Wednesday 2/2/2061, Location: 44.61756, 33.62658, Time 22:30:00

Marius lifted off, smoothly adding power to the engines and the tilt-wing rose smoothly into the air. Hunter was busy looking at the map on his screen, and didn't notice the little twitch that started at the pilot's neck, spreading towards his jaw, making the flesh writhe and pulse as the muscles fired ineffectually…

"Our drop-off point for the gun is a city called Iasi, in Romania. Only a couple of hundred klicks west of us. Or we can head back to Sochi and top up with fuel, and hit the mountains, then come back this way."

"Well, we need to try and get an eagle for the zoo, and that's still our best option, we think. And although the job went smoothly, going off grid for a week won't do us any harm, I think."

"I agree with Aswon. Let's stick with the plan – get some talismongering done and then we'll head back to this place, make contact and deliver, then head towards France – assuming we're successful."

"Roger that, laying in course now. Just over five hundred klicks, be about an hour." Hunter fed the course to Marius, feeling the aircraft tilt a bare moment later as the pilot adjusted heading and began the journey. They retraced their steps, flying over the interior uplands, up and over the mountains and then streaking over the heavily built-up residential areas clustered around the coast until they hit the Black Sea and shot out over the water.

Hunter stretched in the co-pilot seat and relaxed – Marius was more than capable of flying the aircraft and manning the sensors at the same time, and with the course laid in, there wasn't much for him to do. Instead he just stared out of the cockpit windows, watching as the series of peaks and troughs marched across the sea, white caps bursting into small fountains of spray before the strong northerly wind. It was quite hypnotic, and he laced his fingers behind his head as he stared out of the armoured glass to the horizon ahead. His cyber-enhanced eyes augmented the tiny amount of star-light that broke through the cloud cover, and the surface of the sea was a mottled green colour, blips and spikes of detail showing up and then vanishing as the waves crashed and twisted below them. Though, as he suddenly sat up straighter – perhaps not as far below them as they should be.

He watched for a minute to make sure that he wasn't mistaken – but no, they were definitely losing altitude, angling almost imperceptibly down towards the sea. He could have gone for a radio message or cry of alarm – but instead he twisted slightly in his seat and then dug an elbow into Marius's ribs, pressing hard.

"Oi mate, let's not have a bath!"

Marius twitched, the sensation from his meat-body forcing its way through into his mind, appearing in a confusing mass of signals. He moved slightly, but Hunter poked him again, just as hard. He replayed the last few seconds of sensor footage from the cockpit to ensure he'd actually heard Hunter correctly and then checked his instruments carefully. A moment later the bird nosed up and a sudden burst of power started to lift them up.

"You feeling alright?"

"Checking." Marius sounded distracted as he examined the instruments and flight control systems, trying to determine what had just happened. Everything seemed ok, which was even more worrying – as he'd clearly been heading down on a one degree glide slope, and if Hunter hadn't said anything, they would have impacted the waves at over four hundred and fifty kilometres per hour, sending them cartwheeling across the sea and no doubt disintegrating as they flipped, sending them all to a watery grave. That was…suboptimal as far as he was concerned, even if Kai was being especially annoying at the moment.

Taking a deep breath, he levelled out at one hundred metres and then engaged the auto-pilot, disengaging himself from the flight systems entirely, and then running a diagnostic check using the inbuilt utility of his vehicle control rig. For five minutes he sat, feeling odd twitches and shrugs as his system tested the various parts of the rig, sending electrical impulses out to his body that should normally have been moving flaps up and down or retracting the landing gear, or any one of a hundred other tasks. Everything seemed ok though, with no issues being reported – though as he concentrated, he started to feel slightly uneasy. It wasn't anything he could quite put his finger on at first, and it wasn't until the third time performing a basic check of the kernel interface that he noticed the almost imperceptible lag when processing.

