Creative Commons – The Plainsrunner – Chapter Ten

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Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons license – Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA).

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Chapter Ten – Oh, My Ancestors

Sage opened her eyes in time to see the flier still tumbling away from her. She shook the dirt off of her face and jumped to her feet. Her right pannier slid down her ribs and hung there at an angle. Its top was broken and some of her stuff was strewn in the grass. Her eyes darted and found her glider, and she was surprised by the relief she felt. She glanced at the downed flier, which had come to a stop, then she did a quick scan of the sky in case it had a partner. She saw it straight above her, high up and turning in a slow circle.

She undid the ropes and removed her panniers, getting a quick look at the damage as she did. Nothing too serious. Nothing she couldn’t fix. She stood them on the ground and shucked the blanket she wore under them. A quick look told her that she didn’t have any serious injuries under there, so she turned her full attention to the shrieking, thrashing flier and its partner high above.

With her hand on the hilt of her knife, she moved forward. Brushing grass and dirt off of her neck and chest, she approached the injured animal, careful to stay out of reach of its long neck. Even like this it could still seriously injure her with that savage, hooked beak, and that would not be an amusing irony. As it moved and rolled about, its talons and its beak slashing at the spear where it protruded from its body, she could see that it looked wrong. The whole blade was showing where it stuck out of the top of the body, but there wasn’t any shaft showing at the entry point in the flier’s breast.

“Oh, my ancestors,” she said out loud. “My spear.”

She might have said something obscene, if she had known anything, but she didn’t. She hadn’t learned any obscene language. Not from her parents. Not from her friends. If she had been allowed near the traders she might have learned a few things, but she hadn’t been. So now, when she found the broken part of her spear shaft on the ground, she didn’t have a reservoir of obscenities to draw from.

“Oh, my blessed ancestors,” she said, but her ancestors wouldn’t have liked her tone, which would have been more suited to traders’ language than to theirs. Her spear was broken, so now the only protection she had was her knife, and she knew its twenty centimeters wouldn’t keep her safe. At the very least she had to get the remnants of her spear back. It looked as if it might be as much as a meter from tip to broken haft, and that would at least improve her odds. But at present her weapon was stuck in a possibly dying, but still dangerous, animal.

A quick glance showed her that the other flier was still circling high above them. She was safe there for the moment, at least. She scanned the grass in all directions, looking for signs of the scavengers moving in. They wouldn’t wait for the flier to die before they came. All they needed was the possibility and they would be on their way. But first would be the flying scavengers. The smaller fliers that would never pass up the opportunity to supplement their diet with some protein.

“There you are,” she said, as she saw a few fly in and land just out of reach. They paced, their eyes on their future meal, squabbling and fighting for position. The flier wasn’t dead yet and they were already fighting over it.

She looked all around again. She didn’t have to worry about these little fliers, nor about most of the scavengers that would be approaching by land. They were all too small to be a danger to her, and would be afraid of her anyway. What she did have to worry about was the day runners, who wouldn’t pass up a meal just because they hadn’t killed it themselves. They would be here soon. And after dark, the night stalkers.

The healing wound on her rump twinged at the thought. She needed to get her spear. She needed to pick up her stuff and repack her panniers before she lost anything. And she needed to be away from here, safely encamped by the river, before this place was swarming with hungry animals.

It was still high noon, which surprised Sage. It was only a few minutes since the attack, but it seemed as if it should be more. Everything was changed. Moments ago she was walking alone across the grassy stretch of land between bends in the river, and now she was anything but alone. Animals were converging on this spot from all directions as if called here by a gigantic dying flier. At least, she hoped it was dying.

“Of course it’s dying,” she told herself. “It can’t survive that. A spear right through it.”

The problem was how long it was going to take. She needed to get her spear back. What was left of it, anyway. She didn’t want to be retrieving her spear while surrounded by every predator and carrion-eater from farther than the eyes could see. But she couldn’t be pulling on it while the flier was alive, snapping and clawing at her. For now she was going to have to be like the small scavenger fliers, waiting impatiently just out of reach.

She stared at the flier, which was trying to get to its feet. It couldn’t quite stand all the way up, nor could it stand for long. It would rise on trembling legs, then slump forward. Then it would struggle up and fall again, making painful and pitiable progress in the direction of its distant aerie. Was it thinking of home? Possibly its mate?

Sage shrugged. She could see it wasn’t going to get far, and she didn’t have any feelings to waste on this thing. It was here because it was trying to kill her. She shrugged again and turned to the task of fixing her panniers and putting her stuff back in them. She might as well be doing something useful while she waited for the flier to die.

The pannier wasn’t too badly damaged. One of the ropes holding them on had broken, as had the hinge on the lid of the right one. Maybe the flier’s talons had struck her glider, which was lashed on there. It had certainly hit her hard enough to break things. She lightly touched the abrasions on her chin and neck, remembering.

By the time she had the pannier fixed and repacked, the flier had stopped moving. It was sprawled on the ground with its long neck stretched out. Its head was on one side with the two top eyes seeming to stare up at its mate circling high above. The only movement was its weak breathing and the occasional twitch in a limb. It didn’t even seem to react to the few small fliers brave enough to land on it near the protruding spear point. They were helping themselves to the blood there. Something to tide them over while they waited.

Sage took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now was as good a time as any. She walked forward, scaring the little fliers, who screeched angrily at her as they jumped off and flew down to join the others. The big flier watched her with its two exposed eyes, but made no move to stop her as she took hold of her spear just below its gleaming point. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but she was surprised by how easily it came out. The flier gave a shudder and a cloud of insects rose, then resettled on its body. Sage held the one meter of remaining shaft, turning it so she could examine the blade. She nodded with relief to see that it was still intact.

By the river, in the shade of the trees, Sage put another piece of wood on the fire. A hundred meters away, out in the late afternoon sunlight, the flier’s body was a welter of noisy activity. It died while she was putting on her panniers, and she had glanced up to see its mate wheeling away toward home. She had cleaned up her spear point and ensured it was firmly attached to its broken shaft. Tomorrow she would begin the search for a suitable piece of wood to replace it.

With her hand on her glider, she said, “Well, what do you think of that?”

She couldn’t tell from how it vibrated what it thought.