by Nancy Yi Fan
Kastin and Mayflower glanced at a gigantic container of hot soup and slowly exchanged mischievous glances. They had an idea, too.
“Here’s a way to help the cardinals and the blue jays, eh, Kassie?”
“Fine by me, May. Let’s tip that bean soup!”
The junco and the titmouse rushed to the steaming pot. They each grasped a handle and flew up, straining to lift the heavy container to a branch of a nearby tree. When a crowd of crows and ravens flew underneath, they tipped the hot liquid on the unsuspecting black birds. Now covered in the sticky bean soup, they plummeted and crashed to the ground.
Despite the Willowleaf Theater’s efforts, Slime-beak and his soldiers kept advancing, fighting any blue jays and cardinals in the way. And soon a new threat emerged: fire arrows. Every few seconds, a volley of flaming arrows would suddenly shoot through the air, like angry snakes slithering across the coal black sky.
Some of the arrows hit the wooden panels of the stage. A few struck the balloon of the flying Willowleaf Theater. Still others of these deadly shafts ruined not only the beautiful tablecloths on the food tables but also the cakes, pies, and puddings. The air stank of burned fruit, cloth, and feathers. The red and the blue fought side by side, helping each other and trying to stop the intruders.
Slime-beak yelped as a sword dug into his shoulder. The captain spun around. The attacker was a cardinal with exceptionally large wings. The captain roared with rage, almost forgetting about his injured shoulder. No sooner had he ended his roar than a hard fight ensued. Slime-beak found himself slashing his sword with all his might to defend his life. He took cuts and bruises from the cardinal and dizzying wing clouts to his head and ears. Ducking behind another crow, Slime-beak dodged a swipe from his opponent’s sword. As the cardinal was forced to face a new enemy, Slime-beak seized the chance to look around.
“Help, Captain!” screamed a nearby crow as he went down, crushed by a determined blue jay.
Many other birds of Fortress Glooming were suffering.
Slime-beak decided to check on the soldiers on the other side of the stage. But as he came down for a landing, he slipped in a gooey, hot mess that smelled…like beans? A dozen of his soldiers dashed to his aid and splashed into the bean soup as well. The sticky liquid coated their feathers and glued their wings firmly to their sides. Now they could not fly.
“Oww!” Slime-beak cried sharply as a jagged piece of roasted pecan zapped him in his behind, followed by a terrible assortment of acorns, pine nuts, chestnuts, and beechnuts bombarding his face and wings. Wincing and dancing in pain, the captain skidded between two battling birds to escape the merciless nuts that pelted his body. Just as he slipped away, another horror attacked him: a large torch flying and twirling, like a vengeful spirit. Getting out of the way, Slime-beak, bean goo and all, ran to a safe distance and watched. The torch struck an unlucky crow soldier, who yelped and immediately perished as the stink of burning feathers reached Slime-beak’s nostrils. Trying to shake the blood-chilling image from his mind, the captain scrambled headfirst into a honey-covered raspberry pie, the jam filling blinding him for a sticky second. Stumbling backward, the captain received a hard, solid punch from an angry blue jay, which sent him spinning uncontrollably. “Yah! Away with you. Stone-Run can’t be conquered!” the blue jay yelled.
The frightened captain lost his wits. He shoved everybird out of his way and turned around.
“Ahhh!”
“Captain Slime-beak! Help!”
“Ow! Ow! I’m going to die!”
“Get me back to Fortress Glooming!”
The cries of his soldiers rang in the captain’s raspberry jam-filled ears. Running as fast as he could, he trailed raspberry jam, soup, and fragments of nuts. He tripped into other soldiers as messy as he was, but nothing kept him from racing to someplace safer. Slime-beak cried out as chunks of piecrust fell from his face and into his beak.
“Retreat! Troops, back to Fortress Glooming!”
A woodbird egg a day will keep death away.
– FROM THE BOOK OF HERESY
11 IDEAS
That evening, as Slime-beak led a third of Turnatt’s army to fight the red and the blue, the slaves at Fortress Glooming were discussing the event. It was an early-evening gathering rather than the usual campfire discussion. Tilosses had been eavesdropping lately not only on Turnatt but also on the soldiers at dinner and the cook, Bone-squawk. The old slavebird had picked up a lot of information, enough to give the slavebirds a new idea for escaping.