He jumped back into the tilt-wing, but rather than going for the direct control he normally favoured, he instead used the 'Captain's Chair' setting, where he sat in a virtual interface that would allow him to monitor and control half a dozen different drones and vehicles, flipping between them to give orders and check sensor feeds. It also insulated him somewhat from the systems on the bird – rather than having the sensors and controls directly connected to his hind-brain, where damage to the craft would be directly translated to a storm of signals that could damage or even destroy his neural pathways – in Captain's Chair, he was operating one step removed. Slower, not as intuitive – but far safer. Once logged in, he started another slow, methodical and thorough check of the systems. The lag was still there, making him think it was more likely the problem was with his interface and control rig, rather than the tilt-wing itself.

As he ran through test after test, he spotted a glitch. It was minor, something that barely mattered – and were it not for his prodigious memory he might not have been certain about it. But, he knew that the date of the oil change on the left hand engine should match the right – not only because they were normally done in tandem, but because he remembered the change being done, and where. The picture swam into his mind, of sitting in the dining room at Chun's martial arts academy, scanning the daily progress reports on the engine rebuilds, and then of the follow up change done south of New York, when they'd been waiting for the Maersk ship to bring them across the Atlantic. But now… he examined the data again, and saw that all the digits had been shifted, scrambled into new positions.

He continued to check, and started to spot a few more errors of the same type – random transpositions of values, or anomalous readings that had drifted from the values set. The details were tiny, and in most case would be overlooked, or were present in only one of the systems on the aircraft. Though not a civilian design with the multiple redundant systems required by international insurers and flight safety standards, the military this aircraft had been built for knew it would be travelling in harm's way, and so for different reasons they had redundancy and damage compensating routines built into the systems, where the controls would take the closest two of three – or more – readings, to allow for continued operation.

Knowing what he was looking for now, he did a deep dive into the artificial horizon sub-system, working out what control channels it broadcast on and how the data was formatted. The physical devices on the aircraft were fine, and all showed the same readings to within four decimal places. With that confirmed, he checked the data compactors and processers in his VCR, feeding in test data and watching it spit out values as he ran through a focussed diagnostic – until he suddenly noticed a jump in the data, and a one degree change in where his VCR would 'think' the horizon was, compared to where it 'actually' was. Flying as close to the ground as they often did, that was enough to be a significant danger to them. He found the section of the code responsible, and put a bypass on the primary controller, forcing it to use the backup system which was performing flawlessly – at least for now.

He checked the bird was on auto-pilot, and then activated his external views, and got Hunter's attention, spending the next few minutes describing in intricate detail what he'd found and where the error lay. Hunters normal sardonic grin was absent as he listened carefully, his mind whirring as he correlated symptoms with what he knew about cyber-engineering, nanotech, engineering and system integration.

"It sounds like you're being subjected to either some over-zealous nanites, or it's a deliberate action as part of their plan. Either way, it's shit they didn't warn you or say anything. But it's likely that the swarm of nanny's are targeting your VCR, and are breaking it down into free-floating materials, which they're probably storing somewhere, ready for when the new implant is put in, when they'll use it to help integrate the new 'ware into your system. Either that, or they'll get flushed out as part of the process. But this is going to be an ongoing process until they can get you up on the table and sort you out.

"Will using my rig accelerate the process?"

"Hey – look, I can give you my best guess. Well – no, it's not just a guess. I know a bit about this stuff, but we're not working with medical diagnostics here, and I don't know what they put in you. So… take this with a pinch of salt, ok?"

"Noted."

"I don't think so. I think the nanites are on a programmed task, and they'll carry it out at a set rate, until they run out of power and break down, or the task is done. I can't see what you do affecting them much. Well, short of massive systemic damage anyway, and that's not something we want to do."

"Agreed. I have no desire to be fatally shot or electrocuted, thank you."

"We'll monitor the situation and see how we go. I'll get some more research done – I'll need the make and model of your control rig, and as much history as you can, and we'll see what we can find out. But until we get this sorted… are you able to fly ok?"

"Ja. Now that I am aware of the issue, I will take precautions and make allowances."

They flew on through the night sky, angling down towards Sochi and the Olympic Village once more. A quick call from Kai warned the stop they were heading in, and the usual old man attended to the fuelling process, charging them another seven and a half thousand Nuyen to top off their tanks.

