Clayman’s Contract

For too long Nuka sat and watched the main access point of the temple. The golems still stood guard. His eagle spirit, Tsenahale, was inside, the calls from him faint and distant. Nuka was done waiting. Through the small underbrush Nuka ran from his hiding place to one prickly shrub then the next until her reached one side of the temple. The golems guarded the entrance and did not notice or care if he passed by. 

Nuka placed his head against the stone wall. “Mighty Tsenahale, have you found a place inside the stone you like better than the sky? Why have you not flown from this rubble and freed my fellow holders?” Nuka sent his thought through as loudly as he could.

“They do not have my wings. They are stuck as you weaklings often are.” Nuka heard the eagle answer.

Nuka put both hands on the ancient rocks and tried to feel something, anything, that might give him a clue on how to get inside. There must be another way, a back door, an escape hatch, a weak point. “Then we must break a hole for them. Use those forceful wings, your powerful talons, and your unyielding beak to test these old cakes of dried earth. Find me a weak spot. Rock crumbles in the wind, tell me where and we will remind old dirt where it belong, under your wings, under my feet.” 

Nuka waited sure that the bait had been set and his eagle would fly around inside, in and out of the stone walls as only he could, up and down the temple until he found a place where the walls were not as thick, or the mortar was lose, or the hidden side door found. As he waited he moved his hands over the walls and walked around to the back away from the guarded door.
 
Finally a loud screech of the magnificent bird of prey filled Nuka’s ears. His eagle rose from the ground one meter from the base of the back wall of the temple. With a quick circle in the air he landed right where he broke from the ground. Tsenahale shook his wings as if to shake the dust from his feathers. He twisted his head and gazed at Nuka before he began to preen. 

Nuka went to the spot and kick at the loose dirt. He fell to his knees and began to push away the top layers of sandy soil. There under the dirt was a single round wide link of metal. Nuka hoped he found that back door.