from a long since dead tree. As his knees went over the edge of the cliff, his hands grabbed onto the root with the tightened grip of a human vise. His momentum arrested, and he stared down at the forest hundreds of feet below as he dangled over the precipice like a Christmas ornament.
The dust settled, and Crush swung his feet back onto the rocky ground above. He laid there in growing pain and disbelief at the disturbing chain of events that had just occurred. With his eyes still closed and pointed skyward, Crush sensed a shadow pass by, and he knew that his fight for survival was far from over.
Rolling over onto his hands and knees, Crush felt blood trickle down his forehead and onto the tip of his nose as he watched the third eagle land just twenty yards in front of him. With an elegant grace, the giant bird stood with its head held high as it watched him with its keen and haunting eyes. This bird had Crush in its sights, and any move to the right or left would bring the eagle’s wrath down upon him before Crush could get to safety.
Without breaking eye contact with his adversary, Crush cocked his head to the side and extended his peripheral vision skyward. Doing so, he caught a glimpse of Boulder and the first eagle, still slowly descending in a circular path to the mountaintop where he stood. At best, Boulder would be in the air for at least another five minutes, and with this in mind, Crush decided that he would have to fight this third eagle by himself if he were going to survive at all.
Without taking his eyes off the bird, Crush bent down and used his right hand to feel around on the ground for any loose rocks that he could use for a weapon. Wrapping his hands around a smooth flat stone, Crush lifted the rock in front of his face to examine it while still keeping an eye on the imposing bird. The stone was shaped in the form of a triangle, two flat sides with three jagged corners. It was the type of stone that would have been great for skipping on the quiet surface of a pond, he thought to himself as he cradled it in his palm.
As the eagle lowered its head and began a careful walk toward him, Crush felt perspiration mix in with the drying blood on his face as his superficial wounds began to heal. The closer the bird came to him, the more afraid Crush became that this may be his last stand.
“Cats don’t die at the claws of birds,” Crush thought to himself, and he wanted to scream his thoughts out in anger at the feathered beast, knowing it would do very little to change the outcome. Covering him in its shadow, the bird drew within ten feet of him, and Crush reared the stone back with one hand as its eyes blinked once. Spreading out its wings in anticipation of the dance of death, the eagle took one step closer to Crush, and this last move was too much for the field agent. The eagle opened its mouth to devour him, and the DAM agent flung his arm forward at that instant, pitching the serrated edges of the stone directly at the mouth of the bird. With a gulp, the eagle inhaled the sharp projectile down its gullet as if nothing had happened. Raising both wings into the air, the giant bird thrust its beak forward to strike at Crush and only narrowly missed as Crush quickly side stepped to avoid the attack. When the eagle withdrew its head for another strike, it opened its beak wide, and with a delayed reaction, the bird began to cough repeatedly at the rock in its throat. With a jerk of its wings and a fitful heave from its gut, the eagle stumbled one step backward as its eyes blinked repeatedly before finally closing shut. Falling onto its back, the feathered beast gagged and convulsed on the barren stony ground, and as Crush circled around the perimeter of the wings, he saw the evidence of his attack with the rock. An oversized hole was opened in the back of the bird’s neck where the stone had passed through the skin, and blood was oozing out of the back of the bird’s neck and dripping into a puddle onto the smooth stone surface. With great patience and one sharp stone, Crush had defeated his enemy and brought death to its doorstep.
“It’s a shame I couldn’t kill two birds with one stone!” Crush swore under his breath at the disgusting scene as the giant eagle appeared to descend into a final twitching seizure before finally lying still on the mountaintop.
“AW! AW!” screeched another bird as it glided down from above. Startled, Crush focused his attention back onto Boulder’s predicament. Covering his eyes from the sun for a moment, Crush watched as the eagle slowly spiraled to the ground. Picking up another sharp-edged stone that lay nearby, Crush waited patiently out in the open for the bird to land.
