Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [64]
“What is it?” Luminara and Obi-Wan trotted forward to query their escorts. Attentive inspection of the four horizons left them no more enlightened as to the reason for the halt than it did their equally confused Padawans. “Why have we stopped here?”
“Listen.” Both Alwari were leaning slightly forward in their seats, obviously straining to hear—what?
Luminara and her companions went quiet. Only the muted munching of the suubatars nibbling the tops off the ripe wild grains, the constant rustle of wind through the grasses, and the occasional querulous hooting of a kilk stalking soft-shelled arthropods broke the silence.
Then she heard it. Faint initially, like a first cousin to the wind itself. It strengthened slowly, a soft ripping sound approaching from the north, from the direction they were headed. It intensified until it became an audible buzzing, still muted but rising ominously in the distance. Peering hard in the direction of the ascending susurration, Luminara thought she could make out the first hints of a low, dark cloud.
The suubatars began to stir uneasily, throwing back their sharp-ridged skulls and pawing at the ground with middle and forefeet. She struggled to control her mount. At the same time, Kyakhta’s eyes bulged with realization.
“Kyren!” he exclaimed fearfully.
“Quickly, my friends!” Bulgan was suddenly standing upright in his saddle, looking frantically in all directions. “We have to find shelter!”
“Shelter?” Obi-Wan held his seat, but began searching their immediate surroundings nonetheless. “Out here?”
“From what?” Barriss wanted to know. By now she, too, saw and heard the onrushing blur. “What’s a kyren?”
Without suspending his search, Bulgan edged his steed closer to her own. “A flying creature that travels the plains of Ansion, migrating from region to region as it follows the seasons.” He gestured downward. “When the grasses in one area mature and the heads of each stalk are ripe with seed, the kyren resumes its flight, eating until it is sated. Then it settles down to rest, and to breed. When the young are fledged, they take flight anew in search of further nourishment.”
She blinked in the direction of the diffuse shadow on the horizon. “That can’t be all one creature coming toward us.”
“It’s not,” Bulgan disclosed apprehensively. “There are many more than one.”
“I don’t see why it matters.” Anakin had moved forward to join the conversation. “What have we to fear from a flock of seed eaters? They are just seed eaters, aren’t they?” he thought to add.
A strange expression came over the guide’s face; strange even for a pop-eyed, long-maned, single-nostriled Ansionian. “Seed is their preferred food, yes. But once they have taken flight, they are unable, or unwilling, or simply disinterested in changing course. Nor will they fly higher to pass over anything unexpected in their path.” He swallowed hard. “Rocks they will smash themselves into. Trees they will cut down. Living things like hootles, or suubatars, or cicien, they will eat their way through. Unless those creatures can somehow find a place to hide, or manage to get out of the way.”
“Hootles or suubatars?” Barriss asked softly. “Or—people?” Somehow she wasn’t surprised when Bulgan nodded solemnly.
Anakin’s hand strayed to his belt. “We have lightsabers, and other weapons. Can’t we stand and defend ourselves from these things? How big are they, anyway?”
Raising his long-fingered hands, Bulgan placed them on either side of his head. “This is the average of their wingspan.”
“That’s all?” Anakin frowned. “Then I don’t see why you and Kyakhta are so concerned.”
“How many of them are