Since I'm really hoping to get people to back this project. it's been suggested I post some excerpts from the book. So here is something from early on, a flashback where the protagonist recalls an incident from his days as an apprentice Ranger.

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Twenty-five years ago, when Ranger Harrell was an apprentice under Ranger Mareek Golden-Nape of Foggy Bay, he’d been with a hunting flock sent after a rogue thunderbird. Thunderbirds were generally scavengers, but they’d been known to ‘help along’ a dying creature from time to time. As long as they didn’t hurt a sentient or herder’s stock, no one cared how they obtained their meals.

But once in a great while an individual thunderbird would decide he wanted his dinner fresh, all the time. The one pursued by Harrell’s hunting flock had not limited his depredations to herdbeasts. He’d killed herders, wolfen, and even griffins if he found them alone. A subadult drunk on his own power and size, too wily to be shot down by Greenie guns, he’d avoided the local griffins for almost a year before Ranger Mareek and her hunting flock finally went after him.

Apprentice Harrell White-Shoulders had never been that close to a thunderbird before. He didn’t think it was possible for a flying creature to be so big. He’d flown towards it with his beak gaping like a chick, terrified, but determined not to show any fear in front of the other Rangers. To this day he could still see the thunderbird’s tiny red eyes glaring at them as they approached, unconcerned by the approaching flock of six griffin Rangers, a sight that normally would send any sentient on the Twin Continents fleeing in terror. In a flash Harrell knew there was something else wrong with that thunderbird besides simple subadult aggression run wild-- there something was wrong with his mind. The thunderbird was completely insane.

As he came to that realization, Ranger Mareek was flying ahead of the flock to where the thunderbird was soaring. It was her duty to try to talk with him before they attacked, to find out if there was any legitimate reason for his behavior. No one thought that tactic would work, of course, but the chief Ranger in Foggy Bay insisted on an attempt at negotiation before any bloodshed.

Harrell looked at the griffins around him, wondering if any of them noticed the mad look in the thunderbird’s eyes. He wanted to scream a warning at his mistress, but was afraid of looking like a panicked chick in front of the others. Not only would he lose face, but Ranger Mareek would too, for having such a nervous apprentice. Still a subadult, he was already bigger than Mareek and the four white-head griffin Rangers with them. He knew the only reason he’d been allowed to go on this hunting trip was his great size, and he was determined not to humiliate his mistress or himself by doing anything rash. He would have to trust that the adults knew what they were doing.

The thunderbird struck without warning as Ranger Mareek soared towards him. Harrell later learned this behavior was unheard of for thunderbirds, which was why the adults with him were caught completely by surprise. The thunderbird pulled his wings in and dropped, his feet curled into fists under his belly. Mareek tried to turn, but the thunderbird was so big she couldn’t get out from under him in time. Both fists smashed into her back, right between the wings. Harrell heard a horrible crack as her back was snapped, and she plummeted from the sky.

Harrell didn’t hesitate, tucking his wings in and diving after the tumbling griffin. Mareek’s wildly flailing wings, buffeted by the air as she fell, helped slow her descent just enough to allow Harrell to catch up with her. With no time to be gentle, he sank his talons into her haunches, at the same time snapping his wings open to try and break their fall.

He’d never felt such agony in his legs and shoulders before. He thought his wings would be torn off as he strained against wind and gravity. He felt his talons ripping through the skin and flesh of his mistress as the ground rushed up at them, and he had time for one panicked thought-- he was going to die-- before they came crashing down into a grove of coast oaks.

If they’d fallen in one of the open areas the impact probably would have killed Mareek instantly. Instead she smashed through the thin top branches of the oak before lodging on a thick branch, her apprentice falling heavily on top of her. The fall had broken both her wings and a shoulder, but she was still alive. Harrell had escaped with only a few broken primary feathers, mainly because his mistress had taken the brunt of the impact.

Hung in the tree like a mouse hung on a thorn by a shrike, Ranger Mareek could only move her front legs and neck. “White-Shoulders—the others!” She gasped.

Harrell looked skyward. The thunderbird and other griffins had already moved almost a mile away and higher in the sky. Even with his excellent griffin eyes he had trouble seeing them. He was alarmed to count only three Rangers diving at the thunderbird. Something had happened to the fourth.

“Go to them. You can’t help me here. Go help them!”

