next day, or the next. She made a few kills, but only sporadically, and the huge herds she had fed on before were gone. She flew far and wide over the plains and did find other herds there, but they were far away, too far for her to carry a kill back to her nest. In the end she was forced to eat what she caught on the spot and carry whatever she could back to her chicks.
It was not enough. Little by little, as the weeks went by and food remained scarce, she saw them beginning to starve. One of the brown chicks—the only female of the brood—weakened very quickly. She had already been the feeblest of the chicks, and now that there was not enough food to go around, the other two were quick to bully and steal food from her. Saekrae knew she would not survive long. But after a time, when Saekrae, too, was beginning to be in danger of starvation, the other of the brown chicks weakened as well. The black chick, still the strongest of them all, did rather better and even began to bully it as well. Saekrae had never seen a chick with so much will to live.
And then, one day, she returned to the nest to find both brown chicks dead.
2
The Emptied Nest
At first when she saw them, Saekrae thought they had died from hunger and exposure. She had been away from the nest for longer than she should have, bent on finding proper food after a week of virtually nothing, and had underestimated the amount of time it would take her to get back. On reaching the place where there had been a herd of animals once before, she found it deserted and flew on beyond it, half-mad with hunger and desperation. Still nothing, and when she had finally headed back to her chicks, a high wind had sprung up, forcing her to land and wait for it to die down. Night came and she slept, curled up in the meagre shelter she had found, and when morning came it was calm enough to fly. She turned for home with a feeling of cold apprehension, and when she finally reached the nest, at midday, she found only one chick waiting for her.
The two dead chicks were not huddled as if they had died in their sleep. One lay on its side, its head thrown back, and the other was on its front, its little limbs curled in under its belly.
The black chick appeared to be in relatively good health. It had torn open the stomach of one of its dead siblings and was eating at the flesh, chirping enthusiastically to itself.
Saekrae looked down on it, glad that at least one of her young had survived.
It was not until she nudged at the other dead chick that she saw the marks of talons on its back and the deep wound in its throat, the feathers around it stiff with dried blood.
Saekrae looked at the black chick. It ate ravenously, muttering aloud to itself. “Food, food, food, food.”
“Yes,” Saekrae said softly. “Food.”
The black chick lived off its dead siblings for several days. They were thin and did not have much meat on them, but their surviving brother ate everything—skin, organs, fur and feathers—leaving nothing but the bones. During that time Saekrae had gone on trying to hunt, even if she could only feed herself. The herds did not return, but some of her luck did: she began to find prey in the valley again. The wild goats had come back, and she could live off them—not as prosperously as she had lived off the herds on the plains, but it was enough. Still, she continued to explore the plains when she had the chance, and she made a kill there from time to time. It was a good way to supplement her diet.
And the black chick grew. The last of his babyish fluff disappeared, and the stubby wings on his back sprouted long, rigid primary feathers in a handsome mix of black, white and silver. He had more than doubled in size since his hatching and was becoming more and more energetic. Not content to stay in the nest any more, he began trying to climb out of it and explore the tree branches around it, and Saekrae couldn’t be there to stop him all the time. He was starting to test his wings, flapping them experimentally to strengthen the muscles and