Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

“Brilliant, Skylark,” he yelled. “Just awe-some!”

She had caused the seabird army’s drive to the inlet to falter. Attracted by the flames and smoke and the screams of seabird mothers, they began breaking off from the cut and thrust of the attack.

“Something else has happened,” Arnie realised. A loud chorus of horror and consternation came from the battlefield; it was followed by a tidal wave of air flowing inward from the ocean and up the Manu Valley, as if some huge hole had opened up which needed to be filled. More seabirds fled in terror back to the sea.

“I must return to my army,” Kawanatanga said to himself. “My fight with the falcon from the future will have to wait for another day.” He sensed an upward ascending wind and turned into it.

Arnie, however, was not about to let him go so easily. He flew into Kawanatanga’s path, blocking him. “Going somewhere?” he asked.

“The gods favour you today,” Kawanatanga sneered. “Let me pass.”

“Like hell I will,” Arnie answered. “My elemental mission is to defend to the death, to the last sinew and feather, the manu whenua. You’re going nowhere.”

“Then die,” Kawanatanga said.

He attacked, his eyes alert and feral. But his impatience to return to the battle acted to Arnie’s advantage. When he stretched for the kill, his wings dipped and he dropped below his foe. Parrying with finesse, Arnie lifted, mantled, and dropped on Kawanatanga’s back.

“Who’s going to their god?” Arnie cried. He thrust his legs down and forward, and the talons of his right leg bit, dug, flexed and hooked. Holding on with that leg, Arnie manoeuvred the penknife that Skylark had tied onto his left leg into a strike position.

“Mess with the best,” Arnie yelled, “die like the rest.”

Too late. Kawanatanga, in a reflex action, lunged forward. He tore away from Arnie’s talons — and as he did so, pulled the penknife out of its binding. Arnie watched helplessly as it spiralled toward the sea.

Kawanatanga could only see red. “I have the upper hand now.”

Arnie spilled air. His only hope was to put enough space between him and Kawanatanga and, in the interim, think of some strategy to change the balance of power. Alternating gliding with bursts of powered level flight, Arnie made a desperate bid for sea level.

“We’d better hurry,” Te Arikinui Kotuku said. They were fast approaching the late Karuhiruhi’s fortress island. Already the jagged crown was spearing into the sky, the ramparts rushing up like spears to meet them.

What was it that had happened on the battlefield? Skylark asked herself. She had felt a sudden lurch and kick in the dynamic of the world when the two outer nursery islands had reached flashpoint and dazzled the sky with blinding white light. She wracked her brains for an answer.

“Prepare to repel the royal guard,” Kotuku warned. Areta’s crack squad of prion marines had taken to the air and were planing across to meet them.

“Keep them busy, will you?” Skylark asked. “I have the two remaining nests. I can do this job on my own.”

“Okay,” Kotuku nodded. “But don’t take too long, will you?” With a cry she and the troopers engaged the prions.

Skylark dived for the ramparts. She was following a hunch of hers that somewhere there’d be a main shaft going right through the middle of the fortress.

“If I plant the burning nests there, I’ll be able to bring the castle down — and its Queen and new King with it.”

But where was the entrance? She heard a scream and saw one of her troopers fall from the sky. She was wasting time —

Then Skylark saw it. A grand hallway, just behind a tall balcony from which the late Karuhiruhi had saluted his military.

Skylark dropped, and before Areta’s bodyguards could stop her, she was in. Three doorways appeared before her. Unsure which one to take, she flew through the left doorway and found herself in the army barracks. Oops. She backed out and, this time, chose the doorway in the middle.

Behind the doorway was a stairwell. A jink, a swerve, another swerve — man, there were so many passageways. From one of them, however, came a lovely updraft of wind, sufficient to fuel a fire. Skylark followed the draft to its source: a large bedroom, palatial, drapings all over the place. Just the ticket. She settled. Put the nests down. Lit a match.

“How dare you enter my royal chambers!” Areta came flying through the room. Screaming with rage, she knocked the match from Skylark’s wing. Skylark feinted to the left, then returned as Areta surged past. Her breast feathers pulsing with exertion, she swung sideways and extended her left foot.

Years of royal living had robbed Areta of physical fitness or dexterity. “Oof,” she said as she tripped, lost balance, and went head over heels through the air. She hit a wall and fell to the ground, moaning. Her baby son began to wail from its cot.

“This is no time to be sentimental,” Skylark said to herself. She struck a second match. Threw it. Its flame caught on the drapings and in a second the whole room was on fire. “Time to get out of here.” She braced and leaned forward. Her tail approaching horizontal, she pushed off from the floor, heading for the exit.

Areta gave a demented wail. “My son!”

The fire spread to his crib. Quickly, Areta pulled him out and headed for the secret trapdoor. Below was a passageway leading down and out of the fortress at sea level. Using her last reserves of energy she opened the trap-door with her beak. Before she could take another step with her son, the flames whooshed past her and down the vent.

“You can’t get away from me. I have you now.”

Kawanatanga had completely forgotten about returning to lead his troops in the war. Taking out this falcon from the future had become his obsession, and he was determined to relish the chase, enjoying the certainty of the kill. He would play with Arnie as a cat does with a mouse. He wanted to feel the ultimate power. “I’m in control, now,” he called. “You live at my leave. You will die when I choose to kill you.”

His mocking laughter followed Arnie has he hydroplaned across the sea. But was Arnie worried? The longer you play with me, Arnie thought, the longer you’ll be kept away from the battle. Nor am I about to give in without a good fight.

Mustering his energy, Arnie dipped between the troughs of the waves, hoping that the pursuing Kawanatanga might make an ill-judged move, be caught by a curling wave and dunked.

No such luck.

Panting with exertion, his velocity decreasing, Arnie decided to make a break for the land. Maybe he could lose Kawanatanga along the shoreline, among the smoke drifting across the sea from the offshore islands. Yes, that was it.

“I’m so bored now,” Kawanatanga sighed. He locked onto Arnie and swooped.

Bird turned missile, his wings extended a fraction for the sake of steerage, Kawanatanga hooked and grappled Arnie’s left wing in his beak. Holding the wing, Kawanatanga lifted one of his feet and raked Arnie’s back, slicing it open. At close quarters, Kawanatanga was ruthless. He had the advantage of a longer bill reach. Another jab and he tore Arnie’s shoulder.

“Prepare to breathe your last, Arnie,” Kawanatanga said. “I will open you from head to tail. I will rip you apart from head to sternum so that your entrails will spill out and fall to the sea.”

In agonising pain, Arnie stabilised with his right wing. His mouth was dry. He was losing consciousness. The blood was running like a river from his wounds. Bobbing his head to clear it and to sharpen his wits, Arnie turned and prepared himself for Kawanatanga’s killing thrust. “Game’s over,” Kawanatanga said. “I’ve won.”