Marbles: The Hawk Who Refused to Die a Virgin

Chapter 31. This Is What It Sounds Like When Hawks Cry

Marbles had watched it all go down, but had been powerless to help. That's the curse of being a big fatty fat hawk--you can see for miles but you can't fly fast enough to do anything about it.

That goes for both prey and friends in peril. Marbles could only screech and clench and unclench his talons in frustration as he nosedived towards the fallen mountain in a desperate effort for speed. He was gasping for air as he raced towards his friends.

Even though his time hiking and flying and involuntarily dieting in the cave had left him in the best shape of his life, that doesn't mean he wasn't still in shitty shape. And even if he had been fit, he wouldn't have made it in time to help his team.

Marbles had seen the party escape sans Languin, had watched the mountain crumble, and had finally witnessed a gigantic fucking bear head burst roaring from the rubble, fountains of blood pouring from its volleyball-sized nostrils.

The bear had been dead by then, its last roar merely reflex as the rest of it lay crushed behind it in the cave-in. Its head drooped down, poking out of the side of the mountain as it were the mantlepiece in the mansion of some unhinged hobgoblin robber baron.

Its fur was matted and coated in white dust, while its mouth and lips burbled with dark red blood, as if it had been a dire clown hired to burst from the mountain and yell "Surprise!" for Opal's birthday party.

"Sweet Hawk Christ!" shouted Marbles as he landed next to Lucy. "Are you guys OK?!" 

"Opal is hurt, but alive," said Lucy, still staring at the bear. "We lost Languin to that thing."

"Languin's dead?" asked Marbles. This was the first time someone close to him had died. He had always liked Languin. He began to silently cry.

"I know buddy it's tough," said Lucy, reaching out and petting Marbles, cupping a hand over and over on his head. "We all liked him but there's nothing we could have done. He died protecting us. Protecting Opal."

"How bad is it for Opal?" asked Marbles, looking down at the blood covered gnome, his tunic in tatters.

"I don't think it got to his spine, or his vitals," said Lucy. "But I do need your help."

"OK no problem," said Marbles, sniffling through his sharp beak and using the leather marble bag to wipe away his tears.

"First, fill this canteen with water from a fast moving spring," said Lucy, who was still lying down. She hung the strap of the canteen over Marbles's neck like she was presenting a medal. "Bring that back first, then start looking for these healing herbs."

Lucy reached into her pack and brought out her healer's compendium. She pointed at the pictures of the herbs she needed, and told Marbles the best places to find them. Marbles studied the photos with the unsettling intensity of a bird of prey.

"And if you see any towns, or settlements, or travelers nearby, let them know that we need help," said Lucy.

"What about you, are you alright?" asked Marbles.

"Yeah buddy I'm fine, but I used up all my healing stuff in the cave," said Lucy.

"I got it dawg count on me," said Marbles, who flew into the air and towards the nearest river. He filled up the canteen and brought it back to Lucy, who drank half before cleaning Opal's wounds. Marbles flew back to refill the canteen again. He spied a long caravan of wagons in the distance, crawling out of the woods and making its way towards the mountain.

Marbles circled above the lead wagon and shouted down at its driver, an especially lithe, deeply tan elf with platinum blond hair.

"Hey!" said Marbles, the canteen sloshing as it hung down beneath his feet. "My friends are hurt! They're right beside Hawk Mountain!"

The elf shielded his eyes from the sun and shouted back up at the hawk, "We're on our way!"

"Great!" screamed Marbles, who flew back to breathlessly relate this all to Lucy. By then Jezebel had returned and was perched on one of the outcropping roots, sleeping. She had tried to stay awake as a sentry but the sunlight proved to be irresistibly soporific for the owl, who hadn't had a decent day's sleep in months.

Lucy smiled at Marbles as she bandaged the prone gnome, which, unknown to Lucy, was an orcish euphemism for engaging in safe sex. "You're doing a really great job, Marbles," said Lucy. "Now go get those herbs!"

"I'm on it!" said Marbles as he flew towards the forest.

Hawks, as a pretty hard and fast rule, don't hunt plants. But if they did, they would be the greatest herb gatherers on the planet. Gathering herbs is quite a downshift in difficulty for a hawk. Hawks are used to honing in on a moving target from miles in the air, then diving at it with pinpoint accuracy at one hundred and twenty miles an hour. To go from doing this to seeking out stationary plants? Cake.

For a hawk like Marbles, who sucked at hunting, gathering herbs was just his kind of challenge. He loved it. Loved it. He felt like a king hunter-healer, a warrior-monk, shooting down to snatch a hunk of soft broth-moss from a hillside, or grabbing a fistful of fresh hearth-cherries from a gnarled cliffside tree (hitherto inaccessible to any terrestrial herbalist), or shaking a torrent of pale pink sloth-blossoms onto a gravel, sun dappled path a hundred feet below.

Once, he landed with full force on a wild thatch of bruise-shallots, right next to a big ol' rabbit who was not expecting a hawk to land in the heart of the forest out of fucking nowhere, right next to him, and start to shake the shallots maniacally and scream in triumph.

The rabbit died of a heart attack right there. Just whimpered and keeled over on the forest floor. Marbles nonchalantly dropped the rabbit along with a talonful of shallots next to Lucy before taking off again, shouting over his shoulder, "In case we get hungry later!"

In spite of his grief over Languin, he felt like the most baller hawk in all creation. His friends needed him. He was helping.

When Marbles had returned with the last of his assigned herbs, Lucy prepared the final healing poultice and tied it around the forehead of the hatless, and hapless gnome. Opal was feverish, and sweating, and he groaned occasionally in pain.

"I got one last mission for you Marbles," said Lucy as she knelt over the gnome. "Shoot," said Marbles.

"I need a big sheet of birch bark," said Lucy. "Dab one of the long ends with sap and roll it into a cone, so that Opal can have a hat when he wakes up."

"Not a problem!" said Marbles, who took off again into the noonday sky. Lucy, exhausted, lay down beside Opal, and rested her back against the upturned tree root. There she was, beneath a tree, a book on healing herbs open beside her. She might as well be thirteen again, and back at the abbey. She dozed off. For eighteen hours.