FLASHBACK
The late afternoon sun over the Kazakh steppe bathed the endless grasslands in a sea of golden light, where tall blades of grass swayed gently beneath the wind.
A young Nurlan stood alone in the middle of the field. His feet were planted firmly, as though he intended to summon the heavens themselves. Resting against his lips was a silver whistle nearly the size of his clenched fist—a keepsake inherited from his father.
He blew softly.
The first note was high, sharp, and short.
Akhzan sliced through the wind, rocketing skyward like an arrow.
The second note widened into a trembling, gentle melody.
Tura vanished for a heartbeat, slipping through the brush before emerging from an impossible angle.
Then came the third note—deep and lingering.
Saigal, wise beyond the others, circled from afar, tracing a flawless arc through the sky.
The three falcons formed a perfect triangle overhead. Their speed increased. Their circles tightened. Their movements began to change.
They no longer resembled birds hunting field mice.
They looked like an aerial assault formation.
Nurlan's father, who had been tying a sheep's tether nearby, looked up. The color drained from his face.
"Nurlan!" he called, breaking into a hurried run.
"Stop that!"
But Nurlan blew one more note—
A note he had invented himself.
The three falcons surged forward in unison like expertly trained arrows. They spiraled toward an invisible point, their wings slicing the air until the currents themselves seemed to twist into a tiny vortex.
"Nurlan!"
His father's voice thundered louder as he grabbed the boy by the shoulders.
"That's enough!"
The whistle fell silent.
The three falcons immediately halted.
Their wings beat gently before they glided back to the wooden perches driven into the ground.
Nurlan turned around, breathing hard with excitement.
"What is it, Father?"
His father looked at the three falcons with an expression torn between pride and fear.
"Nurlan... listen to me."
He knelt until they were eye level and rested both hands on his son's shoulders.
"We're only shepherds. Falcons are meant to drive away rats and protect the fields from pests. Nothing more."
Nurlan slowly lowered his head.
"If you keep training them like this..."
"They could become territorial."
His father's voice trembled.
"I'm afraid..."
"...they'll attack something that was never meant to be their target."
"Or even the people in our village."
Silence settled across the grassland.
Akhzan flicked his wings.
Tura tilted his head toward Nurlan as though listening to every word.
Saigal lowered his head quietly, almost as if he understood his master's dilemma.
Nurlan looked at the three of them.
Then back at his father.
Finally, he gave a small nod.
At the time, the boundary his father drew seemed reasonable.
---
BACK TO THE ARENA
The trees around him stood stripped bare.
Stone temples were cracked from countless explosions.
Dasamuka's blood flooded the ground like a crimson marsh.
Nurlan stood tall, his face hardened by loss.
He looked toward Saigal—
the last falcon still alive.
"Father... you were afraid they'd hurt innocent creatures, weren't you?" he murmured to himself.
His gaze slowly rose toward the giant.
The five remaining heads continued roaring, unleashing deafening screams that shook the air itself.
Yet Nurlan's ears barely reacted anymore.
Perhaps he had simply grown used to the sound.
Or perhaps...
they were already damaged beyond repair.
"But this creature..."
His eyelids shut briefly as he struggled against the tears threatening to spill.
"...is no innocent creature, Father."
His eyes opened again.
Sharp.
Clear.
Cold.
Like steel forged within the mountains.
"They're demons..."
"...who murdered my friends."
He raised the whistle once more—
the very melody his father had once begged him to abandon.
A melody he had perfected with his own hands.
Saigal, the last remaining falcon, spread his wings and launched skyward with the courage of a battle-hardened veteran.
The whistle sang again.
Not soft as it once had been.
Nor majestic like the days when all three falcons still flew together.
This time...
its melody was incomplete.
The first note shrieked through the air.
It should have been Tura's cue to cut off the enemy's escape.
But no small shadow slipped through the trees.
No fluttering wings created the illusion of shifting positions.
The second note trembled.
It should have signaled Akhzan to dive with impossible speed.
Yet the sky remained empty.
No dark streak carved through the clouds.
Hearing the familiar melody, Saigal did his best.
He beat his wings and circled overhead, trying to recreate the formation they had practiced for years.
But without the other two...
the pattern collapsed.
His movements became rough.
His turns lost their precision.
His attack path opened countless vulnerabilities.
The once-perfect triangle had crumbled into a single fragile point.
Saigal dived from the right.
One of Dasamuka's heads twisted its massive body and swept the air aside.
The gust alone was enough to throw Saigal off balance.
Nurlan blew another sequence—
shorter.
Faster.
It had always been Tura's signal to create a feint.
But Tura was gone.
Saigal veered left with no distraction to cover him.
And Dasamuka—
once overwhelmed by attacks from three different directions—
now had only one bird to watch.
For the first time since entering the arena...
the giant began to understand the pattern.
Or perhaps all he needed was to focus on a single brown silhouette crossing the sky.
One head tracked the rhythm of Saigal's left wing.
Another measured his altitude.
A third listened for the whistle's cadence.
Every eye fixed upon a single target.
"Come on... come on..."
"You should've dived farther to the left..."
Nurlan clenched his teeth and blew again.
The third melody—
once Akhzan's signal to strike from above.
Without Akhzan, Saigal was forced into a role that had never been his.
He climbed higher.
Circled once.
Then folded his wings into a steep dive.
The three heads perched above Dasamuka's shoulders locked onto him.
