Sky Dancer, page 33
There was a whir of wings as Kotuku returned. “Why do you think you always need to do things by yourself?” she asked.
“Oh don’t get me started,” Skylark coughed. “Can you hold this box firmly for me?” She took a match in her beak and struck it against the box. Again the match failed to flare.
“Give it to me,” Kotuku said.
She took the match from Skylark’s beak and struck it against one of her claws.
Skylark was dumbfounded when it burst into flame.
“Now what do you want me to do?” Kotuku asked.
Skylark threw the match into the oil. There was a small plop as the surface of the oil ignited. A blue flame began to spread toward the main oilfield.
Quickly Kotuku and her troopers dragged Skylark away to safety. When she revived, the oilfield was ablaze.
“Oh, you naughty, naughty girl,” Kotuku said.
“Do it now, Kahu —”
“Okay,” Chieftain Kahu answered. Leaving Arnie at his high surveillance point, he led his three sons down to engage Kawanatanga and his personal guards. Kawanatanga laughed, contemptuous of Kahu’s vain attempts to lock on, claw against claw: “Is that the best you can do?”
Arnie’s heart was thudding fast. He was alarmed by the way Kawanatanga was slashing at Kahu. It would only be a matter of time before he inflicted a real blow — and it could be mortal. Before that could happen Kahu finally kicked in with the plan of action, clutched at his left wing, and twisted and fell away from Kawanatanga. Would he take the bait?
He did. With arrogant ease, Kawanatanga left the protective circle of his personal guards. Immediately, Arnie folded his wings and followed in free fall.
“Go go go,” Arnie cried under his breath to Kahu. Kawanatanga, more heavily built, was gaining on his prey. Ground zero was coming up at them. Kawanatanga was getting ready to strike. He made his move — and Arnie made his. He dived out of the sun, sounding his charge. “Kik-kik-kik-kik! Arnie’s small head was erect, his feathers tight and smooth against his body. His eyelids flickered fractionally. He was totally turned on by battle lust.
Kawanatanga was lucky. Startled, he saw the shadow settling above him, sheared off to the right and just managed to escape Arnie’s notched tooth. Arnie turned after him, passing Chieftain Kahu as he stabilised.
“Have fun,” Kahu said, as he beat his way back to the battle.
Only then did Kawanatanga realise the trap had sprung. But was he worried? No, he felt the thrill of destiny. “Ah, so I face my nemesis again,” he said to Arnie. “One on one?”
“You got it,” Arnie answered. “You’re from the future. So am I. There’s not enough room in this world for the two of us.”
“Then prepare to meet your Maker,” Kawanatanga said. He stretched out his neck and struck. Arnie’s raking claw came up, past the striking neck. With surprise, Kawanatanga caught the flash of sunlight and a glimpse of steel. He managed a quick avoiding flick. Even so, the tip of the penknife riffed through his skin. “That’s not fair,” Kawanatanga complained as he back-pedalled.
Airborne and intent on the kill, Arnie didn’t give a shit. “Use it or lose it, Kawanatanga,” he said. “Nothing’s fair in love and war. Time for you to go. Hasta la vista, baby.”
Kawanatanga dived for the sea. The gap between him and Arnie lengthened. Arnie expected him to level out but, instead, Kawanatanga crashed cleanly through the water — and Arnie had just enough strength to pull out of his dive.
“Damn, damn, damn,” Arnie swore. “I should have expected that.” Obviously, Kawanatanga was swimming underwater. He could be anywhere. If only Arnie could calculate the place where he would come up, he could be waiting for him. “Where are you, you seashag submarine?” Arnie called. Backwards and forwards he flew, trying to locate the wake caused by Kawanatanga’s propelling feet. He decided to break to his left.
Wrong choice. Far on the right, Kawanatanga re-surfaced. His powerful wings elevated his body out of the sea and, before Arnie could get a chance to head him off, Kawanatanga was flying towards an area honeycombed by coastal cliffs.
“Catch me if you can.”
Arnie gave a cry and wheeled after Kawanatanga. As he did so, he saw wisps of brown smoke on the horizon just above the offshore islands.
