Chapter 10: Golden bird

"A hunting trip?" Fen stared at the quest before them. It was exactly what they needed, but he had his doubts.

"We can definitely find the golden bird, Fen," Eleric told him. There were only up to five golden birds in every province. They didn't lay many eggs, and had a high mortality rate. Now, there were rumors of there being six golden birds in the forest of Mante. Which spelled trouble.

"Come now, Fen. We can go back to your house," Anmu spoke, his doe eyes pleading. "And I can check up on my own."

"We need to only drop by the pond to fill up on the water. We can spend some time in your home, Anmu. Before Eleric's wanderlust acts up again," the incubus agreed. His tail wrapped around Anmu's and the tip probed the Naga's entrance.

"We are in a public place," Anmu squeaked, much to Fen's amusement.

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself. It is just that, when you look at me with those doe eyes of yours, I feel like I need to take you, no matter where we are," Fen leaned in and kissed Anmu's earlobe. "I just can't wait for us to leave Sacro."

"You are fed, Fen. We will be searching for the bird, not roll around with you on the grass," Alistair snarled. He placed an arm around Anmu, and tugged him to himself.

"Fine, be that way," Fen said, and made his way to the receptionist's desk.

"Is he always like that?" Yurek asked.

"Well, he is an incubus," Eleric answered him with a shrug. They were given the quest, and made their way out. Eleric ran off ahead, to make sure that the footsteps of the rest didn't disturb the forest too much, and he looked around.

He cupped his hands to his mouth, and began to make the mating noises of the golden bird. The rumors were that one was close to Sacro, another close to Mante, with the rest hiding themselves better.

He walked and made the calls, and he heard a rustling in the leaves above. Two golden eyes zeroed in on him, and he aimed his bow. Just as the bird took flight, one of its wings was pierced by an arrow, and it fell down.

It was a small thing. Honestly, if it wasn't all that talk about bad omens, Eleric wouldn't be hunting it. Calling it golden was generous. It was just yellow. Its yellow eyes looked at him pleadingly, and he wavered.

This was a chick. Still small, and that was probably why it didn't try to fly to him after hearing the mating calls. He pressed a hand on top of it. His fingers on the delicate neck.

He didn't want to kill it, he found. Even if it would lower the numbers. The bigger golden birds were a menace. With the females being able to lay up to a hundred eggs, most of which not surviving their hatching.

He heard footsteps and a slithering noise, and he looked back to the direction of the spot he had left his companions at. Anmu came into view, and then Yurek.

"I don't want to kill it," Eleric told them both. He knew that, as the two were mobs, they could be killed by anyone, and it won't be against the law. The golden bird was the same.

"Then don't. It doesn't look like it was causing trouble. Is it a female?" Yurek asked. Anmu had a hand on his mouth, his doe eyes full of accusation.

Eleric took the bird and flipped it.

"No, a male," he answered. This bird would not fill the forest with eggs. Those eggs won't hatch to become giants and then steal pigs and cows.

"Then, don't kill it," Anmu spoke. He slithered closer. "Find a giant bird, and kill that one. If there is a chick here, then the mother is nearby."

Eleric nodded, and handed the Naga the bird.

"Stay here and don't make too much noise," he told Anmu and Yurek, and then went in the direction of the nearby caves.

He found the nesting site soon after. There were bones and cracked eggs all around the cave's entrance. The mother bird was in her nest, eating her own eggs.

"I have never understood why you monsters do that," Eleric aimed his bow, and the mother bird turned to him. Blood dripped down on her feathers.

The elf aimed for her head, but the bird was faster. With a burst of speed, it pinned him on the ground, and tried to tear into his skin with its fang-filled beak.

Only for a broadsword to rest on its head, and then chop it off in one flowing motion.

"Well, that settles it," Eleric had never been happier to see Alistair before in his life. "Anmu told me where you went. Next time, take me along."

"I will, thank you," Eleric spoke, and let the vampire get him off the floor. "We have to crush all of the surviving eggs."

"What of the one that Anmu is nursing to health?" Alistair asked.

"If Fen can take a mob, so can I," Eleric told him, as he went and took the nearest egg. They were close to hatching, so he laid them one by one, and shot arrows through them as Alistair split them in half.

When Anmu found them, the two were plucking the golden bird. Fen began helping them, as the Naga shielded the eyes of the small chick that was in his hands.

The bird was shared between Anmu, Eleric and Yurek, and the head was stored in a bottomless bag as the proof that they had gotten the job done.

The little chick remembered how it had rolled to the side, as an egg, and escaped a gruesome death. It knew that the dead bird that the people who were taking care of it had eaten was its mother, but it didn't much care.

That was the thing about golden birds. They were territorial. From now on, any place these people would bring it to will be its territory, and the bird would protect them. For they had gotten rid of the monster that wanted to eat it first.