Chương 54: Problem bird

Blick took his time traversing the trees back the way he had come. When he found his way back to where he left the bird he looked around unsure if he had come to the wrong tree. Climbing up into the canopy top he poked his head above the tree line to search and saw the bird flying over the plains at a casual pace. It made a slow deliberate circle fairly high in the sky. Blick relaxed understanding the thing was probably just exploring. He did a slow spin looking around the area.

The edge of the forest stretched on forever it seemed. This was the first time Blick had seen an area so drastically different than the jungle he grew up in on two separate worlds. He sat and enjoyed a new view. The land stretched for miles in changing shades of green and tan. The grass swayed in small waves with the wind, and was broken by small islands of rocky ground with a few rocky hills. He could see a trail of a few people moving from one of the further hills towards the camp in a very slow procession.

It seemed the grass came up about waist high for most of the people walking. The huge bird swooped down towards the line of people and circled the man in the lead with. It didn't land, but as it flew in closer it clearly scared the people. They scattered like it would swoop down and take them away. He couldn't make out details this far away but a couple of people in line were trying to gather the rest back into a line as they broke off in various directions.

The screams and yelling carried across the grassland and Blick chuckled at the absurdity of these people being afraid of the child sized bird. He didn't know why the bird kept its flight above the lead person but he wasn't too concerned as he had seen these birds so often in his travels he knew they caused no harm. Knowing that, his jaw dropped as a party of men sprinted out of the side gate with what looked like bows in hand headed right for the small group of people and his bird.

Five men spread out as they ran through the grass and began slowing as they got close. Blick realized they were basically hunting his bird companion. While he didn't own the bird, it was its own being, he wasn't too happy to imagine it being someone's food. He climbed down his tree. The edge of the trees made him hesitate for just a second before he heard the bird squawk in a clearly pained cry. He sprinted into the tall grass in the direction of the hunting party.

Realizing the people on the towers would spot him from the high lookouts he ducked down into the grass. It was awkward at first but he soon figured out a rhythm for running with his hands and feet. The run was its own version of chaos. He couldn't see through the thousands of shafts of grass flying past his head. As easy as it was to run through them they blocked his sight entirely. He relied on his knowledge of the situation and his hearing to navigate.

He ran with as much reinforcement as he could knowing he was going to be too late to save his companion, but knowing he had to run.

Tower five was a rather boring post. Every day the same routine. Zach had worked his way from mine worker to guard in just a few years. He has played the game and sucked up to every guard he could. He snitched on anyone that broke even the slightest rule. He had one goal. Get out of the damn mine. His childhood was normal by most standards until several years ago his very small farm village was whipped off the map. There were slavers in the south. A secret even among the elite in the capital.

Of course he hadn't known this at the time. Every ten years or so a group of cultivators would show up and take who they wanted. The villagers had sent people to the capital several times for help and never heard from the group that went again. It wasn't until Zach was escorted through those gates in chains and saw one of them in the line to strip down that he understood.

The young man made eye contact with the shaggy haired girl who had left years ago with her father for the capital as she handed him a pair of brown pants and white sleeveless shirt. He knew her because he had a crush on her before she left for help. He realized on that day that the capital had never sent help because they either hadn't made it or the capital was in on the situation. The number of people at the camp was testament to the scale of the slave operation.

He has talked to several over the years in the mine and learned they came from over 20 small villages between the forest and the ocean. Each had a similar story of either the slavers demanding tribute or just sacking a whole town if they got too hard to work with. Every town seemed to have reached out for aid and everyone sent ended up here. The crystal mines. Zach was not a fan. He was not the strongest, but he was smart enough to figure out that most of the guards with whips were once slaves.

Technically still are slaves like he was now. But the job was much better. It was easier to smack someone around for breaking a rule than it was to swing a pick underground. Better food too as you had to be strong enough to fight. So here he sat on his most boring tower rotation thinking about how different life would be if the mine never existed. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Today turned out to be pretty exciting.

The group sent out to drop the tunnel stone in pile 14 had run into the strangest bird and scattered. The guards among them had gathered them back up but the huge bird just kept circling. He laughed at their panicked sprints into the grass. He rolled his eyes as the hunting team left gate two. They wouldn't let a good feast literally fly away if they could help it. Not like any of them would get a bite. Only the warden and his closest would ever even smell the cooked bird.

The squawk signaled the bird was hit and it went down in a flailing spiral. They must have clipped a wing. He abruptly leaned on the railing when he saw the grass moving. Something large was plowing a path through the grass and it was headed straight towards the hunting team who was nearly at the area the bird landed. It didn't slow, it didn't change direction.

"Somethings in the grass!" He yelled out as his tower guard companion walked over to figure out what was going on outside the compound. He saw the hunting party turn his way and he realized when they yelled a response that they couldnt understand a single word he said. So he flailed his arms and tried pointing. They could not see what it was he was pointing at because of the grass they were in.

The line cut through the grass contacted the first hunter at full speed and he disappeared into the surround grass like something had yanked him under the surface of a lake. The others hadn't seen it but they had heard it. They spun in the direction of their missing comrade and drew their bows. But none fired. Zach couldn't imagine what they were thinking in that moment. What he could do was see the line of grass moving again in the direction of the downed bird.

Zach couldn't hear it but imagined it was making some noise as it flopped around at its landing spot. The trail of moving grass split right between two hunters who spun around right after it passed them clearly hearing something but not seeing whatever was in there as they weren't pointing their bows anywhere near the thing. It reached the birds landing spot and stopped abruptly. Two hunters closed in on where the one disappeared while another two walked toward the downed birds landing area.

All were primed for a fight with bows drawn.