Koban Universe 1 (7 page)

The screamers, named
that because of their attack strategy of leaping high and emitting a high pitch loud screech to terrify their prey, used their leaping ability to overcome their natural height disadvantage. They used numbers and endurance to pursue and overwhelm tired larger prey. The doe was well above their normal prey size, unless the pack was considerably larger. A solid kick not dodged could cripple or kill a screamer, and a broken leg meant a slow starving death alone, or even sooner if another predator found them.

Clearly, this modest sized pack had chosen the pair with the goal of separating the fawn from the mother, and now that the chase had reached the point where the fawn had to stop running, the standoff was merely a waiting game. A screamer would dart in and
nip at one of the fawn’s legs, adding to the steady flow of blood that would weaken it until it sank to its knees. Once bled enough for the fawn to collapse, the doe would eventually give up the lost fight and save itself for the next breeding season. The greatest risk for the screamers was that the doe would hold them off until the noise drew a much larger predator, and it took their prey away from them.

Flock Leader looked at the shaky fawn’s wide legged stance, barely able to stay on its feet, and he felt gre
at sympathy. For the screamers!

As a fellow predator, he had been in similar standoffs when he was a squadron leader, with too few wolfbats under his command to take a prey animal down directly, forced to wait them out as they weakened from wounds. Too often
, a passing ripper or pack of wild dogs would claim their prize as they waited. To him the fawn looked like tender succulent meat that would feed a third of his flock for a day.

Had his
flock been closer, or he heard one of his squadron’s calls above the trees, he would have gladly have called in a team of his larger predators to steal the fawn from the screamers. Three of his younger squadron mates could lift the fawn, and fly it into the lower limbs of these trees for rendering. However, he was on his own, and his predator’s sympathy went to the screamer pack.

Accustomed to cooperation with humans, and sometimes with rippers, Flock Leader analyzed the problem from that standpoint. If he were helping those partners, in exchange for a share of the kill, what could he do that would earn him a share of the meat?
His advantage as an aerial scout wasn’t needed, because the prey was already found and surrounded. It was obvious to him after only a moment of circling, staying well above the scene below.

He partly folded his leathery blue wings and dropped in a controlled dive, suddenly uttering a low frequency scream that served no
echo ranging or communication function for wolfbats. It was deliberately scaled to the hearing range of other animals.

The startled looks of the screamers, as they glanced up at the falling blue blur was proof enough they heard him. However, they didn’t scatter, because they instantly recognized that he was alone, and thus could not take the fawn from them.

The doe also looked up, and her already tangible fear was evidenced as she backed away from her fawn, unprepared for this second assault. Wolfbat attacks and cries may have been heard by her previously, with another flock just on the other side of the river. Perhaps it may have been instinctive. She oriented her two long straight horns vertically, to defend herself from a strike from above at her exposed neck, prepared to thrust them back at any contact there or on her back.

Flock Leader had no intention of going for her neck, or even b
iting her legs to try to trip her, and thus risk a kick. He opened his wings at the last moment to swoop over her rump, and he used his rows of forearm grasping claws to scour her flanks, raking his claws on each side, and delivered a hard nip to her short, nervously whipping tail. He pulled up well behind her rearward thrusting horns, which protected her elongated neck and front shoulders.

His final cry, as he flapped rapidly
up and made his wings snap taut to generate a loud popping sound, accomplished his purpose. The startled doe leaped forward, into the circle of screamers, who promptly went after her legs and leaped onto her back. She panicked at finding herself attacked from two sources, and in that instant, her sense of self-preservation was stronger than the bleating of her trembling fawn. She shook off her attackers as she ran into the scattered underbrush between the bases of the giant trees.

Flock Leader landed in the lowest limbs just above the
scene of slaughter below him, and observed with interest as the screamers quickly went for the throat of the fawn, ending its kicking and cries in a few bloody minutes. They were less efficient at this, because of their smaller size, and thus less merciful than wolfbats would have been in ending the prey’s life quicker.

However, the concept of mercy was as alien to the wolfbat as it was the screamers. This was survival, not a sporting event with manufactured rules. A struggling prey animal was likely to injure you, and delayed the start of feeding.
The sooner it was dead the better.

As the screamers started to feed, Flock Leader made a
low frequency sound from time to time, to remind them he was watching them, and some of them kept at least one eye on him at all times. The two dozen slender little hellions had more to eat than they could hold, despite the fawn’s limited supply of flesh and organs. It was rare that a pack this small could protect the leftovers of a kill for a repeat feeding the next day, and they couldn’t carry it away. They ate what they could and then stayed near, to try to protect the kill from other small scavengers overnight. If any competition of size appeared, and their digestion had not progressed enough to remove the lethargy they now felt, they would be compelled to surrender the remains of the carcass.

Flock Leader watched as they left the
side of the kill, one by one, the smallest and least dominate pack members being the last to feed. That was when he silently swooped down, and used his front leg claws to snare what was left of the exposed backbone and skin, and flapped furiously to gain altitude with the reduced weight of the fawn. One haunch fell away, the connective tissue bitten away, but the remaining weight proved there was meat enough left to feed at least two or three wolfbats for a day. None of the screamers made a serious move to stop him, and even the screeches of protest were softer than before the kill had been made. They were small, and had a stomach to match. They were full.

