The Omega Children - The Return of the Marauders (A young adult fiction best seller): An Action Adventure Mystery by Shane Mason Read Free Book Online Page B

allowing him to tousle its feathers.
    ‘Only to you it seems,’ Melaleuca said.
    Melaleuca approached it with Lexington walking a ginger pace behind with her pen scrawling in her notebook.
    ‘It’s friendly Argus,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Come toward it slowly.’
    He tried again, saying with a threat in his voice, ‘You don’t know where it is from. Eagles this size died out millions of years ago.’
    Once again the Kockoroc spread its wings and threatened Argus. For some strange reason this pleased Melaleuca.
    ‘Dumb eagle,’ Argus said.
    Lexington flipped through her notebook and read from it.
    ‘Hmm. The eagle likes us. It doesn’t like you. We are from here and the eagle must be as well and you are not. Animals are known to grasp character better. Seems maybe you are not who you say you are.’
    ‘Whatever.’
    ‘Your actions and tone threaten him,’ Melaleuca said.
    ‘Look I don’t know what big bird wants. It could be a trick from the enemy.’
    ‘My feelings say otherwise.’
    ‘The facts agree with her feelings,’ Lexington said.
    ‘Finally,’ Quixote said in a low voice, earning stares from both the girls.
    Anger and weariness mixed in Argus’s face.
    ‘You know nothing about it. It could have come from those men, who, right now, as we speak are trekking up this hill or have we forgotten.’
    Melaleuca searched Argus’s gnarled old face for the truth of his words. Thick skin like an elephant’s trunk covered his face and his eyebrows bushed out large, and deep lines crawled away from the corner of his eyes curving down the side of his cheeks. He speaks sincerely.
    ‘Equally our parents could have sent it.’
    ‘Fine. Suit yourself. Way too old for this. No gold is worth this.’
    He walked away from them and headed down hill.
    ‘Maybe we could fly on it,’ Quixote yelled after him.
    Argus held up two fingers to Quixote in a gesture none of them understood.
    ‘Two what?’ Lexington asked.
    The Kockoroc beat its great wings and launched itself into the air, creating a powerful down draught, knocking them over. It flew higher and higher and higher until it appeared like a normal sized bird. It circled a few times and then let out a loud cry that sounded like the roar of thundering bulls, almost as if ancient memories were coming to life after being dormant for eons.
    ‘It’s been trapped for many years. It’s crying freedom,’ Ari said.
    Lexington scrawled furiously in her notebook and her eyes started to blink rapidly, a sign Melaleuca had come to see as Lexington’s mind over analysing.
    ‘Lex?’
    ‘So much to consider. Too much. Wish I could freeze things. Why’d Ari say that? What’s he base it on?’
    The Kockoroc circled tighter and tighter and tighter until the circle became a dot. The dot stayed in one place and slowly became larger and larger and larger.
    ‘It’s going to attack,’ Ari yelled.
    ‘How do you know that?’ Lexington said flummoxed.
    ‘LOOK!’ He cried out. ‘DUCK!’
    The Kockoroc bore down on them at incredible speed. Thin streams and wisps of vapour trailed behind its outspread wings.
    ‘IT’S GOING FOR ARGUS,’ Lexington screamed. ‘I KNEW HE WAS BAD.’
    The Kockoroc roared by, ripping up such turbulence that Melaleuca and the others flicked up into the air. She managed to catch sight of the Kockoroc dropping over into their valley before she landed hard. Ari, Quixote and Lexington landed beside her and an earth shattering ‘BOOOMMM’ blasted from their valley. A shockwave flew over the pass blowing right over them, echoing loudly. For a few brief moments it felt as if it lodged in their chests and with stunned faces they swapped glances.
    Then silence.
    Quixote stood first and yelled, ‘Yaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhhh! Yeeeaaah! Do it again!’
    ‘Everyone else okay?’ Melaleuca said.
    ‘I’m fine,’ Ari replied, ‘though I’m not sure about Lex.’
    Lexington stood as if frozen in time, not breathing, staring off into space. Ari shook