“How to start, my dear friends?” Tilosses began excitedly. “Escaping now could be a reality! According to what I’ve learned from Turnip-no, Turnatt-the cook, Bone-squawk, plus some other empty-headed soldiers from the army, I think that today, yes, today, we’ll have the perfect chance to escape. We can no longer wait for the native woodbirds to come and help us; time is running out. So think about it: One third of the army is gone, Slime-beak with them. What could be better?” The slavebirds murmured among themselves, some agreeing, others doubting. “To add to that, Turnatt caught a bit of a cold and Bug-eye hurt his right claw. Swordbird made it happen all by coincidence today!”
One of the slavebirds patiently waited for the whisperings to die down. He asked the question that was on everybird’s mind: “Tilosses, what is your plan?”
The old sparrow guffawed, his belly shaking a bit and his eyes glittering. “It’s probably the best a bird could think up, of course.” His face became stern. “Listen closely. Around midnight the guards at our compound will switch shifts. Glipper is the closest to the door, so when the new guard comes, kill him!” The sparrow handed the flycatcher some small pointed darts that were made of sticks they had secretly collected and sharpened on stones. “Next, we’ll saw off our chains with this knife I stole from the kitchen. Once we’re loose, we’ll tipclaw around the compound and crawl behind those piles of rocks and dirt. There’s a bendy old willow at the end of the rocks. We’ll flutter up to the roof of the hut where Bone-squawk stores food. It’s a safe place, since the hut’s overshadowed by a couple of trees. After that, Miltin, Glipper, and the two vireo brothers will tackle the gate guards so they can’t prevent our escape. The rest of my plan you probably can guess: Once the gate is open, we’ll slide down the roof and leave Fortress Glooming.”
“That’s a little too risky, isn’t it, Tilosses? What if the guards at the gate give the alarm?” questioned a waxwing.
Tilosses smiled. “By great fortune, tonight’s guards are to be Crooked-shoulder and, what’s the other’s name, oh yes, Large-cap. What luck! Crooked-shoulder’s eyelids always close during his shift, and Large-cap wears a cap over his eyes. That’s one advantage for us.
“Add to that, Miltin on his wood-gathering mission learned that the woodbirds live north of us.”
“But what if they find out that there’re no birds in our compound? Then what will we do?”
Miltin smiled craftily, his big eyes shining. “Ah. I was about to get to that point. A couple of bundles of grass here, a lump of lumber there, and dummies will do the job.”
“I can almost see old Bug-eye’s face when he finds the dummies.” Tilosses laughed. Then he became serious. “So if everything goes well, we’ll escape. In the morning it will be too late for the soldiers to find us.”
“So,” concluded Glipper, “let’s hope all will be as smooth as cream.”
In the topmost chamber of Fortress Glooming, Turnatt sat on his throne as usual. During the past few days he had caught a cold. It wasn’t a serious one, but it limited his outbursts. The dizziness in the hawk’s head made him dreamy and slow in thought. But at times he could still snap at his captain and soldiers, to discourage any thoughts or plans against him.
Bone-squawk, the cook, scurried into the room, carrying a blue jay egg and a cardinal one in a silver tray. The eggs stolen from the red and the blue were carefully sorted by Turnatt himself, who tapped them gently with a spoon to test their quality. Turnatt wearily inspected one
egg and then the other. He chose the blue jay egg and gestured to Bone-squawk. He had eaten a cardinal egg the day before and wanted to have a different taste. The cook stepped forward, carrying a long, sharp needlelike knife. Turnatt grunted as he pointed to a spot. In went the knife, with a small crack. After Bone-squawk withdrew his tool, a good-sized hole appeared, neat and clean, with just a bit of egg white dripping out. The cook, after fumbling in his ingredients bag, poked lemon juice, onion powder, parsley, and a bit of pepper into the egg. He carefully inserted a small spoon through the hole, slowly stirring without disturbing the eggshell. Turnatt watched drowsily. Bone-squawk, with a final bow, backed out of the hawk lord’s room. After a long time Turnatt finally put his beak into the hole of the egg and slowly, slowly sipped with his eye half closed.
