Behind the doorway was a stairwell. A jink, a swerve, another swerve — man, there were so many passageways. From one of them, however, came a lovely updraft of wind, sufficient to fuel a fire. Skylark followed the draft to its source: a large bedroom, palatial, drapings all over the place. Just the ticket. She settled. Put the nests down. Lit a match.
“How dare you enter my royal chambers!” Areta came flying through the room. Screaming with rage, she knocked the match from Skylark’s wing. Skylark feinted to the left, then returned as Areta surged past. Her breast feathers pulsing with exertion, she swung sideways and extended her left foot.
Years of royal living had robbed Areta of physical fitness or dexterity. “Oof,” she said as she tripped, lost balance, and went head over heels through the air. She hit a wall and fell to the ground, moaning. Her baby son began to wail from its cot.
“This is no time to be sentimental,” Skylark said to herself. She struck a second match. Threw it. Its flame caught on the drapings and in a second the whole room was on fire. “Time to get out of here.” She braced and leaned forward. Her tail approaching horizontal, she pushed off from the floor, heading for the exit.
Areta gave a demented wail. “My son!”
The fire spread to his crib. Quickly, Areta pulled him out and headed for the secret trapdoor. Below was a passageway leading down and out of the fortress at sea level. Using her last reserves of energy she opened the trap-door with her beak. Before she could take another step with her son, the flames whooshed past her and down the vent.
“You can’t get away from me. I have you now.”
Kawanatanga had completely forgotten about returning to lead his troops in the war. Taking out this falcon from the future had become his obsession, and he was determined to relish the chase, enjoying the certainty of the kill. He would play with Arnie as a cat does with a mouse. He wanted to feel the ultimate power. “I’m in control, now,” he called. “You live at my leave. You will die when I choose to kill you.”
His mocking laughter followed Arnie has he hydroplaned across the sea. But was Arnie worried? The longer you play with me, Arnie thought, the longer you’ll be kept away from the battle. Nor am I about to give in without a good fight.
Mustering his energy, Arnie dipped between the troughs of the waves, hoping that the pursuing Kawanatanga might make an ill-judged move, be caught by a curling wave and dunked.
No such luck.
Panting with exertion, his velocity decreasing, Arnie decided to make a break for the land. Maybe he could lose Kawanatanga along the shoreline, among the smoke drifting across the sea from the offshore islands. Yes, that was it.
“I’m so bored now,” Kawanatanga sighed. He locked onto Arnie and swooped.
Bird turned missile, his wings extended a fraction for the sake of steerage, Kawanatanga hooked and grappled Arnie’s left wing in his beak. Holding the wing, Kawanatanga lifted one of his feet and raked Arnie’s back, slicing it open. At close quarters, Kawanatanga was ruthless. He had the advantage of a longer bill reach. Another jab and he tore Arnie’s shoulder.
“Prepare to breathe your last, Arnie,” Kawanatanga said. “I will open you from head to tail. I will rip you apart from head to sternum so that your entrails will spill out and fall to the sea.”
In agonising pain, Arnie stabilised with his right wing. His mouth was dry. He was losing consciousness. The blood was running like a river from his wounds. Bobbing his head to clear it and to sharpen his wits, Arnie turned and prepared himself for Kawanatanga’s killing thrust. “Game’s over,” Kawanatanga said. “I’ve won.”
Screaming, Areta turned away from the vent. With that exit closed to her escape, there was only one way out — and that was to ascend the main stairway.
“Don’t worry, son,” Areta soothed her wailing child. “I’ll get you out of here and away from danger.”
Away from danger?
Alas, poor Areta. The fire which Skylark had made in the royal nursery had really taken hold. It was roaring down the vent, a huge fiery jet stream travelling through the volcanic composition of the island. Some of the flames flicked through other vents, other veins, other channels, other cracks in the subterranean foundations.
Areta reached the open air with her son. “Thank God, oh Queen, you’re safe,” a prion royal guard said.
At that very moment, a tongue of fire flicked and reached down and found an underground channel. There, in the channel, streamed a huge river of oil right at the very centre of the fortress island itself.
Areta heard a rumble, deep beneath her feet. “What is that?” she asked the royal guard.
Before he could answer, the island fortress exploded.
“No! Not Areta! Nor the son from whom I am descended —”
A huge ball of fire erupted into the air. It boiled higher and higher, burning a hole in the sky. The heat from the blast hit Kawanatanga, and with it came the smell of death.
“Chieftain Arnie! Defend yourself. We’re almost there —” From the corner of his eye Arnie saw Chieftain Kahu and Chieftain Tui coming to his rescue. But he knew they would be too late.
Kawanatanga was like a maddened machine, his eyes bloodshot with anger, his face glowing with insanity.
“You. You —”
He prepared to deliver the death blow.
He slashed with his claws at Arnie, but the thrust went right through without having any effect.
Kawanatanga’s eyes popped with puzzlement. “You should be dead.”
He slashed again. But he had no claws to slash with. They disintegrated before his eyes.
“What’s happening to me?” Kawanatanga screamed as his feet disappeared. Then his thighs. Now his wingtips. And his tail feathers.
Whimpering he grabbed for Arnie.
“Keep away from me,” Arnie yelled as he backed away in horror. Kahu and Tui fluttered down beside him. They caught him in their wings.
“Don’t be afraid,” Kahu said. “This same thing has been happening to many of the seabirds. When the offshore islands started to catch fire, they began to disappear before our very eyes —”
“Kua riro ki wiwi ki wawa,” Tui added, awe-struck. “A third of the seabird army has gone. They have fled into the unknown. Kawanatanga will soon join them.”
Kawanatanga cried out in fear. “I don’t want to die,” he sobbed. His body was wavering, blanking out, as if someone was erasing him. He was disappearing piece by piece. Finally, all that was left was his neck, beak and eyes.
“Please save me,” his beak said. “The Lord Tane will listen to you —”
At that moment Arnie felt a great surge of pity. “It was either you or me,” he said. “Goodbye, Kawanatanga.”
Kawanatanga was no longer there. Where he had been was an empty space of air.
Arnie crumpled, sobbing with relief. Of course! Skylark had decimated the rookeries. She had destroyed the descent lines for the seabirds from the future. Without their descent lines, those seabirds ceased to exist.
They, and their leader Kawanatanga, were gone forever.
“Skylark, you did it,” Arnie said.
“Yes, but you’re hurt,” Skylark answered, concerned. She had just arrived back at the lagoon.
“No, no. I’m fine,” Arnie protested. But when he put his wings around her, he winced in pain. His left wing was seeping blood.
“Take Chieftain Arnie down to the lagoon and bathe his wounds,” Kotuku said. “And don’t forget, Skylark, try not to win all the time.”
“Okay,” Skylark answered, slightly puzzled at Kotuku’s hint.