"Just a heads up, everyone," Kai huffed slightly as he climbed back aboard after the fuelling was complete. "That's just dropped us below a hundred grand on the stick. So, we've got enough for fuel for a while, but we want to watch out for other expenses…"

"Well, we shouldn't have that much coming up we need to buy other than fuel – Tads will continue to cover us for food and water, I hope?" Aswon looked over to get a nod from the shaman. "So that's a big headache sorted. We don't need any new gear at the moment, so it's going to be any bribes or costs for overnight stays en-route, so that will hopefully be manageable. And if we're spending a week up in the mountains, that's not going to cost us anything either…"

"Speaking of that – where are we heading for?"

The team saw the monitors flick into life and display the range of the Trans-Caucus Mountains, stretching from the Black Sea across to the Caspian Sea, a broad range of mountains dividing Russia and Chechnya to the north from the Trans-Caucus League to the south. Stretching nearly a thousand kilometres from shore to shore the range provided a formidable natural barrier between the countries that was nearly a hundred kilometres thick in places.

Hunter started at the north-west extent of the mountains and then began to pan down to the south-east, moving slowly as they examined the range along it's length, trying to work out where the best place to go would be. It was clear they needed to be deep in the mountains and as far away from 'civilisation' as they could get to avoid the pollution, dumping and exploitation that would destroy natural materials and rob them of any magical value, and it was also a reasonable assumption that the better and cleaner the habitat would be, the higher the chance of finding wildlife such as the Imperial Eagle they sought.

Balanced against that, the more remote locations came with their own problems – access, wildness and the risk of large para-critters that could prove fatal to them, along with the chance of stumbling across guerrilla camps, terrorists, special forces teams moving through the area or warbands making a move to cross the range discreetly.

After a few minutes of discussion, they decided to head for the area of mountains just to the north-east of the Pskhu-Gumisa Nature Reserve – or what was left of it after the corporations had purchased most of the area for bio-genetic research. Still, beyond that area the mountains rose steeply creating a maze of deep valleys and towering mountain slopes. The area was generally under their flight ceiling, though, well away from urban areas and probably had a good chance of containing what they needed, without straying too far from the black sea and using up too much fuel. Aswon also counselled them to stick to the higher altitudes, as it was likely that any armed enemies were more likely to stick to lower altitudes, where water was easier to come by and the weather would be less treacherous.

The journey was barely more than a hundred kilometres from Sochi, and was swift – but despite that, as they flew over the mountains and started to catch some of the weather effects, the team noticed their flight wasn't quite as smooth as it would normally have been.

"Everything ok, Marius? Getting a lot of chop back here!" Kai called forward.

"I am flying manually at the moment. It may be bumpier than usual."

"Manual? Why?" Kai waited, but the silence stretched out long enough that he wondered if there was a problem with the communication system.

"There is a problem. My VCR is seeming to be having some issues."

"What kind of issues?" Kai asked. Instead of Marius, though, the voice that answered was Hunter, who gave a brief run-down on what they had discovered so far, and how it was affecting the situation, broken down into terse and compact engineering data and observations.

"If your head thingy is breaking down – do we have a week? Don't we need to go get you fixed?" Tads couldn't help but give a little shiver of horror as she asked, the very concept of cyber-ware in her body still one that filled her with dread, let alone the idea that it might be 'rotting' or 'dissolving' for some reason.

Again, Hunter responded, giving his estimate of what was happening and the likely linear progression of events.

"I don't want to make light of this – it's a serious issue, and we should do whatever we need to sort Marius out. But I just want to point out that even without his cyber-ware interface, I'm pretty sure Marius could fly us anywhere in the world, using the stick and his natural skills. The cyber just makes him better…"

Further discussion was cut short as they rose up into the mountains, approaching their destination. They'd selected a high gorge with a large lake at the end, with no settlements within fifty kilometres according to the limited map they had. The mountains were draped in snow and ice, and the lake looked to be frozen over, but large expanses of the rocky land were still exposed where the wind had driven away any snowfall before it had a chance to settle.

They came in for a landing, finding a patch of flat-ish land as close to one of the knife-like ridges as they could. The sharp precipice rising up would keep them in shade for a large portion of the day as the sun struggled above the winter horizon, making them more difficult to spot from satellites or overflying planes and drones, especially if they deployed the cammo netting.

