“I-ah-ha-haa!” Koekoea screeched in triumph. He had done it. He had drawn the first blood. High in the sky he heard Kahu, chieftain of hawks, calling, “Well done, you of the long-tail tribe which braves the sky.”
Toroa returned to the seabird war party. Karuhiruhi was furious with him and slashed the albatross’s face with his beak, drawing blood.
“But you said our attack would be a surprise,” Toroa said. “You never said that the landbirds would put up any defence.”
Karuhiruhi whistled scornfully. “You call one long-tailed cuckoo a defence?” Before he could pour more scorn on Toroa’s pathetic display, Karoro plucked at his left wing: “Sire, the second challenger comes.”
Karuhiruhi looked to the front and almost fell out of the air with laughter. Spinning and twittering through the sky came Chieftain Piwakawaka of the fantail clan.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” Karuhiruhi asked. “Is that really a bird in front of me?”
Now it must be admitted that a fantail — at best, the size of a human hand from the wrist to outstretched fingertips — does not convince as a worthwhile opponent. But Piwakawaka had drawn the second straw and was determined to claim the right given to him, whatever others might say. “You can’t possibly send him,” Kawau had moaned. “He will be made a mockery of by the seabirds.” Te Arikinui Kotuku had disagreed and Te Arikinui Huia, who knew a real bird when she saw one, intoned an ancient proverb. “Ahakoa he iti,” she said, “he pounamu.” Roughly translated, Huia’s words meant size wasn’t everything.
Chieftain Tui therefore watched with some admiration as Piwakawaka flitted up to meet the army of manu moana. He raised a cheer for the valiant fantail. “Although our second challenge will be unequal, similar to David’s battle with the giant Goliath, what Piwakawaka lacks in stature he makes up for in bravery — or foolhardiness. Go, Piwakawaka! Stick it to the seabirds.”
The loud cheering buoyed Piwakawaka’s spirits. His heart was thundering in his little breast. Pae kare, those seabirds were big fellas all right. Still, he was up here in front of the whole world, not to mention his wife and tribe, so there was nothing for it but to start doing his thing. He glared, grimaced, capered and double-flipped across the front line of the seabird attackers. “Tei! Tei! Tei!” he challenged. “Tei! Tei! Tei!”
“What an upstart,” Karuhiruhi said, “what a clown.” With a lazy gesture he ordered Taranui, chieftain of terns, to respond. “Make whatever morsel you wish of the miserable midget.”
“Must I?” Taranui asked. Handsome and vain, he considered the challenge of a fantail beneath his dignity. Nevertheless he raised himself on his toes like a ballet dancer, did a lazy pirouette and a couple of jetés, and on upward-angled wings gained the upper air. There he sighted on Piwakawaka, wheeled, yawned and plunge-dived.
Piwakawaka ought to have been an easy target. But you should never underestimate an opponent simply because he is slow as well as small. At Taranui’s first pass, Piwakawaka made an erratic jinking movement to the right and, insult of insults, showed his contempt for the tern in the age-old gesture of whakapohane — mooning Taranui with his bum.
“Oh, I wish he wouldn’t do that.” His watching wife, Waka, blushed.
Enraged, Taranui wheeled and squealed his anger. The action unsettled him, which was precisely what Piwakawaka wanted.
“Okay, you silly little shuttlecock, playtime is over,” the tern called — and he made his second attack.
If there was one thing Chieftain Piwakawaka disliked, it was remarks that diminished the royal nature of his person. When Taranui called him ‘little’ he saw red. Taranui might be bearing down on him like a jumbo jet, but no way was Piwakawaka going to give air.
“Wait for it,” he said to himself. “Not yet, not yet. Now.” With a quick flip of his tail, Piwakawaka did a forward somersault over Taranui’s head and landed on the tern’s back. Fantails are insectivores, and catch their prey by hawking from a perch. Piwakawaka settled on Taranui’s neck, gripped, and with one peck severed the tern’s jugular. Like a jet plane trailing petrol from a ruptured tank, Taranui fell to his death.
