dabbed at the water with his foreclaws, fascinated by the way it looked and the soft rushing sound it made. It tasted sweet and cool, and he drank deeply and felt much better for it.
But it did remind him of his hunger, and he moved on in the hopes of finding something he could eat. His instincts helped. He found a rotting log and tore into it with his beak and talons, turning up beetles and wood grubs, which he devoured. The ground beneath yielded earthworms and a small burrowing frog, and he eagerly snapped them up, feeling rather pleased with his own cleverness.
He spent a good portion of the afternoon foraging for more, and eventually returned to the stream to drink again. It left him feeling a lot stronger.
He sheltered under a bush that night, curling up to sleep with his head under his wing, more tired out from the stresses and excitement of the day than he had realised. He woke up several times during the night, disturbed by the cold and the unfamiliar sounds, but by the time the moon had risen he was sound asleep.
He woke up hungry again the next morning, stiff from his exertions on the previous day. This time he did not call for Saekrae.
He tried digging for worms again but was not so lucky this time, and he knew he needed something more substantial. He struck out determinedly, following the stream, intent on finding another way to feed himself.
After a while he picked up a scent that made his stomach gurgle in anticipation: the stench—faint but tantalising—of rotting meat.
The black chick followed it at once, head held high and tail twitching. He lost it several times but always found it again, and it finally led him to the base of a large tree. He sniffed around it and found a hole between two of its roots. The smell was coming from inside. Without a moment’s thought he crawled straight in.
The hole led to a little cave just big enough to hold him, and inside there was food. The rotting corpses of birds, lizards and small mammals, all piled up and giving off a wonderful, pungent odour. The black chick plunged in, beak first, and ate. He tore off strips of decaying flesh and swallowed them whole, as fast as he could. He ate until his stomach hurt, until all he could do was lie on his side, eyes glazed, and pant. But he was practically delirious with triumph.
He fell asleep, utterly sated, and slept more peacefully and happily than he had ever done before. When he woke he ate again, and for days he stayed in his new home and gorged himself to his heart’s content. Caught up in this new-found bounty, he had completely forgotten about his mother.
It was a solid week before the store of food in the burrow began to run out. The chick grew fat and sleek with all this good food so readily available, and was thoroughly disinclined to wander far from his new home. He hadn’t given a thought to where the food had come from; it was just there, and he took all he wanted.
At around the time that the heap of carrion started to run out, the chick was woken one day by an unfamiliar scent. He opened his eyes and realised that the entrance to the burrow was blocked. The smell filled his nostrils, dry, musky and dangerous.
A moment later his eyes, adjusting to the gloom, showed him a brief vision of a huge, snarling muzzle, and then pain tore into his flank. He screeched and lashed out, and his talons hit something soft. The thing withdrew and he pulled himself further back into the burrow, still screeching loudly. There was blood on his flank, hot and clinging, but he had no time to feel sorry for himself. His assailant had withdrawn its head when he slashed at it, but it returned a moment later, teeth bared and snapping for him. He struck back, this time with his beak, and bit it on the nose.
The creature—a pouched, foxlike predator with a striped back—pulled its yellowy head out of its plundered food store and the savage thing it contained and sat back on its haunches, whining. It shook its head and snorted, trying to clear the blood out of its injured nostrils, and then abruptly turned and left. Fighting the thing that had stolen its food simply wasn’t worth it.