The Valley of Death: Prologue

The vulture tore the eye from the face with one sharp stab of her white razor beak. The carcass new and the flesh soft, the way she liked it. She checked where the other scavengers were. A few crows and ravens screeched in the thin forest nearby. But they were small. She would eat first. 

The body on the ledge was hers.

She settled, swallowed the eye, turned back to the head and cut, tearing the cheek in two, exposing jawbone and polished teeth. 

Something.

She checked again. 

A human approached from the woods. It moved with purpose  but  care over the rocks along the valley edge. 

She checked the sky. The other predator with the wings held still black against the grey morning sky, was gone. Had seen it from her nest in the cliffs. The danger. But she needed food. Had caught the currents that twisted and rose against the vertical rock face and soared higher and higher, until she crested the cliff edge and started a long circle above the predator. Had watched the humans move towards the ledge that hung suspended over the valley beneath.  

And when the time came, dived to her feast.

But now, one of them had returned. 

They stopped at the point where the ledge met the mountain side.

Did they want their kill?

She raised her wings, readied for flight and waited. The wind unsettled her. Weak talons meant little grip on the body; only her wings gave control. A thick layer of blood on the human’s shoulder shivered. Her eye traced a red tear as it dripped down an arm, hand, finger, blue fingernail and fell

and fell 

and fell…

The human stood still. Something in their hand turned this way and that, a cold light came from it.  She edged away towards the end of the ledge.

A slow heartbeat, and another. 

Nothing. The human didn’t move.

But others were coming. She could see them now, in the distance, along the precipice edge. They moved towards her. They wanted her meal. 

And to kill her too. 

The sun was coming, it crept over the mountain ridge turning the dark rocks crystal white.

Time was short.

But her children needed to eat and this food was hers.. 

The hunger, the hunger. 

She hacked down, ripped out the tongue,  and lifted off into the void.