Page 38 of Shardless
Personally, she would rather take her chances with the ground.
Taly wriggled in the harpy’s grip, trying to jerk her arm forward. The beast’s claws dug into her back, and each movement only intensified the excruciating bite of those razor-sharp talons. Her skin ripped, her muscles tore, but she kept at it. She didn’t have any other choice at this point. She needed to make the creature drop her.
Finally, she just managed to grasp one of the hyaline pistols holstered around her waist. She didn’t even know if it would shoot, but she had lost her old handgun back at the Aion Gate. This one would have to do.
Taly tried to turn her head, but she still couldn’t see well enough to aim. So she pointed the pistol up and over her shoulder, trying to guess where the center of the harpy’s body might be. Murmuring a short, earnest prayer to the Shards, she pulled the trigger.
It was loud. That was the only thing she could think as she felt the harpy falter and loosen its grip. A sharp, almost painful ringing pierced her deafened ears, momentarily drowning out the beast’s enraged yowl. She shot again, smiling when she felt a wave of heat wash across her skin.Moments later, a guttural scream tore from the harpy’s mouth as it burst into flames. She barely had time to register the sound of ripping fabric before she felt the unmistakable sensation of falling.
The incendiary rounds work!Taly thought excitedly as the wind whipped at her clothing and hair. She had grabbed them from her old workbench on a whim that morning—an experimental ammunition she had developed last year but never gotten a chance to test.
For one breathless moment, she was mesmerized by the sight of the harpy exploding midair, flaring bright as a newborn star. But when leaves and sprigs started tearing at her skin and clothing as she shot through the forest canopy, she quickly turned her attention back to staying alive.
She reached out an arm and desperately grabbed at the scattered branches, trying to slow her descent.
She landed flat on her back—the air rushing from her lungs. Wheezing and gasping, slightly dazed, she stared up at the broken branches above her, blinking furiously as she tried to refocus her blurred vision.
She was bruised and bleeding—but still alive.
As she regained her breath, Taly managed to push herself to a sitting position. She patted down her body, taking stock of her injuries. By some small miracle, she didn’t seem to have any broken bones, just a web of scratches and lacerations that coated every visible patch of bloodied skin. Some of the cuts looked superficial, but others, like the slashes ripping open her palms, had cut deep. Of all her injuries, her left leg was by far the worst, but her right arm—her dominant hand—wasn’t inmuch better shape. A long, angry gash bisected her forearm, starting at the back of her hand and ending just above her elbow. She must have caught it on a branch when she fell.
With a crazed shriek, the harpy landed about 15 yards away, rolling around on the ground frantically to put out the flames. While the effect of the experimental rounds had been painful, the fiery blaze was already starting to fade.
Shit! Hurry…
She had two options at this point. She had landed near the edge of the forest where the tree cover was still thin. She could try to retreat further into the woods, but she had no doubt that the harpy would easily catch her before she managed to make it to the safety of the thicker underbrush.
The cliffs were option number two. She wasn’t very far away—maybe 20 feet. The cliff face towered over her, blotting out the sun and casting a long shadow. She would have to cross a narrow, treeless space where she would be vulnerable, but she could just make out a small gap in the wall of stone. If it was deep enough, she might be able to wedge herself inside and wait out the harpy. After all, she had no aether, so it would likely lose interest in her eventually.
Taly blinked, trying to summon the premonitions—something that might give her a hint about which choice to make. All she saw was an erratic haze of indecision, her golden, spirit-like body flickering as it considered her options. Meanwhile, the harpy was wild, driven mad in its thirst for aether and screeching as it whipped its head to and fro. Gold dust encircled its body in a roiling cloud. It wasn’t making conscious choices at this point. It was just acting.
She had better do the same if she wanted to live. The beast was already starting to regain its footing. It was decision time.
Pushing herself to her feet, Taly bit back a cry as she began hobbling toward the cliffs, praying she would make it before the harpy completely recovered. Every step she took was agony, but she kept going. She felt her flesh tear as the wound in her leg deepened, and a trickle of fresh blood streamed down her thigh, staining the ground behind her.
The harpy let out a shriek as it shook its body. It had caught sight of her as soon as she moved, its head swiveling in a way that should’ve been impossible as its mad eyes homed in on her.
Although Taly had dropped her original handgun during her descent, she still had her backup. The twin hyaline pistol only had standard slugs, but at least it would slow the beast down. She winced as the grip of the pistol dug into the cuts on her palm, biting her lip as she tried to curl her finger around the trigger. Turning her head, she clumsily aimed over her shoulder and shot blindly, ignoring the sharp jolt of pain that raced up her arm as the gun shuddered in her hands. She heard a howl as the first bullet made contact.
She shot again.
Missed.
Again, and she heard another injured cry.
Taly was at the cliff face now, and she groped for the narrow opening. She tried to re-holster the pistol, but her hands were slick with blood, and it clattered to the ground. Deciding to leave the gun, she pulled her body between the narrowing walls. It was uncomfortably tight, but she kept going, trying to put as much space between her and theentrance as possible.
Before she knew it, she was out of time. The harpy slammed its body against the cliff, setting off a concussive wave of sound that seemed to vibrate the very stone. It jabbed its face through the gap and sniffed, saliva dripping from its decaying grin. It could sense her vulnerability. It stretched, its claw raking against the stone walls and stopping just a hair’s breadth short of her bloodied shoulder.
The harpy, newly enraged, threw itself at the crevice. A rain of stone and sand shook loose, coating Taly’s body and mixing with the blood on her skin. A flurry of bronzed scales ripped from the beast’s body and fluttered to the ground as it desperately tried to wedge its gangly form inside the gap. Even in its emaciated state, it couldn’t fit.
Undeterred, it reached for her, writhing and moaning in a hideous dance. Every so often, it would manage to graze her arm or her cheek, and it would pull back to frantically suck at its claw.
It wasn’t losing interest. No… if anything, each drop of blood it managed to collect just made it renew its efforts to reach her.
I must smell like magic after staying at the manor.That was the only explanation.With two shadow mages in residence as well as its own aether core, Harbor Manor had more aether than anywhere else on the island.
The rock face tore at her skin as Taly pushed herself farther back, and she twisted and squirmed, groping for the daggers still strapped to her thighs. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t reach. Her arms and legs were pinned in place, and the harpy was still tearing at the walls.
