suubatar standing up on its rear and middle legs. So it was with interest she wondered why Kyakhta and Bulgan had brought them to a stop-and why they appeared more than a little apprehensive.
'What is it?' Luminara and Obi-Wan trotted forward to query their escorts. Attentive inspection of the four horizons left them no more enlightened as to the reason for the halt than it did their equally confused Padawans. 'Why have we stopped here?'
'Listen.' Both Alwari were leaning slightly forward in their seats, obviously straining to hear-what?
Luminara and her companions went quiet. Only the muted munching of the suubatars nibbling the tops off the ripe wild grains, the constant rustle of wind through the grasses, and the occasional querulous hooting of a kilk stalking soft-shelled arthropods broke the silence.
Then she heard it. Faint initially, like a first cousin to the wind itself. It strengthened slowly, a soft ripping sound approaching from the north, from the direction they were headed. It intensified until it became an audible buzzing, still muted but rising ominously in the distance. Peering hard in the direction of the ascending susurration, Luminara thought she could make out the first hints of a low, dark cloud.
The suubatars began to stir uneasily, throwing back their sharp-ridged skulls and pawing at the ground with middle and forefeet. She struggled to control her mount. At the same time, Kyakhta's eyes bulged with realization.
'Kyren!' he exclaimed fearfully.
'Quickly, my friends!' Bulgan was suddenly standing upright in his saddle, looking frantically in all directions. 'We have to find shelter!'
'Shelter?' Obi-Wan held his seat, but began searching their immediate surroundings nonetheless. 'Out here?'
'From what?' Barriss wanted to know. By now she, too, saw and heard the onrushing blur. 'What's a kyren?'
Without suspending his search, Bulgan edged his steed closer to her own. 'A flying creature that travels the plains of Ansion, migrating from region to region as it follows the seasons.' He gestured downward. 'When the grasses in one area mature and the heads of each stalk are ripe with seed, the kyren resumes its flight, eating until it is sated. Then it settles down to rest, and to breed. When the young are fledged, they take flight anew in search of further nourishment.'
She blinked in the direction of the diffuse shadow on the horizon. 'That can't be all one creature coming toward us.'
'It's not,' Bulgan disclosed apprehensively. 'There are many more than one.'
'I don't see why it matters.' Anakin had moved forward to join the conversation. 'What have we to fear from a flock of seed eaters? They are just seed eaters, aren't they?' he thought to add.
A strange expression came over the guide's face; strange even for a pop-eyed, long-maned, single-nostriled Ansionian. 'Seed is their preferred food, yes. But once they have taken flight, they are unable, or unwilling, or simply disinterested in changing course. Nor will they fly higher to pass over anything unexpected in their path.' He swallowed hard. 'Rocks they will smash themselves into. Trees they will cut down. Living things like hootles, or suubatars, or cicien, they will eat their way through. Unless those creatures can somehow find a place to hide, or manage to get out of the way.'
'Hootles or suubatars?' Barriss asked softly. 'Or-people?' Somehow she wasn't surprised when Bulgan nodded solemnly.
Anakin's hand strayed to his belt. 'We have lightsabers, and other weapons. Can't we stand and defend ourselves from these things? How big are they, anyway?'
Raising his long-fingered hands, Bulgan placed them on ei ther side of his head. 'This is the average of their wingspan.'
'That's all?' Anakin frowned. 'Then I don't see why you and Kyakhta are so concerned.'
'How many of them are there?' Barriss asked. 'In the average flock?'
Lowering his hands, the guide looked back at her. 'No one knows. No one has ever been able to stay in one place long enough to count an average flock.' He gestured toward the now rapidly darkening northern horizon. 'I think this flock may be a little larger than average.'
'Take a guess.' The fingers of Anakin's right hand continued to hover in the vicinity of his lightsaber. 'How many of these things are we likely to be facing?'
Turning in his saddle, Bulgan considered the horizon anew. 'Not a conspicuously great number. But enough to pose a seri ous danger if we don't find cover quickly. No more than one or two hundred million, I would say.'
Anakin's hand moved away from his lightsaber. ' 'Hundred million'? 'One or two'?' The only shelter in sight was a trio of wolgiyn trees standing forlorn and isolated off to their right. They did not cast much of a shadow.
'This way!' Pointing forward and to his left, Kyakhta urged his mount in that same direction. The two Jedi Knights followed, with the Padawans bringing up the rear.
Barriss tried her best to conceal her unease. Instead of fleeing, they were riding straight into the oncoming adumbration. On a collision course, kyren flock and speeding travelers drew rapidly toward one another. Though she had never seen a kyren in her life, she trusted that Kyakhta had seen something more substantial than a mirage, and more solid than faint hope.
Chapter 10
Several minutes of hard riding later, it was still impossible to make out individual kyren, but their collective screeching had come to dominate all other sounds on the prairie. Usually frightened of nothing, a pack of shanhs went racing past in the opposite direction. The fearsome carnivores were absolutely terrified. Terrified of something that cracked grass seed for breakfast, Lu-minara reflected. A small, lightweight, winged herbivore she could hold in the palm of one hand. The sight of the fleeing shanhs was anything but reassuring. As she had been
