Updated: 4/27/2023

Chapter Two: Shredded Feathers

"Woah! You're so big!"

Blood-Seeker cracked open an eye at the sound of a child's voice. In front of her stood a tiny sickleclaw eyass. She was barely half the size of Blood-Seeker's foot but was staring up at her without a glint of fear in her large, yellow-green eyes. It appeared she was a fastbiter, one of the commonly smaller types of sickleclaws. Further still, she was a swiftthief.

The massive sickleclaw lowered her snout to the tiny eyass, her dark-amber eyes narrowing. It wasn't unusual for other sickleclaws to live within her territory of the Scarlet Grove. Most were small enough that they didn't bother the usual prey the much larger strongbiters hunted. Still, it was unusual to see one out in the open, especially one so young. Just because they were both sickleclaws didn't mean the smaller one was safe from death by The Pack of the Scarlet Feather's jaws. And Blood-Seeker knew of some individuals among her pack who believed if something moved and it wasn't a greatshadow, it was food.

Many carnivorous clawhands thought like that, especially as the land changed. The change had started slowly at first but gradually became worse. Now, the rain didn't fall from the sky, rivers and watering holes had dried up, plants no longer flourished — and, without the plants, prey no longer ran as plentiful. Some predators had to resort to feeding on flesh that had gone rancid or even killing and devouring those who also ate flesh. With every passing moon cycle, Blood-Seeker heard more stories about the changing lands beyond her home.

Blood-Seeker shook away her wandering thoughts. The Scarlet Grove hadn't changed since her mother and her mother's mother were alpha, and it wouldn't change while Blood-Seeker was still the pack's leader. The plants grew plentiful, the river flowed well, and prey still ran.

With a ruffle of her scarlet feathers, Blood-Seeker finally turned back to the youngling. "Where are your parents, eyass?"

The little one's azure and burnt-azure striped feathers fluffed, and her eyes grew wider. "Even your voice is big," she whispered, her little pale-azure-scaled jaws parted with awe.

"Parents?" Blood-Seeker repeated, her voice and gaze turning sterner.

"Oh… well… um…" the eyass nervously flexed her tiny sickle claws and looked over her shoulder.

Blood-Seeker sighed and rose into a more alert sitting position. The young swiftthief was typical of too many younglings her age — too curious for her good. She must have snuck away from her nest to explore the grove. That was what many young were like. Many were lost, either to the jaws of a predator or to the wilderness, where they were never found again.

"Death is everywhere, eyass. Go back to your parents before something not as forgiving finds you."

The azure-feathered swiftthief shuffled her feet, her snout lowered but her eyes still looking up at Blood-Seeker. "But I don't want to. I want to know about you. You're the—"

A screech interrupted the eyass. A screech of terror and rage and pain. A screech the youngling recognized, her feathers rising on end and her eyes growing almost impossibly wide with fear.

"Mommy!"

The eyass streaked off into the underbrush. Blood-Seeker stared at the bush she had disappeared under for a heartbeat before closing her eyes. The eyass wasn't of Blood-Seeker's pack, and Blood-Seeker had her eggs to look after. But, as the alpha's eyes drifted shut, an all too familiar scent washed over her nares.

A low growl rumbled from her chest as her eyes slowly opened, a distinct hardness settling over her gaze.

Swiftlegs were in her grove.

The leggy dullteeth must have been drawn into the forest by the scent of her freshly laid eggs. They were stupid, desperate, or both to step into the Scarlet Grove. Everyone knew a powerful pack of greatshadows lived among the trees. And everyone knew who led the pack.

But Blood-Seeker's strong maternal instincts kept her rooted to her nest. She listened to the scuffle not too far away from her. She thought nothing of the hissing and screeching of the fight nor the sharp scent of blood that permeated the air. However, images of the soon-to-be new mothers of her pack flickered in her mind, followed by the shadows of swiftlegs sneaking among the slumbering pack and nabbing the eggs of an inexperienced parent.

Swiftlegs were quick, stealthy, and intelligent. They had to be if they dined on eggs. A distraction here, a distraction there, and a guard was away from their post or a mother off her nest. In a flash, their nimble hands would clutch an egg, and their quick legs would take them away from the scene before the guardian of the nest could notice until it was too late. It had happened many times, even among Blood-Seeker's pack.

The Pack of the Scarlet Feather would suffer if she did nothing about the swiftlegs.

