This is the corrected version of Chapter 37. The previous version actually contained the contents of Chapter 36.
The Eagle below Father Hawk caught him and moved in a uniform march down the circular platform to the right. Injured and weak, Father Hawk was unable to resist.
He only saw the crowds of tree branches up above.
“Training?” he muttered faintly. “Where are we going?”
The female Eagle who had carried him to the nesting place of the Eagles hovered over him, flapping under dense thickets of interweaving leaves, clustering against each other, leaving only small pockets of the dark sky.
“We are going to teach you how to be a bird in the Shadowlands!” she said while beating her wings, keeping her voice loud enough to be heard over the flapping and her heavy breathing. “The lands are stacked against you. You can’t survive doing what you’ve done. The Shadowlands use a force of fear and complexity to suffocate and overwhelm you. The moment you choose to give in, it becomes harder to move outwards.”
Father Hawk was silent for a while.
“Who are you?” he finally croaked. “Do you know………….” He coughed. “……………….the Huntsman?”
“We Eagles are the bridge between the earth, substance and life of Huntsman’s souldom and himself. Our natural habitats are here, the highest of the woodlands where treetops meet the winds of the sky. We ride the heavens’ winds, soar on them to survey what we can of the Shadowlands for Huntsman. We speak to Huntsman, tell him as much as we know. But we cannot walk on the Shadowlands themselves. The winds do not allow it, for they do not travel there.
The sky cannot bless the earth there, for the Shadowlands’ darkness is too strong.”
Father Hawk could hear the movements of other Eagles around the pack that was carrying him. There were the soft scratches of claws walking on the nest and whenever an Eagle made a landing or a flight out of the corner of his vision or otherwise, there was the sound of wings folding inwards and their feathers shuffling against each other.
In the background was the whistle of winds, louder than those on the ground, always faint, but forever omnipresent.
There was some rustling, followed by someone feeding Father hawk morsels of meat that were soaking wet. Father Fawk nibbled and the liquid dripped into his throat. Slowly, his strength returned.
“We do our bidding from the skies and the treetops,” said the female Eagle, “only risking travel below for unique circumstances,” and with a pause, she said, “like yours, Father Hawk.”
Father Hawk’s eyes widened.
“You know my name,” he said, more noting than asking.
The female Eagle smiled, the line across her beak stretching upwards. Her eyes crinkled, her eye-lids grew closer.
“The Eagles know many things about the comings and goings about the Shadowlands. We must. We are the watchers. Although, we do not know all. Father Hawk relies on us for information, but he cannot depend on us entirely. There are many things we miss.”
“Which means you, Father Hawk, mustn’t rely entirely on us either. We can guide you today, tomorrow and the day after. But only you can take action. Only you can ask for help. And one day, today, tomorrow and the day after will be no more. Then it will all be up to you.”
The female Eagle looked ahead to where they were all heading. She looked back down at Father Hawk.
“So, tell me, Father Hawk. Is there anything you need or would like to know?”
She and Father Hawk were silent for a few seconds.
“Well,” Father Hawk said, “what’s your name? You know mine. I guess we’re only on even ground if I know yours too.”
The Eagle’s eyelids moved closer and she gave a sly smile— almost a smirk.
“Sathi,” she said. “Good start,” she added, nodding her head. “We Eagles won’t baby you. We don’t believe in that.”
Suddenly, the Eagles carrying Father Hawk slowed down.
Confused, Father Hawk frowned and looked in the direction of his clawed feet, where the carriers were moving. The first line, pulling Father Hawk’s feet, descended. One by one, each of the three rows of the silent Eagles moved down as well, bringing Father Hawk down with them. Despite the disorientation, Father Hawk could now see more of where they were moving towards. The scenery had changed from a density of thickly interwoven leaves on branches within an immediate vicinity to a clearing atop a hill bordered by trees that provided a canopy that shaded the area.
Below, the land was sloping up and then down to rolling treetops with a gap.
They went down the steps, gaining speed and moving faster every second. After a while, when each row in the pack of Eagles stepped down, Father Hawk’s body shook, jostled by the plummeting rows.
He strained his neck to look behind him. The large walkway up above where they’d come from was disappearing behind the levels of steps, as the group walked. The traffic of Eagles on the walkway and their bobbing feathered heads disappeared as well.
The lower the steps went, the longer and wider they got. Sathi flew ahead and swerved overhead to the left, disappearing into the border of thick descending trees.
The steps grew into the lower edge of the hill, losing consistency. Along their far end, and moving closer to the center, the carefully interwoven twigs and sticks turned to mounds of grass and dirt, edging up the hill. Spots of ingrown grass popped up everywhere down the steps until finally, the steps of sticks completely disappeared.
The pack changed elevation: the front started moving up the face of the hill and Father Hawk felt his blood rush to his head.
They walked over the hill and once they reached the peak, they charged downhill. Father Hawk jangled and shuddered violently in the movement.
They bolted towards the gap. Father Hawk looked down at it during the charge. The wall of trees shook around it and the view beyond the gap shifted with the perspective of the pack’s movement. Murky cliffs and hills of darkness appeared and disappeared in the corners.
Beyond the gap, hills of green stretched downwards until they became washed over in the mists and shadows of darkness.
At the lip of the gap, when its view was most expansive, the Eagles grunted, lugging their arms back and chucking him over.
