The bird came from nowhere. One moment Lalani was trying to avoid the mounds—they were everywhere now—and quiet the whooshing in her head and the next, a tremendous noise pierced the forest. SQUAWW SQUAWW SQUAWW. Usoa clutched Lalani’s elbow.
“That’s her,” she said.
Lalani followed Usoa’s gaze, squinting into a slant of light. Something moved. Glided, really. Huge wings cast an enormous shadow.
Usoa balled her hands into fists and put them on her hips.
Lalani’s hair blew in all directions. Leaves lifted and swirled from the ground. Bai-Vinca brought a scent with her. Sweet and earthy. Why aren’t we running? Lalani thought. Her feet itched. Run, run, they said. But Usoa didn’t move, so neither did she.
The creature landed in front of them more delicately than Lalani would have imagined. Lalani might have said that Bai-Vinca was beautiful, with brilliantly colored feathers of yellow, red, green, and blue. But her eyes, talons, and beak—also sharp, very sharp indeed—made her terrifying.
Bai-Vinca towered over Lalani and Usoa. She could easily engulf them with her wings. Her eyes were bigger than Lalani’s hands and they were in constant motion, flitting and blinking.
“What are you doing on the bai’s land?” Bai-Vinca said. Her words sounded diced or chopped as she maneuvered her strange, thick tongue around her beaked mouth.
“This land no longer belongs to the bai,” said Usoa. “There are no bai. Only you.”
Bai-Vinca’s gaze fell on Lalani. “What are you?”
“She’s human,” Usoa replied. “From another place.”
“Another place,” Bai-Vinca repeated, her eyes softening. She ruffled her feathers. “Do you bring word about my family?”
Lalani didn’t know what to say. Was this a trick question?
“No one will ever bring word about your family,” Usoa answered.
Bai-Vinca’s enormous eyes darted toward her.
“But I bring word of mine,” Usoa continued.
Usoa swung a tight fist into Bai-Vinca’s eye, which gleamed like a target, and Bai-Vinca squawked so loudly that Lalani pressed her hands to her ears because the squawking made her head throb so, so badly—it was loud, much too loud—and Bai-Vinca stumbled back, a flurry of color, startled yet again when Usoa kicked her once, twice, three times, but by the fourth swift kick, Bai-Vinca was ready. She spread her wings and it was such a stunning sight that Usoa froze, speechless, and that single moment was all it took. Bai-Vinca raised herself off the ground, hovering, hovering, then threw her feet out and sank her talons into Usoa’s shoulder. Usoa screamed—a mighty, mighty scream.
“Let her go!” Lalani cried, released at last from her cowering place. She wrapped both hands around Bai-Vinca’s leathery ankles and pulled. “Let her go! Let her go!”
Usoa and Lalani were both on the ground now. A tree root pushed into Lalani’s back as she and Usoa kicked and screamed and wailed, and when something warm and wet rushed over Lalani’s hands, she realized that it was Usoa’s blood and this made her fight even more fiercely. Bai-Vinca tried to snatch Lalani, but Lalani was small and quick and rolled out of the way, catching dirt in her mouth. She fumbled for the pouch around her neck, searching for the arrowhead, but she wasn’t able to latch onto it as Bai-Vinca aimed her beak at them. She pecked, pecked, pecked the earth around their heads. Her beak cut the dirt. It sliced Lalani’s cheek and ear. But Bai-Vinca’s throat was exposed, a soft and delicate gullet where Lalani sank her teeth and Usoa followed her lead. The girls punched and bit and kicked, and soon Bai-Vinca’s squawks devolved into choked cries as they overpowered her. Bai-Vinca brought her wings back, then pumped them forward in two powerful flaps. The momentum broke the three of them apart. Usoa and Lalani crumpled to the ground in a heap and Bai-Vinca flew up, but not away.
Blood. Everywhere. Lalani pressed her hands against Usoa’s shoulder. Veyda had once told her that you should put pressure on a bleeding wound to stop the gushing, and that’s just what she did as Bai-Vinca hovered over them. Her wings were so vast that their force rustled their hair, and she was so large and mighty that Lalani felt herself shrinking, and when the talons came charging down again, Lalani rolled out of the way, because when you are small and don’t take up much space, it can be easier to move from here to there, and sometimes moving from here to there is all you need to do to save yourself.
Bai-Vinca’s talons sank into the earth instead of Lalani, and both girls darted out of the way in the seconds it took for Bai-Vinca to pull them out again.
Lalani ran. When she zigzagged, Bai-Vinca had trouble keeping up with her. It was tricky for Bai-Vinca to fly this close to the ground, so she glided up, up, up, for a better view. When Lalani saw a big tree with a narrow hollow in the trunk, she raced to it and wiggled her way in. The hole was large enough for Usoa, too, but she barely made it through the opening because of her horns. The girls pushed themselves as far back as they could.
Bai-Vinca squawked and landed in front of the tree, blocking the light. The little space, which smelled like wet leaves and damp grass, darkened. Usoa’s clipped breathing tangled with the whooshing in Lalani’s head.
Bai-Vinca peered in at them with one colossal eye.
“You can’t survive in there forever,” Bai-Vinca said.
Lalani took stock of what they had to defend themselves with, and it wasn’t much. One human girl, one injured mindoren girl. Four arms, four hands, four legs, four feet, two horns. One small arrowhead.
Just as Lalani thought it’s not enough, Usoa started yanking and pulling at something overhead. Snap, snap. A piece of the bark broke off; she held it like a weapon.
Then she used it like one.
She burst from the tree and ran the sharp end through Bai-Vinca’s belly. Oh, how the creature shrieked. Bai-Vinca staggered backward. Her chest heaved. Blue sprays of blood splashed the tree, splattering Usoa’s and Lalani’s faces. Bai-Vinca lifted one wing then the other. She opened her beak wide. Lalani pressed her hands against her ears, ready for the piercing wail. Her hands were wet with blood. But instead of screaming, Bai-Vinca whispered, “Do you have word about my family?”
Then, like a great mountain cleaving in half, she fell.
Bai-Vinca didn’t die right away, but it was clear to Usoa and Lalani that her death was a certainty. Usoa sputtered and moaned, her back against the tree, her face dotted with Bai-Vinca’s blue blood.
“I need to get help,” Lalani said.
“The only creatures here are the nunso,” whispered Usoa. Her eyes were barely open now. “Besides, you’re running out of time.”
“Time for what?” Lalani asked, back to pressing her hands against Usoa’s wound as hard as she could.
“Tell me a story.”
“A story? I don’t understand . . .”
“Something to make me cry,” said Usoa. “There isn’t time. Please.”
Lalani took Usoa’s hand. She didn’t understand what was happening. This was such a strange place full of strange riddles—Bai-Vinca and her family; trees that spoke, saved, and offered salvation; and now, a story to make a dying mindoren cry.