Chapter XVII: Ambush

Grandma felt hot breath on her flank. She turned her head and spotted the sickleclaw. That was when it leapt for her neck. It never got there, because her faithful mate swatted it away with his tail.

But more sickleclaws kept dropping down around us. There must have been about 45 of them, a superpack.

We were surrounded.

Then we saw a strange-looking flyer in the air above us. I had never seen his species before, but he looked like a predatory flyer. He was brown with a sharp beak and no tail. When they saw him, all the sickleclaws bent down, touching their heads to the ground, then hissed or roared, whichever you like, in unison. The sound to my ears shaped itself to the word "Sierra."

"That's right, ya stupid sharpteeth! Ya better have a good hunt, 'cause I'm awful hungry, and if you don't bring no meat home, you're gonna be the meat." (Many sickleclaws understand our language, though they don't speak it.)

I was wondering how a flyer became the leader of a sickleclaw pack. Pteri Flyer, Petrie's mother, told me later: he had defeated their previous leader in a fight by using his power of flight to strike where the sickleclaw couldn't defend. As for how he ended up with Pterano and Rinkus (he didn't like having to eat merely lizards and water-breathing swimmers or being ordered around by a tallcrest), that is a long story which I do not think will ever be told.

Before I knew what was happening, all the sickleclaws had attacked at once. A runner had picked up a dagger (that is, a very sharp piece of rock) and thrown it at one of them. It passed through the sharptooth's neck and he went down.

Spikethumb and a sickleclaw were circling round each other. Spikethumb struck first, his spike opening a gash on the side of the predator's face, but the sickleclaw bit him on the leg, and he limped away to shelter in a circle of threehorns.

One of the sharpteeth leapt straight at me. He had miscalculated and hit my frill. I decided to employ a favorite tactic of the longnecks, known as "step on the sharptooth," and it worked.

But Shieldback was up against three. He knocked two away with his tail, but the third went in low and slashed his underbelly open. Shieldback's last words were "Please take care of my son Nod." Nod eventually passed into the care of Shieldback's brother.

Bignoses and swimmers and crestbacks skirmished with the sickleclaws as well, mostly using their tails, though one innovative hollowhorn snuck up behind a predator and let out a honk that made the sharptooth jump within range of a longsnout longneck's tail. It curled around the sickleclaw and crushed her.

Mrs. Threehorn was surrounded. She bellowed and pawed and then charged. One sickleclaw was gored and trampled, but the others went after her and slashed her in several areas. She was mortally wounded, and seemed to know it, but still fought hard, killing or knocking out the sickleclaws until only two were left. Her son Sean came to her side.

"Nora!" cried Threehorn. He charged towards her, but was immediately blocked by a wall of sickleclaws, while the flyer, Sierra, flew around him, every now and then striking with his sharp beak.

Sean was doing well, but suddenly Sierra saw him and flew towards him like a flash, then drove his beak into the threehorn's side. He was not mortally wounded, but the sickleclaws changed that. He drove his horns through the sharpteeth who had wounded him and his mother, then dropped dead, as did his mother.

Sierra smiled. This would be a good hunt.

Suddenly his satisfaction changed to burning pain. Grandpa Longneck's tail had just slapped him very hard in the posterior area. A skyreacher saw him flying without effort, like a shooting star, then burying his beak in a tree.

The sickleclaws saw it happen, and started to run. Threehorns and spikefrills chased after them as they retreated to their mountain strongholds.

We cheered.