Charlemagne split off from the pangolin Champion and, after returning to the forest of N’dali to get his bearings, decided that it was too late in the day to continue onward. In fact, the sun was rather high in the sky, but the rooster didn’t want to pass up another opportunity to “check in” on his hens.
After making sure that he wasn’t being followed, the devolved rooster made his way back to the farm, where he was both literally and figuratively henpecked upon his arrival after admitting that he had not yet found the city of animals like he had promised. The hen triumvirate took Charlemagne for a tour so that all the girls could see that he was doing alright, as well as to show off the work they had accomplished in his absence. The hens had managed to create a small door in one of the compound’s walls, allowing for easy access to a large field beyond. There, they had planted chicken feed and were carefully tending to the resulting plants. The hens had noticed that not all the plants looked the same, but they didn’t know what exactly a chicken feed plant looked like, so they made sure that all the plants received sufficient attention. Charlemagne approved of this strategy to become self-sufficient, although he felt it unnecessary. But it kept the girls busy.
After the tour, Charlemagne inspected the food storage and performed a taste test, verifying that the stored feed was still edible. According to Philomene, who was the best at counting, there were still many days’ worth of food remaining, and they were already working on ways to extend that. A team of scavengers, protected by the combat squad, went out every day to track down large stores of food and hadn’t come back empty-beaked yet. Losses among the scavengers were unacceptably high, however, and the hens admitted that they needed more combat squad members, looking at Charlemagne with pleading eyes. The rooster missed the point entirely.
Charlemagne slept well that night, happy to be with his hens, and departed early the next morning, after waking up the entire farm and having a hearty breakfast. In his haste to depart, the young rooster took off from the center of farm, his wings generating gusts of wind that sent several overeager hens flying. Thankfully, none of them appeared to have been hurt.
The flight to N’dali took less than thirty minutes in the air, and the sun was just peeking over the horizon. The rooster ducked low under the tree line and came in for a landing, misjudging the angle as he plowed through a number of branches before coming to a halt against the trunk of a tree. His brain took a split-second to reboot, and, during that time, an Assassinadder bit him in the neck.
Perfect, the young rooster thought. More breakfast.
After munching the delicious (and highly nutritious) snake, Charlemagne took off again, the hens’ complaints about him wasting time still fresh in his mind. As he followed the road north, the devolved rooster meditated on the difficulty of caring for twenty-five thousand mates, wondering if perhaps there was some sort of natural limit. After all, he had yet to even meet many of them.
Natural philosophy occupied his thoughts until he flew over the former military base in Bembereke. The bird was moving at a leisurely pace though the warm morning air, and so he was once again caught by surprise when a pointed stick flew up out of the tree line and made its way straight toward him. This time, however, his Meditation skill activated as soon as the object came into view, allowing him enough reaction speed to pump mana into one side of his body and dodge. Flapping his wings aggressively to gain altitude, the rooster once again swore revenge against the launcher of the projectile and bemoaned the lack of time to kill and eat his assailant. After a few tense minutes of random zigging and zagging, Charlemagne finally allowed himself to relax.
The aerial maneuver must have caught the attention of the squiggles, because a notification arrived just after.
Charlemagne was rather perplexed by the skill’s appearance. If he understood the bearers of good news correctly, this skill had been given to him because he had avoided getting hit. He had gotten it while moving out of the way of something that was going to hit him while he was in the air, and he had reinforced one side of his body with mana in order to do so. He only had hazy memories of his encounter at the airport, but the young rooster was certain that he had dodged the giant metal bird that had gorged itself on humans in the exact same manner. So why hadn’t he received the skill then?
Realizing that perhaps the ways of the squiggles would make themselves clearer as he continued to grow, Charlemagne decided not to worry too much about where the skill came from and make the best use of it as he could. He continued his flight to the north, following the wide road that was studded with the abandoned husks of eighteen wheelers. These trucks had previously been the lifeblood of Niger, carrying vital goods between Cotonou and its capital Niamey. Indeed, before Niger’s military had overthrown the country’s government and the border was closed, approximately forty percent of all goods coming into the port of Cotonou came up this road, passing through the city of Malanville and across the Niger river before largely heading to the capital city of Niamey. After the border was closed, these goods were either smuggled across the Niger river in small boatloads or driven through Burkina Faso, a trip that was both longer and more dangerous.
Charlemagne neither knew nor cared about international trade, except in a tangential sense when he profited, such as the parboiled rice incident.
Passing over the city of Kandi, the devolved rooster was certain that he had found the city he was looking for, but there was no river in sight. Remembering his two main instructions of “go north” and “look for a river just beyond a city” was now well within the bird’s mental powers, so it was fairly easy for Charlemagne to realize that he needed to keep flying. The road passed right through the center of town, and just to the north west of the town was the Kandi airport. There was a small passenger plane parked there, an Aerospatiale SN-601 Corvette 100. It was much smaller than the enormous Boeing 777 that Charlemagne had attempted to fight not so long ago, and the bird figured that he could kill it easily despite the metal bird still being much larger than he was. He sighed inwardly as he once again reminded himself that he was on a mission and didn’t have time for a good fight.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Charlemagne continued north, skirting Park W on its eastern border as he did not trust it to start randomly launching spears at him. When he reached the town of Guene, the road forked. Charlemagne, having been told to go north, followed the left fork. Unfortunately for and unknown to the devolved rooster, the route to Malanville required Charlemagne to take the right fork.
