As always the winds freshened with the rising sun. Braan stood alone and silent atop the rocky rise overlooking the common. Pivoting with dignity, the leader-of-hunters raised his wings to embrace the four winds. As Braan turned, he screamed ancient chants, powerfully, beautifully. Hot blood rushed through the veins of every hunter; the fur on their spines bristled with emotional electricity, with anticipation and apprehension. They joined fervently in Braan' s harmonics, creating a resonant vibration. The strings of their shortbows vibrated, and dust elevated from the ground—an ecstasy of hope and fear.
The prayer completed, Braan screeched fiercely and thrust his black pike, pointing at Kuudor. The captain-of-sentries marched to the front of his arrayed charges, halted, and ceremoniously whistled the names of fifty sentries, including Brappa, son-of-Braan. The drummers initiated a marching beat. The named sentries hopped forward, picked up a dark bag, and fell into formation facing the edge of the cliff, expressions stoic and movements precise. The massed warriors chirped raucously to the marching beat, acknowledging the suppressed fears of the young sentries, reminiscing over their own first times. Braan signaled, and the beaters halted with a flourish. Clicking in unison, the sentries not called closed ranks smartly, looking simultaneously relieved and disappointed.
Braan brandished his pike and pointed sternly, this time at Craag-the-warrior. With grave authority Craag sang out more names—the names of sixty warriors. One by one the sixty stepped forward, most grabbing salt bags. The first ten, master warriors, including Tinn'a and Bott'a of clan Botto, shouldered only their weapons. As scouts and guards, they formed the first rank. The next fifty warriors were experienced but less seasoned. Each would associate himself as an instructor to a novice, responsible for the sentry's survival and training. They formed ranks with the sentries.
The sentry common roiled with nervous movement and sound. Braan raised his arms. Silence fell; the gurgling noises of the nearby stream drifted across the redoubt. Braan screeched lustily,demanding praise, and the cliffside was drowned in ritual bedlam. With explosive volume the assembled hunters screeched the death song. All sang for death, a death of honor, a passage to final peace: the hunter's plaintive acknowledgment that life was over, that he had fought to the limits of his strength—that he was ready to die.
The hideous screaming built level upon level, to pitches and frequencies known only to dumb brutes and cliff dwellers. In the continuing din, Braan raised his pike and the drummers initiated a rhythmic marching tempo. The hunter leader glided from the hilltop and joined Craag at the formation head. The two hunters marched over the edge, cracking their wings with explosive power. The formation followed, one rank at a time, to the whistling cheers of the multitude. As the salt mission rose on fresh updrafts, their formation altered, the ranks sliding outwards and joining until a large vee formed, giving each hunter undisturbed air. The whistles and screams from those left behind increased in intensity and volume. Thousands of hunters followed the salt expedition into the air, leaping out over the river and rising vertically on convection currents heaving upwards against the face of the plateau. A billowing horde of black bodies soared majestically and noisily upwards, as the wavering vee of the salt mission faded to a faint line on the northern horizon.
* * *
"Look!" MacArthur shouted. He pointed ahead, toward the plateau's edge. A thin black cloud drifted skyward. Buccari lifted binoculars to her eyes while MacArthur and the other patrol members—O'Toole, Chastain, and Jones—stared at the ascending column.
"Our friends," Buccari said, taking the glasses down. "Thousands of them." She handed the binoculars to MacArthur. The humans took turns watching the wheeling mass. Gradually the clouds of animals thinned and spread, dissipating, individual motes gliding down the cliff face.
"What that's all about?" MacArthur asked.
Buccari glanced at the corporal and shrugged.
"Maybe they're waiting for your letter, Lieutenant," he persisted.
"It would be nice," Buccari replied. She was impatient to drop off the next batch of pictographs. Nothing had been received from the cliff dwellers since the initial tease. She scanned the skies to the north and west. The weather was changing. Her patrol was headed for MacArthur' s valley, a last foray before the snows of winter. Buccari stifled her frustration. She had wanted the entire crew moved to the valley before winter struck. According to MacArthur, in the valley tundra gave way to topsoil, temperatures were warmer, wildlife abundant, and the forests thicker and more diverse.
Yet Quinn had elected to winter on the plateau. Buccari worried about the commander's decision-making abilities, concerned that his emotional distress was infecting his judgment. He spent long hours alone and made decisions only when pressed. On most issues he seemed indifferent or distracted, but for some reason, he had taken a strong stance on not leaving the plateau. Two sturdy A-frame log structures and a solid meat house had been constructed downhill from the cave; a magnificent woodpile for the winter's heating and cooking requirements had been accumulated. And there was the cave. The cave provided an element of permanency and an essence of security. The crew was emotionally attached to their first campsite. Quinn, seconded by Sergeant Shannon, proclaimed they were prepared for winter.