I woke up to a hissing sound above my head. It was still dark outside. This poor treehouse didn't have any crystals to light the place up. Just coming out of sleep, though, my eyes were already adjusted making it easier for me to search for danger.
Alora had her head and one arm on my belly, sleeping sideways on me like a pet. I located the source of the hissing a few seconds later. Sure enough, it was a snake.
Not too big, just a meter long, but it could be poisonous. It had a wide flat head like a stingray, with green whiskers visible in the pale moonlight. When I began to rise cautiously, it slithered back up the thick tree trunk that it had been descending.
Alora suddenly awoke when I stirred. Seeing where I was staring, she murmured, "Seerpie. Good snake. They eat spiders and rats to keep house safe. Bad luck to kill. Do not kill seerpie."
"Not poisonous?" I asked.
"What that mean?"
"Poisonous," I repeated. "To inject poison into your victim. Poison makes you sick or die."
"No poison," she assured me. "We have no poison here."
"You don't have any poisonous creatures on Pegillas?"
"I don't think so," she answered as she sat up and became more alert. "None in TruPort."
"Well, that is good news," I said. "I guess I can sleep a little better. Is there no predators that can find us here while we are sleeping?"
"Yes," she answered with big eyes. "Blackhawks attack at night. They big enough to carry me away. Not you, though. You too big. I hear blackhawk calls out there now."
"Are we in danger?" I asked as I scanned the night sky above me.
"Not really," she said as she laid back down. "They will eat the seerpie first because it is easier. Then they come after us. But the noise of eating snake will wake us."
That did not sound near as comforting of a game plan as she apparently thought it would. A moment later her eyes were closed again. Asleep as I tried to make out the bird calls of the blackhawks.
Chapter Fourteen
I awoke to the sound of a struggle. Alora was sleeping by my side but stirred as I sat up abruptly. Above my head over toward the edge of the platform was the seerpie clinging to a branch for its dear life. The long narrow beak of a massive blackhawk was clenched around its middle section. The bird's wings were flapping hard to extract its food from the tree. That was the startling sound that woke me from my freaky mothman prophecy dream.
When I launched up into a crouch I drew the attention of a second bird of prey. It had been waiting in the far corner probably expecting to share the meal that its friend was working hard to acquire. Seeing me appear on the scene put it on the defensive. Perhaps it thought I was going to steal their food.
Wing span of at least two meters. Blood red eyes. Otherwise, pitch black. It would be hard to spot them in the dark for sure. Only their aggressive behavior alerted me to their presence.
"Oh no!" Alora panicked. "Two hawks! We go!"
Before the Peggy girl could surmount the short wall on our side of the platform, the bird was on her and had its feet with sharp talons around each of her thighs. She grabbed at the closest branch while kicking into the air, missing any part of the flying beast.
I didn't wait for my icy chilled strength boost to kick in before springing into action. I grabbed the thing's left wing with one hand and came away with a bunch of feathers. When I reached for more, that scary beak came suddenly for my eye. I dodged at the last split second, feeling the sharp scrape across my temple. Pain like a knife wound pulsed through my head but was quickly replaced by the frozen blood with which I was becoming accustomed.
I grabbed one of the bird's legs that was still attempting to pry Alora from her branch hold. A quick turn of the wrist broke any bones in that leg cleanly, bending the short limb to a ninety-degree angle. The other leg released my screaming monkey girl immediately thereafter.
During the next dive for my face, the bird squawking loudly from its injury, I swung a fist to hit it in the neck. It dropped awkwardly to the floor and struggled to get back on its feet since only one of them were working. Before it could react, I stomped the fucker's head to the floor, cracking its skull like a walnut.
When the first blackhawk saw what I had done, it quickly released the seerpie and flew off. The snake then slithered up the branch out of sight into the darkness. I couldn’t see how badly it was damaged from the attack. If killing one of those things was bad luck, did saving one bring good luck instead? As if I believed in such things.
The sky was just then receiving the tiniest amount of illumination from the oncoming sunrise. Most of what was above us was still in the shadows of the moonlight, but not as dark as the ground below.
"Are you hurt?" I asked Alora as she stared at me wildly. It was the same look I received after killing the gantha-beast. She shook her head, but we could both see the bloody scratches on her furry little legs. "Can you walk?"
"I'm okay, Joah," she said, shrugging off the injury and climbing back to her feet. She was able to hold her weight without a problem. "I owe you two times now. I must give you something."
"Give
