by Kim Wedlock
A brief grunt pulled their attention towards the Tree, but while Nug first frowned at the sweat on Rathen's skin and the dampening of his shirt, his eyes widened inordinately as they fell upon the tiny black pyramid floating between his palms. In an instant, he and every other ditchling around them came rushing to the mage's side, heedless of Aria's warning for them to leave him be. But Rathen didn't seem to notice them.
Ever since their interference at Dolunokh, magic seemed intent on smothering him. Every detail Rathen had felt on their first visit to this forest had been enhanced, and it took every ounce of strength he could muster to keep it from burying him. Even as he focused himself entirely upon the spell rotating in his hands, he could feel its domineering presence towering over him from all sides, and an itch of panic at the back of his mind, a desperate worry that something had happened to him, being stuck in that unnatural place for so long. It was a burdening concern that had grown for weeks, that had swelled with his episode by the lake four days ago, and Nug's comments had only inflamed it.
He caught himself. If he dwelled on those thoughts he would slip beneath it all. He had to focus. The sooner the spell was complete, the sooner he could breathe...
While the ditchlings stared at the device in awe, Petra, Garon, Anthis and Aria looked closely around at the grove. While the Zi'veyn floated with eerie calm between the mage's hands, something had to change.
The ditchlings suddenly snapped around, startling them as their giant eyes swept across the forest in a mixture of panic and hope, but each nest-, lichen- and twig-matted head moved independently, peering around on their own whims rather than by the rousing of one collective thought.
The others looked even closer.
Then, as suddenly as the magic had first struck them, its resonating influence ceased. The grove became a site of destruction. The sunlight transformed into a brutal illumination of the battles of time and magic, the raindrops became the tears of the trees, the stone a crumbling remnant of an age and people long since lost, its modesty and honour never to rise again.
But in amongst that devastation, the crooked tree with its woven ornaments and incredible branches still took their breath away. In that moment, each understood what true natural beauty was, even in its imperfection.
A ragged gasp snatched free from Rathen's lips and he staggered forwards, crumbling to his knees.
Aria was quick to catch him, and one twig-antlered ditchling the Zi'veyn as it tumbled to the side. Anthis was just as quick to snatch it from him.
The grove hung silent for a long, dissecting moment. Every ear listened, every eye probed, and every mind considered, but the magic, it seemed, had truly vanished. The childlike creatures' collective sigh of relief eased the warm air, lifted the blanket of tension, and masked the rustle of leaves high above them. A welcome gust of wind brushed over their skin.
It was already too late.
A cry of rage erupted from the ditchlings, and the ground fell away from human feet. Alarm spread; Garon and Petra each tried to reach for their swords and Anthis his dagger, but the taloned grip that snared and spread their arms prevented any from getting close. Only the two mages could have provided any defence, but each were too addled by the magic to do so. Aria screamed, and while she could grasp her wooden sword, she simply didn't think to.
The ditchlings scurried across the ground beneath them like ants as the six were dragged sharply above the trees, whooping and bellowing and following as quickly as they could. But their abductors were moving too quickly, covering too much distance. In seconds, all sight of the clearing had vanished.
Those who were able struggled and shouted in the harpies' grasps, but they paid little attention; their enormous wingbeats were too powerful to be hindered by the writhing of prey even two thirds their own size.
"Garon," Anthis yelled venomously, "a plan?!"
But the inquisitor didn't respond. He stared hard into their heading across the green expanse of the forest, gathering what bearings he could. Wrenroot was at their back and left, while the trees thinned and stopped a ways to their right. Which meant that they were heading right back in the direction they had come. And with every wingbeat propelling them about ten paces a second, they would cover half a mile in nine minutes.
He looked back towards Rathen, but the awareness in his eyes was compromised by fatigue. He was thinking, clearly trying to bring himself to do something, but it wouldn't come soon enough.
