This was not something the Scarlet had ever been a part of, something which he read in the way the scent of the flock members came to him on the wind, and in the sounds he detected from time to time. In addition, although they were still a comfortable distance from him, they were heading his way. Obviously, they were following the sign he had inadvertently left during his daylight journey, for the wind was currently in his favor and he knew that they did not have his scent, or even know his exact location. But it was bothersome to know that they were coming toward him. Since he had taken leave of the Flock, the Egg Father had kept a distance between their numbers and the Scarlet. Something had changed.
There was prey on the wind, the warm and satisfying scent of meat on the hoof. But he had placed that secondary to the other things he knew.
The Man Who Watches was among them again. The Flock had known of him for some time. He had descended into their midst some cycles before, making a covered nest at the edge of the open grasslands they sometimes liked to hunt. This man had scattered strange things, the things the Flock knew men somehow constructed, the way a worm constructs a cocoon, or a spider makes its web. Man’s ways were a mystery to them, but they were aware of many of the things men did and made. For a time, Egg Mother and Walks Backward had sought out the places where The Man Who Watches had left his constructs, and they had bitten them, tearing them and dropping the remains into the river as they did with things they wished to hide. And after a time the man had ceased to leave the things where they disturbed the Flock. And they had decided not to remove the things this man had left high in the trees, even though there were young among them who could make the climb, who were not too heavy to do so. Egg Father had decided not to risk it.
This particular man had returned to his sometimes-nest, and was there now, resting in it.
And there was a third, and also disturbing development. The Scarlet had detected a number of men moving into the wilderness from the west. They were coming from that place where the men grouped and pretended to hunt, as men had done on this place at intervals for many years until they had left. This was the first time the Scarlet could recall that these men had crossed the line and had come into the forests and grasslands that belonged to the Flock. Their scent told him many things: there were six of them; they were, for men, being very silent; and they were hunting. He could smell it. Could taste it. Could sense it on the breezes—an electric spark that leaped from their great brains and traveled on a plane the Scarlet could sense, could read, could understand.
And the men were there to hunt him. He could see himself in their thoughts. Red. They had seen him, somehow, although he had never seen them. But his image was there, crossing the night winds from their minds to his. The Red Bird, they were thinking. Kill it.
Well.
Well, then.
He would be ready for them. He would be ready for his parents and for Walks Backward.
The Scarlet was not going to make this an easy night for any of them.
The Flock had set out on the trail the Scarlet had left for them. Alone, with no one to walk his trace and remove his sign, he was visible to them. There were two dozen adults moving along a V-shaped line, each of the great birds spaced thirty meters apart. Behind them, a half-mile back, were the smallest of the chicks and thirty youths of sufficient age and ability to guard them. One youth was serving as the sweep, as the one who would become Walks Backward when the time came. It seemed a good, safe way to protect the young.
The point of the V was Egg Father. The eastward end of it was Egg Mother, and the western point was Walks Backward. It was their plan to continue on the trail the Scarlet rogue had left until the spoor became hot, became fresh. At that point each trailing end of the V would come forward, would arch up and around until the V became a circle