moved around to the front of the man-sized bird and placed both hands at the uppermost section of wing, right at the… armpit? Wingpit? Well, whatever. I placed my hands there and pushed with all my might. Hard and fast. The joint popped back into place, and the pain in his eyes eased up some.
From there, it was just a matter of cleaning up the cuts, using antibiotic ointment for lack of knowing what else to use.
Over the next few weeks, every time I left the cabin to take soil or water samples to test how much higher the sulfur levels had risen, I checked the cages I’d set out to catch small animals to feed my recovering companion.
The idea of touching a rodent on any regular day grossed me the hell out. And it still did. But somehow, knowing a dead rodent meant my majestic eagle got to eat made it just that much less gross.
Per my ritual every morning, I placed a small kiss to the top of his head before throwing him whatever ferret or weasel-like animal lived this far north in the mountains that I’d managed to snag in a cage. He snapped it out of the air with his powerful beak, used his talons to take the limp animal from his mouth and tore at it through the fur to the flesh below. Okay, so I could live without hearing that tearing noise again for the rest of my life, but it was his way.
Tears, unbelievably, gathered in the corners of my eyes as I breathed heavily while watching him eat. His last meal provided by me. Knowing what I was supposed to do, about to do. I never dreamed it would be so difficult to let him go. I’d gotten used to him being around. My companion.
Whether I wanted to or not, the time had come to release him. He was wild. The king of the air, and it was time for him to retake his throne.
On an internal count of three, I threw open the door and coaxed him some, pushed him other, until he stood outside, looking between me and the sky.
“It’s time,” I whispered, and once again, as always with this bird, he appeared to understand me. After placing one last kiss to the top of his head, I ordered, “Now go.”
He tilted his head, dipped his chin, and then launched himself into the sky.
Wings spread wide, he circled the air above the cabin twice before disappearing into the clouds.
Utterly amazing.
It was then a rumble shook the ground. Bigger than any I’d registered thus far. Big enough that I threw myself under the doorframe in case of falling rocks or trees downing. No longer distracted by rehabilitating my eagle, taking copious test samples of soil and water, or measuring air quality, I knew it was time to head up the mountain.
Once the tremors stopped, I moved inside to gather the equipment needed to tackle the cap including slipping a flannel shirt over my long-sleeved tee and pulling my sturdiest pair of jeans on. The farther up the mountain I climbed, the colder the mountain air would drop.
I filled my backpack with a flashlight, batteries, water, and provisions to last the night, as hiking up to the crater hole took several hours. I lacked the experience to make it back down safely in the dark.
With my sleeping bag rolled and secured to the bottom of the backpack, I finally sat down on the sofa to slip first my left and then my right foot into my best hiking boots. A ritual I performed every single hike. Not that I was superstitious or anything ridiculous like that. More that it had been how I’d started my very first hike up a volcano, so this had become my way to commemorate that extraordinary timestamp in my life.
Once I pulled on the laces to check they were secure—coming untied at an inopportune moment could be lethal—I stood and flung the backpack around my back, pushing my arms through the straps. Then I hefted the aluminum case containing the equipment and started out the front door.
The path only made it as far as the little hunting cabin I stayed in. This area rarely saw human interaction, so thick with brush and rocky cliffs it left room for only the bravest of souls to risk their lives traversing nature’s brutality. The bravest of souls—and me.
Using satellite images, I plotted out my path, a path that allowed me to reach the crest walking, rather than attempting the climb. It was a difficult, if not impossible task, to climb carrying the expensive monitors, testers, and gadgets contained within the attaché my harpy boss had informed me were worth more than my life.
Hours I walked. The farther up the mountain I trudged, the thicker the tree and brush and ground coverage grew, slowing me down to the point that I didn’t think I’d make it to the top much before nightfall.
Rather than stop to eat, I pushed forward, blazing my own trail.
When the sun turned from a haze-covered yellow to a burnt orange muted by cloud coverage, foretelling the coming night, I reached the cap.
Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking.
Like nothing else in the world.
No one who had never stood at the pinnacle of the world, the precipice of the might of nature, could understand what standing up here meant. I felt so small and insignificant. It was a humbling experience. One that never got old. One I hoped to appreciate forever.
I stared and breathed in the thinning, fresh air.
After taking one beat more to soak in the grandeur of the mountain top, to live in the moment, I pulled my cell from my pocket to snap off several pictures for my enjoyment later on. And then I snapped several more to document inside the mouth of the volcano. Once done with that task, I pocketed my phone and squatted down to open up the case I’d set by my feet, getting to work.
Soon I had all the equipment set up, in full working mode and they were already registering readings. Disturbing readings. I watched the IMS monitor pick up infrasound, or the sub-audible sound below twenty Hz., and looked on in horror as the seismograph scribbled out the lines I considered Earth’s urgent, continuous S.O.S.—magma rising near the surface causing A-waves from the volcanic-tectonic events to occur underfoot. Similar to fault-generated earthquakes, they were one of the first signs that the sleeping giant had awakened.
Tying all the readings together, there was no doubt that this girl was readying herself to explode all over the volcanic scene. Not an if. The question was when? My best guess, we had maybe six months if she kept progressing at this rate.
Even with the lantern illuminating a small circle around the equipment, it still became too dark to keep going. With nothing else to do, I unrolled my sleeping bag and fished out a bottle of water, a bag of trail mix, and jerky from my pack. Setting them down, I flopped backward butt-to-deep-blue-fabric and stretched my legs out in front of me.
Like an overzealous fool, I’d become so lost in the work that I neglected one of the most basic rules of climbing: Drink your water. “Dehydration is my friend,” said nobody ever. Only now that I’d slowed down did I feel the headache come on. To counteract it, I uncapped the water and gulped down over half the bottle in one go.
Flight: The Roc Warriors (Immortal Elements Book 1) Page 1