Hellsborough Exposed

forktails are swallows by any off-world reckoning, except they don't stop hunting at murkfall, and I once watched one take a flutterby clean out of the air mid-stoop. The flit is no danger to anything person-sized. The colony is: hundreds nest under one bridge or overhang, and when they all leave together at murkfall it's a wall of wings at head height that will put you flat on a towpath before you've worked out what hit you.

Out near the bunker one Fecunder a box spoke to me, square and all sensors and flashing lights: "You have been detected and you're being monitored, please leave the area immediately." It's an automated Exacid device, a new step in law enforcement out there, and I never took an image, which I regret. Three moldenk were hanging about nearby, not the usual brace, and the whole place felt more like a crosslander enclave than anywhere in The Dark Peak has a right to.