Sleetspur - The Axe Beak

Role in Its Society:

Sleetspur leads a loose-running string of axe beaks that haunt the windward flats where crusted snow carries their weight but not yours. They are opportunists and scavengers as much as hunters—shadowing mammoth herds, wolf packs, and caravans for dropped meat, then turning into stampeding lances when hunger bites. Raiders try to break them as mounts each winter; some succeed for a season before being outpaced, outkicked, or outsmarted. To tundra folk, Sleetspur is a weather sign: when her string runs early, the crust will hold; when she lingers near drifts, storms are coming.

Appearance Description:

An eight-foot-tall, flightless bird (most akin to an ostrich) with a wedge-sharp, hatchet-shaped beak; slate-to-black plumage glossed with a cold iridescence; and a frost-frayed crest that rises when she sights prey. Long, corded legs end in splayed, ice-black claws that bite into glaze without slipping. A pale scar rings her right ankle where a hobble once bit deep. Feathers around the thighs are short and dense—made for speed through sleet—and a spray of down collects rime after long runs.

Backstory:

Trapped as a fledgling by coast raiders, Sleetspur was hobbled and half-broken before a whiteout toppled the camp. She ran three days with the hobble, learning to snap cords with her beak and stamp hardware into slush. Now she raids hobble lines every thaw, shredding tethers and scattering penned birds before turning them feral. She has led her string through two “thin ice years,” learning the pitch of unsafe pans and the sparkle-dust that marks brittle crust.