Unwillingly, Blood-Seeker stood from her freshly laid nest. She stared at the azure-and-speckled eggs, debating whether dealing with the egg-hungry swiftlegs was worth leaving her eggs. But her pack didn't know about her eggs. They couldn't know about them. And if the pack knew Blood-Seeker had been out on a walk through the territory, they would question why she didn't kill the swiftlegs. She was the alpha, and she needed to keep the unborn of her pack safe. Either that or let the swiftlegs run free and brood three tiny eggs she couldn't even tell her sons about.

Besides, there were families more deserving of children than she was. Blood-Seeker had many children over her long life. She was alpha, and she was getting old. But others were young and full of life, ready to start a family. Who was she to allow her eggs, eggs that were not sired by a greatshadow, to hatch?

If swiftlegs devoured her eggs, then so be it.


Blood-Seeker weaved through the thick tree trunks, following the sounds of screeching and hissing. She lingered in the shadows when she came upon the fight, watching the scene unfold. She was only there to deal with the swiftlegs. The swiftthief family did not matter.

Currently, only the dark-grey feathered back of a faded-clay-scaled swiftleg was visible. His nimble head, long slender neck, and grasping hands were shoved deep within a burrow smelling of eggs. Another swiftleg stood to the side, hands clasped close to his chest as he watched the other male dig out the burrow. The watching gander was a shade or so darker than the one in the burrow, and the feathers on his back were a dark-caramel. Notably, both ganders possessed distinct rings around their true ankles, false ankles, wrists, and palms. Matching splotches were also visible underneath the feathers on their back, and each had yellow tail feathers, though the one watching was duller. The markings on their wrist and ankles identified them as ringwrists.

Blood-Seeker absorbed the visual input through the darkness of the night along with the two's scents. She deduced that they were brothers but not from the same clutch. The one digging out the burrow was older by a few years, as seen by his brighter tail feathers and slightly larger size, while the other was just an adolescent, still coming into his colors.

A pair of adult swiftthieves stood outside the burrow, hissing and spitting but standing guard and nursing their wounds. The tiny azure feathered eyass Blood-Seeker had spoken to earlier was hidden among the foliage not too far away from her parents. Her eyes were locked on the two ringwrists, and her feathers were fluffed to the point that she looked over twice as big as her little body actually was.

The grey-backed ringwrist jerked his head from the burrow, hissing as he shook droplets of blood from his head. An eyass burst from the burrow, hissing and shrieking, her tiny teeth stained with his blood. "Get away from my siblings! You can't have them!"

The gander clacked his beak and swatted the dusky-cinnamon and shadowed-cinnamon striped eyass with a grey wing. The little ball of fluff tumbled away, barely scratched but rather dazed. Her azure and burnt-azure-dappled father launched himself at the ringwrist, but he barely reached above the gander's true ankle. He couldn't bite before the ringwrist delivered a powerful kick to his chest. With the tiercel handled, the ringwrist dove back into the burrow.

"Silent-Torrent!" the dusky-cinnamon and black-striped formel shouted, scrambling to her mate's side. She helped him to his feet, watching as the ringwrist withdrew again from the burrow, shaking loose another azure youngling from his beak.

The fastbiter eyass dropped to the ground beside his sister. He stared at the much larger ringwrist as his sister gave a fearsome hiss, fanning her half-grown, cinnamon tail feathers and wings. The ringwrist snapped his beak at them, sending the azure and black dappled eyass running, but the dusky-cinnamon one stayed rooted in place. When the ringwrist made another move to bite her more intentionally, she dodged and sprinted to her parents. With the troublesome eyass scared off, he peered inside the burrow, looking for anything else around the eggs.

"There are plants all around you, you stupid dulltooth!" Silent-Torrent shouted. "Why do you want our eggs?"

The ringwrist either didn't understand Thorntongue, the language of mostly carnivorous clawhands, or didn't care about Silent-Torrent's words. It seemed all he was after were eggs, even though they would do little to fill his and his brother's stomachs.

With everyone outside the nest, the gander clacked his beak at his younger brother standing off to the side. Nervously, the dark-caramel-backed gander approached and slid his smaller body into the burrow. He emerged a moment later with two tiny, pale-blue swiftthief eggs.

The dusky-cinnamon mother screeched. "Get away from my eggs, you bastards!"

