The Eagle & The Dove

    Part 2:  The Eagles Chapter 4/Page 1

Death In The valley

  Cylor feeling his life force drain away, realised that soon he would die.  The burning fire within him was tearing through his body, his vision was fading and he was unable to control  his body movements.

  When he saw the human leave his hidden pit and advance towards him, he summoned up all his remaining strength.  With an angry scream, he called on Gwyl, the lord of Eagles and king of all birds to give him his revenge.

  As if in answer to this call, a hidden reservoir of energy flooded through him.  Releasing fully the now dead goat, he made a last desperate leap for the farmer.  He would at least show this human creature what it was to feel pain.

  Fear touched Herreria.  He had gravely underestimated the power of the Eagle.  When he had left his shelter, he thought it only a matter of clubbing a weak and helpless bird.

On her descent to the valley floor, Remera saw the farmer emerge from his hiding place and advance on her partner.  She let out a shriek filled with hatred for all humans.  Was it not enough that he had already so maimed her mate?  Could he at least not let him die with dignity?

  With anger and hate welling up inside her, she changed her course to that of Herreria.  Cylor's leap brought him onto the advancing farmer.  He felt his talons rake and then rip through the soft flesh of his enemy.  Revenge would be his.  He would rip the insides out of this puny animal before he died.

  Herreria tried frantically to dodge the attacking Eagle.  It was to late.  A painful scream left his lips, as he felt claws tearing into his breast.

  Both man and bird started to topple from the force of the impact.  Herreria had only one chance left.  As he fell, he swung his musket in a powerful arc, and had the satisfaction of feeling it crack against the Eagles skull.  Once more the tide of battle had swung his way.

  Desperation can be a mighty weapon.  Many battles through the ages have been fought and won by the weaker side, simply because they were more desperate.  Both Cylor and Herreria were desperate but one was much closer to death.

  Cylor had already lost to much blood.  Try as he might, he could not find that final strength to close his talons and rip the heart out of his foe.  As the firestick crashed into his head, he knew his revenge was not to be.  Toppling over, his talons leaving the chest of the farmer, he took one last look at the heavens.  His mind was calling him to sleep there was finally no strength to resist.

  His thoughts turned to his partner Remera and the pain seemed to leave him.  Her love and beauty were his last thoughts.  Cylor the Great Eagle closed his eyes to the sky; and died.

  Herreria felt the talons slide out of his body and saw the Eagle crash to the earth.  Staggering to his feet, blood streaming from the gaping wounds in his chest, he lifted his musket to smash the now dead raptor into a mass of blood and feather.

  It had seemed like an eternity, since Remera had heard the thunder of the firestick.  Yet she knew only a few moments had passed, since Cylor had started his attack on the goats.  She had broken of her first swoop on the farmer, after seeing Cylor leap at him. 

  Then she had watched the struggling forms afraid of attacking in case she was to accidentally injure her partner.  As she saw Herreria deliver that fatal blow with his firestick,  a cold feeling of dread swept over her.  In that instant, she knew it was all over for her mate

  For the second time that day, she let out a piercing shriek.  This time so loud and terrifying it reverberated around the valley.  People in the nearby town of Ubeda stopped in their tracks, a feeling of chill and dread sweeping through their bones.

  All across the valley people who heard that scream were frozen with terror, thinking the devil had ascended from the bowels of hell, to claim the souls of the dead.

  Herreria, wounded and bleeding to death, stopped the downward swing of his musket, when he heard it.  He had completely forgotten the second Eagle, in the heat of battle.  He looked up in panic.

  His last vision on this earth was a vision filled with horror and dread.  Frozen with fear, he could only watch as the second Eagle, talons outstretched came hurtling down on him.

  It is unusual for creatures of the wild to feel hate and anger; but they do.  Like the wolf on land and the whale in the waters, the Great Eagles choose a partner for life. They will protect each other, and sometimes they die for each other.  It was impossible to describe what Remera felt at the moment of Cylor's death.  She knew she only wanted to kill and destroy that what had taken her partner.

  As Herreria stood petrified to the earth, her talons closed his sight.  Locking into his head, Remera began to squeeze.  Harder and harder she pressed, feeling her talons breaking through eyes, skull and sinking into the soft mass of brain.  She started to flap her great wings, supporting the now dead Herreria in a standing position.

  The weight of the human was too much, even for her great strength to support for long.  With a violent jerk, she ripped open his head, sending him, bits of bone, brain and blood to stain the green of the fields.

  Still her anger had not been satisfied.  Attacking the corpse, using both beak and talon, she tore into Herreria.  Slashing through cloth and skin, tearing the flesh away with her beak, she ripped him to pieces.  When she pulled the heart out of her enemy, she rose into the air and devoured it.

   Next came the goats.  These domesticated animals that allowed themselves to be used as tools by man, they to must pay for her mates death.  One by one, she attacked the terrified creatures.  They had no place to run.  Locked in by mans fences, they could only scream in terror, as they ran in hopeless circles.

  Down Remera would swoop on each victim, killing and mutilating, her wrath knowing no compassion.  Systematically she destroyed all of the animals, until finally there were no more left alive.  Their blood and flesh were strewn all over, staining the earth and turning the lush green grass into a red blanket of blood.

  So great had been her rage and so loud the sound of dying animals she had not heard the approach of the towns' people who had come to investigate the screams issuing from the fields.  It was only the heat of a fireball narrowly missing her body that alerted her to the new danger.  With a final cry of triumph, she took to the air.  Higher and higher her great wings lifted her, out of dangers way, leaving behind the carnage she had committed.

  In the field below, the people walked through this scene of slaughter.  All around them lay the mutilated remains of both goat and human.  In their anger and frustration, they started to hack apart the body of Cylor.  Soon they grew tired of this futile gesture and looked once more to the sky. By now, Remera was only a small dot on the horizon, winging her way home to her mountain retreat.

  They cursed all Eagles as the spawn of Satan.  Making a solemn vow;  they swore that wherever and whenever the opportunity arose they would exterminate every Eagle in the valley.  They would wipe these creatures from the face of the earth.  This they swore to their almighty god.