Garon tried again to reach for his sword, and looked fleetingly towards Eyila. But to his surprise, the absence in her eyes was fading as quickly as Wrenroot behind them. She looked around them, looked beneath, looked above, and grinned.
"Huai'a ua Aya'u tai!"
With a startling jolt, their altitude began to drop, and the canopy surged up towards them.
"What are you doing?!" Petra yelled, kicking her legs in growing alarm as the branches rushed closer, but there came no answer from anyone, tribal or beast. They braced themselves and plummeted through the trees, scratched by branches, whipped by leaves, and were cast hard against the ground like rag dolls.
Anthis cursed as he landed on his shoulder, Petra grunted as she manoeuvred her legs and landed on her knees, Rathen hissed as he landed on his back; Garon staggered, grounding his heels, and managed to twist and catch Aria who had been about to crash head-first, softening her blow even as the impact finally sent him down. Eyila was the only one to land gracefully upon her feet.
Weapons rang free in a heartbeat, but as they leapt, spun and backed up tightly together for safety, shoving Aria and her frantic warning not to look into their eyes into the centre, the harpies alighted out of reach in the trees.
They found themselves suddenly ringed into an arena of sharp talons and sharper beaks, of savage yellow eyes that fixed each individual with a deadly consideration, watching closely, silently, weighing out who would should be dismembered first, and who should be saved for last.
They grouped up even tighter. Knuckles turned white over weapons, spell fingers flexed and loosened. Their hearts raced, eyes flicked about, and tried in their panic to work out where the first attack would come from.
But for all their readiness, when a sudden gale beat them down from above, all they could do was cower and watch as three pairs of long black talons descended from the treetops, rushing bared and open towards them.
Chapter 24
Death whipped sharply overhead. It thundered in their ears. The power of its single wingbeat was enough both to flood their lungs and snatch their breath away, and snap, should it wish, a delicately tethered lifeline.
But though they braced, paralysed by the blustering force, death did not pierce, nor puncture, nor rend.
One by one, as the zephyr abated, they dared to open their eyes.
The arena had changed.
Suddenly no longer sleek nor violently poised, the harpies that encircled them had become a curious sight of splayed feathers, bowed heads and tucked, inverted wings; a myriad of brown, red and beige quills spread out like ornamental fans in the midst of a sinister forest.
In spite of themselves, none could help but stare. It was only then that they realised they'd never truly seen these creatures, these expert hunters, these silent pursuers who had tracked them so relentlessly. In a fevered heartbeat, they discovered that they were not as bestial as they had thought. And that unsettled them all the more.
Beneath proud, raptorial chests, their torsos were strikingly human; their waists were narrow, hips wide, and their long legs and arms were as defined as any of their own. But those arms were sheathed in feathers, and those legs ended in avian feet adorned with seven-inch talons that promised a quick execution. Their faces, too, were a strange mixture of man and bird, with clear cheekbones yet mouths that hooked into sharp beaks, belying any ability to speak despite evidence to the contrary. And, though no one dared look at them directly, eyes both rational and deliberate but for a predatory amber colouring.
For the briefes
t moment, there passed the idea that they might just be able to reason with them.
Until the only harpy not to participate in the display caught their eye. And she had not been there a moment ago.
Instinctively, they each flinched back from her presence.
Larger than the others, in both size and demeanour, her feathers were brighter, perfectly preened and tended, and mottled with illustrious streaks of gold, copper and bronze that shimmered in the freckles of light seeping through the unyielding canopy. Perched tall upon the only bough to have been left unoccupied, flanked by two others who mirrored the brilliance of the rest of the aerie, she herself was a sight of deadly splendour.
A ruthless stare fired down the length of her menacing, rending beak. They shrank further beneath her scrutiny, and drew even closer together. Suddenly, the entrapping danger had swelled.
But still, nothing happened.
