The Wildings (26 page)

There was a hard thud and I felt something bounce off my back. I whipped around, my whiskers quivering, and found myself staring at a tiny, terrified, chittering squirrel, who was
tugging its furry tail around itself in fear. “If you please,” it said through chattering teeth, “a friend sent me. My name is Aaaaooooo ooww owww.” I was too shocked to even take a swipe at it, but before I got my brains in order, there was a second shock.

Flying so low that her plumage skimmed the ground, Stoop shot over us, braking in mid-air to hover, hummingbird-fashion. “Miao, meet Ao; this is Jao,” she said, depositing another small heap of tumbled fur on the ground. “Friends of mine; keep them safe for me, you hear? No time to explain. We’ll touch talons later.” And then she had pulled out of her brief hover and shot away, a lethally fast, soaring streak aimed like an arrow at Bitterbite.

The crow never saw what hit her, Tooth, your mother was that fast. There was a ripping sound, a desperate squawk—that was all, and then we saw a bundle of black feathers falling out of the sky. Bitterbite was gone, and before the crows in her murder could react, Stoop had done a three-point roll and come back at them with her talons extended. Two more plunged down to the ground. A third screeched in pain and flapped slowly over to a nearby branch to rest; the fourth tried to engage Stoop in battle and had his wing torn off; Bakbuk flapped his wings in fear and fled. Bakbuk was the kind of crow whose caws were louder than his courage—he didn’t like getting his feathers bloody.

But as Stoop rose above the black mass, their caws now deafening, we could all see that something was wrong. She flew at an angle, dipping her right wing slightly, and seemed to be in pain. The crows saw it too. The birds that had ducked and
weaved out of her way started to gather again, massing behind her even as she tried to gain some height. It’s odd—they didn’t attack her in a group, but every so often, one of them would dart out from its murder and fly at her, staying just out of range of her talons.

TOOTH LOOKED INTO MIAO
’
S EYES
and then away. “Counting coup,” he said, his eyes yellow and sad. “It’s a classic crow manouevre when they’re faced with a predator bird on its own. Cornered, a cheel can take on a murder—even injured, we’re—well, let me demonstrate.”

Tooth’s talons slashed viciously at Miao’s face. She felt the rush of air on her whiskers, felt the claw miss her nose by a millimetre—and then the cheel was offering her a wet leaf, impaled on one of his deadly, curving nails. “It was stuck on your cheek,” he said, “kind of annoying to look at.”

Miao had too much self-control to mew, but she quickly washed a paw. “I see what you mean about speed,” she said.

“Crows are cowards,” Tooth continued. “They don’t like getting hurt. So instead, they take turns coming up close to the predator, close enough to disturb our flight patterns and paths, but pulling back before they get hurt. If they come in one after another, weaving and ducking around a predator, especially a wounded one, they’ll tire the predator out, cause confusion, get the raptor to use up all its energy in useless attacks. And then, once the predator’s weakened, that’s when the whole murder will attack …” He turned away and ruffled the ends of his feathers. “So that’s how Stoop died.”

Miao hesitated, and then gingerly, not knowing if Tooth would be angered, she put her head up and very quickly, brushed it against the hawk’s feathery face. Tooth jerked his head back, his eyes flaring bright red for a second, and then stilled.

“No, Tooth,” she said gently. “That wasn’t how your mother died.”

STOOP
’
S WINGS DROOPED
, continued Miao. She appeared to be losing height, but awkward as she was, she kept ahead of the crows, using her right talon to fend off attackers.

“Don’t worry, Miao-ji,” said a squeaky voice near my paw. “Stoop knows what she’s doing.”

Does she? I said sharply—I wasn’t used to talking to squirrels. Flying by the side of your foes when you’re badly injured doesn’t seem like much of a plan to me, squirrel.

Ao kept her squinty eyes on me. “Been watching Stoop for many days, Jao and I have. Stoop often flew near us but never hurt us, never even threatened us. It was different with the crows. First, the crows went after my mum. Then the crows went after my dad. Then there were just the two of us. We didn’t know what to do. We sat at the top of the trees, scared to come down to the ground and feed, scared to look for shelter. Every time we came down the tree trunk, the crows attacked. Then one evening, there was Stoop, resting on the high branch above our heads.”

