Storm-Hawks

Overview

Storm-Hawks are the birds of prey of the Storm Heart, among its Lightning-Beasts. Their wings are pure electricity, and they dive out of the clouds onto whatever moves below.

Appearance

A Storm-Hawk has a hawk's body, about the size of an eagle, grey-black and sleek, with a hooked beak and talons dark as burnt iron. Its wings are not feathers but light: two spread fans of crackling blue-white electricity, flickering and branching at the tips like a bolt frozen in mid-strike. In the dark between flashes they are the brightest things in the sky. A diving Storm-Hawk shrieks with a whine like the zone's lightning, and leaves a smell of ozone behind it.

Habitat and Range

They wheel in the clouds and the reversed air above the plain and perch on the crystal spires. A storm holds a number of them.

Behaviour and Temperament

They hunt movement. From high in the storm they see a lizard, a beetle, or a traveller move on the fused ground, fold their wings of light, and dive, striking with talons and a burst of charge. A traveller who lies flat and still is seldom taken.

Abilities

Their wings carry them on the storm's charge rather than on air, and they can strike with a jolt of lightning as they hit.

Life Cycle

They nest on the crystal spires, and their chicks are said to have wings of sparks that grow to flame.

Uses and Dangers

Falconers have tried to take Storm-Hawks out of the storm and failed: outside it, their wings go out. They are a danger to anyone moving on the plain.

Lore and Belief

Some peoples of the plains carve Storm-Hawks on shields for courage. A belief that a Storm-Hawk feather never stops sparking sends treasure-seekers into the storm; Storm-Hawks have no feathers on their wings.

Treasure-seekers who went in for the feathers anyway tell of the hawks that dropped on them out of the upward lightning, and of the burn-scars they wear for it.

Where It Appears

• The Storm Heart
• the Writers' Guide chapter The Resonant Zones