“That makes no sense, ancestor,” Kawanatanga said. “Already my seabirds, by virtue of their greater physical power, are overflying your own contingents.”
“Then keep them back, keep them back, I say,” Karuhiruhi thundered. “It is my prerogative to lead the army and for my lieutenants to avenge themselves for our defeat at the first battle of the birds.”
Kawanatanga gave a cynical laugh. “I will bide my time,” he said, under his breath. “From being your descendant, I have become your greatest opponent.”
Ah yes, uneasy lay the head that wore the crown.
Ignorant of Kawanatanga’s ambition, Karuhiruhi gave orders to Toroa. “Go ahead, my albatross friend, and be our eyes on the battle.” Then he turned to Karoro, Parara and Taranui. “Order all your gull battalions to the front.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Karoro answered. His clarion call was echoed by Taranui and Parara. “All black-backed gulls, all black-billed gulls, all red-billed gulls, come forward. Join us, our cousins, all black-fronted terns, Antarctic terns, white-fronted terns, sooty terns, white terns and all prions. We have been given the honour of leading the utu on the landbirds.”
Burning with suppressed fury, Kawanatanga wheeled away from Karuhiruhi and took up his position with his seabirds from the future.
“Have your day, old bird,” he said to himself. “Tomorrow it will be my turn.”
The arrival of Hoki’s special delivery caused a slight delay in Arnie’s departure to the front.
“Could you go on ahead to marshal the troops?” he asked Chieftain Tui and Chieftain Kahu. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
At the front, all the windhovers, the birds of the open sky, were waiting for the order to attack.
“Look!” Kahu said.
The seabird army was approaching, its frontline stretching from one side of the horizon to the other. The sight filled the manu whenua with dread.
“Their beaks are open,” said Tui, “as if they are already preying on shoals of fish!”
“We shall be overrun in the first attack!” said Chieftain Tere of swifts.
But Kahu gave them cause for hope. He noticed that as the seabirds approached, their frontline began to narrow down to a spearhead.
“They persist in their traditional strategy of a single, full-frontal attack on Manu Valley,” he pointed out.
“In that case,” Tui affirmed, “the balance of power may still be ours.”
He raised a wing for silence. His voice carried in the wind to the landbird army. “Let the seabirds know that we are not an opponent to be taken lightly.”
The landbirds set up a deafening clamour, a huge, formidable shrilling. The ruse had been Arnie’s suggestion, designed to confuse the seabird army into thinking there were more landbirds defending Manu Valley than expected. The rifleman iwi called zipt-zipt-zipt, a high-pitched challenge which jarred the air. The fernbird tribe called u-tick, u-tick. The paradise shelduck whanau set up a gutteral glink-glink, glink-glink. Overhead, the grey teal tribe had massed in a ferocious squad, adding to the din with their peculiar hoarse quack. Beside them, flanking to the left, the shoveler iwi made took-took noises.
The clamour also arose from the ground. The weka tribe called coo-eet, coo-eet. The marsh crake clan click-clicked. The kiwi whanau set up a shrill ear-splitting ki-wi, ki-wi. The bittern tribe began to boom, one of the most far-carrying of all bird sounds. They set up a competition with the kakapo clan. The kea whanau rattled, cackled, roared and yelled for all they were worth. Higher up the scale, the parakeet tribe screamed and screeched like banshees. The noise rose in a cacophony, a whirlwind wall of sound that went off the decibel range, a psychic fist punching into the approaching seabirds.
Back at the inlet, Arnie heard the distant roar. “The battle’s begun,” he said. He had set up the shotgun on a rocky promontory overlooking the lagoon and drafted Chieftain Ruru and his owl iwi to lift the shotgun into position. There, he stabilised it on a base of rocks, with the double barrels firmly pointing down Manu Valley.
Meanwhile, Skylark was supervising the females in weaving small cradles and ropes for the pulley and winch system by which the shotgun could be fired.
“I can’t stay any longer,” Arnie said.
“You can’t?” Skylark began to panic. Now that the battle was imminent she was really scared. She didn’t want him to go.
Words failed them both. How do you say goodbye when you’ve gone beyond words? There was only one thing left to do — and Arnie did it. He swept Skylark up in his wings and gave her a hug. It was quite a shock.
“Get the shotgun loaded, and if the seabirds make it past our defences, pull the trigger at my signal. Okay?”
“Okay,” Skylark said, trying to recover.
“By the way, did I tell you that I discovered oil when we went on our reconnaissance last night?”
“Oil?”
“Right there between the offshore islands and where Tuapa will be built. The stuff is just oozing out of the ground. Goodbye, Skylark!”
Without thinking, Arnie pecked her on the cheek and took to the sky.
“So you’re just friends, right?” Kotuku teased.
Arnie’s ruse worked. As the shrilling increased, Karuhiruhi quailed and called a halt on the advancing army.
Kawanatanga flew forward to investigate.
“The landbirds offer strong resistance,” Karuhiruhi said.
“No, my ancestor,” Kawanatanga answered. He saw Karuhiruhi was jittery, nervous. “Do not do as hens do and take flight at the slightest noise of opposition.”
“You were not here for the first battle,” Karuhiruhi hissed, offended at the inference that he was a woman. “You know nothing of the landbird forces.”
While they were arguing, Arnie reached the front. He took his place with Chieftain Tui, Chieftain Kawau and Chieftain Kahu and scoped the situation. “We have the advantage of the wind,” he noted. “It’s coming down Manu Valley. The seabirds will have to beat into it. Are our first line of windhovers in position?”
“Yes,” Tui nodded.
“Then lets get down and dirty,” Arnie said.
With that, Tui stood and called to the manu whenua. “Ka mahi te mea i tohia ki te wai o Tu tawake. All honour to those who have been baptised in the waters of the war god. Tukua mai kia eke ki te paepae! Let the seabirds come to the threshold if they dare! Toi te kupu, toi te mana, toi te whenua! Fight for our right to sing, for our right to hold the land, for our right to our own prestige!”
Ever the showman, Tui let his voice roll out to the horizon, echo following echo. Once that was done, he ordered the battle to begin.
“Go forth, Chieftain Whiorangi of the silver eye clan,” he said. “Do your job. Divert the enemy —”
At the command, Whiorangi flitted across that lonely sky, a small speck disappearing into the maw of the seagull army.
Karuhiruhi laughed when he saw him. “What are you doing so far from the forest and over the sea?”
“I come to give you warning,” Whiorangi chirruped. “You lost the first battle. You will lose the second. Retreat or face the consequences.”
“Ka mahi te ringaringa aroarohaki taua,” Tui called. “The wing which quivers in the face of the enemy is to be admired.”
Karuhiruhi roared with laughter. “Get out of our way, you little sliver of silver, before you become a toothpick for my beak.”
“Oh, is that so?” Whiorangi answered. He folded his wings and dropped like a stone. Only then did Karuhiruhi see that the fork-tailed swift clan, the fastest-flying and most aerial of birds, was plummeting from the highest sky. Led by Chieftain Teretere, the first squad went in, blurred lightning, with wings long and scimitar-shaped. Large and powerful, they whistled down the wind like arrows unleashed from a thousand crossbows.