by Sadie Swift
“Help!” I screamed, with what felt like almost my last breath before my lungs were crushed. Would Sir Percival be able to come to my aid?
“No!” cried Glenys from behind me.
Oh, no! Would this make her change into a fierce beast and attack me as well? Would it be better if she killed me first before I was eaten alive?
“No!” Her voice seemed to have changed slightly.
I tried my best to bash my gun against the beak but flailing tentacles kept getting in the way.
“No!” Her voice had definitely changed, to a higher pitch.
Ripping sounds reached me. What was she turning into?
The inexorable pull and twist on my body by the tentacles meant that I had to let go of the luggage rack or have my arm dislocated. But maybe I could use it to my advantage?
I let go and used the sudden jerk towards the octopus’s mouth to force my gun past its other tentacles and jam the barrel into it. The hard beak closed upon it futilely trying to cut it in half.
The octopus’s other eye appeared and looked at me. And then upwards.
Splintering sounds came from above me. Whatever Glenys was turning into was big if she was pushing against the roof of the carriage!
“What?” cried Sir Percival in surprise from outside. “What’s happening in there?”
“An octopus is trying to eat me!”
“But what’s coming through the roof?!”
“I don’t know, and at the moment don’t care!”
The octopus’s other tentacles desperately came at me trying to remove the gun from its gullet. But I frantically forced my gun further into its mouth to try hurt it as much as I could. I pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
Bits of splintered wood from the carriage roof fell down upon me. What on earth was she?
The loudest scream I’d ever heard assaulted my eardrums. Something grabbed the tentacle wrapped around my chest and I suddenly fell to the floor as it released me. Still holding my gun and gasping for breath I looked past Glenys’ torn discarded clothes, and up.
The largest bird of prey I’d ever seen looked down at me.
Twenty-Five
It’s fearsome-looking curved beak flashed down at me and I closed my eyes. But it hadn’t gone for me, but the tentacle around my legs. It was helping to free me?
It screamed again and the remaining tentacles released me. I felt the carriage jolt as the octopus let go and fell onto the snowy road. I wouldn’t want a huge bird of prey attacking me either. But would it?
The bird raised its shoulders ready to stretch its wings. Because of its size and strength it split what remained of the roof and sides of the carriage in half. Glass and wood fell to the road behind us, and more wind and snow swirled in.
“Oh my god!” cried Sir Percival when he looked round to see what was going on.
“It’s Glenys!”
“Is she going to eat us?!”
“She saved me from the octopus!”
“So she could eat us?!”
That was certainly a question.
With more space available she spread her wings wide and seemed to give a joyful cry at being free. Flapping her enormous wings broke more of the carriage away. The down-draft from her wings pushed me against the rear seat, which would shortly be in danger of breaking off and falling behind us as well.
Still with her wings outstretched she regarded me. Then slowly lifted her feathery right leg. I saw her fearsome talons had scratched deep furrows into the floor. Was she going to stab me and tear me apart with them? But for some reason my internal warning system had decreased from the screaming migraine phase to only ‘get out!’. But why had it gone mad earlier? My subconscious informed me in a haughty manner – it was because of the beasts outside, not inside.
Through the splits in the carriage sides I saw great fierce bears and lions and wolves running over the snow alongside us.
She shook the leg she still had in the air. Was I meant to do something with it? But what? I took a guess, “Do you want me to hold it?”
Her great head nodded.
The strong wind pushed at the rear of the carriage roof, ready to tear it off. If I didn’t go now then I’d be food for the beasts outside when the carriage broke apart.
I quickly crawled over to the proffered leg and wrapped my arms and legs around it, sitting on the foot itself. It felt rough and hard, but the soft feathers provided some help against the cold wind swirling around us.
With a loud cry Glenys leapt into the air to land behind Sir Percival with a thump! The movement had taken me by surprise and I’d nearly fallen off. Quickly I retightened my grip.
“Grab a leg, Sir Percival!”
“What?!”
“Glenys is rescuing us!”
He glanced back at me, a look of shock on his face at seeing me wrapped round an enormous bird’s leg, then up at the giant bird of prey looking down at him. Quickly making a decision he bent over and did something by his feet and then scrambled up over the seat and the remaining front half of the carriage. While he wrapped himself around Glenys’ other leg I saw past him the horses still harnessed together separating from the carriage. He’d released them.
But would she still be able to take off with our heavy weights dragging her down? And how would I cope with being so high in the air with nothing below me! Fear rushed through me at what I knew was going to happen.
Now with no-one to steer it the carriage headed straight towards empty space past a sharp curve in the road. Had we been plucked to safety only to fall to our deaths?
The great bird flapped its wings and gave a loud cry.
We didn’t move.
“Come on, Glenys!” I shouted into the wind and snow.
The front wheels of the carriage left the road and we tipped down. Glenys bent her legs and jumped just as the carriage flew out into empty air to fall into the chasm and be smashed to smithereens at the bottom. I squeezed my eyes shut, buried my face into the leg feathers and screamed as we also plummeted down.
Twenty-Six
I kept my eyes squeezed shut and the tightest grip I could manage on Glenys’ leg. It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d had my legs firmly wrapped round another girl’s, but it was without doubt one of the most unusual.
It still felt like we were falling. But I didn’t want to open my eyes to check.
“What’s happening, Sir Percival?!”
“We’re gliding! I think the bird is looking for an updraft!”
