Walks Backward was finding it increasingly difficult to obey the First Command. He was certain that the Flock's leaders were wrong in how they were handling this most basic problem. There was something that needed to be uttered, and they were not doing it. The existence of the Flock was in jeopardy. Despite fighting the urges to act, to continue to do the job for which he had been born, he was feeling a deeper need to do the unthinkable.
If something did not happen soon, he was going to have to challenge Egg Father for supremacy of the Flock. And, following that, would be forced to destroy the Flock's Egg Mother and choose a mate.
The signs were there, although at this point only he recognized them in himself. He had already chosen a prospective mate. It was the Third. She was a young, but mature female who corralled the chicks when it looked as if they might stray. She did her job well, and had never lost one of the young to any predator or accident. She would make at least as fine a breeder and nurturer as Egg Mother. Walks Backward had picked her, had chosen her, and would mark her as his mate if something did not soon occur to bar that path.
But, he was willing to wait for just a bit more. The Flock was now in the midst of their range. They knew the wilderness well. Knew this place of no-Man, where only the things that were woven together existed. Before, over all of the lives of all of the living members of the Flock, Man had been present around the edges of the forest and streams and wetlands. But Man had only rarely come into their domain, for purposes it was hard for them to understand. Man did not hunt there. Did not kill there. Only seemed to play strange games among themselves, and send the Screamers overhead. When he was a hatchling, the Egg Mother of his day had given the command to hunt some men who had threatened the Flock's chicks. In the Song of History, it was the first moment in many lifetimes that such a thing had happened, and it had been the last.
This one-who watched the path that his fellows left behind, destroying all trace of their passing-was ready to continue his task in another way. He would cease to be Walks Backward, and would take a new name. He would become Egg Father. The latest Egg Father. So that he would not be the last Egg Father.
He thought, that for a small time more, the Flock would be safe. They were north of the new, sprawling nests that Man had begun to build at the verge of their homeland. This was not good, but he (and the others) had thought that they could continue their ways, as long as Man did not venture into the forest and eat it as they ate everything else. There were stories, in abundance, of how Man consumed the world. Walks Backward was acutely aware of the threat.
And, worse, was that now, at this time, the one they called the Scarlet would be born. The rogue had appeared to the Flock the previous night. He was singing a song of confusion when he came running along the edge of the track they had made, to hunt one of the pigs that were present in these forests since the second wave of Man had come. The first Man, the ones who had been here for two hundred lifetimes, had been difficult to deal with and had forced the Flock to change its ways of living. But the next Man, the ones who came in such huge numbers only six lifetimes ago-they had brought with them new creatures, while destroying as many as the first men had decimated. If the Man from whom they now hid ever discovered them, Walks Backward knew they would be doomed. Their only hope lay in retaining their effective invisibility. The Scarlet was going to reveal them. He knew this just as surely as he knew that in a few hours the Sun would rise up from its nest in the Earth.
During the previous night, the Scarlet had trailed the Flock for hours. Walks Backward, of course, had spotted him first. Initially they all hoped that he was rejoining them, that he had abandoned his ways and would once more sing with them, hunt with them, obey the leaders. But he had not. He had stubbornly nagged at them, trailing behind and making short dashes up to the west and east flanks of the Flock. Tunes of confusion had chirped up from the youngster and the adolescents, as they had not understood. Nor, even, had some of the adults.
However, Walks Backward had understood, seeing in the Scarlet some of the signs of what he was beginning to sense in himself. What the rogue was doing, even if he himself did not quite grasp the fact, was making the false steps that would soon develop into a mating dance. He was going to cull some females from the Flock. He was going to choose young males to act as his supporters. The possibility existed that he might, indeed, challenge Egg Father for supremacy, or else try to form a new Flock.
It was only that the Scarlet was so stupid that had so far spared them either of those particular scenarios. If a challenge did occur, he would be able to destroy the current Egg Father. Of that, Walks Backward was certain. No other in the Flock was nearly as tall, as heavy, as powerfully built. Not even Walks Backward. The Scarlet might be injured in such a battle, but he would certainly kill Egg Father in a struggle. His reach was greater. He could pounce higher and slash with speed, his mass behind each blow. And his gigantic head…a single bite could end any confrontation as quickly as one could blink an eye.
Still, even if that unthinkable occurred, Walks Backward was prepared. He would leap in even as the Scarlet sang his victory trill, and he would kill him. He could do it. He would do it. If the battle happened.
But there was a better plan, if only the Mother and Father would do it. The Flock could kill the rogue and be done with it. It was only that the problem member had come from one of their own clutches that prevented them from doing it. They could not quite bring themselves to destroy one of their own young, hideous and twisted though he was. It was a flaw in their emotions that could spell destruction for the entire Flock.
Walks Backward had decided. He would wait for the Sun to come up from the Earth one more time. If, after that, nothing were done, he would insist that a new tune be sung. And if, after he had given sound to his thoughts, nothing were done, he would sing a different song. He would sing a song of death. And if Death would not stalk the Scarlet…well, then it would come for Egg Father, or Walks Backward, whomever of them would prove to be weakest.
For now, though, the call to hunt had come. There was no rogue this night running at the edges of their formation, confusing the youngsters and distracting the adults. Tonight, there would be prey and there would be meat. The Flock flowed out of the palmettos and out of the piney woods. And they gave chase.
Life, for now, was still good.