It was Aswon that suggested rolling out tarps first, covering the tilt-wing's fuselage and using the structure of the plane as a giant ridge-pole, creating a large tent space underneath, then covering that in turn with the cammo netting. The tarp cut out the vast majority of the wind, creating a pocket of still air underneath. Though still frigid, it lacked the bite to be felt outside, and made the situation more bearable. Tads further enhanced this by raising a ring of earth around them, forming a windbreak that rose up to and enveloped the bottom edge of the tarpaulin on most sides. The wind was cut out almost entirely, just gusts circling from the doorway left open, and the plane – now looking more like a Saxon hut, was even harder to spot.

They were high up, and the air was thin – but the team had operated at high altitude before, and though they all felt a little 'gaspy' they knew that this would pass with time and it was just a matter of re-acclimatising. The best thing they could do was to moderate their activity and give their bodies a little time to adjust, working slowly and steadily in their talismongering. With the local weather conditions and the risks associated with a fall or slip in the rough alpine environment, this wasn't a terrible idea either, and the team naturally dropped into low gear. Tads felt a lot more confident on this trip – her acquisition of a spell that could directly oxygenated a person's blood-stream made her feel a lot happier about keeping the team functional and able to respond in an emergency, and her ability to affect the temperature using the spell learnt from the shaman in Tsimshin reassured her that nobody would be freezing to death. She cast the spell and held it in place using only a fraction of her power, enough to raise the temperature by about ten degrees Celsius, which quickly warmed the bubble of air near the craft. It didn't sound like much, but with their winter clothes on anyway, it went from being 'ok' to 'actually quite pleasant and comfortable', greatly improving their quality of life.

The area was quiet, and they made it through the night without interruptions. Morning bought some clear skies, the cold front that had been dumping rain on them for days finally shifting to the west, leaving the mountains clear. As the sun struggled upwards, the sky turned a clear azure blue, bringing some colour to the area around them. At first they had through it was barren, but the area was much more like an alpine meadow than a rocky slope – presumably thanks to the enveloping mountain ridges and shelter they provided along with the plentiful source of water. Large swathes of hardy grass and moss stuck out from amidst sheets of ice and snow, and the area had a rugged natural beauty to it. The limestone rocks and gravel sparkled brightly in the sunshine, while the frozen lake had a turquoise sheen to it indicating that there was still liquid water below the top layer of ice, no doubt teeming with life and waiting for the warmer months to return.

Hunter and Marius stayed with the aircraft, experimenting and doing further diagnostic work, trying to determine the damage and effects of whatever was going on with their pilot's VCR. Piloting a drone around the area, both Marius and Hunter were glued to their displays, gathering information and performing experiments to see just how much risk there was.

The rest of the team split up into groups and started to explore the area, moving slowly and carefully and checking the ground before every step. Here and there they found winter snowdrops, ice-lichen, and a handful of other plants that were growing and flourishing despite the harsh weather, and these were examined in detail and cuttings gently taken where a plant was found to be unsullied by pollution and containing a faint glimmer of unspoilt magic. Down by the lake they found some stones had bands of metal ore running through them, and again they spent time sifting through the tons of rocks, looking for those that harboured the faintest glimmer of magic.

By the end of the third day, they had nearly twenty kilos of plants gathered, along with more than ten kilos of rocks, all having magical potential or value. Carefully stored away in boxes, they'd need the stability of their enchanting shop back at the ranch to extract the magical power from them without ruining the materials – but that would help sort out a small stockpile of materials for future use in enchanting or creating materials for binding wards permanently to a place.

Early on the fourth day as they were out looking for more supplies, Aswon noticed the circling bird, calling a halt and pointing it out to all of the others. It was a few hundred metres above them, wings catching the air currents driven up from the mountains and soaring effortlessly through the air in gentle sweeps. Aswon checked it out through the binoculars, using the markings on the optical lenses to estimate the size of the creature, and confirming that this was likely to be an Imperial Eagle – either that or another species of eagle with a near four-metre wingspan and similar colouring.