Garon was the first to steel himself. He took a single, powerful step forwards, his sword held firm in his left where his grip was still sure, right hand loose for support, and confronted the regal beast with such an unwavering confidence that, for once, his unreasonably relentless supremacy really had to be commended. "What do you want with us?"
But his words were met only with that same steely gaze.
Glances passed behind him. He didn't break his stance.
It was a long moment before the harpy's head finally twitched. It was a movement as sharp and halting as an eagle's, and her frightful eyes glinted in the light. A hissing squawk sounded in her throat. Her beak opened, and a voice both shrill and husky rattled eerily out from its depths, as though it did not belong to her. "Why did you calm the forest?"
"Because it was a hazard," he replied no less firmly.
"And those rodents let you do it?"
"Rodents? The ditchlings?"
"Of course they let us," Rathen stepped forwards cautiously, ignoring Garon's commanding look and Aria's squeaky warning, "it was destroying their home. That's all we've been trying to do since you--"
Another hiss, and in a flash of feathers her two attendants swept down from their perch to loom above them on the ground, beaks poised and wings splayed. Each of them recoiled.
She hissed again. "What are they planning?"
"Easy, okay," Rathen bared his hands appeasingly while the others raised their weapons, "calm down. We don't know what they're planning."
"You lie. Why did you get involved? Why did you choose their side? Why massacre us? What are the 'ditchlings' offering you? Or is it simply that they look more like you than we?"
"They're not--we aren't--we didn't choose--"
Garon silenced the mage's confusion. "By 'massacre', do you mean--"
She flared, her own magnificent wings bursting wide, huge and menacing in the confines of the forest, spanning the entire bough. Again, everyone flinched. "Humans skulking in the woods. Burning our eyries in the dead of night. Slaughtering us while we sleep, while we hunt; our old, our young. Our dronn'vaen." Her eyes burned with an inferno of accusation and hatred. It fell solely upon Rathen as he dared to step forwards again, ignoring once more the inquisitor's whispered command.
"If I may - do you have a name?" Nothing. He sighed and calmed the near-debilitating thudding of his heart. "All right. If we had allied with the ditchlings, and if we were responsible for the attacks on non-humans, why would the ditchlings also be falling to these massacres?"
"We cannot claim to know what the motives of such strange, private creatures could be. You hide and scheme behind walls and all that breaks free of those walls is violence, murdering anything you encounter, even one another."
"Hard to argue with that," Anthis mumbled. Rathen and Garon each shot him an ominous look.
"I assure you, our involvement in your feud wasn't intentional, it just happened. We were moving through Wrenroot to work out how to fix the magic there, and other places besides. The ditchlings found us and wouldn't let us in because they thought we might make it worse, so they came along to keep an eye on us. When we'd finished and were already going on our merry way, we happened upon one of your kin attacking one of theirs and we simply stepped in to stop it - so neither side got hurt."
"You did not know what you were meddling in. You had no right to get involved!"
He braced against the shriek. "We realise that now. But why did that grant you leave to hunt us down if you knew we were uninformed? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you didn't seem as though you were chasing after us to talk."
"We were not."
Rathen nodded slowly while a spark of dread rose in everyone else's gut. He attempted a placating smile. "If I may ask, what do you know about this magic?"
All around, the surrounding harpies looked uncertainly towards their leader. But she didn't acknowledge their gazes. Her yellow eyes were fixed upon the humans, keen and pensive, weighing out how much to divulge to these interlopers, if anything at all for fear it may be used against them.
Finally, she sat taller and lifted her head to look even further down her beak. "We know only that it is their doing."
"The ditchlings?"
"No. Their Lady. She and her sisters are trying to drive us out of our homes."
"Why?"
"We need not explain ourselves to you!" She shrieked. "Now tell us: how did you calm the forest?"
"You expect us to--"
"Anthis, don't." Rathen held out his hand and, after another silent look of urgency, received from the begrudging historian the onyx relic. He held it out towards her. "With this."