The squirrel took a deep breath, her fluffy tail quivering nervously. “Jao took his courage in both paws and said, cheel, cheel, may we speak? She whipped around, her red eyes glaring
at us, but in curiosity, not challenge. I was scared. But Jao said, cheel, maybe you’ll kill us, maybe you won’t, but those crows, they’re going to kill us anyway. That’s the truth. So we’re asking for help. Cheel, you’re a predator, one of the big ones. We’re just squirrels, us little ones. But perhaps, sometimes, the big ones look out for the little ones?”

Jao pulled his head out of his bushy tail and nodded in confirmation. Ao touched her tail to his, gently, and went on. “Stoop stared at us for a long, long time. She said nothing, just took us in with her tired red eyes. So I spoke up next, seeing that Jao had been so brave. I told her about our mum, our dad, what the crows did to so many of the little ones. And as I was speaking, suddenly, Stoop put her beak out and picked me up by the middle. She brought me close to her great sharp talons, and I thought, this is it: a cheel will get me instead of the crows. I hoped she would kill me fast. But instead, she just looked me over, closely. And then she put me down, and said, almost to herself, this has gone on too long. It was the next day that she flew in, landing on our branch, and told us: get on my back.”

Jao nodded, holding his paws together as he took up the tale. “We were scared, my teeth chattered and I could hear Ao squeaking in fright, but we got on and we stayed on, holding hard to Stoop’s feathers. She took us first to the roof—over there, that house, can you see it?—and then she told us what she planned to do. You know the rest; she’s brought us to you, and now she’s off putting her plan into action. Stoop knows exactly what she’s doing. It’s all under control.”

I looked up at the sky. The crows were close to the perimeter of Nizamuddin, now, near the saint’s shrine, and three of them
were tagging the small black dot that was Stoop’s form in the sky. It seemed as though she was towing a flotilla of crows behind her; the trees down in our park were bare and empty. They had to duck every so often to avoid the thick tangle of electric lines, and the brightly coloured kites the Bigfeet kids were flying from the roofs. As we watched, the trio slashed at Stoop, in arrow formation; she wheeled sideways, and stabbed back at them, but again, she was dropping, and then the trio closed in on her, and she went into a steep dive, the crows cawing in celebration as they followed.

Jao squeaked. “Over there,” he said. “Do you see?”

Stoop did a triple roll and shot, unbelievably, upwards, slicing through the black wave of crows like a claw going through butter. There was no sign of a damaged wing now, no sign of distress as she arced towards the sky.

Too late, the crows saw the still dots hovering motionless at the corners of the park. Cheels from the next colony, dozens of them, scattered at intervals across the horizon in tight knots of ten or so; others rose up now from the surrounding buildings, from the edges of the roofs and the crowns of the telephone poles and trees that were scattered through the dargah. Led by Conquer, they formed a kind of net around the confused cloud of crows, hemming them in, almost herding them, the way dogs will sometimes herd their pups. And now, the crows could see that Stoop had led them into a trap—straight towards the tangle of power lines that criss-crossed the perimeter of the dargah.

Without Bitterbite and Bakbuk to guide them, the crows were in disarray. Some flew into the powerlines, and with more
and more birds colliding into each other, they were soon in a tremendous tangle—and then there was a spark and a horrible smell, and first one and then another of the powerlines went up in flames, taking more crows with them. Three of the best crow fighters tried to take on Conquer himself, but the feathers flew as the massive cheel fought back, and soon he rose triumphant, if somewhat worse for wear, above the vanquished crows. A few murders veered to the right and the left, but the cheels closed formation on them and the air was thick with their torn wings and hoarse cries. Some crows—a small cluster towards the back of the murder—managed to get away, screeching their dismay and surrender as they plunged for the safety of the trees, clearly on the run. We never saw them again.