A few minutes later, the eagle dropped its talons and arched its back and neck as it came to a soft landing on the barren rocky surface. Crush stood with his weapon in hand, ready for battle. Boulder still had a controlling grip on the eagle’s neck, and for a moment, Crush believed the battle was won before it could begin. A large moving shadow passed along the ground before Boulder could dismount the subdued creature, and when they looked up, they discovered yet another bird whirling down from the sky. This one was much darker in hue, and when it landed between Boulder and Crush, the black bird held its head high and showed no fear. Blinking once and turning its head toward Crush, the smaller bird moved with much quicker steps, almost a skipping motion in Crush’s direction.
“A crow?” guessed Crush under his breath as he recognized the bird’s predictable movements. In an effort to maintain some distance between himself and the oncoming creature, Crush took a few steps backwards. Before he could complete the shift away from bird, another giant crow landed just behind the first, and Crush grew edgier with the growing party of unexpected company. In hopes of distracting the crows, Crush rushed to hide behind the body of the dead eagle and waited to see the crows’ reactions. Mercifully at first, the crows gave a wide berth to the dead eagle, and for a few moments, Crush thought that he may be safe. But as luck would have it, one of the crows made a bold move and ventured close enough to peck the outstretched wing. When the eagle continued to lay deathly still on the ground, the crow then moved in a little closer and nipped the wing a little harder to test it out. The dead eagle did what dead eagles do: it lay calm in complete surrender beneath the shadows of the carrion birds. The crow was satisfied that his quarry was dead, and the bird turned his attention away from Crush and pinched a bite of the fresh kill. Seeing his opportunity, Crush acted quickly and ran away from the eagle’s body, leaving the carrion to the two scavengers.
Boulder observed the scene solemnly from his location on the neck of the eagle, and he called out to the crows in a whooping sound in order to distract them from following Crush. With the stone rider on its back, the eagle watched the show play out nonchalantly, blinking every time Boulder cried out.
“Whoop!!” Boulder yelled out as Crush ran behind a pile of large stones. The crows spun around to gaze at Boulder as if he were crazy, and then choosing to ignore him, they turned back around to peck at the eagle’s remains. All the while, Crush maneuvered in closer and closer to Boulder. Within a few minutes, the crows’ attention was centered squarely on the eagle’s carcass, and Crush stood nervously within striking distance of the eagle that had plucked him off the cliff face.
“Boulder,” Crush called out to him, careful to stay just out of reach of the eagle’s beak. “We’ve got to get free of these birds if we are to have any chance of getting to Scalus Mountain and finding the dragon. Is there anything that you can do with your eagle?” Boulder kept a tight grip around its neck as he gave some consideration to the question.
“Possibly,” he said in answer to Crush. “Though choking it only seems to make the bird do less work than we would desire. For instance, watch the reaction when I tighten my grip,” said Boulder as he squeezed his arms together tightly around its throat. The eagle immediately sat down to roost on the cold stone. “I am open to suggestions, but I cannot release the eagle altogether. I fear we would end up where we started a little while ago when you were pinched in its talons.” Crush thought it over for a couple of moments as the murder of crows began to grow around the eagle’s remains. Then he approached Boulder and spoke up with an idea.
“If we’re going to survive, it will take te
amwork,” said Crush as he launched himself into the air and onto the eagle’s back. With his fingernails extended, Crush drove his claws like spurs into the bird’s back, and the eagle reacted. Without hesitation, the eagle gave a fierce squawk and the giant bird threw out its wings. Hopping toward the ledge of the cliff, it leaped over the cliff side and the bird spread out its wings to glide out from the wall of the mountain. Down, down, down they descended from the top of the peak to the treetops of the forest below.
“What’s going to happen?” Crush asked Boulder as they held on tight.
“This was your idea, but I gather that we are going down into the forest,” answered Boulder matter-of-factly. Crush shook his head in frustration at the noncommittal and uninformative answer, and he let the matter drop. After all, a stone-faced answer seemed appropriate.
As the treetops grew closer, Crush eyed a particular sprout that protruded from the forest. When it was apparent that they were going to glide within reach of the highest branches, Crush relayed his intentions to the elemental.
“When we pass over that treetop,” he said as
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 7 Page 5