Black Wing
by Francisco Carbone
High in the clear blue sky a pair of ravens flew.
Black Wing soared, riding the thermals, feeling the rushing wind bathe her feathers, black as pitch.
"Gla, gla, gla!" Two Toes, her mate called from far off, reassuring her all was well in her wake. They were hunting.
"Gla, gla, gla!" Black Wing replied as she surveilled the land outstretched before them.
From this height the country was displayed like a living map. A thin silver string of a stream rushing to meet its larger cousin below in the valley, wending through rock scabbed hills, squared off patches of dark spruce plantation, then down to the farmland that lay beyond. Her eyes were keen and nothing that moved below escaped her attention. The merest suggestion of her prey was all she needed, and they would attack, disable the quarry and bring it down. Then they'd finish it off, take what they needed and return home, where the three fat, raucous chicks waited patiently for their return, under the watchful eye of the Keeper. Soon the chicks would be fledged and, in time, join the hunt. The five of them would patrol the skies, catch more prey, and they could, perhaps, raise a second brood before the winter came in.
Below her birds flew here and there, animals grazed or ran or crawled or hopped. But those were not the prey Black Wing sought. She continued her long lazy spiral on the rising air of the early afternoon, watching, always watching, seeking out the tell-tale signs.
Then the cry went up, Two Toes had spotted something, and the hunt was on. She dropped her shoulder, dug her finger feathers into the cold air and banked, seeking out the prey. Her mate was already making for the small, dark dot streaking through the air below them. She tucked in her wings and entered a shallow dive, calculating without reason a point in the future where she and her prey would intersect.
Two Toes arrived ahead of her, broke his stoop and dropped the stone he had carried from the ground below. The stone hit the drone, cracking a whirling rotor, knocking the machine off kilter. its motors screamed as it fell through the sky, five meter, ten meters, but finally managed to right itself to continue on its grim heading.
Black Wing made her pass dropping the stone she bore, warm from her body. It fell, but missed. She streaked past, banking hard to make a second run. As she came about Two Toes attacked, flying in fast from behind. As he closed in on the flying machine, little bigger than him, he twisted in mid-air with impossible dexterity and, flying inverted, grasped the flimsy plastic frame with powerful, black talons. Bird and machine tumbled down towards the earth, the drone's motors wailing in protest. Black Wing cried in excitement and dove towards her fine, strong mate, the prey held in his death grip.
Ten meters from the mountainside Two Toes released the machine and, in a few powerful flaps of his great wings, righted himself and came into land on a rocky outcrop, ready to move in once the machine had dashed itself into the heather and coarse grass of the high bog. But against all odds the drone regained control, mere feet from the mountainside, then zipped away once again, towards its target.
Black Wing was ready. She went in fast on a collision course. It was risky, she knew that. Two Toes knew the risks all too well, for hadn't there once been three toes on his right foot? But a drone's rotor, spinning invisibly, had changed all that. She aimed at the disabled rotor and struck at incredible speed.
In a puff of white smoke and black feathers drone and bird met and fell towards the ground, then lay still in the warm sun. Two Toes flapped his wings to land besides his mate, nudging her inert form, clicking and cheruping as if in earnest prayer to Badh. The cock-bird bobbed and bowed in clear distress then, as the last downy feathers dispersed on the mountain breeze, Black Wing emerged from her torpor. She jumped to her feet, shook herself, fluffing out her iridescent plumage like a disgruntled hen, and gave a loud shriek of joy. The pair nuzzled and cooed, then together flew the short distance back to the rock to watch as the machine screamed out its final death throes, its thickening white smoke rising from the damp moor.
Then, with a sharp crack, like the herald of an approaching storm god, the drone exploded, the report echoing down through the valley and forcing the brace of dark hunters into the air in momentary panic. But both bird knew the threat had now passed and after a slow circuit of the crash site they landed and hopped towards the smoking plastic carcass, cackling with excitement. Each bird, heads cocked, regarded the ruined remains with beady, discerning eyes, pecking at the charred, melted residues until a handy component was wrested from the machine's ruined cavity, just as the Keeper had shown them. Once their prizes were secured, the pair took flight and headed for home.
They were in no rush as they cruised through the clear summer sky. The had little to fear, for it would be a bold raptor indeed that would dare take on these two magnificent birds in their prime. as they soared they called to each other and to the denizens of the sky and the land, declaring their sovereignty and warning usurpers of their strength and unity.
They reached the oak wood that was their territory, then spiraled lazily down through the canopy, scattering the birds and the beasts of the forest, and came at last to the barns and sheds they called home. Taking up station on their perches the pair struck up a din of squawks until a nearby door opened and the Keeper emerged, smiling a fond greeting and bearing a dish of meat.
"Welcome home me darlins'!" the Keeper babbled in its mannish tongue, the ravens responding in their own fashion with clicks and bobs, gulps and bows. The Keeper reached out, scratched Black Wing on her nape, made soothing noises, eliciting a display of pleasure and affection from the bird, then attended to her mate in a similar way. The Keeper had raised them both from eggs, its voice the only sound they knew from before they fought to escape the thin prison of chalky shell that contained their frail bodies. The Keeper had nourished them, kept them warm, protected them and in time encouraged them to take their first, tentative leap into the sky. In so far as anything can love another, Black Wing loved the Keeper, as she loved her mate and the three, chicks that waited for their return.
The Keeper took a strip of flesh from the bowl and fed each bird. They swallowed it down without ceremony then bobbed and bowed in anticipation of more to come.
"Now my beauties, what have you got for me today?" It held out its featherless wing expectantly and each bird dropped the small piece of charred metal and plastic into its waiting palm. The Keeper examined the components with a practiced eye.
"Hmmm, Orlan by the looks of it. You've saved some lives today my sweet dubheens." It looked up and smiled at the pair. "Now go and feed them noisy craters before they start to eat each other!"
It placed the bowl in a metal hope set between the two perches and watched as the two birds wolfed down the strips of flesh until the bowl was empty and their crops were full, then, with one last flurry of affectionate chatter, the two birds flew off to their nest and its rowdy contents.
The chicks half dozed in the dim light of the barn, but woke with a noisy start when Black Wing and Two Toes alighted on the platform the Keeper had constructed for them to nest upon. The parents responded to the gaping maws, regurgitating meat into them until, full and stupefied, the chick returned to a satisfied doze.
The babies wouldn't be sated for long, mind you, but the two birds took advantage of this quiet moment to digest and preen, to court and mate before they set off, once more, on the hunt.
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