The bird was large, the body stretching nearly a metre and a half, and the plumage looked to be in good condition, the talons swept back flush with the body to make a streamlined shape, little v's of yellow protruding from the brown feathers. From the size and colouring, it was likely to be a female, and looked to be fully mature, though beyond that they had no idea of age.

"Do you know what I fancy? A rabbit. Not had rabbit for ages." Aswon turned around to survey the rest of the team, then grabbed his spear and bought it to a ready position. "Now, where am I gonna find a rabbit up here?" A mild look of confusion crossed his face, and he glanced up at the bird, then resumed his scan of the area, looking for prey. Another moment passed, and he looked up at the bird again, a faint tinge of suspicion crossing his mind. He shook his head, dreadlocks shaking violently as he tried to clear his mind. "Oh, it's like that is it? Right… watch your thoughts, folks. I think that's definitely magically active…" He stared up at the bird, probing at it hard with his astral vision. He could see powers active upon it, but not determine what they were – it could be something that aided its movement or speed of flight – or it could well be some kind of mental compulsion…

Tads wandered over to him and lifted her hands, holding up two roasted rabbits, one in each hand.

"Best I can do, I think. Cold, but cooked – that should be alright for the bird, right?"

"Oh, I think that would do." Aswon took one, then planted his spear in the ground to free up his second hand for balance, before letting out a piercing whistle and hoisting the rabbit up into the air. He managed to get it about thirty metres up by spinning like a discus thrower and putting all of his strength into it, and it was easily as far out on an arcing trajectory when the eagle folded wings and descended in a steep dive, pulling out and flaring wings to brake abruptly and a pair of large taloned feet striking out to spear through the rabbit in mid-air. With steady wing beats the eagle gained altitude and headed for the knife-edge rocks above them, banking again and coming in to land near the summit on a tiny ledge, where it started to tear at the meat, pulling off chunks and swallowing them down. In between each bite, the bird looked around, checking the surroundings as if expecting to have to fight for its meal, or fend off attackers of some kind – but nothing approached it. Aswon and Tads remained where they were, watching the eagle as it ate, while Kai and Shimazu returned to their search for magical components.

They couldn't see why it happened – but they saw the effects. Maybe it was a slip, or a sudden gust of wind, maybe something else – but all of a sudden, the eagle was looking down, watching the tumbling remains of the rabbit carcass as it spun and bounced off the cliffs, falling away from the precipice. Tads smiled, watching as the bird tracked the falling prey tumble and fall down the rocks, imagining the frustration and annoyance as its dinner fell, far too close to the sharp and sheer stones to safely take. She passed over the second rabbit to Aswon.

"I think they might still be hungry, and a little annoyed with themselves." Aswon nodded and moved closer to the cliff, then after a short wind-up managed to pitch the rabbit up high in the air. Once more the eagle unfolded their wings and vaulted from their eyrie, dropping down and away from the cliff to take the thrown meat at the apogee of the throw, before banking and climbing again to return to their perch. This time though they seemed to move further back from the edge and dropped the meat, before attacking it. They ate only half, before turning and moving back to the edge and waiting there, head twisting back and forth, scanning the landscape around themselves. After reassuring themselves the coast was still clear, they started to preen, beak working through the feathers and adjusting them, cleaning themselves up after the meal. The feathers ruffled up, making it look like the bird was being inflated as it swelled by nearly half its size again, as it used the feathers to trap a layer of air around the body to use as insulation.

"I think it's pretty stuffed for now, but I reckon they'll metabolise that quite quickly and be hungry for more later. There can't be much prey around in winter, so they'll probably turn it to fat reserves or something. Anyway, I think more food later on would be good."

"Sure, now we know where the nest is, I can just create some food right up there. Easy enough to do."

"Oh – no, I don't think we want to do that. We want the bird to know we're the source of the food. Or responsible for it, at least. So we need to either throw or place it, to get it fixed in the bird's mind that we're trying to help it."

"Ahh – I see. Ok, we can still do that. I can make another pair of rabbits easily enough. Or maybe a rabbit and a nice fat steak – that should have more value to it, I think." She thought for a moment. "And I can drop my spell defence and try to cover all of the rest of us with my aura, to make us more resistant to its powers.

