The arrival of winter was mysteriously uncertain. There was already a bite in the wind, and the air smelled different, but Buccari had insisted on one last patrol before winter snowed them in, tugging at Quinn's mantle of leadership, cajoling and badgering. Quinn conceded, if only to stop her harping. Buccari organized the patrol and set out immediately. She was going to be prepared for the spring, and learning more about the valley was imperative to those preparations.

"We got some cold weather coming," she said now.

"It's damned cold now," Jones said.

"What's the matter, Boats?" O'Toole asked. "I thought you liked playing Marine."

"Yeah, Boats," MacArthur said. "Act like a man. Right Lieutenant?"

"Yeah, Boats," Buccari said. "Act like a man. Move out, Corporal!"

"Aye, Cap'n," MacArthur replied, stepping out toward the horizon.

Braan glided along, measuring altitude by the pressure in his ears. The thermals were unseasonably strong, and the autumnal southwesterlies pushed the hunters rapidly over the plains. An auspicious start.

Hours passed. Thermals lifted them high, yet Braan' s initial well-being was tempered by the changing elements. An innocent parade of puffy cumulus had exploded into a threatening line of towering nimbus. Concentrations of billowing turbulence blossomed upward, fluffy white tops curling ever higher, their bottoms black and heavy with rain—thunderstorms. Braan veered west, hoping to slide behind the rain giants. Hours of soaring remained, but flying into the crazed craw of a thunderstorm would not get them to the salt flats. Ominous booming of thunder rattled sensitive nerves in Braan' s sonar receptors, and searing blue streaks of lightning arced between the roiling mountains of moisture. The hunters pressed forward, skirting the bruised clouds, but the course ahead grew solid with storm. The hunter leader set a sinuous detour, descending slowly through a dark valley of rumbling behemoths. Braan screamed a command along each wing of the echelon, and Craag, leading half the hunters, descended, falling behind and forming a separate vee. Wispy vapors and occasional raindrops sailed through the formation, and high overhead, dark clouds cut off the last bright rays of the sun. The hunters accelerated their descent, fighting increasing turbulence and decreasing visibility.

Sonar pulses of frightened hunters discharged randomly, their locating organs firing off sonic feelers. Braan in the lead, with nothing to guide him except eyes and instincts, remained quiet. Turbulence rocked him. A pelting rain started. And then hail. Braan screamed: every hunter for himself. A nimbus cell had swallowed them. There was no telling which way the powerful and turbulent drafts would throw them. Braan held his glide straight ahead, increasing his rate of descent, hoping the formation would stay with him. His hopes evaporated. He felt powerful updrafts. The longer the hunters remained in the air the more scattered they would become. Braan repeatedly screamed the dive command and pulled in his membrane wings, bunching them behind his back. The elevator updraft pressed him but could not hold him; the lead hunter pointed his nose downward and knifed through upwelling winds.

He fell through the bottom of the clouds, black grayness suddenly brightening to the midnight green of rain-soaked plains, rising to meet him. Braan flattened his body and allowed his membranes to ease into the rushing slipstream, bleeding off vertical velocity. Halting his descent, he struggled to keep his wet body in the sky, beating the air with powerful strokes. He circled relentlessly downward in driving rain, screaming for rendezvous. Answering cries came from all around, and as he drifted to the hail-strewn tundra, other hunters hopped and glided to his location, marshaling to his cries. Miraculously, after a half hour of whistling searches, everyone was on the ground, regrouped and without serious injury. Their adventure had started.

The line of thunderstorms passed, harbingers of a fast-moving front. The flint-edged wind shifted to a firm northerly, and temperatures dropped sharply; hail stones crunched underfoot, and bright gashes of cold blue sky sailed overhead. The hunters would have to march; the cold, wet air would not lift their weight. His warriors formed in two columns, ten spans apart, Braan deployed experienced pickets on each flank, and ordered Tinn'a to take two warriors forward as advance guard. Craag dropped back with the remaining experienced warriors; growlers usually attacked from the rear. The vast number of plains carnivores were to the east, where the great herds were beginning their migrations, but straggling buffalo remained in the area, and even small herds had packs of four-legged death stalking them. Braan screeched and the hunters hopped forward. The hunters' short steps moved the columns doggedly across the wet tundra. Braan proudly watched his son waddle by.

Cast-iron squalls swept the rolling plains, unloading gray sheets of icy rain on the hunters' bent backs. A deluge had just passed when Tinn' a's warning cry drifted to his ears. Braan halted the columns and moved forward. Tinn'a was on the point, crouched on a low ridge, slightly below the crest. As Braan approached, a great eagle gliding easily in ground effect lifted above the low elevation of the ridge. Braan screamed for Tinn'a and his scouts to retreat, for they were too few to thwart the monstrous killer. He was not worried about the hunter columns to his rear; their firepower would discourage a dozen eagles.

Tinn'a's scouts retreated, converging from either flank. Tinn'a silently unfurled his wings and pushed mightily down a shallow slope. Braan noted with alarm the quick turn of the eagle's head as it registered Tinn'a' s movement. The eagle pounded the airand rose higher. It wheeled and, with the wind at its back, closed the distance with alarming speed. Braan had no choice; the hunter leader screamed again, but this time the order to attack. Braan leapt into the air, thunderously deploying his wings. He pushed forward, laboring to gain speed and altitude, brandishing his shortsword.

The intrepid scouts responded to Braan's command. Their wings cracked unfurled, and they bravely rushed to intercept the eagle, skimming across the damp downs. Tinn'a swung hard around to join the assault, his wingtip shooting up a rooster tail of water and hail stones from the sodden ground. Braan' s forward velocity and Tinn'a's momentum to the rear caused them to pass in opposite flight, separating the warriors more than good tactics would dictate, but action was joined, and they could not delay. The hunters screamed the death cry and closed on their great rival for the skies.

The eagle's glare was fixed on Tinn'a. Yet as the hunters narrowed the distance, Braan detected a shift in the predator's attention. Undaunted, Braan bore straight ahead, aiming his sword thrust at the eagle's malevolent yellow eye. The eagle, disconcerted with the directness of the small creature's assault, maneuvered, but Braan sharply adjusted and met the eagle head-on, striking a vicious blow. The collision knocked the hunter into a tumbling spin. Braan flared his wings and cushioned his splashing jolt onto the soft ground. The indomitable cliff dweller somersaulted and leapt back into the air, struggling for altitude.

Screaming horribly, its momentum carrying it high, the enraged eagle regained contact with the hapless Tinn'a. Now half-blind and furious with pain, the eagle dove at the trailing hunter, obsessed with ripping the small winged creature to pieces. Tinn'a, far below the eagle's altitude, could not attack, but neither could he run. Tinn'a bravely held his glide, and just before the eagle impaled him with its grasping talons, the crafty hunter dipped sharply, trying to evade the overwhelming attack. Too late. One of the crazed eagle's talons struck Tinn'a a murderous blow across his back, and the hunter was hurled like a stone into the ground.