She ran at the ringwrist and, with a mighty leap, landed on his back. Her sickled claws dug deep, and she latched her jaws around the base of his neck. The younger gander nearly dropped the eggs as he screamed, but his brother swooped in, taking the eggs from the adolescent's hands. He didn't even bother to deal with the enraged formel on his brother's back. He just slipped into the shadows of the night, copper eyes nearly glowing in the darkness as he watched and waited, the small pale-blue eggs held close to his chest as if they were his own offspring.

The adolescent gander spun in circles, desperately trying to dislodge his diminutive attacker. Silent-Torrent finally recovered from the blow to the ribs and lurched forward. The tiercel sprung, jaws ready to clamp onto the ringwrist's fleshy, dim-clay throat. But the young gander unintentionally waved his neck just out of reach as he continued to scream his head off, prancing around in agony. Silent-Torrent's serrated teeth only nicked flesh, drawing just a droplet of blood. Landing with a heavy thud, he barely caught himself on his feet, his body aching from earlier wounds. The azure swiftthief looked up to spy the state of his mate, only to be met with a face full of ringwrist claws and feathers. The claws scored deep across his face, and the blow's force tossed him back onto his side.

Blinded by his blood, Silent-Torrent sat up, body aching with pain and exhaustion. He cawed to his mate and ushered his three younglings under him. The two female eyasses were still fluffed, their tiny wings and tail feathers fanned while they hissed at the ringwrist like there was no tomorrow. Their brother clung to their father's pale-azure-scaled leg, shivering like a leaf in the wind.

"That's enough, Pebble-Pouncer! Just stop! They've got our eggs! There's nothing else we can do! Just stop before you get yourself killed!" Silent-Torrent shouted to his mate, his voice cracking.

But Pebble-Pouncer wasn't giving up. She dug her claws and sank her teeth deeper into the ringwrist's flesh. The gander kept running in circles until he just stopped. Frozen, his bronze eyes were wide with fear as he stared into the trees. A scream rose from his throat, pure fear rather than pain. With a desperate thrash of his body, he dislodged the dusky-cinnamon formel and streaked off into the forest.

Pebble-Pouncer landed with a heavy thud; the air knocked from her lungs. It took her a moment to struggle and turn to the older ringwrist in the shadows. The gander grinned, the two eggs almost glowing in his grasp under a shaft of moonlight. He moved deeper into the shadows as she gave him a rage-filled hiss, the grin never leaving the corners of his beak.

"Too late. Your eggs will be nestled in our stomachs by sunrise." The lilting, breathy accent of his native Roottongue, the language of omnivorous clawhands, was thick, but his words were clear enough. Before Pebble-Pouncer could lunge for his throat, he gave her a powerful kick to the chest, talons carving deep into her flesh. His copper eyes glinted as they met something beyond the family of swiftthieves. "And you will be too, fastbiters." With those words, he turned tail.

Pebble-Pouncer gasped for breath as she lay on the ground, blood oozing from the gashes across her chest. Silent-Torrent approached her, half his face bloodied from the claw marks marring his face. Carefully, he helped her sit up, worry shining in his good eye. Their three younglings cautiously gathered around their parents.

The dusky-cinnamon and black-striped formel stared into the distance where the two ringwrists had vanished. "They… they took our children… They took our children!" She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the pain as she shrieked a wordless scream at the long-gone thieves.

She turned onto her mate, feathers bristling. "Why'd you let them go? Why'd you let them steal our children? They took our babies, Torrent! They took them!" Her voice cracked, angry tears sliding down the faded-cinnamon scales of her face and wetting her feathers.

"I tried as hard as I could, Pebble. But… but you knew there was nothing we could do as soon as he had the eggs in his hands. They were so much bigger than us. We… we couldn't do anything else." He touched his wing to her wing, hooking a talon around one of her talons. "Pebble. There was nothing else we could have done. But look. We still have our three other children and…."

Silent-Torrent swallowed hard, letting go of his mate, and approached the burrow. He ducked inside for a heartbeat before backing out, a pained smile pulling on his lips and his lone jade-green eye shining with tears. "We've got one left. We'll still have one surviving eyass from the clutch."

Pebble-Pouncer stared blankly at the burrow. "And the other two were eaten by egg-hungry ringwrists…." She closed her eyes and stumbled to her mate.

Silent-Torrent buried his snout into her soft feathers, breathing in her scent. It helped just a little. At least they still had each other, their three younglings, and whomever the egg would grow up to be. Sadly, he would never know who his other children would have been. All they could do was tend to each other's wounds and clean their burrow before the smell of blood lured in another, much deadlier predator.