"Why not me?" Aswon turned to examine her.

"Well, it looks like it's already got a rapport with you. I'm guessing that's why you just 'felt like' rabbit earlier, anyway.

"Well, I'd like to be protected as well thanks. Much rather not have it turn on me or see me as a valid target for something."

"Oh, very well. I just thought you might have a special bond with it, that was all."

"I'd much rather not have a special lightning bolt with my name on it, thanks. These things are reputed to be able to affect the weather, you know!"

They continued to talismonger with the others for the rest of the day, keeping an eye out on the skies above them as they did so. The eagle stayed in the area, spending some time soaring high above them, and some time up in the cliffs, sitting and watching them as they combed the landscape. It gave a cry as Hunter emerged from the tilt-wing and set off at a brisk walk along the edge of the mountain, weapons slung over his back, but resumed its circling as Hunter paid it no attention and concentrated on his climb, and soon he was dropping out of sight over the lip of the ridge as he went for a patrol.

As the light started to fail, Tads conjured up another rabbit, passing it to Aswon. Rather than throwing it, instead he swung it around his head several times to make sure the eagle had seen it, and then conspicuously wandered over to an area of exposed rock and laid the rabbit out, before retreating back to the tilt-wing. The eagle watched for a minute, then took off from the cliff, circling above the spot and looking down at the meat laid out below it, scanning around the area intently. It came down, lower and lower, speeding over the landscape before landing about ten metres away.

Aswon and Tads stood still, watching it and trying not to do anything that would be alarming. Slowly it hopped forward, ungainly now on the ground, still clearly suspicious about the situation, but slowly being overcome with the desire for a free lunch. Eventually it reached the rabbit, hopping forward the last few steps to reach it, head twisting this way and that as it examined it. With blinding speed, a beak slashed forwards to grab some meat, tearing it off from the body and swallowing it rapidly, then looking up and around. When nothing happened, it hopped forwards slightly closer, and then opened its wings and mantled them around the prey, forming a protective barrier. The head dived down and struck again, coming up with another tender morsel while the wings covered and obscured the rest.

Tads watched carefully, letting the bird get into a rhythm and letting it eat about a third of the rabbit, before she took a deep breath and then carefully dropped her masking, exposing her magical nature to be seen. As soon as she did so, the bird froze, staring at her directly with the focus of a laser. Simultaneously, the wind picked up, blowing sharply from the north. It rose in force, stronger and stronger, not gusting and blowing like wind should, but a constant stream of air that pushed at her gently. She watched the bird and tried to stand as still as she could, other than spreading her feet a little wider to steady herself against the wind, and otherwise just tried to radiate her feelings – peace, tranquillity and a complete lack of hostility.

The wind started to subside as they did nothing, and the bird returned to eating, tearing more meat from the bones with the sharp beak while the curved talons held it in place, wings spread to cover and hide the feast from the rest of the world.

"Ok, let's see how you like something a bit more juicy…" Tads gathered mana and shaped it, forming it into a nice plump steak that appeared just before the eagle. The effect was not quite what she'd hoped for…

Panicking at the sudden change in the environment, the bird tried to hop into the air. One foot was firmly tangled in the rabbit though, and with the wings arrayed out around the prey, the eagle found itself off balance as it tried to push up. Veering off to one side, panic rising as it found itself 'trapped', it's simple mind not realising that it needed to let go of the prey, it lurched to the side and rolled, falling over in an ungainly lump. Now truly alarmed it gave a pitiful-sounding cry and then finally realised it needed to let go, flapping furiously to take off and rise up into the air as quickly as it could. It didn't take long until it had resumed its slow circles of the area. Tads and Aswon tried not to laugh, and instead just stand there impassively, being as non-threatening as possible – but it was difficult. Tads assensed the eagle, being careful not to push too hard lest she be seen as trying to affect it.

"I think it's feeling a little self-conscious. At least that's what I'm getting from it."

"I'm not surprised."