Something was on fire.
Skylark must have something to do with it.
“Come on, girls,” Skylark said. “Our job isn’t over yet.”
“So what’s next, Chieftainess?” Kotuku asked.
“It’s time for our mission to split up,” Skylark answered. “We’re going to attack the two nursery islands. You, Kotuku, take four of your troopers, set fire to the nests you’re carrying and drop them onto the first of the outer islands, the one where mollymawks raise their young in the cliffs. I’ll take the other troopers with me to the second island where the seabird mothers nest on the plateau. You must make the drops strategically.”
“Strategically?”
“Drop the nests wherever there is dry grass or straw, where they have the maximum opportunity to catch fire and spread. We want both islands to catch fire.”
“What about the nests you’re carrying?” Kotuku asked. “You’ve always got to leave the best for the last,” Skylark grinned. “They’re for the fortress island.”
Kotuku wheeled with her squad and, with the oil-soaked nests in their clawed feet, made for the first of the two nursery islands. Galvanised, Skylark led her own squad to the second island. As they approached, female gulls rose up in clouds. Territorial as ever, they had a lot to defend. The entire plateau was dotted with mothers and recently hatched chicks.
“Oh no, all those baby chicks,” Skylark said and, for a moment, her resolve wavered. “I don’t want to harm you, darlings. All I want is for your daddy seabirds to come flying back to rescue you.”
Then she found herself in a birdfight with seven attacking prions. She looked into their dark, furious eyes, and saw their beaks snapping at her. That changed her attitude. “It’s either you or us,” Skylark decided.
Battling desperately, Skylark and her troopers pushed through the attacking gulls. They were still over the ocean, but gradually they were able to make it to the edge of the plateau.
“Quick,” Skylark yelled at the troopers. She struck a match against her claws and set fire to the nests they were carrying. “Make the drop —”
The troopers closed their wings, descended through the gulls and aimed the nests at a patch of dry grass on the plateau. “Bombs away!” A puff, the grass caught fire and began to spread. The flames drove the seabird mothers into an absolute frenzy of anxiety.
Suddenly, there was a dull crack and a flash as a sheet of fire flickered in the sky above the other nursery island.
“How did Kotuku manage that?” Skylark asked herself. Then, “It’s the guano,” she gasped. “It’s a powder keg. The ammonia from the guano creates an inflammable gas. It fuels the fire, reaches flash point and everything goes up.” In panic she looked at the flames dancing beneath her. “We’ve got to get out of here,” Skylark cried. “The same thing’s going to happen to this island.” She took to the sky, urging her troopers to follow quickly after her. Higher and higher they soared.
Flash point.
The air cracked apart. A white sheet of fire leapt through it. The flames and heat sizzled and crackled around Skylark as she flipped and rolled out of danger.
“Well, Skylark dear,” Kotuku said when she rejoined the mission, “if the seabird army doesn’t hear that and see the flames and smoke, they would have to be deaf as well as blind.”
“And we haven’t finished yet,” Skylark said.
“What the heck —”
Arnie and Kawanatanga had been sky dancing and Arnie was blinded by two bright flashes cracking across the sky. “No!” Kawanatanga cried. Clouds of mother gulls were fluttering above two of the offshore islands. Their wailing rolled inland on the wind.
Arnie tilted his head and, when his sight returned, focused his gaze seaward. What was happening there? Sure enough, he saw a little brown bird and nine white-winged cranes skimming the crystal sea. So it was Skylark after all.
“Brilliant, Skylark,” he yelled. “Just awe-some!”
She had caused the seabird army’s drive to the inlet to falter. Attracted by the flames and smoke and the screams of seabird mothers, they began breaking off from the cut and thrust of the attack.
“Something else has happened,” Arnie realised. A loud chorus of horror and consternation came from the battlefield; it was followed by a tidal wave of air flowing inward from the ocean and up the Manu Valley, as if some huge hole had opened up which needed to be filled. More seabirds fled in terror back to the sea.