Their eyes, still bloodshot from the sand, burned with furious determination.
Two pairs of hands clawed wildly through the air.
Saigal twisted desperately, trying to escape the tightening trap.
The pattern had become too predictable.
Nurlan blew harder.
Faster.
Louder.
More desperately.
Sweat rolled down his face.
His jaw tightened.
"Come on... Saigal... please..."
"We've done this thousands of times..."
But without Tura to create an opening...
Without Akhzan to deliver the finishing strike...
Every strategy Nurlan had built over the years had been reduced to a single, predictable attack.
Saigal dived.
Dasamuka swatted.
Saigal spun away.
Dasamuka unleashed another thunderous roar.
Saigal climbed again.
Dasamuka battered the sky itself.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The human spectators bit their lips.
Some turned their faces away, unable to watch a lone boy and a single bird struggle against a monster that was finally learning every one of their moves.
Worse still...
Dasamuka, once nothing more than a mindless brute, had begun to think.
"This is bad..." a human soldier whispered.
"He only has one bird left..."
"How can he possibly survive...?"
Johan simply watched.
A cold patience lingered across his face.
He understood a little about the giant's anatomy—
assuming, however unlikely, that it resembled a human body.
Black blood continued to drip from Dasamuka's wounds like endless rain.
Every drop spilled from the claw marks Saigal had carved.
From the tiny bite wounds around his eyelids.
From the shallow cuts his wings had managed to inflict early in the battle...
Every wound meant one thing.
A body that massive cannot afford to keep losing blood, Johan murmured silently.
Yes.
Exhaustion.
That was the plan.
All he needed...
was time.
And all he could do now...
was pray.
Pray that Nurlan understood the signal.
That the shepherd boy could read the silence behind the strategy.
That Saigal—
the last companion still flying—
could endure for just a few moments longer.
Because the final plan was simple.
Wait.
Wait until Dasamuka collapsed from blood loss.
Or wait...
until Saigal was crushed in the giant's grasp.
...
A gentle breeze drifted across the arena as Saigal descended once more.
The old falcon glided slowly toward Nurlan.
His wings trembled.
His feathers were disheveled.
His eyes had grown dull.
He landed softly upon Nurlan's arm, the impact sounding almost like an exhausted sigh.
"Saigal...?"
Nurlan whispered in disbelief.
He hadn't called him back.
He hadn't given him permission to return.
Yet the falcon—
who had never once disobeyed the melody of his whistle—
had finally surrendered to the limits of his own body.
With trembling hands, Nurlan reached up and gently stroked Saigal's head.
The feathers that had always stood proudly now felt cold...
and limp.
Saigal slowly closed his eyes.
He pressed his beak against Nurlan's fingers, almost as if apologizing for no longer having the strength to continue.
The tears Nurlan had fought so desperately to suppress finally fell.
One drop.
Then another.
Then they flowed without end.
"I'm sorry, Saigal..."
"I'm so sorry..."
His voice cracked.
But tears healed nothing.
They gave him no strength.
They were merely the despair of a young boy watching the final moments of his last companion.
In the distance, Dasamuka staggered forward.
Though he had lost rivers of blood...
he was still a giant.
He still possessed enough strength to outlast an aging falcon.
Nurlan hugged Saigal tightly against his chest.
His arms trembled.
Then he drew a long breath.
Swallowed his tears.
And looked toward a low tree branch beside him.
"Saigal... listen to me," he whispered.
He carefully placed the falcon upon the branch.
Saigal perched unsteadily, his talons barely gripping the wood with what little strength remained.
Nurlan looked into his eyes.
His own were red and swollen.
Yet all hesitation had vanished.
A resolve far older than his years began to grow within him.
The resolve of a boy who had lost his closest friends.
The resolve he had once sworn to every name that had already faded away.
His hands began mixing another explosive.
His movements were clumsy.
They trembled.
Yet years of practice still guided them.
This time...
the explosive was different.
The powder sphere grew larger.
And larger.
Until it was the size of a basketball in the hands of a teenage boy.
Each layer he wrapped around its surface drew fresh tears from his eyes.
One layer...
one hope.
One knot...
one regret.
One steady breath...
one prayer that this would not become the final order he ever gave.
When it was finished...
it felt as though he was holding a world he was about to destroy with his own hands.
He returned to Saigal.
The old falcon looked back at his master through half-closed eyes.
"Saigal..."
Nurlan's voice broke.
He lifted the massive sphere and secured its straps across the falcon's chest.
His hands shook violently.
As though he were placing the weight of the entire world upon his oldest friend.
"Forgive me," he whispered, gently stroking Saigal's head one last time.
"This order is selfish."
"...Terribly selfish."
A faint, bitter smile appeared on his face.
"You may rest."
A single tear landed upon Saigal's beak.
"You may miss your target."
His small hand gently clasped one of the falcon's wings.
"You may stop in midair if you need to."
The wind whispered around them, as though listening.
"But..."
Nurlan closed his eyes.
"...you cannot refuse this command."
And without giving Saigal time to breathe...
Without granting him even a single extra second to recover...
Nurlan thrust his arm toward the sky.
The whistle screamed once—
short.
Clear.
Leaving no room for choice.
Saigal took flight once more.
His weary wings spread open.
And though they trembled...
Though he nearly fell...
Though death had already wrapped its hand around his back...
He flew.
Following his master's command.
Perhaps...
for the very last time.