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walk along parallel to the base of the cliff. “Yig out for shiggz,” he added, pointing up, then flapping his arms.

Ushegg began to take precautions to conceal them now, sticking close to bushes and low trees, walking quietly and carefully, sprinting across open patches they came upon. His nervousness made them all jumpy. Sneaking off with Ushegg to do something his father wouldn’t allow suddenly seemed like a terrible idea.

At last, Ushegg stopped them and pointed up to something on the face of the cliff. It looked like a messy pile of branches and dead grass on a ledge about a hundred feet off the ground. The cliff below it was smeared with trails of something chalky – bird poop, Jeff concluded. How many birds would it take to make that much mess?

Ushegg pointed again, this time at something near the base of the cliff. Jeff couldn’t make it out clearly – something furry, about the size of Dusty. It wasn’t moving for now, but he didn’t love the thought of getting close to it.

“I don’t nerg it’s there,” Ushegg said, looking again at the nest on the cliff face. “Okay.” He took a deep breath and seemed to be steeling himself for something. It was making Jeff deeply nervous to see Ushegg – USHEGG! – act so nervous.

“Okay. We run out, cshot a chuyux, and run togg jushu as tozx as we can. No bisheuz.” His eyes kept going from the nest above to the thing on the ground. “Ready?”

“No! Ri!” said Suzy angrily. Ushegg shushed her frantically, and she went on, whispering in alien, “What is... what are...?” She trailed off with a growl of exasperation.

Jeff put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. We run out, grab whatever that thing is,” he paused, shuddering a little, “and we run it back here. And we look out for,” he looked over at Ushegg, “Shiggz?” He flapped his arms and Ushegg nodded.

Suzy looked angry, but he knew his sister well enough to see the fear beneath. He nodded to Ushegg.

“On three. One...” They got into crouched, sprinting-start positions. Jeff focused on the furry thing at the base of the cliff. He hoped it didn’t try to run away. Or bite. “Two...three!”

The group of them burst out of the trees and flew over the boulder-y ground. Jeff looked up at the nest and bashed his shin into a jagged rock. Gritting his teeth, he kept his eyes down and looked where he was running.

He got there at the same time as Suzy and Ushegg, and his mind struggled to make sense of the thing. It wasn’t an animal, but it was furry and grey, the size of a big dog, and there were bones poking out of it, seemingly at random. He didn’t understand, but he followed Ushegg’s lead, got a hand under it, and lifted.

The thing was light, much lighter than he expected, and they didn’t really need the whole group to carry it. Ushegg whispered something to Jamal and pointed, but then someone stage whispered, “Run!” and they were all running back toward the forest as fast as they could while awkwardly supporting the thing.

Jeff heard Nacho let out a cry as he stumbled on the uneven ground. He winced at the sound; they were making too much noise.

As if to agree with him, something up above made an angry caw.

Ushegg swore and quickened their pace. They were moving at a dead sprint by the time they hit the trees, dropping the bones and racing for cover.

Jeff saw Shen suddenly peel off to the side in his periphery. He heard flapping wings behind him and without thinking, he dove for a gap in a stand of some sort of thick reeds like bamboo. As he dove, an inhuman scream from behind exploded through his ears, frying his brain like a lightning bolt.

Jeff’s vision flickered fitfully as if connected to a generator that was running out of gas. He tried to catch himself as he landed in the reeds, and he was filled with terror and confusion when his arms wouldn’t move. Then he was staring at a plant an inch from his face, and he didn’t know where he was.

Jeff’s head swam, and he closed his eyes.

Someone was screaming his name.

It was Suzy, and the animal terror in her voice jolted him awake. Jeff jerked his legs up to his chest, and he felt something powerful slam into the ground where his feet had been.

Jeff forced his legs to move again. The bird’s scream had done something to his body; he wasn’t moving right, but he managed a jerky scramble into the thickest part of the reeds, heedless of scrapes and scratches as he squeezed his way deeper.

He felt the thing coming for him, massive and furious as it fought through the reeds toward him. Dimly, through all the chaos of the moment, he felt something tugging at his attention, and he thought he heard chanting.

Jeff squeezed deeper between two of the thickest reeds he had seen yet, thick as small tree trunks, and rolled over to see the thing coming for him, like a hawk, but impossibly large. He could see it struggling in the tall reeds, see the huge, scythe-like beak driving forward, the talons clawing for him.

For one second, the shigg turned its head to the side, and Jeff stared into its fierce golden eye. Then it screamed again, and the sound was like dynamite in his brain, leaving only charred blackness in its wake.

“Shoot it! Shoot it! Oqur!” Suzy screamed. Ushegg didn’t respond, only shaking his head as he continued to chant. The shigg was feet from Jeff’s limp body, clawing and pecking and heaving against the reeds to get to him. “Oqur!” Suzy screamed again, grabbing Ushegg’s shoulder. Ushegg jerked away, eyes focused on the bird.

The thing