“I must return to my army,” Kawanatanga said to himself. “My fight with the falcon from the future will have to wait for another day.” He sensed an upward ascending wind and turned into it.
Arnie, however, was not about to let him go so easily. He flew into Kawanatanga’s path, blocking him. “Going somewhere?” he asked.
“The gods favour you today,” Kawanatanga sneered. “Let me pass.”
“Like hell I will,” Arnie answered. “My elemental mission is to defend to the death, to the last sinew and feather, the manu whenua. You’re going nowhere.”
“Then die,” Kawanatanga said.
He attacked, his eyes alert and feral. But his impatience to return to the battle acted to Arnie’s advantage. When he stretched for the kill, his wings dipped and he dropped below his foe. Parrying with finesse, Arnie lifted, mantled, and dropped on Kawanatanga’s back.
“Who’s going to their god?” Arnie cried. He thrust his legs down and forward, and the talons of his right leg bit, dug, flexed and hooked. Holding on with that leg, Arnie manoeuvred the penknife that Skylark had tied onto his left leg into a strike position.
“Mess with the best,” Arnie yelled, “die like the rest.”
Too late. Kawanatanga, in a reflex action, lunged forward. He tore away from Arnie’s talons — and as he did so, pulled the penknife out of its binding. Arnie watched helplessly as it spiralled toward the sea.
Kawanatanga could only see red. “I have the upper hand now.”
Arnie spilled air. His only hope was to put enough space between him and Kawanatanga and, in the interim, think of some strategy to change the balance of power. Alternating gliding with bursts of powered level flight, Arnie made a desperate bid for sea level.
“We’d better hurry,” Te Arikinui Kotuku said. They were fast approaching the late Karuhiruhi’s fortress island. Already the jagged crown was spearing into the sky, the ramparts rushing up like spears to meet them.
What was it that had happened on the battlefield? Skylark asked herself. She had felt a sudden lurch and kick in the dynamic of the world when the two outer nursery islands had reached flashpoint and dazzled the sky with blinding white light. She wracked her brains for an answer.
“Prepare to repel the royal guard,” Kotuku warned. Areta’s crack squad of prion marines had taken to the air and were planing across to meet them.
“Keep them busy, will you?” Skylark asked. “I have the two remaining nests. I can do this job on my own.”
“Okay,” Kotuku nodded. “But don’t take too long, will you?” With a cry she and the troopers engaged the prions.
Skylark dived for the ramparts. She was following a hunch of hers that somewhere there’d be a main shaft going right through the middle of the fortress.
“If I plant the burning nests there, I’ll be able to bring the castle down — and its Queen and new King with it.”
But where was the entrance? She heard a scream and saw one of her troopers fall from the sky. She was wasting time —
Then Skylark saw it. A grand hallway, just behind a tall balcony from which the late Karuhiruhi had saluted his military.
Skylark dropped, and before Areta’s bodyguards could stop her, she was in. Three doorways appeared before her. Unsure which one to take, she flew through the left doorway and found herself in the army barracks. Oops. She backed out and, this time, chose the doorway in the middle.
Behind the doorway was a stairwell. A jink, a swerve, another swerve — man, there were so many passageways. From one of them, however, came a lovely updraft of wind, sufficient to fuel a fire. Skylark followed the draft to its source: a large bedroom, palatial, drapings all over the place. Just the ticket. She settled. Put the nests down. Lit a match.
“How dare you enter my royal chambers!” Areta came flying through the room. Screaming with rage, she knocked the match from Skylark’s wing. Skylark feinted to the left, then returned as Areta surged past. Her breast feathers pulsing with exertion, she swung sideways and extended her left foot.
Years of royal living had robbed Areta of physical fitness or dexterity. “Oof,” she said as she tripped, lost balance, and went head over heels through the air. She hit a wall and fell to the ground, moaning. Her baby son began to wail from its cot.
“This is no time to be sentimental,” Skylark said to herself. She struck a second match. Threw it. Its flame caught on the drapings and in a second the whole room was on fire. “Time to get out of here.” She braced and leaned forward. Her tail approaching horizontal, she pushed off from the floor, heading for the exit.