“What do I do?” Harrell said. He didn’t want to go back in the air and face that monster again. The terrible crack as the thunderbird broke his mistress’s spine still rang in his ears, and he clenched his wings to his back.

“Get above him… land on his back… he won’t be able to stay in the air with your weight on him,” Mareek gulped several times, and had trouble catching her breath. Blood leaked out of her nares and stained her mouth red. “Go! Don’t shame me…”

That got Harrell moving. He scrambled up to the top of the oak and launched. His wings ached, but he was able to catch a thermal and ride it higher. The three remaining griffins were trying the exact thing Mareek had instructed, but so far the thunderbird had easily avoided them. Every time one tried to fly above him he would soar higher, his gigantic wings giving him more lift with less effort than the griffins. Then he would dive at them, trying to knock them out of the sky with a blow from his wing or feet.

As Harrell flapped towards them one of the Rangers flew up from below, flipping upside down at the last second and locking his talons into the thunderbird’s chest. The bird could not scream like a griffin, but Harrell saw the thunderbird’s beak open in surprise as the weight of the griffin began pulling him out of the sky. Then the thunderbird got his feet under the griffin’s belly and pushed, at the same time snapping at his face. The griffin shrieked as the thunderbird tore through one eye and crushed the top of his beak. A second later the bird’s powerful feet ripped the griffin’s talons free, sending him tumbling down in a cascade of black feathers and blood.

Harrell arrived just as the injured Ranger managed to level his flight off. There was a blur of black as the thunderbird came crashing down onto the griffin’s back. The Ranger managed one strangled scream as he was knocked from the sky, but he was too low for any of the others to reach him before he thudded into rocky ground below.

The thunderbird spread his wings and skimmed the ground before rising again. The griffin had managed to wound him badly. The feathers had been stripped from his chest and there were deep bleeding gashes scoring the flight muscles. Instead of trying to flee, the thunderbird turned and stroked towards the three griffins, his feet lowered, ready to attack again.

The two remaining white-head Rangers were exhausted by the prolonged aerial battle, their beaks open and gasping for breath, barely able to keep up with the rising thunderbird. If he got above them again he would almost certainly knock another one out of the sky.

But Harrell was young and still had some stamina left. He beat his wings beyond what he thought he was capable of, his breath roaring in and out of his chest, slowly rising above the thunderbird. The other Rangers saw what he was doing and began to attack the thunderbird again, coming at him from below and slashing with their talons. The thunderbird fended them off with snapping beak and his feet, trying to hit them with each downstroke of his wings. One of the griffins screeched as her foot was bent back and snapped at the tarsus, and the thunderbird hissed in triumph, lashing forward with his beak in an attempt to tear the griffin’s eyes out.

At that moment Harrell dropped onto the thunderbird’s back. He landed squarely between the wings, his hind legs ripping out the bird’s tail feathers, and dug his talons deep. Forgetting about the wounded griffin, the thunderbird reached back and tried to snap at the one on his back. Harrell lunged forward, their beaks smashing together. He could feel the thunderbird’s bones snapping under the pressure from his clenched talons, and he struck again, this time his beak closing on the thunderbird’s bare neck.

One sharp pull back and a wrench of Harrell’s head mangled the bird’s throat beyond healing. He pulled his talons free and spread his wings, soaring into the air as the wounded thunderbird tried to land. Steering towards an outcropping of sandstone, where he could get rock at his back and possibly fight off the remaining griffins, the thunderbird dropped too fast. He undershot the cliff he was aiming for and smashed into the bare sandstone beneath it, dying instantly. His body slid and tumbled to the ground in a broken heap, black feathers drifting down around him like autumn leaves.

Two experienced Rangers died fighting that thunderbird. Harrell’s mistress Mareek was dead by the time help was able to reach her, and the one Harrell saw knocked out of the sky was killed on impact. One of the white-head Rangers had been forced down by a broken wing, with another suffering a broken front leg. For his actions that day Harrell was given a bravery commendation, and was promoted to full Ranger as soon as he molted into his adult plumage. He never told anyone his great shame-- that he’d almost fled the battle-- and only Marreek's demands had goaded him into action.

All this came back to him as he soared towards his territory’s resident thunderbird. It was even bigger than that long-dead rogue, circling lazily on a thermal far above him. This thunderbird had been living in the area for decades, long before Harrell White-Shoulders had become a Ranger, and in all that time had never hurt or tried to hurt anyone. That didn’t matter. Harrell was terrified.

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