Jayke dug his eyeglass from a pocket and opened it, cursing when he realized it had misted up against his sweaty skin. He wiped the lenses carefully on his shirt, never taking his eyes from the blemish in the sky just above the horizon. The fear was coming quickly, as it always did whenever he thought about why he was really here, why his family had lived in this place for generations. He went cold, sweat cooling him further, his heart stuttered, his stomach lurched and he was almost sick.

Dropping to his knees in the sand he brought up the eyeglass and stared to the north.

And then he ran.

No gulls, these. They were too far away to be certain, but they looked like hawks. Dozens of them flying in a loose formation, their massive webbed tentacles stroking the air almost gently, only needing a few swipes per minute to keep their bodies aloft.

Jayke sprinted along the beach, his footprints illustrating his panic. The turtle eggs bounced from his pocket and one of them broke on the sand. It was a bad egg, putrid. If he had eaten it he would have died.

He had read of hawks in one of the many books his family had accumulated. How they were spied only very rarely, how they normally remained way above the clouds, living there, eating, loving, mating, dying, disintegrating on the high breezes that kept them aloft even as they wasted away. He was heading for the path up to his house, and his weapons, and the doves that sat ready to be released with their warning. Because the only time hawks had ever been seen in a group was when they were controlled, harnessed and ridden like horses of the skies. And that was most common during the Cataclysmic War. Back then, the riders had been Krotes, the Mages’ warriors.

Jayke only turned to look again when he reached the foot of the steps leading up to the top of the cliff. He had dropped his eyeglass but he did not need it; the threat had closed in all too fast. In doing so the truth had seemingly manifested from his fears. These really were hawks, huge hawks, and although they were still miles out he could see the figures seated upright behind the creatures’ heads.