No, it wasn’t Glenys’ leg he was holding tightly onto, it was a, far safer, bird’s.
“Are the horses safe?!”
“If you’d just look, Miss Lovelady. Oh… Yes, the horses are safe and running down the road. For all I know they’re just more villagers.”
“And what of the beasts following us?”
“They’re stopped at the edge of the road and appear to be roaring and howling at us.”
“We’re safe then?”
“Well, we are hanging off…” He paused, then quickly continued, “Yes, very safe. Very.”
I felt it best to go with that.
A niggling question poked at my mind - why hadn’t Glenys killed me? Why save me from the octopus? Admittedly I was glad to be still alive and not in chunks inside its stomach, but the question puzzled me.
The cold air found gaps in my clothing and chilled parts of me, especially my legs. But there was no chance at all of me loosening my grip just to be slightly more comfortable.
I felt a lessening in our descent and hoped that Glenys had found an updraft she could use.
“Are we still falling, Sir Percival?”
“Yes, but less so.”
Sounded good to me. Maybe there was still a chance we’d survive!
Glenys said she was the most recent person to have a ball in her honour. Maybe the change she’d been forced to have was yet in the early stages, and she still retained most of her human soul whilst in her bird form? Perhaps if w
e’d arrived a few weeks or months later the transformation would have been more complete and she’d have killed me, and then Sir Percival? Was this what happened to Mrs Lloyd? When she was in her white bear form didn’t she know what she was doing and therefore hadn’t realised she’d killed Dewi?
I felt Glenys’ great wings flap above my head. I hoped she’d be able to fly with us hanging from her legs.
Another thought came to me – the statues we’d pilfered. The female one I had, and whatever one Sir Percival had taken (probably male and muscular). What if they also provided us with some sort of mystical protection?
“I don’t think the flapping worked, Miss Lovelady. I think she’s taken to gliding down the mountain.”
“Is it still safe?”
“Yes. The less distance we have to fall the better chance of survival.”
Sometimes he said the nicest things.
“What will we do when we land, Sir Percival? Should we tell the Department what happened? I’m worried that we’re proving too difficult for them to deal with. What with our tendency to… be in close proximity when things get destroyed.”
“We do seem to have had a rather rum run of bad luck recently.”
“But Venice was nice. At the end.”
“Indeed.”
We gripped onto Glenys’ legs in silence while fond memories of Casanova’s descendents played on in our minds.
“I see the lights of a town ahead of us. The bird seems to be aiming for it.”
“The sooner we’re down onto solid ground the better.”
I felt Glenys’ descent, and relief that we were going to land shortly. “We should at least let the Department know about the loss of Mr and Mrs Lloyd. And the house.”
“And the apparatus.”
“And the village.”
“Indeed, it’s only polite to let them know.”
“Where shall we head to after we land? I’ve rather gone off mountains.”
“There are several towns along the North Wales coast where we could wait for the Department’s reply. There’s Bangor, of course, and Colwyn Bay…”
At that point I rather tuned Sir Percival’s recitation of the coastal towns of North Wales out as I felt Glenys’ huge wings flapping, hopefully to slow our descent ready to come in to land safely.
I jolted back to the present at a word Sir Percival had just said.
“What was that, Sir Percival?”
“Hmm, what? Oh, you were actually taking notice of what I was saying? I mentioned Rhyll.”
That was the place Glenys had mentioned to me earlier. The one with the reputation.
“What if we stayed at Rhyll?” I could certainly do with some ‘reputation’, as ladies of a similar inclination to myself were non-existent in the village I’d accidentally destroyed. I knew, I’d looked. Assiduously.
“As a temporary destination while the Department determine what to do with us?”
“Yes.” But if I could find what Glenys insinuated perhaps longer?
In a flurry of wings and a bump and a loud squawk I felt the bird’s feet meet solid ground beneath me. We’d landed. And survived. What would the bird do now? Would she join us in the potentially dubious delights of Rhyll? If she did then in a few moments there’d be a whole lot of Glenys in full view of Sir Percival.
We unwrapped our stiff bodies from her legs and slowly stood up. It was snowless and far warmer down at ground level. I looked up into the huge bird face and said, “Thank you, Glenys.”
Her great head turned to look at the mountains we’d come from, and then back at Sir Percival and I. Seeming to have decided something, strange sounds began to emerge from her mouth as her large body began to vibrate, slowly increasing in intensity.
I couldn’t look away from the unnatural sight of her changing, shrinking from huge bird of prey to human. Before I knew it she stood before me naked, her legs and arms wobbly. I rushed over and wrapped her in my arms before she fell to the ground.
“Coat, Sir Percival!”
“What?”
I saw he’d turned his back from the unnerving sight of Glenys’ transformation.
“Give her your coat.”
“I shall do no such–! What?! Unhand me, woman!”
Sometime I counted to ten, and sometimes taking action was more suited.
***
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Who do the Court of Crows use to carry out their judgements?
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Why do they use me?
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Killing monsters is all very well but you don’t understand the meaning of the word ‘monsters’ until the Court of Crows use you.
The Court of Crows is not something you want to experience more than once. But you have no choice if they want something from you.
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This time the Court is split on a judgement.
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Think again.
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The Court of Crows is not something you want to experience more than once.
But you have no choice if they want something from you.
You have no say about where they send you,
or even when they send you.
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but we’re the first they call if there’s a monster that needs killing.
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