At the sound of leaf litter moving, the pair looked up from their grieving. A massive sickleclaw's silhouette stepped out of the shadows. A shaft of moonlight washed over her body, burning away the darkness of the night, revealing scarlet feathers and dark-amber eyes.

"No, no, no, no. This can't be happening." Pebble-Pouncer pressed her body closer to Silent-Torrent. "They found us. They weren't supposed to."

"We will die by sunrise," Silent-Torrent repeated the words of the ringwrist, eyes locked on Blood-Seeker.

The tiny azure feathered eyass jumped in front of her parents, bristling while the pale-azure scales under her eyes were wet with angry tears as she stared up at the much larger formel. "Why didn't you help us?" she shouted.

"Mist-Wanderer," Pebble-Pouncer hissed, sweeping her daughter under her.

"Death is everywhere," Blood-Seeker answered with a slow blink. "And I have no obligation to help strangers in my territory. Explain why you are here in the Scarlet Grove of the Pack of The Scarlet Feather?"

"You have no right to force us to explain anything to you, strongbiter!" Pebble-Pouncer shouted, her feathers fanning. "We don't hunt your prey. We don't eat your hatchlings. Why should it matter?"

"Pebble-Pouncer," Silent-Torrent gasped, his one good eye wide with horror.

He turned to Blood-Seeker, stepping in front of his mate. "Please. Don't kill us. You saw what happened with the ringwrists. We have three younglings and one egg to care for. Please. Please, don't kill us. We have nowhere else to go. This was the only place we could find on such short notice. We're sorry. If you would just let us—"

"Silent-Torrent." Pebble-Pouncer sent him a sharp look. "Do you know whom you're talking to?"

Silent-Torrent looked up at Blood-Seeker, his only good eye taking in her massive form, scarlet feathers, the visible scars on her light-red scaled legs and snout, and the dullness in her feathers. "You're-you're-the alpha of the Pack of the Scarlet Feather." He stepped back, a shaky breath sounding from his lungs. "You're The Bloody Beldam."

"What of it? I have my story, and you have yours. Tell me your story, swiftthieves."

Pebble-Pouncer sighed, the fiery rage seeping from her body, replaced by exhaustion and grief. She stepped alongside her mate, holding one wing closer to her body. An old, ill-healed wound was visible through the dusky-cinnamon feathers of her arm. An old bite mark from another sharptooth — another swiftthief.

"We were kicked out of my birth pack after I failed to kill a newly hatched dawnfrill calf. The pack was starving. But I don't think that was the whole reason. The leader always had something against me since we were eyasses. The mother dawnfrill injured me. An injured pack member is a dead pack member, especially in the Dying Lands. With a mate, three children, and gravid, many mouths no longer needed to be fed if my family and I were banished…." Pebble-Pouncer gestured to her injured wing. "I would have fought back with all my heart, but… I was already injured, had to care for my family, and was gravid…."

Pebble-Pouncer gazed at Silent-Torrent and her three younglings, tears shining in her goldenrod eyes. "We ran as hard and fast as we could. I didn't want to stop here. I knew this was the Scarlet Grove, and a dangerous pack of greatshadows ruled here. But I had to stop. I had to lay my eggs." She bowed her head. "We will leave as soon as my last egg hatches. Please let us stay for another moon cycle, and we will be gone."

Blood-Seeker gazed long and hard at the family. Her gaze shifted slightly — to the burrow behind them where their last egg lay. Images of the eggs she had recently laid flashed behind her eyes. With a huff, she turned away. "Death is everywhere. Do not become too attached, even to your flesh and blood."

Pebble-Pouncer blinked, "What?"

"Do I need to repeat myself?" Blood-Seeker snapped from over her shoulder. "I will give you until your egg hatches and injuries heal. Then, I want you gone. Some members of my pack may not be as forgiving, knowing other sickleclaws, no matter how small, live in the Scarlet Grove."

"Th-thank you."

Blood-Seeker huffed and walked away.

The strongbiter formel weaved through the trees, her feet guiding her back to her nest. She would sniff out the two ringwrist brothers later. Pebble-Pouncer had done a number on the adolescent gander, and the older one would hopefully be satisfied with the swiftthief eggs until daybreak. For now, Blood-Seeker needed rest and time to think about her eggs. However, as she drew closer to where she had laid her clutch, a familiar silhouette stood over her nest. It sported the wheat-colored tail feathers of a female.

It seemed the ringwrist brothers had an older sister.