Carrion-Kites

Overview

Carrion-Kites are the scavenger birds of the Scourge. On a plane where violence draws every living thing, they are drawn first and farthest, and wheel over every fight waiting for the fallen. Where there is no fight, their shrieking is often enough to start one.

Appearance

A Carrion-Kite is the size of a large hawk, lean and long-winged, with a deeply forked tail it twists to steer. Its feathers are rust-red, barred with charcoal, and worn ragged at the edges; few kites on the plane have a whole set. The head is small and bare of feathers around the eyes, which are a hard, pale yellow, and the hooked beak is black. In the air it rocks and tilts on the plane's harsh winds. Its cry is a high, grating shriek, repeated, that carries over the din of a battle. A flock smells of old blood.

Habitat and Range

They range the whole plane, roosting on broken ridges and dead thickets, and gather wherever there is fighting. A large battle draws them in hundreds; a quarrel in a camp draws a handful within moments.

Behaviour and Temperament

Carrion-Kites feed on the dead and the badly wounded, dropping to tear at anything that has stopped fighting back. They are quick to take from each other and fight constantly among themselves over a carcass. They do not attack the standing. Over a quiet place they circle and shriek, and the plane's pull towards conflict does the rest: tempers rise under them, and a camp that has been at peace finds itself at blows.

Abilities

Their cry carries the Scourge's own pressure. People and beasts beneath a shrieking flock grow restless, suspicious, and quick to strike, and the bloodlust the plane breeds comes on faster. Their eyes pick out a limp or a stagger from far above, and the first kite down marks the weakest in a fight for every hunter nearby.

Life Cycle

They nest on high ledges in loose, quarrelling colonies, and the chicks fight in the nest until one or two remain. A kite's life is short and ends in a fight, as most lives on the plane do.

Uses and Dangers

The Scourge-Born watch the kites as scouts: a gathering on the horizon is a fight to join or to avoid, and a kite circling a camp is a warning to post guards. Their feathers fletch arrows. Travellers learn to kill or drive off any kite that circles them, since a flock overhead tells every hunter on the plane where the weak are.

Lore and Belief

The Scourge-Born say the kites can smell a betrayal before it is made and gather over an alliance about to break, and they read a kite settling on a comrade's tent as a sign to strike first. Travellers bring home the belief that the kites are what makes the plane violent; in truth the plane's pull is older, and the kites only carry it (see Knowledge of the Cosmos).

Sellswords who have crossed say a company that camps under kites will be at one another's throats by morning, and captains who have seen it cut the birds down with arrows before anything else.

Where It Appears

• Overview: Natives of the Planes