Cautiously, the creatures peered closer. Even those bent in respect leaned forwards from their perches. She above all sharpened in scrutiny, and stared at it for a long moment. "What is it?" She finally asked, though her tone revealed some understanding of its significance.
Rathen, too, replied with thought. "It's a...spell in a box."
"A spell in a box. Why?"
"Because the spell is too powerful to be cast at will, so it sits in here, ready to be used when needed."
"And what does it do?"
"It sucks up magic that isn't supposed to be here."
"And how do you know the magic isn't 'supposed to be here'?"
"Because I've analysed it. It has no purpose."
"No purpose to you. The Lady will put it back."
"No, she won't."
"How can you know?"
"Because I'm a mage, I know these things. And I know that the magic is destroying lives - not just human, but that of harpies and ditchlings too, and all kinds of other creatures."
"Yes. Many. More than you could know."
"Mayi'i," another shrill, husky voice croaked suddenly from beside them, "Rötternas Moder would wish to know about this."
They looked back to the chief harpy, but she offered no explanation. She merely twitched her head, presumably in acknowledgement, while her eyes remained fixed upon the captives. "You know how the Lady's magic works?"
"No, not at all, why would we?"
"Because you removed it. How could you remove it if you do not know how it works?"
"Why does that matter?"
"Because it is the nature of all things. To end, it must begin; to know how something begins is to know how to end it. A heart beats, and can be stopped."
"...That makes sense," Rathen conceded, "but in this case it doesn't apply. This isn't a natural occurrence."
"It is the work of spirits. Humans cannot know how such magic works, and so you say it is unnatural. Unless of course you are lying, and using your magical knowledge to make it worse for their benefit." Without warning, she swept down from the bough herself, landing as close to them as her escorts had, thrashing them with the force of another single wingbeat. She loomed, eyes ablaze, and shrieked into their faces. "What are you planning?"
"Nothing!"
"You lie! You have travelled from one ravaged spot to another, conferring with those mice, seeking one another out, exchanging missives, and fleeing or attacking when
ever we should appear!"
"No! That's not--"
"You are the ones--"
"We've been trying to--"
"Enough!" Another stormy assault silenced the protests. The impossible strength battered them back, and in a single fluid motion she launched herself into the air and snatched the Zi'veyn in her talons. Rathen hissed as crimson blood trickled between his fingers. They were given no more time to react than that.
The surrounding harpies erupted into shrill cries and dove down upon them from the trees. Those two nearest immediately attacked Garon and Rathen, knocking them down with a stroke of their wings and pinning their hands to the ground with one foot while the other pressed their weight into their backs. Garon's sword flew from his hand as he struck the ground, and Rathen's were too far apart to form any spells. Petra was quick to attempt a counter-strike, but she, too, was struck from the back before she could bring down her sword, her wrists equally pinned. Anthis was thrown down easily, cursing, while Eyila pulled Aria close and lay voluntarily on the ground. The harpies were a touch more gentle with them.
Another wave of cries burst from the trees behind them, but these seemed to take even the attackers by surprise. And no wonder. These were not piercing avian voices. But rather than any sense of relief, the weight of dread in each of their stomachs doubled.
"Well well," she cawed in sardonic victory over the sound of the arriving chaos, her eyes falling accusingly upon the humans from her perch, "what is this? It seems your allies are here to rescue you!"
Half of their captors had already launched themselves off into the forest behind them, and there followed the immediate sound of rocks striking tree and feather, enraged screeching and rough voices bellowing and cursing - some quite clumsily.
The lead harpy glowered into the distance, the Zi'veyn ignored but still tight in her claws. The noise quickly drew closer, growing louder and more violent with every passing moment.
They felt the weight of their assailants shifting on their backs. They were distracted.
But before either Garon or Rathen could take advantage of it, the ditchlings burst in through the trees and the talons pinning them down pierced and contracted, eliciting howls of agony.
