Father Hawk finally had a place to eat and rest. A place he could sleep in every night without having to change it as he was constantly on the move. It would have been more relaxing, except for the fact that Father Hawk went to sleep in his cot completely exhausted.
Sleep was his only real refuge from training and adapting to the world of Eagles on most days. For every morning, the battle of his will and body would begin anew.
He spent countless hours in the air, soaring alongside Eagle trainees and sparring partners, circling each other. They would interlock claws, wrestling over fresh fish. They would be locked in combat, wrestling over food in a tug of war where their wings would be spread out, folded at the end. This allowed them to put all of their energy into tugging the morsel.
As they descended to the trees, one would inevitably tear the fish away when both creatures had to flap their wings and break free to safety land.
“This will strengthen your legs and claws!” Sunjata, the Eagle trainor had told Father Hawk before his combat flights. Sunjata was an older Eagle. Despite how burly he was, his feathers were thinned, greyed and crumpled with age.
“Flight will give you advantage,” he had said the first day in his gruff, aged, but rather high-pitched voice. “but when you need to eliminate your enemies, you can’t keep flying away from them! You must drag them into the air in your flight! From there, your enemy is in your realm, encumbered by what you have and he or she doesn’t: wings! From there, you can either beat the enemy while he or she is helpless, or if the enemy is still too strong, fly high enough to drop the enemy at a dangerous height! Either way, especially if you’re going to wrestle in the air, you must gain endurance and strength for combat in the air! You must get used to dealing with external weights in the air and flying at the right time in a wrestling plummet!”
Father Hawk went on many flights where he was instructed to drag heavy boulders or sometimes wolf corpses across long distances at extremely high vantage points. At the abrupt whistle of an Eagle trainer flying below, Father Hawk would have to immediately let go of the carried object and also maintain composure with his wings in flight.
The first few times, Father Hawk was more likely to get tired quickly by both carrying a heavy object with his claws and consistently flapping his wings in between soaring with the wind.
However, with more training, each session saw improvement. Soon, Father Hawk was able to pace himself effectively and stay at it, flexing his wings out and flapping vigorously while also maintaining a strong solid grasp on his heavy object.
When he was trained over and over again in flight combat and weighted flight, he developed senses for imbalance and cues in his environment for receding heights and oncoming landmasses. He grew comfortable with the motions of combat and weighted flight.
Spinning around ceaselessly in the air had once disoriented him and he had found himself lost at when to let go. But later, he could quickly identify where to land while wrestling or let go of his opponent, simply by the appearance of a line of trees and its certain thickness.
His wings and feet hardened and grew stronger— more accustomed to the weights and exertion.
Eventually, Father Hawk would reach the middle of training sessions, his heart hammering, his body warming under the frigid airs and the cool wind tickling his feathers to make sure the warming never became burning. He would confidently beat his wings to a powerful rhythm, consistent and always forceful. The ripples in the air, no matter how strong, would beckon to Father Hawk’s path for Father Hawk was now stronger. When his beating wings had lifted him high enough, Father Hawk would soar on a tide of air. As he soared, the world below zoomed past him.
The Shadowlands that had once overwhelmed Father Hawk now zoomed away under Father Hawk, small and unimportant.
No square of the Shadowlands were stuck in time to Father Hawk. It was always fleeting, forever passing under Father Hawk’s speedy path.
When these days and training sessions came, Father Hawk felt in control. These were the days when his flight exercises finally became more exhilarating than confusing and overwhelming.
Once Father Hawk had mastered the basic training regiments and frankly, bored by them, he was moved to the more challenging training.
“The Shadowlands are filled with many creeping and prowling creatures,” said Sunjata. “They will lurk in the darkness, feeding on each other for sustenance and competition. They are monstrous animals. They will not rest in their pursuit to dominate and consume. The Shadowlands feed on their dark negative energy. They will latch onto almost anything, especially the susceptible and distracted.”
“The Shadowlands make us all susceptible and distract us all from our intended path. That’s why you must learn to dance with these creatures, tame them and eventually safely consume them so that they won’t consume you.”
“We will begin with exercises in safely capturing some of the more elementary shadowspawn: snakes.”
Father Hawk followed other Eagles up to treetops and across the forest until they reached an overhand pass where trees gave way to a hazy expanse of grey water, shrouded by darkened mists and expanding into more haziness.
“Listen closely to the waters,” whispered Sunjata after everyone had silently settled. “Observe them and any of their disturbances.”
They all stilled. They were done shifting their feathers.
Of course there was the constant sound of forest leaves rustling and whispering because of the wind. However, beyond the forest and the wind were soft rushing sounds. They were ripples cutting through the placid grey stillness of the lake.
The sounds were noticed first by Father Hawk. He couldn’t quite locate where they came from and who or what caused them. He eventually caught glimpses of splashing water exploding in small bursts across the water. But they were just that: mere glimpses. And they were just the fleeting entrails of splashes, already beginning to melt back onto the water as faint ripples and lines, spreading, then wavering back into still water.
Father Hawk squinted his eyes and carefully scanned the waters, peering around and sometimes through their shifting blankets of mists. He never looked elsewhere. His vision was encompassed by watery grey and papery, shaded mists.
He spotted a faint rippling to the far left where there were soft and small bubbles forming and dissolving in between rippling lines that bent the water before wavering.
Father Hawk squinted his eyes and followed the path of bending water closely. He watched very carefully as the arc receded. The water stilled again in that area.
Father Hawk’s eyes wandered only to the immediate surroundings of the stilling ripples.
No.
Father Hawk retained his eyes on the same spot, frowning in an intense concentration that made his face ache.
Without warning, a thin snake emerged out of the water a few feet ahead. Most of its writhing dark body rode above a crest of grey water, curling with thin foam.
Father Hawk gasped. His eyes widened as he watched the dark thing worm and slide over the water and then disappear into the depths with its tail squirming down, almost as soon as it appeared.
The water splashed, roiled in its small crescents of motion before settling to a flat stillness.
“You’ve spotted your first shadowsnake,” whispered Sunajta. Father Hawk didn’t look up at him.”
“Now, keep looking. Do not get caught in your excitement. Do not look in the exact same place. Follow the same patterns, but look for them in different places. If you become totally and absolutely fixated on one location to the point where you ignore all others, you will miss out on opportunities. In doing this, you will actually starve. There will never be enough shadowsnakes to clean out a lake or fill your belly. They are in many places.”
After a pause, he finished with:
“Prepare to be surprised. Life is the same as a lake of shadowspawn.”
Father Hawk kept an eye out for the beginnings of forward moving currents and ripples, scanning the whole lake.
G.R. Nanda 