An eagle swooped down and killed a child. It tore gobbets of flesh from the small of the girl's back before flying off. She died the same way Hugh Fenner had, in other words. Even though she was already dead, Father John gave her unction while her mother screamed and screamed. They buried her next to the log hut that did duty for a church. No stonecarvers were on this new shore yet, but at Father John's direction the carpenter made a grave marker out of the red-timbered evergreens that seemed so common here. Rose Simmons, vibas in Deo, the inscription read: may you live in God.
How large would the churchyard grow? Edward dared hope his flesh would end up there, and not at sea for fish and crabs to feast on. Thy will be done, Lord, he thought, but not yet, please.
Another eagle killed a sheep. That would have been a sore loss in England-not that eagles there attacked beasts so large. It was worse here, because the newcomers could spare so little. A smaller hawk carried off a half-grown chicken. A big lizard-bigger than any Edward had imagined-ate a duckling. But there were no foxes. That alone helped the poultry thrive.
Edward chanced to be ashore one morning in early summer when a twelve-year-old told off to keep an eye on the livestock ran back into New Hastings screaming, "Things! There's things in the fields!"
Like everyone else, Radcliffe tumbled out of bed. He pulled on his shoes and went outside. "What do you mean, things?" he demanded.
"See for yourself!" The boy pointed to the bright green growing grain. "I don't know what they are! Demons from hell is what they look like."
"They aren't demons," Edward said. Those two-legged shapes might be strange to the boy, but he'd seen them before.
"They have the look of something otherworldly." Father John crossed himself, just in case.
But Edward Radcliffe shook his head. "No, no, Father. Those are the honkers I've been talking about. They think we've spread out a feast for them. They don't know they're a feast for us." He raised his voice: "We can't let them eat our grain and trample what they don't swallow. Get clubs. Get bows. We'll kill some-they're good eating, mighty good-and drive the rest away."
When he went out into the fields, he saw that these weren't quite the same kind of honkers as he'd seen the year before. They were bigger and grayer and shaggier of plumage. Their voices were deeper. But they showed no more fear of man than the other honkers had. You could walk right up to one of them and knock it over the head. Down it would fall, and another one ten feet away would go right on eating.
If you didn't kill clean, though…A man named Rob Drinkwater only hurt the honker he hit. It let out a loud, surprised blatt! of pain. Before he could strike again and finish it, one of its thick, scaly legs lashed forward. "Oof!" Drinkwater said. That was the last word-or sound-that ever passed his lips. He flew through the air, crashed down, and never moved again: he was all broken inside.
The honker lumbered off, still going blatt! The cry got the other enormous birds moving. Fast as a horse could trot, they headed off into the undergrowth. Every stride knocked down more young, hopeful wheat and barley.
Ann Drinkwater keened over her husband's body. The rest of the settlers stared from the dead honkers to the damaged crops and back again. "Will they come again tomorrow?" Richard Radcliffe asked. "Will they come again this afternoon? How many of them will we have to kill before the rest decide they shouldn't come?"
Those were all good questions. Edward had answers to none of them. "We'll butcher these dead ones," he said. "We can smoke some of the meat, or salt it, or dry it. We can't let it go to waste. After that-"
"They're afraid of the damned eagles, if they aren't afraid of us," Henry said. "If we screech like them, maybe we can scare off the honkers."
"We'd have a better chance if we could fly like them," his brother said, and Edward judged Richard likely right.
Numbly, the settlers got to work. Henry carried a pile of honker guts well away from the place where the creature had died. He made sure he included the kidneys, though they might have gone into a stew if he hadn't.
He waited in some nearby bushes, a hunting bow in his hand. Down from the sky to the offal spiraled…a vulture. Even the vultures here differed from the ones back in England. This one was almost all black, down to the skin on its head. Only the white patches near the base of the wings broke the monotony.
Henry came out and shooed it away before it landed and stole the leavings. It flew off with big, indignant wingbeats. Edward watched it go before he realized it had a healthy fear of men. He wondered what that meant, and whether it meant anything.
His son went back into cover. Henry had a hunter's patience-or, more likely, a fisherman's patience he was for once applying to life on land. And that patience got its reward when an eagle descended on the kidneys and fat much more swiftly and ferociously than the vulture had. Edward wasn't too far away when it did: he was close enough to notice the coppery crest of feathers on top of the great bird's head as it tore at the bait Henry had left for it.
With a shout of triumph, Henry sprang up, let fly…and missed. He couldn't have been more than eight or ten yards away, but he missed anyhow. The eagle might not have feared men, but a sharp stick whizzing past its head startled it. It launched itself into the air with a kidney in its beak.
Henry said some things that were bound to cost him time in purgatory. He made as if to break the bow over his knee. "Don't do that!" Edward called. "We haven't got many, and we haven't the time to make more without need, either. Besides, it's a poor workman who blames his tools."
"I couldn't hit water if I fell out of a boat." Henry was still furious at himself.
"There, there," his father soothed, as if he were still a little boy. "You're a fine archer-for a fisherman."
"Ha!" Henry made a noise that sounded like a laugh but wasn't.
"Keep at it," Edward said. "It's a good idea. If we don't kill these cursed eagles, they'll go on killing us."
"And the honkers, too," Henry said. "They're as bad as deer or unfenced cattle in the crops. How much did we lose today?"
"I don't know. Some. Not more than we can afford, though, I don't think," Edward answered. "And the eagles are more dangerous than honkers ever could be."
"Tell it to poor Rob Drinkwater. Tell it to his widow and his orphaned brats."
"A horse or a mule can kick a man to death, too," Edward said. "That's all honkers are-grazers that go on two legs, not four. But when God made those eagles, He made them to kill."
Henry thought it over, then nodded. "He made them to kill honkers, I'd say. And we look enough like honkers, they think we make proper prey, too."
Edward Radcliffe started to say something, then stopped and sent his son a surprised glance. "I hadn't looked at it so. Damned if I don't think you're right."
Henry walked over, retrieved his wasted arrow, and put it back into the quiver with the rest. "We'll have enough to get through the winter with or without crops, seems like," he said. "Between the cod and the honkers, we'll do fine."
"Aye, belike," Edward said. "But I want my bread, too. And Lord knows I want my beer. If we have to fence off the fields to keep the honkers out, well, we can do that."
"It will be extra work," Henry said. "We're all working harder now than we would have on the other side of the ocean."
"Now we are, yes," Edward agreed. "But that's only because we have to make the things we take for granted back there. Once we have them, things will be easier here than they were in England. Why else would we have come?"
Henry laughed. "You don't need to talk me into it, Father. I'm already here." He made as if to break the bow again, but this time not in earnest. "I'd be gladder I'm here if only I were a better archer."
"Each cat his own rat," Edward said. "Plenty of fine bowmen who'd puke their guts out on a fishing cog."