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“No!” Her voice is unpleasantly merry, as if from a secret joke. “Thatwill not do.”
Ajax whinnies and stamps, wanting to be gone; I feel thesame.
I lick my dry lips and put the cup away. I do not wish to part with my father’s ring to this fetid creature, but I will if I must.
“This, then.” I hold it up. “It is gold. A family heirloom.”
“You wish to trade in petty baubles?” She laughs, and now I hear the dry, scratching cackle. Her head turns upward toward the skies.
“Sisters! Come! We must collect.”
The two other distant shapes begin to wheel and drop.
“I have offered you what I have!” I shout, but my voice is lost under the flurry and flapping of wings. “Take what I have or let me pass, there is nothing else I can give you!”
I cover my head with my arms as her companions descend, falling like stones from a great height. A shrieking laugh pierces the air, and one of them calls out behind me.
“Give us what you wear around your neck,” she cackles. “That, mortal,is the treasure we seek.”
Chapter Thirty
There’s a rush of wings, a sudden blindness all around me. A foul, thick sound, chafing and rustling, like rats scurrying in the dark. I can’t breathe.
I duck as low in the saddle as I can, and slide an arrow from the quiver—one of the cedar-woods. I struggle to notch it while their wings flap around me and my heart beats wildly. I feel a talon at my neck, scrabbling. The harpy will gladly hurt me, but that isn’t her first goal: what she wants is the Shroud, to lift it from my neck and carry it off.
Does she know what it is? Can she tell?
“Move, Ajax,” I whisper.
He pushes through the circle of beating wings and the harpies rise a few feet, cackling, then easily regroup. They have the advantage and they know it.
“Faster,” I whisper to the horse, securing my arrow, steadying my grip. It will be better if I am a moving target: they will not trap us quite so easily, then. But shooting from a galloping horse will not enhance my aim.
“You think you can run from us?” One of them swoops down, and I feel the scrape of her talon against my skin, and feathers, oily and rough. Without looking, I know she’s drawn blood—but she doesn’t have the Shroud. The leather string stays fast around my neck. The harpy’s claws are fierce, but made for tearing apart prey, not for delicate tasks like this.
Which is little comfort, I realize: she can always tear me apart first, then take the charm after.
Another of them makes ready to swoop, but before she doesI show her the bow I’m pointing toward her.
“I carry the arrows of a god,” I shout. “Do not test me!”
They only laugh. Two of them wheel and plunge toward us.
I let the arrow fly.
It misses, and more cackling breaks out. Sweat runs down my back, and I feel the sting on my neck where the harpy’s talon cut me. I pant, and with shaking hands manage to notch another arrow.
The harpies wheel, taunting me. I aim, but they are five times faster than me—I no sooner lock one in my sights than it’s swerved away. I will just have to aim in their direction and hope for the best.
I release the second arrow, and watch as it arcs wide into the sky, landing harmlessly in the meadow. Sweat stings my eyes; my breathing is labored. I have few arrows, and I cannot afford to waste them. But it looks like I mightn’t even get the chance to notch another.
“Take it, sister. Take the charm!” one of them coaxes, and the great grey wings cut through the air toward me, blocking out the light. I think fast.
I clasp the Shroud against my neck with my left hand, and with my right I whip another arrow from the quiver and grip it like a knife.
I feel her drop toward me—a gust of cold, foul air—and this time her talons close fast over the leather string. But I pull down with all my weight to stop her from flying off with it; her strength lifts me half-out of the saddle. Then I turn and plunge the arrow deep into the dark, oily feathers.
She shrieks, dropping me in an instant. I watch her retreat to a tree branch, huddling in on herself, hissing like a cat.