The first thing he felt was the winds ruffling him in the plummet. The view of the treetops disappeared and the long stalks of tree bark blurred around him, before descending into a steep rock face. Panic engulfed him when he saw the sharp rocks jutting out of a narrow river below him, dividing the bottom of the cliff face at the bases of the trees.
His eyes widened and momentarily, his vision blurred. He began to flap ceaselessly. He squeezed his eyes shut, daring not to witness his own plight.
He bounced up in the air, hovering for a bit, but the winds pressed him down eventually. Strong gusts pushed him down and forward, then rose back up again, ruffling the feathers on his underbelly.
So, in desperation, he beat with the wind, flapping away from their direction. To his surprise, Father Hawk felt a propulsion. He felt himself get pushed purposefully several feet ahead of himself.
Father Hawk’s eyes opened in surprise, wide and alert. His heart hammered inside of him. He stayed with the wind, stiffening his wings and tilting towards the downwards movement of the gusts behind him.
Could it be?
Father Hawk felt the final thrusts of the wind behind him and he took advantage of them before he would have to wait for the next set of gusts to arrive. He tilted upwards, keeping the bottom of his body flat against the stream of air he floated on.
He was flying.
He’d done it.
Father Hawk swerved to the left, to where the hill face stretched down alongside the gurgling ravine.
Darkness and ashy smog choked the world beyond, but the hill face was beautiful. Tufts of deep green shrubbery, dark and bristly. stuck out of the careening landmass. Around the shrubs was a sea of light green grass checkered by islands of brightly colorful flowers and stark underlayers of crusty rocks and stones.
Father Hawk leaned his body backwards and his wings up. Newborn gusts pushed him up, closer to the top of the hill where trees stuck up.
He was flying.
Father Hawk had found his old ability again.
He couldn’t shoot up like the rockets and hovercraft of his progeny.
But for now, he could ride the winds, soaring on them.
A high-pitched warble called from the cliff face. From far away, in the thicket of trees capping the rock, Father Hawk could hear an Eagle’s call.
It was many meters away close to the bend in the rock face.
Father Hawk tilted to the left, moving his right wing up and his left down. He flapped, gaining higher altitude in quiet bursts, moving higher and higher up alongside the trees.
Novel gusts pushed from behind. The tops of trees lowered in their adjacence to Father Hawk until he was soaring slightly higher than them.
The face of the cliff grew narrower in perspective as he moved closer to it and the trees were more visible. Their leafy tops expanded in his vision. He could see with more breadth.
The Eagle warble continued in constant tones. As Father Hawk swerved closer and closer to the treetops, the bigger they became and eventually, he passed over the cliff face entirely.
The call grew louder. He was getting closer. He was now directly over the treetops. The green leaves stuck out thickly, without gaps in between, and they rustled in the winds like dense seaweed swaying in constant dance-like motions at the bottom of a seafloor.
The warble became louder, closer— more imminent. Father Hawk folded his wings, allowing himself to plummet forth. When the leaves neared him enough, Father Hawk spread his wings behind him, diving through the treetops.
His body rustled the leaves and he swooped across the trees, bucking his neck and torso as well as tilting his wings to fly around branches and tree trunks.
The warbling called to him from behind shrubbery below, bordered by enormous trunks.
Father Hawk perched on a tree branch near this scene. He folded his wings and studied the sounds. The forest was quiet. There was the panoramic sound of rustling leaves, together sounding like a faintly roaring waterfall in the distance. There were distant interspersed sounds of chirping and snapping and crunching foliage and sticks. Nothing immediate. Nothing else close by.
The warbling reappeared, booming from behind the jagged line of shrubbery. Father Hawk immediately jumped from where he was perched, diving forward and spreading his wings. He swooped over the shrubbery, hovering over its thickness for several seconds. Afterwards, he saw the white heads of Eagles waiting in the gaps in between the dense leaves and branches at the edge of the shrubbery.
He passed over the edge and then over four Eagles who turned their pale-feathered heads and dark bodies to follow his flight.
Father Hawk lowered his neck, diving to the musty brown earth. He slowly brought his legs down and flipped his wings ninety degrees so that it would resist the air instead of cutting a trajectory. He planted his claws on the dirt, scraping and finally planting his whole feet on the ground, halting to a complete stop.
The earth was mostly flattened and its dry musty scent emanated up from old cluttered leaves that crowded out a few thin plants. More fat trees crowded the border of the clearing and the distance beyond.
Father Hawk turned around to face the four Eagles. They all wore solemn expressions. Above their glinting piercing yellow eyes, their feathers were furrowed.
But the edges of their beaks were slightly upwardly cocked, betraying suppressed smiles of satisfaction.
Father Hawk grinned widely, still feeling the euphoria and exhilaration of flight.
“Congratulations,” spoke the second Eagle from the left in a deep commanding voice. “You, Father Hawk, have completed our first initiation. You can now soar alongside our Eagle brethren. If you continue to push through in the face of fear and dive into risks, you will grow.”
“Although, let me assure you: the hard part is not over. The easiest has been completed. You will feel failure in our trials, but you must persist. The Shadowlands are unforgiving and deadly as are the wolves that inhabit them. You have learned how to fly with the wind. When the winds cannot aid you, you must know how to fight.”
G.R. Nanda 