Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

The seashags swooped after their descending prey. The windhovers dropped through the forest and disappeared.

“Come on, you black devils,” Arnie whispered to himself. “Follow the windhovers through. Go through —”

It was Kawanatanga himself who sealed their fate. “Kill the cowards. Bring back to me their heads as trophies. Especially bring back that Chinese bitch!”

One by one, the black seashags banked, and in a trice the forest swallowed them. They founds themselves in a maze of sky-splitting trees and ferns, a glowing forest which took their breath away. Soon, all of this would be theirs. All this beauty. All this awesome taonga. All this virgin land. But where were their prey?

“They’ve gone to ground! They’re playing hide and seek! Where are you, my little lovelies.”

Lower and lower the seashags descended. They fluttered through the dense canopy, weaving this way and that among the dense branches. At last, they broke through into the space between canopy and ground where they were able to cruise, wings outspread, between the trunks of the trees.

But why was it so quiet? Why was it so silent? And such a humid, oppressive silence too. The seashags began to grow uneasy.

“Do you still pursue us?” the Great White Egret asked.

She was swaying on a slender branch. In a sudden movement, she swung her long bamboo staff, decapitating an attacking seashag. Next moment her kung fu warriors were flipping from branch to branch, knocking down the enemy birds.

This was the moment Chieftain Kaka had been waiting for.

“Pokokohua! Taurekareka!”

He sprang the ambush, and his tribe of parrots came out from the holes in the trees. They leapt in twos and threes onto the seashags, riding them like cowboys, forcing them to stall and fall to the ground.

The seashags hissed and bucked trying to dislodge their unwanted riders. No sooner were they grounded than Chieftain Koreke of quails and his tribe came running fast on twinkling legs. They rose with a whirr, aiming themselves like bullets at the downed seashags. Desperately the seashags snapped at their attackers.

The Great Forest was silent no longer. Everywhere, the ground birds were hastening to the attack — all the woodhens, pukeko and kiwi, as well as the pheasants, partridges, rails, coots, crakes, moorhens, pipits, and wagtails.

“It’s a trap! Get out while you can!” the seashags yelled.

But once the trap had closed, nothing could save them. The air at ground level was dead, still, without any underwing airflow to provide lift. Even if they managed to become airborne, their manoeuvrability was limited and there was not enough air space to achieve a fast getaway.

“Aue, my canoe is done for,” a seashag cried as he clipped a tree and fell to the ground again. All around him the smaller birds were waiting and whirring. Flashing their crimson or green feathers, red or yellow crowns, and orange fronts, they attacked like swarms of brightly coloured avian piranha.

“Ma iro kite,” the ground birds shrilled. “We will see the maggots when all of you lie on the ground after the battle.”

High in the sky, Kawanatanga finally understood what was happening. He saw his seashag battalions disappearing into the forest canopy and not returning.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” he asked Karoro. “The entire forest is a great Venus fly-trap. Re-group! Keep out of the forest! Return to your battle formations!”

Seething with anger, Kawanatanga waited for the restoration of his birds’ attack configuration. He counted himself lucky that he still had half his seashag battalion. “The victory can yet be mine,” he said.

“So what do we do now, Chieftain Arnie?” Kahu asked.

“We’re outnumbered but we’re just going to have to fight on with every beak and claw until it’s all over,” Arnie answered.

Te Arikinui Kotuku stepped forward. “Even ours?” she asked. “No use standing on ceremony. In war, gender doesn’t matter, right?”

“Right,” Arnie said.

“Here we go then, girls,” Kotuku called. She led Huia, Korimako, Parera and Karuwai into the air.

“E, i, kia whakatane au i ahau. Now we play the men —”

At the sight of so much desperation, Skylark began to lose heart. The onslaught was inexorable. Manu whenua were falling from the sky.

“Why is this happening?” she asked Arnie. “Why can’t we get everybody out of this mess?” She felt hot tears brimming in her eyes and huddled closer to him.

“You mustn’t give up, Skylark,” Arnie said.

“I’m not,” she replied. “After all I’m still not the kind of girl who goes ‘Save me, save me, I’m so helpless.’ It just pisses me off that here we are, back in a time before even humans were around, fighting a really crucial war for survival — and we’re losing!”

“Attagirl, Skylark,” Arnie answered. He loved having an excuse to comfort her so that he could cuddle her under his wing. “Our situation is not all that hopeless. After all, Kawanatanga is only a bird, for goodness sake and —”

Arnie took a sharp intake of breath.

“That’s it ,” he said. “Where’s the penknife Hoki sent us?”

“Over there by the box of matches.”

“I want you to tie it to my raking claw with some flax. It will give me an extra extension.”

“What for!”

“It’s a trick I saw in a James Bond movie,” Arnie said. “The villainess had a shoe with a blade in the sole. It gave her a longer reach. Who knows? It might work.”

“Might work for what!” Skylark asked.

“Look, Skylark,” he said gently, “there’s only one way to win this battle.”

He shook his leg to make sure the penknife was tied on securely. “Ahakoa he iti te matakahi, ka pakaru i a au te totara. Although the wedge is small, by it the totara tree will be shattered.”

Before Skylark could stop him, Arnie had taken to the air.

“But where are you going!” she yelled.

“I have to take Kawanatanga out,” he called back.

“No, Arnie, wait —”

Skylark cried out after Arnie but he was already beyond hearing. She hated having shown her vulnerability. Now she had to prove herself all over again. Not only that, but she had also come up with a good idea — one just as good as Arnie’s and less dangerous.

“Typical, typical, typical,” she said to herself, stamping her feet. “It’s just typical of a man to assume all the decisions and hare off into the unknown, without even discussing it, as if he were the only one around to save the world. Why do men always think they know best? Why do they always think everything depends on them? And leaving me here, like some ditz, as if I’ve got nothing better to do than wait for him to get back. Well, think again, pal.”

Skylark looked around for the box of matches, picked it up between her claws and whizzed up through the embattled sky to talk to Te Arikinui Kotuku. The white heron was engaged in a particularly vicious bill-fight with an albatross. The albatross lunged; Kotuku deftly parried and delivered the rapier thrust. The albatross fell from the sky.

“Hello, Skylark dear,” Kotuku said. “Enjoying yourself? Is Arnie all right?”

“Arnie’s off doing this boy thing. He’s gone after Kawanatanga. He thinks that if he kills him the seabird attack will falter.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Kotuku said. “The battle goes against us. Let’s hope he can dispatch his job quickly.”

“Well, I’ve got a little mission of my own on the boil,” Skylark continued, trying not to let her temper get the best of her. “It’s just as good as Arnie’s. I need you to help me, together with one of your crack platoons.”