"Ok, I'm going to try a mind-link with it, and just get the surface thoughts. Just in case something happens…"

Aswon tried not to move, but readied himself and his spear in case he needed to sweep Tads under and arm and get her out of the way, or defend himself with the blunt end of his weapon – he really didn't want to do anything that would be hostile, but neither did he want to take any chances. Next to him, he heard Tads grunt as she made contact, swaying slightly from side to side in time with the eagle's gentle banks.

"Wow… strange. Mind is so different. So focussed. Very basic thoughts, but very intense. It's suspicious of us, of the steak. I don't think it sees us as hostile though, just different, strange. I'm trying to…. I'm not even sure we see things the same way. I… yes… there we go, we're food providers. We make meat appear. Not a threat. Not danger…" Her voice was distant, words disjointed as the effort of trying to simplify her thoughts to fit the eagle's world view dragged her away from her own.

Tads twitched sharply, head snapping round to the side as Hunter reappeared over the ridge-line, moving swiftly and with a purpose. The eagle fixed him with a stare, and Tads picked up on a cascade of thoughts as the bird picked up on a sense of alarm and caution radiating from him. The eagle dived, the sudden thoughts rippling though its mind and making Tads sway almost to the point of losing her balance as it swooped down to claim the steak, rising up sharply to return to the perch high up on the mountain. Tads let the spell drop, blinking as her senses normalised, then pointed up at Hunter.

"We've got news about something. Something worrying." She activated her link, calling out to him. "What's up, Hunter?"

"Radio silence," he responded brusquely, continuing to climb down the scree slope as quickly as he could. They noticed his weapon was in his hands, not slung on his shoulder any more, and a pair of binoculars bounced on the strap around his neck. It didn't take him more than a couple of minutes to get back to camp, which allowed enough time for Tads and Aswon to get everyone else gathered together, weapons ready.

"I was over the other side of the ridge – stand down, I don't think it's a problem for us. Relax. It's just something to be aware of." He waved at the rest to reinforce his words, especially Aswon who had grabbed the huge sniper rifle and was preparing to load it. "Down in the valley, way down by the river - I saw a patrol. Or a convoy or whatever. But, maybe thirty mules, loaded down with supplies – really heavily-loaded mind, they looked half-dead. And about fifty or so people, armed with what looked like some kind of AK family rifle, spread amongst them. Working down the valley, following the water, and moving in…" Hunter stopped and replayed the scene in his head. "Moving in a tactical formation. Not a good one – they clearly don't actually expect to be ambushed, because they were smoking and drinking – at least I think they were, the range was pretty long. But they had scouts out to the front, and people watching the flanks and rear, so there's some level of military discipline there."

"Are they approaching us?"

"No, Kai – they're running sort of parallel to us, and heading down-river like I said. But it's confirmation that we have armed hostiles in the area. If they're para-military, they may also have comms gear, so we want to watch what we're transmitting, too."

"Who do you think they were?"

"Bandits maybe, belonging to a local warlord. Or Chechens, maybe a raiding force or smugglers. Could be a spec-ops team if they're really shit. I mean their discipline was awful, but they could still be 'elites' by local standards. Could be an army unit in disguise – but same thing applies. I'd favour either bandits or raiders personally."

"Ok. Well, do you think they could be here soon?"

"No – no way. We're about three or four kilometres away and about two kilometres above them. Given the state of them, I can't see them suddenly turning and scaling the mountain. But we do probably want to be careful with our overnight watch, just in case."

"I can help with that – make sure we have some spirits out to form an outer perimeter on the ridge line." Tads offered.

"Sure. Let's do that. But if there's no threat, let's relax for the moment and play it by ear. Let's grab some food, and see what happens. Ok?" Hunter nodded in agreement with Kai, and the rest of the team relaxed, putting weapons back in racks or on slings, and getting ready for their evening meal.

Up above them, the eagle devoured the steak happily. It wasn't sure who the strange things were that were in its territory, but they certainly had nice food, and the blood-splattered beak tore at another strip of lean meat, swallowing with pleasure until its crop was full and its eyes half closed. It shook itself, fluffing up feathers against the night air, and pulled one leg up into the mass of feathers on its chest to keep warm. Time to sleep…