He returned to the limb where he had watched the feeding, and draped the carcass securely over several branches. He then flew above the canopy and spotted the plateau, and saw a squadron circling in a thermal above the cliffs. Alone
as he was, the carcass was a bit too heavy for him to fly it to the nest, so he issued a loud ultrasonic call, and waited for the sound to travel the two miles. When he saw the squadron leader turn his four squad-mates towards the sound’s source, he issued a new cry, which would allow them to home in exactly on his location.

When the
y arrived, he issued the follow-me-to-a-kill call, and led them through the tree canopy to where the remains of the fawn lay on the branches. He commanded they feed on the remains while he flew low over the screamers below, forcing them to notice that he had numerous flock mates at his disposal now. It would be obvious to the dominate members of the pack below that he was a leader of this flock, or at least of the squadron.

He regurgitated another cu
be of rhinolo meat from his throat pouch, and stayed behind after he sent the squadron back to the nest. He knew without the remains of a kill to hold them here, the screamers would return to their own nesting area to digest in safety. At least that was what a cousin species of them on Flock Leader’s home continent would do. He wanted to follow them.

After an
hour of observation, he spotted some of the pack trailing off through the trees, in groups of four or five. Staying high, he kept several groups in sight as they wandered through the forest. After a time he found their home territory, which he marked in his memory from above the tree tops and flew home.

On subsequent days, between hunting, he would return to the screamer
’s home territory, and sat and watched for them to form hunting parties. The pack consisted of perhaps seventy members, but he only followed those hunting parties of about twenty or more. They were most likely to try for larger game, which could furnish him opportunities to help. He had given up on finding cats to try to form a partnership. They were possibly nocturnal, too isolated, or too stealthy. He’d not seen any in days of looking.

After a month of doing this, and bringing Flight Leader with him because that wolfbat had experienced cooperation with other species, he had established a pattern. He and Flight Leader would spook prey towards them, or help them bring it down by a surprise attack if they had it surrounded. Then, when the prey was too large to eat in a single feeding, the flock was called in to claim the remains. Despite dropping remains of some small flock kills near screamer packs, there was no indication that any of the pack was appreciative, or inclined to participate willingly in hunts with a wolfbat. There was no
apparent partnership developing, but rather a kind of tolerance of the wolfbat’s presence. They only left food behind for wolfbats when it was too much for them to consume.

Individually, a small screamer was easy prey for a wolfbat, although they were seldom found alone. Nevertheless, Flock Leader could have swooped down to catch one of the small tidbits if they were not on guard, and if he kept his wings from rustling and avoided
creating a whistling wind stream on the fastest possible dive. He was frustrated at their lack of recognition that he was improving their hunting success, feeling so frustrated that killing one of them to refuel his metabolism was an idea growing stronger in his mind today.

He had spotted a drove
of hairy black pig-like animals, which were large enough that even a squadron of eight wolfbats would be hard pressed to contain a medium sized one long enough to tire it and overcome its stamina. A large pack of screamers could possibly maintain continuous pressure and wear down one of these sturdy animals, by rotating out tired pursuers to let them rest for a bit. However, even a large screamer pack could not easily contain or turn the massive body of a fleeing pig, to prevent it from rejoining the drove of other pigs, and receiving their group protection.

Flock Leader turned back to the
large hunting pack he’d been shadowing, and swooped low to make a cry to get their attention, trying to get them to follow him. That seemed easier than attempting to turn the pigs towards the screamers. In a group, the pigs had little to fear from a lone wolfbat, and clustered together for protection, with the weakest and smallest at the center of the drove, they could refuse to turn in the direction he wanted to herd them. He’d tried that before.

The
little hunters looked up at him, but didn’t move in the direction he flew as he passed over. They looked around and didn’t see anything he had driven towards them, so they mostly ignored him.

On his third low pass
to induce them to follow, two of the smaller and presumably younger and less experienced screamers actually leaped at him with snapping jaws. An agile turn avoided them, but this left him more annoyed that these inexperienced pack members actually treated him as potential prey.

Having worked with humans and rippers, he thought of a
way to make his point that he was to be respected, and at the same time to get the pack to follow. He’d noticed they obeyed the typical pack rule, when they defended endangered pack members, and helped them if they could. He knew how to get them to follow, and hopefully understand shortly that he was not their enemy, despite what he was about to do.

On his fourth low pass over the pack of screamers, he kept his eye on one of those
small ones that had jumped at him, the one that had reached the highest. It had discolored yellow-green topknot head feathers, marking it as slightly different from the blue-green color of the others. Staying alert for any full sized pack members that might decide to jump up at him this time, he flew over the targeted screamer. It obliged him by a short running start, and made a respectable four foot high leap.

Its
resulting strangled sounding squawk was less loud than the normal scream of the bird-like two legged little predators. That was because it only was
able
to utter squawks, with a wolfbat’s jaws clamping onto its skinny neck as it reached the height of its leap. As Flock Leader lifted smoothly with the screamer wiggling below his jaws, it continued to squawk, alerting the pack that it was alive and calling for help.