“Run!” Willem shouts.
“My ax will sever its neck,” François says, standing his ground.
“After my bolt pierces its heart,” Jean says.
“It will get you before you can strike,” Willem says. “We must escape, not fight.”
He takes a step backward. The others move with him, not wanting to show fear, but deep primal instincts are telling them to keep far away from this creature. Willem considers reaching into his satchel, but knows that this time his father’s trick will not work. He has to get close, but this raptor will charge at them, striking before he can even begin.
“Escape where?” François asks.
Behind them the sound of the rushing water grows louder as they step closer and closer to the cliff face.
“We leave the eggs,” Jean says, placing the sack carefully on a small plateau of rock.
“No,” Willem says. “If we cannot escape, then at the end I will hurl the sack from the cliff rather than let them grow into adults.”
He picks up the sack and slings it over a shoulder. The thick shells jostle inside.
The firebird regards them, its head twitching from side to side.
“What is it doing?” François asks.
“I don’t think it knows yet that we have stolen its eggs,” Willem says. “It is probably just deciding which one of us to attack first.”
They back away farther from the creature, which takes two quick steps then stops, one leg raised, examining its prey.
“It knows we are trapped,” François says.
“What about the track down the cliff?” Jean asks.
“We don’t have time,” Willem says. “One of us maybe, but it would be on the other two before we could even start to climb.”
“Then you go,” Jean says.
“You are a brave friend and true,” Willem says. “But I cannot leave you two to be torn to pieces.”
“François and I will jump,” Jean says.
“We will what?” François asks.
“The water is deep,” Jean says. “Let Willem climb. We hold our ground. When the saur starts to attack, we run and jump.”
“We will break our necks!” François says.
“A more noble death than at the claws of the firebird,” Jean says.
“But—” Willem begins.
“Go swiftly, before it is too late.”
Willem obeys. He steps to the edge of the cliff and slides over, his feet finding the narrow ledge.
Almost immediately there comes a splashing and a rustling of feathers from above as the firebird springs forward, sensing that its prey is trying to escape. The twanging of Jean’s crossbow is followed by a curse.
Then comes the sound of boots on rock, and with incoherent cries Jean and François hurtle out over his head, plummeting into the pool below, landing with great spouts of water.
Willem has no time to look and see if they are alive. Giant talons sweep through the air above his head, the terrible hooked claw just grazing the side of his head as the enraged raptor stands on the cliff face above him. Willem slides along the ledge, feeling for the next foothold, then the next. The firebird’s claws rake the side of the cliff, dislodging pebbles and dust. Willem shakes them from his hair and face. Spray from the waterfall soaks him, and the rocks are slippery. He loses his grip, regains it, loses it again, and only just saves himself by frantically scratching at the cliff face. In the satchel, Pieter is terrified, screaming, clawing at the leather.
The sack bangs against the side of the cliff and Willem hears a cracking sound.
His foot slips from the ledge and he grapples desperately for a handhold as his body swings out over the precipice. If he falls now he will not land in the water but on a bed of jagged rocks. He regains his footing and lowers himself farther, the screeching of the firebird all but drowned out now by the roar of the rushing water.
Angry bellowing comes from above him and the saur scrabbles at the edge of the cliff as it tries and fails to follow him. There is no path for the flightless bird’s great claws down the near-vertical slope.
Willem reaches the bottom of the cliff to see Jean dragging his cousin out of the water, blood streaming from François’s head.
“François!” Willem yells.
“He lives,” Jean says. “Just a cut, I think, and a momentary stupor. I think he did this to himself, with his ax.”
Willem bends over the unconscious body. There is a sizable dent in François’s forehead and Willem doesn’t believe it is as simple as Jean thinks. François opens his eyes, but they are dull and unseeing.
Above them the saur screeches and bellows its rage into the vast reaches of the forest.