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Kukyk laughed, a long sound that took a great while to work its way through her sinuous throat. “Would you like to watch the battle at my side, Stranger John? It is certainly an honor, and in this fashion I may not be entirely robbed of the season.”

I wished to do no such thing, but I feared to be wrestled to the earth once more, and so I followed the stately crane from the shade of the fig to the rear edge of the golden cliff. The sun hung high in the air, like a bucket in an endless blue well. Kukyk searched us out a squat ink-nut tree and leapt into its branches, waiting for me to follow. We leaned out of the leaves to peer at the valley not far below, filled with two gilt armies standing at the ready.

The cranes needed no armor or banners—their golden fronds bristled in the hot wind, and they puffed out their chests, screeching and stamping. Blue and silver and red their ranks went; as one they clapped their beaks like sergeants rat-a-tatting on a thousand drums. Across from the avian line, the pygmies stood as a mass of bright green and gold, the joints of their amber breastplates bulbous and bubbled, knotted with mint leaves, and those same leaves spiked through their hair. Some rode liquid-eyed fawns, others stood their ground on bare feet. Their swords were dull bone, some antler, some the sharpened ribs of creatures I did not want to see with their skins on. The pygmies threw their heads back and keened, their tongues loose and wild. The sun blazed on them all, and the color rose high in countless cheeks.

Kukyk had begun to breathe heavily, hardly able to contain her excitement.

Without warning the two armies charged at one another, and for a moment the valley was nothing but dust and feathers and terribly bright leaves. Kukyk hooted in solidarity for her brothers and sisters, and flapped her great silver wings, sending a shower of nuts into the sand. When the first flurry of dust settled, I saw that the pygmies and cranes did not often kill each other, but were satisfied at a wound, a simple gash or dent in the bone, a bruise, their opposite numbers winded and gasping. The cranes danced with arresting grace around the pygmies, who for their part vigorously stomped and arched their backs in their own arcane steps. I was relieved, and thought that perhaps I had been wrong to be so intolerant—it was clearly a sportsmanlike, theatrical kind of war, nothing serious, quite provincial and charming, really.

Kukyk began to writhe beside me in the boughs. Her wing-tips brushed my chest, and they grew terribly hot, as if she had fallen into a great fire. I tried not to watch her in her martial ecstasy and squinted, trying to see more clearly into the melee.

My lips drew back in horror.

A crane had leapt upon a prostrate pygmy maiden and thrashed gently on top of her, his great wings enveloping her green-leafed hair tenderly. Her face beneath him was contorted in pleasure, her heels digging into his blue back with delight, and she had her arms thrown wantonly around his feathery white neck. As I watched, I saw that the whole battlefield had degenerated thus: pygmy men, small and fierce, had fallen upon the crane-hens, and their lustful cries were like wolves howling. One maiden had thrown herself over a black crane and was rocking back and forth lasciviously, holding her brown breasts in both hands, her amber armor cast aside. The war-ground had become a rutting field, and the wind was full of gasping. I turned to Kukyk, who was in a frenzy of envy and loneliness, gazing at me with flashing wet eyes.

“What is this?” I cried. “What is this disgusting ritual? What sort of perversion do you practice here at the end of the world?”

I was unkind, then. I would like to say I am kinder now, but no man is a meet judge of his own virtue.

The crane stared at me. “It is our mating dance. Have you never heard how the cranes dance to call their mates?”

“But they are not cranes!“

“Do your women mirror your men in every way? This is our great dance! It is the most magnificent of