It was over in a matter of minutes, and I saw Neferkitty and some of the toms slump to the ground, grateful for the rest. Jao and Ao chittered behind us in celebration. “Incredible,” wuffed Tommy—he and the stray dogs had watched the crows retreat in wonder. I knew what he meant; it had all happened so fast, and now the cheel squadrons were reforming into a large, neat arrowhead. It was a stately, soaring group of cheels that came to roost in the rooftops of Nizamuddin—this very roof, Tooth.

Stoop arced overhead as Conquer watched her proudly. “Little ones,” she called, streaking down so low between the trees that she almost brushed our heads, “I kept my promise, little ones! What a day, Miao! Did you like the show?”

And then she was off again, soaring, rolling and diving, a beautiful black streak across the sky, hitchhiking the winds and gliding along. Up on the roof, I saw her Wing Commander,
Slash, spread his feathers out in sudden alarm. He gave a loud startled call. “Stoop! Watch out!”

She was doing her aerobatics between the edges of the roofs of the dargah and the long black power cables, and she was, not for the first time, too close, far too close. She heard Slash’s alarm call, flicked her tail feathers into a closed fan and dived smoothly downwards, easily avoiding the ominous dark line of the cables, streaking far above its deadly width, towards us. I saw Slash shift his claws back on his perch, riffing his feathers back into shape in relief.

She looked so beautiful in that moment, Tooth. Your mother had a knack of cutting through the air cleanly, her wings held back just an inch more than the other cheels. The sun glinted off the brown feathers on her back, turning them gold. And then: “Slash! Have you ever seen an upwards triple roll?” she called as she plummeted all the way back down, hovering in the air like a hummingbird rather than a cheel, near a first-floor parapet. Slash tensed: “Stoop! No, it’s too dangerous!” he said, and his voice shrilled with alarm. “Come back!” called Ao. “Come down!” squeaked Jao.

But she had already risen into the air, spinning like a golden top, doing a perfect roll upwards into the clear blue sky, then a second, skating higher on a sudden tug from a sharp breeze, and then the third, spectacular, looping roll. There she was, a golden-brown streak of light, and we saw her rise higher, higher, upside down now. And then Slash called out again, his hoarse voice urgent and harsh, as a smoking power cable, damaged from the battle, erupted in a shower of sparks.

We couldn’t tell her golden feathers from the flames.

FOR A LONG WHILE
, there was no conversation—only silence and the rain. Miao said nothing, just sat next to the cheel, both of them gazing out and down into the park, and if they saw a slim, graceful golden-brown phantom skimming the trees and the rooftops, neither of them said so.

Finally, Tooth turned back to Miao. “I’ll have to speak to Conquer and to Claw, but this is what we can offer. We won’t start your fight for you, Miao. We won’t attack first. We won’t take orders from any cat but you or Katar. But when you need our help, we’ll be there.”

Miao let her whiskers relax, wanting to give Tooth another head-rub, but knowing from the stiffness in his maxillary feathers and the way his talons tightly gripped the edge of the roof that the cheel wouldn’t welcome a touch at this moment. “Thank you, Tooth,” she said and began to make her descent. As she went down the stairs in brief hops, Tooth called out to her. “Miao?” he said.

“Yes, Tooth?”

“Just tell the little ones in Nizamuddin, the mice and the shrews and the sparrows … tell the little ones it’ll be all right.” And then the raptor turned his head back to the rain, which was falling in a steady torrent.

C
rouched behind the tattered velvet curtains, Datura silently observed the Bigfeet who tramped through the house. “Hide!” he had growled to the others. “Spread out in groups, stay away from the line of feeding bowls, don’t attack the Bigfeet. Yet.”

But as the night and day wore on, the flood of Bigfeet had only grown. The night watchmen had raised the alarm, peering into the Shuttered House when the cats began to yowl their great lament, as was custom. Datura had started the dirge for the dead, and had cuffed or bitten the throats of the few who hadn’t joined in. The white cat retreated when the police came in, watching from the stairs, sure that other Bigfeet would follow. He felt no sadness as they carried the body of the old Bigfoot out; instead, he sniffed the air, smelling the vans and cars drawing up outside, tasting what came in through the windows.