The hawk lord was getting sleepy. He drained the egg with a final slurp, licking his beak unhurriedly. Turnatt wished his cold would go away. Little by little he drifted off with his head against the empty eggshell. He dreamed about the past.
IT WAS NOT SO LONG AGO, when he had first made plans to build a fortress, a place to house his army and to store the stolen eggs. He would need many new slavebirds, he knew.
After taking rolled-up maps from his bookshelves and stretching them out, he hunted for a tribe that would be his next target. Far and wide on the maps he searched. At last he found an ideal tribe, the Waterthorn, near the Rockwell River. Robins were the birds there! They would certainly make good, hardy workers.
That night Turnatt started planning his attack.
The next morning he set out for the Rockwell River with fifty crows flying behind his left wing, and fifty ravens behind his right. Half a mile from the destination they split up into two groups. Some birds would attack directly as a decoy to draw out the warriors of the tribe. The rest of his horde would then take over the tribe trees, taking the birds left behind for slaves.
At first all worked according to Turnatt’s plan. To Turnatt’s delight, there were a lot of able-bodied birds in the Waterthorn tribe. He led the raid on the camp himself, while the other half of his army engaged the warriors. Out of the corner of his eye, Turnatt noticed some birds flying to the top of the highest tree. One held a small, shining object in his beak. Turnatt paid no mind. His soldiers had rounded up a dozen birds, mostly young birds and nesting females, and were busy putting their legs in cuffs and fighting back the few that tried to resist.
Much to Turnatt’s surprise, some birds began singing a song. The rest, though outnumbered, still bravely struggled with Turnatt’s soldiers. Again the shining thing caught the hawk’s eye. This time it was even brighter, sending rays of light right through the clouds. What foolish trick was this?
Suddenly a flash as bright as lightning streaked across the forest. Turnatt looked around. There were no rain clouds. Instead in the sky hovered a huge bird. He was pure white, like snow, like clouds, like the foam of the waves of the sea. He had a long sword in his claws. To Turnatt’s shock, the bird was much larger than he was.
“Release the robins of the Waterthorn,” the bird said in a booming voice.
What? Give up his hard-earned slaves just because the bird said so? Nobird could tell Turnatt what he should do.
Turnatt glared at the bird. “Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?” he bellowed.
The white bird made no movement. “Release the robins,” he repeated in the same calm voice.
Turnatt didn’t like it at all. He was a lord, a tyrant! The bird should bow down before him, not command him! “No! Go away!” Turnatt laughed and, with one swipe of his claw, knocked aside a robin who flung herself at him.
“No?” the white bird questioned, stretching the syllable.
Turnatt didn’t answer. The next thing he knew, the bird had unfolded his large white wings to their full extent, raised his sword, and pointed it at him. Again there was a streak of light. Turnatt screeched in pain. He felt for a moment that his left eye was on fire, a fire that would never die. Turnatt knew he had greatly underestimated the white bird. He could barely see to fight. What if the bird blinded his remaining eye? Turning back, he fled with his crows and ravens.
All of the slavebirds he’d caught were lost, except one that was smuggled away, a thin robin with shining eyes and long, skinny legs. He was called Miltin. Yet he had been expensive. The lives of eighty-four of Turnatt’s soldiers, not to mention the hawk lord’s left eye, were gone in exchange for one little slavebird.
The hawk lord woke up with a start; the old dream had haunted him again. Infuriated, he smashed the empty eggshell in front of him. Slavebirds! They were the cause of all his troubles. As soon as Slime-beak came back, Turnatt would send him to check on the slavebirds’ compound and make sure they were not up to anything. After all, you couldn’t be too careful.
Victory is sweet, but one must remember
the sacrifices that bought it.
– FROM THE OLD SCRIPTURE
12 REMAINS OF VICTORY
At the Appleby Hills it was pitch black, but all the red and the blue could see was brightness. They had won the fight with only a little loss.
“Well,” grumbled Parrale, assessing the damage in the green and white hot-air balloon, “even a tiny hole in our balloon might delay us for days, let alone these holes. This won’t fly for at least a week.”
