The wind pulled hard as Targ climbed higher. The back draft from the cliff face ruffled his wing feathers, pulling each back against their pattern. This lifting was letting in the cold fingers of the Ice Queen.

dance, driven on the wind they sped towards him in the half-light of the late winter's afternoon. "Just a little more, just a little more - I must find her!"Then the wall of wind hit him. Over and over he tumbled like a dead leaf of an oak tree in the winds of this rawest weather of late December. The sky one moment above him, then inatantly below. His great wings were stretched as the joints between the bones clicked with the strain. Should he half close them? Dive for the shelter within the hollow, the safety below the ridge?It was useless trying to dive in this wind. Below he could see the edges of a blackened down-drought, building into a rage of released energy. To dive at speed into that would mean certain death. Unable to pull out of a high-speed dive, he realised he would be dashed against the rocks before he could even slow down. Targ was fighting for his very existence, stabilising his flight as best as he could, he made one last desperate decision.With the mightiest of effort, he turned into the 'black solid wind' and tried to use it for lift.Each time it turned him over, his tail feathers were just strong enough to counter the forces he was experiencing. He tried, again and again. Finally, told by the inner voice of his mind, he dropped his head as a counterbalance.Now, almost as if he was in a dive, with his wings stretched out he was blown increasingly faster upwards and upwards. It was as if he was in the power of three or more high velocity summer thermals.The pain chased throughout his body. For what seemed like an age he was shooting upwards, ignoring the pain caused by the energy he was fighting, it increased as he shot skywards. It was as if the base of his wings were creaking ready to snap as he saw, in the mist of snow and sleet, the top of the high ridge rushing towards him.Now he feared even worse danger, would he be able to even stop when he reached the top of the jagged ridge? Would he be able to survive this terror he was feeling? Even to alter his course without doing some damage, breaking a bone, tearing a muscle seemed impossible at such speed in this hazardous environment.In those last fatal moments Targ found the answer to the questions that had tormented him during the last few terrifying minutes. It was not what to do, but how to survive long enough to do anything in this maelstrom.The solid breaker of wind rushed at him over the ridge, from the hidden side of Cwm Brwynog. It struck him, just as he neared the top of his climb.At the most critical moment, as he prepared to land, there was a terrible pain, which shot across the right side of his breast muscle. Suddenly his wing went limp, powerless. At this speed it meant certain death, he knew that. After all, had his father not told him when he was a fledgling, this was the most dangerous and fateful of accidents that could befall an Eagle.Targ fell from the sky! Dashed like drifting seaweed, carried in an ocean breaker against the cliffs, the eagle struck the rocks.. Only here in this mountain maelstrom, it was an eagle that would have been crashing against the shoreline off Bardsey Island in a winter storm. Targ crashed against the wet shinning black cliff face, but a stones throw from the lip of the ridge.The Ice Queen watched in delight as Targ fell. There was almost a strange laughter within the scream of the wind. Feathers, wings, legs and claws, tumbled between the rocks. Then suddenly there was peace in his mind. Lying there, amidst the howling fingers of the December wind. On the last day of the year, he lay still, daring not to try and move. Questions raced through his mind. He asked himself – what was broken? What was damaged? What would be the cause of his impending slow lingering death, as he lay alone here in the doom filled coldness of mid-winter? Isolated here on the high ridge, fretting for his beloved Sanna. He thought feebly,"Oh, Sanna, where were you, where did you go to - I told you not to fly high, I told you there was a storm brewing."Targ had told her there would be no time before darkness to seek a meal to relieve the fasting, this ravaging hunger of winter. Oh, if only she had listened. He lay there seemingly lost to life. Desperate at the realisation of his plight he tried cautiously to move. Searching fingers of wind were pushing against his feathers, to allow sleet and snowflakes to enter beneath his topcoat and to soak his inner thermal down. He felt the chill, heard the mocking laughter again of the Ice Queen on the wind."I must try to keep warm." He tried to move. The harsh pain was so powerful he felt dizzy.At last, managing to pull himself up against a boulder, sheltered by its overhang, exhausted and weak he lost consciousness. When he awoke he had no idea how long he had laid there. The light had faded and darkness had descended on the mountains. The wind has rushed off to the east, to cities, motorways, taking the sleet, and snowflakes with it. Now the Ice Queen busied herself making chaos in another part of the ancient Kingdom of Britain.At last he opened his eyes again. He tried to move but the pain was so great."Oh Sanna, Oh Sanna…… OH!" Targ drifted off into the forgetful haze again.It seemed as if he was flying in the warm wind of summer, moving upwards and along the edge of a cliff. Below him he could see every field, hedgerow, rabbit, mouse. He could see and hear the songbirds in the top-most branches of distant trees. Away in the distance, the river tumbled over rocks as the Heron stood waiting for a convenient snack, a fish, to pass by its reed like legs.He could see, far off, to the south, A farmer high on the skyline on the majestic and historic mountain of Aran. He was herding his sheep with his dog's. Oh, but the slopes of that mountain held secrets from ancient men that the Eagles could, would, never forget. Oh what the Romans had destroyed all those thousands of years ago?He could see the thin strips of little grey roads crossing the brown and rust coloured hillsides and valleys. Away to the north, on the ridges, small specks were moving along the skyline, walkers, and hikers, busy leisure seekers.There were bright spots of colour that created a discord in his vision. He realised they were empty drink cans and potato crisp packets, discarded by thoughtless humans at the side of tracks and roads. It seemed as if they stood out like 'day-glow' sirens of the pollution and ravages of human kind against this beautiful green carpet of nature.Targ looked away into the distance, as only eagles can do, and saw the far off towns and cities, the smoke haze of dirty polluted urban air. Above him white cotton-wool clouds, set in the highest of blue sky, drifted on a zephyr of summer wind within his dream of peace. As he watched, gently these clouds swirled towards the mountains from the western ocean. Then there were the sounds. The noise, the screech, startled Targ. In his dazed state he realised it was the call of Sanna. Far off, distant, he could hear her cry, "Targ – Targ?"Suddenly, he awoke opening his eyes. The dizziness had gone, it was a moon-glowed night, with the sort of cold white light of mid-winter in the mountains that brings fear to beast and man exposed to the anger of the elements..Again he heard the cry. In the darkness of the grey light below, "Targ, Targ!"His soul filled with hope and joy. Yes, it was Sanna, it was! With all the energy he could gather a feeble cry escaped from his beak – "Sanna – Sanna!" In the stillness, the blackness of the valley below, he heard his own shaken, exhausted cry echo in desperate return towards him. No, he had imagined. Her cry had been but a dream.