Keeper of Reign

4. Hunters

“RALS, YOU CARRY Tippy.” Jules tucked the sardius inside his green cloak, relieved it finally broke free from the mossy ground, but he couldn’t help the uneasy feeling.

Somebody’s watching. But who? And why? Must bring them to safety. Jules glimpsed at his sisters. He tiptoed to peer over the tall grasses. Nothing but the dark blob far away. How was he to plan for his secret getaway to look for Grandpa like this?

Horrifying pictures of Scorpents invaded his mind. He joggled his head a few times to dispel the images. But even as he quickened his steps something told him his troubles had just begun.

What was that verse from the Book about fear Grandpa taught him? “Perfect love casts out all fear.” He repeated it several times under his breath hoping the feeling would disappear.

But when he gazed at the sky again he spied something else: the blob had turned to four patches, as black as the night, contrasting against the blue background. He stopped and pointed, his eyes in narrow slits as he tried to understand the meaning of this latest mystery.

The others halted, too, and stared at the objects until the four dark blobs came close enough.

“A flock of birds with impressive wingspans.” Tst Tst pointed at the fowls.

“Mrs. Lacework warned Mom,” Bitha said, “about the rise of savage birds.”

“She claimed,” Tst Tst lowered her voice, nodding a few times, her hazel eyes wide. “They’re after Elfies.”

As the birds came closer the sheen of the dark bluish feathers glistened in the sun.

“They’re just ravens.” Jules tried to sound convincing. “Hunting for food.”

“We,” Tst Tst said, and gulped, “could qualify as food.”

Jules glared at her and gestured at his brother, some twenty steps be- hind. “Hurry, Rals.”

The ravens circled directly above them now. When the black birds flapped their massive wings, gusts of wind billowed the children’s cloaks.

Jules, standing ahead of everyone, noticed the dirty talons on one of the ravens opening, as if the bird had already decided on its prey. Then it hit him.

“Ralston! Duck! Duck—” he yelled. He’s so slow!

Still battling with Tippy’s weight in his arms, Ralston, brown hair disheveled, looked up and Wham! The talons dug into his shoulders and he dropped Tippy.

Within seconds, Bitha and Tst Tst, screaming, dodged the onslaught of other talons swooping at them. The girls dived behind a large mushroom in a nick of time. At first, Jules just stared at the bird, eyes round, mouth open like an O.

“Rroankk-rroankk.” Ralston’s captor seemed to signal to his accom- plices. Within seconds, the murder of ravens thrashed their four feet span of wings and headed for the blue sky, with the very still Ralston as their ransom.

“Ralston! Ralston!” the girls screeched at the top of their lungs, their arms waving in frantic motions above their heads.

“We must get Ralston back,” Jules shouted to Bitha, wondering, the moment he said this, why he’d used the word “we” when he knew he’d have to try alone. He ran to a large boulder and clambered to the top.

Tippy was nowhere to be seen but Bitha and Tst Tst shadowed him. For a fleeting second he worried about Tippy, but he had to save his brother before it was too late. Once on the rock, the children swung their hands above their heads and screamed at the ravens.

Then Jules groped for Tippy’s sardius he’d concealed within his cloak and waved it above his head. He angled the stone this way and that in the direction of the ravens. The crystal caught the sun’s rays and shimmered bright and red.

“Come back! Come back!” Jules and his sisters cried.

Their voices may have dissipated in the wind, but the glint from the red stone burned bright and must have attracted the birds, since they did return. Their scraping rasps intensified as they descended toward the three children on the big rock.

“Oh, no! They’re going to attack again.” Bitha jerked Jules’s arm back and forth.

“What do we do?” Tst Tst shook her fists as if she was shivering. “Hide, girls! Hide!” Now what? They slid from their perch and lay prone on the ground, panting heavily. Tippy, who must have been hiding behind the boulder, slipped herself between Bitha and Tst Tst.

Steadily, the deafening screams from the approaching flock heightened as the hunting party swooped toward the boulder again. Jules could hear their cries, but he also thought—although he couldn’t be sure—the wind whispered, “It’s the other boy, you stupid fowl.” He looked over his shoul- der but saw no one except his sisters.

“Let’s stick together,” Bitha pleaded, and she tugged at his cloak. Her eyes shone with tears, and she wiped the sweat upon her brows.

More than anything Jules wanted to hide with them. He swallowed the sour taste rising up his throat a few times and placed his forefinger to his lips. With his free hand he motioned for the girls to stay put, and he crawled on scraped knees and elbows to another rock.

Two ravens now roosted on the boulder. The birds’ beady eyes flitted from spot to spot on the ground, as if searching. A third hovered nearby, flapping its large wings vigorously.

When Jules spotted Ralston his fist shot to his mouth involuntarily and he shuddered. He wanted to scream, but his voice snagged in his throat. The lifeless body of his brother lay in the grip of the fourth bird circling close to the mossy spot where Tippy had stubbed her toe. Jules racked his brain for a plan.

Is Ralston alive? Can I save him?

Slowly, he stood and dashed in and out of the sweeping blades of grass toward the mossy plot. Quiet at first, his lips pressed into a determined line, he made sure not to snap a twig as he threaded through the tall grasses. He ran so fast that the edge of a blade cut his forehead. As he neared the fowls he yelled at the fourth crow in hoarse madness.

The bird’s yellow eyes flitted to him. It squawked and in three big flaps its beak honed in on him, talons still clenched onto Ralston.

Staring the bird in the eye, Jules flung the red stone at the black bird’s beak but the stone struck its eye instead. Better than he’d expected.

“Yes!” Jules shouted and beat his fist in the air in triumph.

The raven dropped Ralston, almost on top of Jules, who swerved away just in time.

The other three birds swooped to the mossy spot and made a ruckus, as if scolding the fourth. Jules braced himself for another attack but some- thing else caught his eye.

A cloud of dark mass was flying in their direction. The droning hum the dark mass made reverberated and filled the air.

Jules clapped his ears shut. What was happening?

He’d heard of mutated insects the Handovers had experimented with, but they were supposed to only inhabit Handover. Not here in Reign.

Could they be invading now? After all, the Scorpents had started coming.

But when one from the mass broke away he saw he’d been mistaken.

Fiesty!

As Fiesty flew over Jules’s head the mass became identifiable: a swarm of dragonflies. More than a hundred of them whizzed in and out, targeting the ravens’ eyes and nostrils. In obvious fury the afflicted ravens thrashed their massive wings at each other.

Kneeling beside Ralston, Jules sucked in his breath, hardly daring to breathe. “Ralston,” he whispered at last.

Getting no response, he shook Ralston vigorously. “Hey, wake up!”

But still, his brother didn’t stir. He pounded on Ralston’s chest, hard. “Breathe, Ralston! Breathe!”