“The landbirds let out a roar of elation,” Hoki said. “However, their joy turned to dismay when they realised that Taranui had managed to twist his neck and catch Piwakawaka in his beak. ‘If I go to my death,’ Taranui yelled, ‘you’re coming with me.’ Tern and fantail fell into the forest.
“Waka, Piwakawaka’s wife, let out a cry of grief. ‘Aue, taku tane, alas, my husband.’ She sought solace, and Chieftain Tui quickly opened his wings and embraced her. Around them the landbirds fell silent, stunned at Piwakawaka’s death —”
“Now’s our chance,” Karuhiruhi said. “Quickly,” he ordered Karoro and Parara, “mount a two-pronged attack.”
Before the gull and the prion could execute the order, winged vengeance came swooping from on high. Chieftain Kahu, angry of eye, his wingtips raking the sky, stalled in front of Karoro and Parara. “Going somewhere?” he asked. Two prion guardsmen came to protect their chieftains. Kahu’s revenge was sweet. A sudden clawing movement and the prions were decapitated.
Kahu’s intervention brought the landbirds back to reality, to the seriousness of their situation. Chieftain Tui began a haka of defiance. “Let not Chieftain Piwakawaka’s death be in vain,” he chanted. Very soon, Chieftain Kokako of crows joined him, followed by Chieftain Teraweke of saddlebacks and Chieftain Pipiwharauroa. “Avenge Piwakawaka’s death! Kui! Kui! Kui whiti ora!”
Then, Chieftain Ruru of the owls blinked and sought Tui’s instructions.
“Well, Chief,” Ruru said. “Is it time to make the counter-attack?”
“Yes,” Tui answered. “Lead your attack right through the middle of the seabird army.”
Ruru bowed to Te Arikinui Kotuku and the other women. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said. “There’s a battle to win.”
Uttering loud dismal shrieks he beat his wings and gained the upper winds. He looked as if he had come from the bowels of hell. His eyes, powerful for binocular judgement of distance, completely filled the sockets. As he advanced on the seabirds he uttered the call which, for all men and women, is a premonition that their last breath has come:
“Mor-por! Mor-por!”
The cry resounded across the sky. The Great Forest seemed to move, to shimmer, to seethe as thousands of landbirds flew upward to the battle.
“Taka rere! Taka rere!” they called. “Kia iro! Kia iro!”
“The landbirds and the seabirds began their bloody battle,” Hoki said. She described the battle with her hands, sweeping them back and forth, swish, swish, swish, like a sword. If Skylark had been closer she’d have had to duck for cover.
“The Great Book of Birds tells us that the sky dripped blood as skua fought parrot, gull fought heron, prion fought wren. The seabirds thought they were crazed for battle: their passion was as nothing to the landbirds. The seabirds had made one very big mistake. They had underestimated the landbird numbers. They were totally unprepared for the manu whenua large and small who pitched in to fight against them. The mollymawks engaged in wing-to-wing combat with the pigeons, and soon found that the pigeons could outmanoeuvre them by swooping upwards, stalling, and diving in another direction. The fulmars came up against the awesome duck clan; the ducks were belligerent, aggressive and brooked no trespass. Out in the sky they had a habit of climbing high, then closing their wings and plummeting earthwards onto their target. A squad of petrels found themselves being used as low-level target practice by quails who, running fast downslope on twinkling legs, took off at the last moment, glided on stiff wings and hit them like swift, deadly bullets. All over the sky, prions, shearwaters, gannets, boobies, pelicans, shags and tropicbirds found themselves battling with myriads of landbirds. They soon learned to beware of the clownish kaka; their beaks could tear you apart. The kea clan, with their heavy bills, could not only dig in deep but could also kill by introducing a form of blood poisoning that could take effect in two hours —”