The young rooster flew onwards in happy ignorance. He went straight over his destination without realizing it, flying northwest until he ran out of road to follow. This confused and angered the rooster, who had followed the pangolin’s instructions to the letter. Nevertheless, he couldn’t afford to get lost, so after landing to get a quick drink of water and eat a river otter he happened to see lazing in the river, he backtracked, this time following the Niger river and looking for forks. After a few false starts where the river looked like it was beginning to fork, but came back together, the rooster finally found the spot indicated by the Pangolin. There was even a small town just to the south of the river. Landing happily, the rooster crowed in triumph. He had done it…he had found the city of Karimama.
“Now what?” he thought to himself, looking around.
The entire city had been deserted. A few skeletons, mostly those of humans, lay in the dust that was blown in from the Sahel and covered everything in sight periodically. They had been picked clean, so the smell of death was minimal. Charlemagne’s senses could only detect a few small animals rustling here and there, searching for food that had been overlooked by stronger, larger creatures.
As Charlemagne walked through the empty streets, wondering what to do, a blinking light caught his eye. He flew up to the top of an apartment building to get a better look. Off in the distance, affixed to the side of a three-story apartment building, was a sign that he could read.
“Park W Animal Sanctuary directions. Follow the road to the north. Take the left fork when the road splits and pass through the old cattle market. When you get to the end of the road, head towards the setting sun. We’ll find you.”
Annoyed that he had to follow yet another set of directions to find the place he was looking for, but somewhat relieved that at least he knew which fork to take, Charlemagne oriented himself using his innate bird senses and headed north, following the main road. The turn was marked by another sign that he understood, for which he was grateful. He found the cattle market, and continued until the road suddenly stopped in the middle of a small town.
This town was also deserted, and Charlemagne idly wondered where the humans had gone. It had been a while, he thought, since he had last eaten a human. With that thought rattling around in his head, the young rooster settled down to take a nap and wait for the sun to start to set. His patience lasted about fifteen minutes before he was in the air again, on the hunt.
Hunting near water was a time-honored tradition among many species, and Charlemagne’s ancestors were no exception. So he naturally headed back to the Niger river, flying high into the air and using his exceptional eyesight to see if he could spot any prey from the air.
As luck would have it, he spotted a small canoe in the water not ten minutes later. There were five humans inside it, but none of them appeared to be carrying weapons. The rooster dive bombed the boat, carving his talons deep into the largest human’s chest. The boat went over and the four surviving humans began to flail in the deep, turbulent, water. Charlemagne realized that he had not thought his attack plan out very well, as he was loath to get wet. Eventually, one of the remaining humans made it to shore, and that was when the rooster struck, knocking the human off its feet and pulling it into the dense brush beyond.
The other three humans wisely decided to take their chances in the water.
After having eaten and drank his fill, Charlemagne looked for more boats, wondering where the humans had come from and where they were going. It wasn’t that he was planning on following the humans to gather information; the rooster was just bored. The idea that, if he followed the small group of humans, they might lead him to a larger group had not occurred to the young rooster.
Finally, the sun began to dip low enough in the sky that Charlemagne felt confident that he could find his way to the Park W Animal Sanctuary by heading toward the sun. He retraced his steps and then struck out to the west, per the instructions. Since he had no idea how far he needed to go, he went on foot and kept his pace slow, reasoning with the confidence of a strongly diurnal animal that the town must be close if he was supposed to wait until the sun was about to set.
He walked for over half an hour before the wind suddenly changed. The gentle breeze that rolled in from the Niger River intensified to gale force before suddenly dropping away entirely. The air felt a good deal cooler, colder than any night he had ever experienced in Ouidah, which was right along the coast. Then squiggles confirmed that he had arrived.
Charlemagne took a moment to digest the meaning of the squiggles’ latest message, wondering what exactly ‘anti-social behavior’ was. As a rooster, he considered himself extremely well socialized. He never killed other roosters unless he had to, and he would never, ever, kill a hen. Chicks were…well the hens largely took care of the chicks, but he would be happy to teach them how to peck things. At any rate, the rooster did not foresee any issues with the rules.
“Ahoy, there, you must be new to the area. Wow, I’ve never seen a rooster quite like you before, can you talk?”
Ahead of Charlemagne was a short, pale man in a khaki outfit. A matching hat was on his head to protect him from the sun, and sunglasses also hid the man’s eyes. The rooster moved forward, answering the man as he did.
“Bawk,” he confirmed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t quite…err your accent…uhh what are you doing?”
The devolved rooster stalked up to the man, appearing to tower over him despite their almost equal height.
“Bawk,” he said again.
The man screamed.
