Bodies fell from the city wall and the bone eaters rose. They took to the air in a flurry of feathers and white down, remnants of their last meals hanging still from their beaks, staining them with black and red. They filled my ears with their hacking cry as they fought one another for their claims or defending that which they had taken. The moist sounds of beaks digging in flesh as they sought the bones they were promised. At the top of the hill, a soft crunch as bones collapsed within beak and an adversary fell to the pile, defeated.