Areta gave a demented wail. “My son!”
The fire spread to his crib. Quickly, Areta pulled him out and headed for the secret trapdoor. Below was a passageway leading down and out of the fortress at sea level. Using her last reserves of energy she opened the trap-door with her beak. Before she could take another step with her son, the flames whooshed past her and down the vent.
“You can’t get away from me. I have you now.”
Kawanatanga had completely forgotten about returning to lead his troops in the war. Taking out this falcon from the future had become his obsession, and he was determined to relish the chase, enjoying the certainty of the kill. He would play with Arnie as a cat does with a mouse. He wanted to feel the ultimate power. “I’m in control, now,” he called. “You live at my leave. You will die when I choose to kill you.”
His mocking laughter followed Arnie has he hydroplaned across the sea. But was Arnie worried? The longer you play with me, Arnie thought, the longer you’ll be kept away from the battle. Nor am I about to give in without a good fight.
Mustering his energy, Arnie dipped between the troughs of the waves, hoping that the pursuing Kawanatanga might make an ill-judged move, be caught by a curling wave and dunked.
No such luck.
Panting with exertion, his velocity decreasing, Arnie decided to make a break for the land. Maybe he could lose Kawanatanga along the shoreline, among the smoke drifting across the sea from the offshore islands. Yes, that was it.
“I’m so bored now,” Kawanatanga sighed. He locked onto Arnie and swooped.
Bird turned missile, his wings extended a fraction for the sake of steerage, Kawanatanga hooked and grappled Arnie’s left wing in his beak. Holding the wing, Kawanatanga lifted one of his feet and raked Arnie’s back, slicing it open. At close quarters, Kawanatanga was ruthless. He had the advantage of a longer bill reach. Another jab and he tore Arnie’s shoulder.
“Prepare to breathe your last, Arnie,” Kawanatanga said. “I will open you from head to tail. I will rip you apart from head to sternum so that your entrails will spill out and fall to the sea.”
In agonising pain, Arnie stabilised with his right wing. His mouth was dry. He was losing consciousness. The blood was running like a river from his wounds. Bobbing his head to clear it and to sharpen his wits, Arnie turned and prepared himself for Kawanatanga’s killing thrust. “Game’s over,” Kawanatanga said. “I’ve won.”
Screaming, Areta turned away from the vent. With that exit closed to her escape, there was only one way out — and that was to ascend the main stairway.
“Don’t worry, son,” Areta soothed her wailing child. “I’ll get you out of here and away from danger.”
Away from danger?
Alas, poor Areta. The fire which Skylark had made in the royal nursery had really taken hold. It was roaring down the vent, a huge fiery jet stream travelling through the volcanic composition of the island. Some of the flames flicked through other vents, other veins, other channels, other cracks in the subterranean foundations.
Areta reached the open air with her son. “Thank God, oh Queen, you’re safe,” a prion royal guard said.
At that very moment, a tongue of fire flicked and reached down and found an underground channel. There, in the channel, streamed a huge river of oil right at the very centre of the fortress island itself.
Areta heard a rumble, deep beneath her feet. “What is that?” she asked the royal guard.
Before he could answer, the island fortress exploded.
“No! Not Areta! Nor the son from whom I am descended —”
A huge ball of fire erupted into the air. It boiled higher and higher, burning a hole in the sky. The heat from the blast hit Kawanatanga, and with it came the smell of death.
“Chieftain Arnie! Defend yourself. We’re almost there —” From the corner of his eye Arnie saw Chieftain Kahu and Chieftain Tui coming to his rescue. But he knew they would be too late.
Kawanatanga was like a maddened machine, his eyes bloodshot with anger, his face glowing with insanity.
“You. You —”
He prepared to deliver the death blow.
He slashed with his claws at Arnie, but the thrust went right through without having any effect.
Kawanatanga’s eyes popped with puzzlement. “You should be dead.”
He slashed again. But he had no claws to slash with. They disintegrated before his eyes.
“What’s happening to me?” Kawanatanga screamed as his feet disappeared. Then his thighs. Now his wingtips. And his tail feathers.