Near the food table Lorpil sniffled and blew his beak in a handkerchief. “Oh, all the beautiful, tasty food, gone!”
Farther away, sitting on a bench side by side, were the two leaders, Flame-back and Skylion.
“You know what, my friend?” Flame-back said.
“What?”
“This won’t be the last fight we have. Those crows and ravens will be back. We need to work together if we want to defend Stone-Run.”
The blue jay leader patted the cardinal’s shoulder gently. “We do,” he said simply. “And we will.”
Across the battlefield a few blood-covered bodies of the crows and ravens littered the ground. Among them, some brave fighters of the red and the blue had gone to Sky Land and left their bodies behind. Of course, there was also bean soup spattered over the grass, pie fillings of all kinds glued onto trees and chairs, along with nuts here and there in the most unexpected places.
A few groups of cardinals and blue jays were out in the field, carrying stretchers. Lanterns were always nearby, like stars guiding the rescue groups back through the darkness.
Except for small fragments of quiet conversations, the whole place-the tallest mound on the Appleby Hills-was filled with the chirping of the crickets hidden all over the battlefield. There wasn’t any fancy music to celebrate the victory. Only the crickets sang, but that was enough.
Glenagh entered his study, stifling a yawn as he closed the branch door. What had happened that night was on his mind: not the attack but something else.
The birds in the play called Swordbird, and he came, the old blue jay mused. Those crows and ravens will be back; my bones tell me so. And next time we may not be so lucky. How can we find the right way to call Swordbird, too?
He reached up for a book on one of his shelves: the Old Scripture, Volume 2. The pages crackled as he turned to the beginning, Ewingerale’s diary.
LATE WINTER, “THE DAY OF SNOWFLAKES”
On the day when snowflakes started to swirl all around, we began our quest.
I am Ewingerale the woodpecker, the son of Antoine Verne and Primrose. Since most birds call me Winger, it is not odd that I stick to the nickname and think of it as my only name. It fits me well because of my love for flight. Everybird I meet says that I am an undersized and bony woodpecker but have unusually large wings. I guess they are right. I always felt that my large wings were born to have a big use, so when I heard of Wind-voice’s great quest, I joined it without hesitation.
EARLY SPRING, “THE DAY OF WINTER JASMINES”
Wind-voice says that on every quest, there is a bud, a flower, and a fruit. Our quest so far has gone well, so Wind-voic
e says that the flower has bloomed, a wonderful flower.
Our quest is to try to find and enliven all seven Leasorn gems across the world and to find a sword with the eighth Leasorn on its hilt. Wind-voice, the leader of our little group, seeks the sword because his mother told him to do so. Although Wind-voice has never seen the bird who sired him, his mother told him that his father was always watching over him. So we started off, three in all, to find the sword.
EARLY SPRING, “THE DAY OF HEROES”
What makes a hero? Bravery, strength, ability, and a heart for justice.
Wind-voice says that he wants to protect innocent birds from evil, to be a hero. In fact he isn’t boasting; he indeed looks like a hero: powerful and lean, with sparkling eyes. He looks like a dove, yet he’s stronger and mightier than any dove who has ever flown. He has the skills to be a hero too. He is not only good at swordplay but also smart, quick to learn new things, and thoughtful of others. Crows cringe when they see him; even the intensity of the rain seems to lessen in his presence. And that’s the very thing that has made me realize: If Wind-voice is able to find the Leasorn sword, there will be more happiness, more peace in all the forests.
Being tired, I cannot write more. Wind-voice, our hero, may you succeed!
Glenagh was reluctant to close the book. His interest was deeply aroused because the diary’s author was Ewingerale, the companion of Wind-voice. Seasons later Wind-voice became a true hero-Swordbird.
Swordbird… the word rang in the head of the old blue jay. Something in his mind stirred, and Glenagh remembered what Skylion had told him: Swordbird could solve this conflict.
The old blue jay thought about it as he buried his head in the feathers of his left wing. Somewhere in the Old Scripture there must be the song to summon Swordbird. He would find it. Then, if they could ever find a Leasorn gem, they could call for help. And Swordbird would surely come.
