"The Murmuration"
Chapter 30 of The Selkie Prince released today on flicker.press!
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In this week’s chapter, the Seige of Salhadun is heating up, and a murmuration makes an appearance because every good fantasy novel needs a mumuration or two.
Only when the cloud grew close enough to cast its shadow on our sail did I realize that the mass was really a moving cloud of thousands of birds. There were terns, wrens, seagulls, the giant bonxies, and other birds I did not recognize. The noise was now louder than a locomotive, the sound of a multitude of birds flapping their wings and crying to one another.
Julie stared. “Wait, I know what that is. I saw a video on the internet about it. It’s called a….”
“A murmuration,” said Dregno. “Aye, but I’ve ne’er seen one like this before.”
The birds spiraled in their massive and noisy formation, and soared high into the wispy clouds before torpedoing straight into the water above Salhadun, diving far, far below the surface. After a few seconds of each dive, they returned to the air followed in close pursuit by a trow or a longfin they had drawn away from the battle.
A large bonxie hopped onto one side of the boat, his huge weight tipping it slightly to one side. “Lady Sinclair,” he greeted me.
“Valkern!” I said. “Did you bring all these birds?”
“Yes. They have all agreed to help. I have made sure that they know you are friends of Salhadun, so they will not harm you.”
The bonxie dove down into the battle below and I lost sight of him amidst the army of birds pecking and scratching the eels and trows with their beaks and talons. Again and again the birds attacked. The eels snapped and bit at them as if they were flies, and the trows grabbed the birds, handfuls at a time, and tossed their bodies onto the surface before diving beneath yet again to continue the siege. For at least an hour, the birds fought valiantly, but eventually, the murmuration dissolved, the birds having either retreated back into the sky, or joining the jumbled masses of floating dead birds on the surface.
I felt stunned. “I don’t understand. It didn’t work.”
To read this chapter as well the rest, visit The Selkie Prince at flicker.press