155
THE BLUE FEATHER
from a tall tree in autumn. With its size and weight, it smacked
the ground hard enough to send Lentito into a new fit of braying
from fright. Tital used his power to levitate to the top of a large
granite outcropping, to survey for additional enemy raptors.
Bardala scanned the tree line of the forest with her Leupold
binoculars, and luckily found no further sign of living
Gigantoraptors.
Tital called out, “Let’s get ready to ride,” as he took out his
Hibben stainless steel knife, and ran over to cut the deadly
curved talons from the largest dead Gigantoraptor. “Tonight, we
can have a small ceremony in honor of Zorin’s and Ronú’s kills.
You both have proven that you can fight. Now, let’s get out of
here. These bloody carcasses will create a feeding frenzy of
other animals all too soon.”
They all mounted up, and rode at a fast lope westward. Tital
looked back over his shoulder as they crested a hill, and on the
distant battlefield he could see Brilloso’s distant cousins, the
jackal-like creatures the local natives called Dolorosos, eating a
free lunch. He scanned the sky, glad that the only flying things
were flocks of birds that looked like African Grey Parrots, lazily
floating on the thermal updrafts. By evening, tired, but not
wanting to wait, they found a large Mayan Pyramid. There on its
green vine-covered eastern face were the two Mayan symbols of
Aulue and Yax Kin that Bardala and Tital were searching to find.
“We are going to take you into the future twenty tuns on this
planet first,” Tital said while holding Bardala’s right hand, forcing
the massive stone door open, then adding, “Huracán, return all of
us that are present to the Yax Kin portal on Vivia, in time, return
us to the next morning at three o’clock after the night we first
left.” They all walked forward with their animals through the
misty entrance of the archway, and were transported twenty
years forward in time to the same portal they left. Mah Col, the
volcano, was only smoking vile gases and fine black ash skyward
at the moment they exited the Portal door.