Hunting wind raptors was fun. So much fun that I wanted them all to spontaneously freeze and die. Even combustion would be fine with me.

To hunt them you first had to find them. Sadly, from what we had seen to this point, they lived in nesting partnerships, possibly permanent ones, in their eyries in some high and impossible to get to places, unless one had the ability to fly. So, getting them where they lived was close to impossible.

Hunting them while they were out hunting was complicated. They hunted by circling high in the air, forming a figure-eight with their partner, each of them flying the figure in one direction, giving them excellent view of the ground below, allowing them to spot prey or warn them off attacks, long before the attack got to them. And, once they were warned, they could either dodge the attack or use what gave them their name. Wind raptor. Wind!

Each of the stupid birds was quite adept when it came to wind-magic, far better than Lenore. Lenore was only able to use wind-magic to aid in her flying - making her faster and more agile - unless we cast magic together, when she was able to do more. The raptors on the other hand, the first pair we attacked used their magic to swat aside both attacks we used, my icicle and Adra’s arrow, causing them to go wild. And afterwards, they dove down like a, well, hawk on a mouse, only to stop a few meters above the ground and use their magic to transfer their momentum into the air around them, causing massive downbursts to hammer us. It was not lethal but decidedly painful. I managed to snag one of them using an instant-cast icicle but its partner quickly fled back up, into the sky, screeching all the while.

Not that we heard a lot of the screeching, the overpressure from the wind magic had caused our eardrums to burst, at least those of Rai, Adra and me. Sigmir withstood it thanks to her increased durability whereas Rai was struck the worst, staggering unbalanced until I healed him up. While we were dealing with our own problems, the raptor quickly left the area.

So, we had to search for more. But, without a plan, that was annoying as hell. There was the possibility of using Lenore as bait but I already knew how she would react to that, so I didn’t bring it up. Getting mentally mooned by a bird once was more than enough.

We continued looking for them while trying to come up with a plan, feeling that our best bet would be to take a shot at a pair, hide under a shield from Sigmir and me before attacking with arrows, thrown axes and maybe a throwing star from Rai.

He had experimented a little with throwing his blades until I put a stop to that. Not only was he using blades not balanced for throwing, he was also dulling the edges of his weapons, making it a no-go. Instead. I made him a couple throwing stars out of Hard Ice, letting him play with those. They were decently balanced, but it was obvious that they needed to be made from a heavier substance to be effective. Sigmir had the same problem with her throwing axes but their bigger volume made even the lighter ice-axes quite effective against soft targets. He would need quite a bit of training until he could hit what he was aiming at, but at least with the throwing stars he didn’t have to worry about hitting handle-first, like he had with his blades. Additionally, Sigmir had given him a couple of lessons with her axes, hopefully that helped as well.

But back to our wind raptor-hunt. Finding the next pair took almost an hour, but at least we managed to scare up dinner during that time, a level forty mountain-goat that tried to run faster than a flying arrow. It did not succeed, and a careful application of my Ice Magic allowed me to get it down the cliff it had run up without triggering an avalanche.

We went higher and higher, searching for the raptors both in the air over the lower mountain and above us, but they seemed to be incredibly rare for their hunting-priority. But finally, we got to the top of the ridge we were climbing and found another pair, circling in the air below the other side. To get their attention, I shot an icicle at them, not even trying to hit or we would have to climb back down to get their carcass, or rather their claws, feathers and beak, those were the parts listed as valuable. We would take the whole bird and dump the useless parts once our bags were full.

The icicle flew and the stupid birds did not realise the attack from above, focused on the ground below them, so I channelled my power for a second, causing the flying icicle to explode into a rain of razor-sharp shards, lacerating one of the birds but not killing it. But it was angered by the attack, that much was easy to understand from its screeching cries.

Both raptors shot up high before going into a dive, just as we had hoped. I had prepared a solid sheet of ice that I could quickly raise above our heads and once their attack hit and they had lost their momentum, the other three would step out and attack. Sigmir and Rai only needed to get close to their targets because they were throwing weapons made out of my Hard Ice, so I was able to influence them without trouble, either shattering them into shards to changing their trajectory.

The raptors dove and shortly before they were upon us, I raised the shield causing them to abort their attack and instead of transferring their momentum to the air around us, they kept it, levelling out at high pace. Adra got off her shot, piercing the wing of one raptor but neither Sigmir nor Rai had the projectile speed to get the other, not to mention the ability to hit it.

Both raptors were screeching up a storm and heading up the mountain, following the ridge we were on. Hoping to get another shot at the wounded raptor, we started to go after them, deeper into the mountains.

As we continued, the ridge started to level out, into a small plateau. There were still mountains rising up around us and between them was a wide valley, looking to my untrained eye as if a river had carved it in the summertime or maybe a glacier. The walls around us were steep and sheer, almost vertical, making the idea to climb them a difficult, possibly impossible proposition.

In the sky above that valley, the two raptors were still trying to get away from us and it looked very much as if the wounded one had slowed down. We could almost smell the blood of our prey, as it tried to get away and none of us was inclined to let it, so we went after them, into the valley.

I felt around a little, making sure that we were not walking on unsafe snow and die due to an avalanche or something equally stupid but no, the snow was packed and hard below us, allowing us to keep a fast pace on our chase. Around us, the mountains were coming closer, as the valley narrowed more and more until we reached an area where the seasonal snow seemed to turn into eternal, glacial ice. The valley was widened here, probably due to lake below the snow and the only way into the basin was through the valley we had walked through.

The two raptors were circling in the valley, screeching their angry cries but now, they were answered. From the walls above us, more raptors leapt into the air, calling out their anger.

“By the ancestors!” Sigmir cursed next to me and I mentally agreed.

Above us, the two raptors we had chased were now obscured by an angry flock that darkened the sky.

Adra cursed and added, “We need cover!”, before looking around us, trying to find something, anything to hide under. But there was nothing in the valley, it was scrubbed clean by the movement of ice and snow each year.

I observed a few of the raptors above, taking note of their level and trying to understand what they were planning. Most of them were roughly my own level, some lower, others higher but their sheer numbers could bury us. If they chose to do so, I somehow doubted that they would try to bury us, more like constant attacks with their magic, until we were battered and broken.

Unbidden, Lenore added her vision to mine and I got a rough idea. The flock had organised in a single circle, a wheel that turned in a single direction. And they all had added their magic to the wheel, slowly speeding their flight, and the air around them. up. Now, I knew what they were planning. And I didn’t like it one single bit.