Eyrie of the Harpy Queen

Sir Danielle Longbow lowered herself from the saddle of a beast that was at once a dragon, a horse, and a tree. Shalakhir, a curaogine, was covered in purple pearlescent scales.

“You cannot be here,” said a man wrapped in a cloak of furs buffeted by snowy winds that blew down Sgread mountain. A loaded crossbow hung from his left hand, ready to fire.

“Should not be, perhaps,” Lupita said atop her curaogine, Djeither. “Nonetheless we are. We hunt the harpy queen. Nothing and no one will turn us away.” Lupita’s curly mane of hair sprung into the flurry, collecting snowflakes when her hood was whipped off by the howling gusts.

“Women are forbidden on our sacred ground.” Grey beard flapped, glittering with its own collection of ice crystals. Mittened hands pulled the bear pelt cloak tighter around the monk. “The Screaming Mountain eats women. Turn back.”

“A mountain that eats women? This is the place.” Danielle smiled, face bitten pink by the cold. “We brought a man.” Her leather gloved hand gestured to the lycanthrope by her side. “You’re not afraid of him?”

“We guard this place to save others from creatures more dangerous than Loup Garous. Leave now. I will not warn you again.”

“Good. I’d hate to waste your breath.” Danielle began forwards, Shalakhir towering behind her. Aiming at her, the monk raised the crossbow. Shalakhir stepped between the knight and the man in furs. “You protect the world as best you can from a monster you cannot slay. We can. Stand aside man.”

“Warriors have come here before. Kings with armies at their backs. Why will you succeed where they failed?” His voice was muffled by the curaogine between them and stolen by the wind.

“They didn’t have guns. Kings and armies train to fight men, not monsters. My name is Sir Danielle Longbow. I’ve been killing unnatural creatures for years. My warriors slew all of the other harpies. Queen Lilena Redwing is alone. Now is the best chance to be rid of her once and for all. Stand aside. Let me do my work or come and help me. You know the mountain.” Shalakhir stepped behind the monk. Danielle stood above him on what passed for a path.

“I’ve heard of you. I don’t believe it all.” A woollen mask that covered his eyes and nose showed beneath the hood, rolled high enough for wild beard to pour out.

“Sensible. Feel free to say you told me so if I fail. I will not.” Danielle pointed up the path. “This way?”

“Danielle?” Badru Quacey spoke with the face of a giant wolf. Orange fur covered him from the tips of his ears to the end of his tail. “I’ve brought you to the monster’s lair. I don’t want to fight.” Standing on two legs, caught in the twisted compromise between humanity and lupine form, his eyes avoided hers.

“Thank you Badru. Go before anything damages that wonderful nose of yours.” Bowing her head gratefully she smiled. Quacey said his farewell to Lupita and loped away on four legs, kicking up the thick drifts across the pass.

“Follow me. It seems sense will not turn you back. Remember I warned you. What are these creatures you ride?” The monk strode up the path, quickly overtaking Danielle with sure footed strides.

“Curaogine,” Lupita answered. “Crossbreeds of the curaduile trees that protect Crann, the undead horses from the devastation of the north, and a dragon Danielle slew.”

“A dragon?” Dry chuckling grated through the beard flicking in the wind. “Now I know you lie. Three feet ahead he was a shadow in the shifting white. Thin air teased the lungs of the lowlanders.

“How much further is it to Sgread’s peak?” Danielle asked, slipping on ice beneath the snow.

“Redwing Abbey is halfway up the mountain.” A mitten caught her on the verge of slipping again. Danielle was shocked her weight in armour didn’t pull the man down with her.

“Are we close to the abbey now?”

“No.” He chuckled.

Two warrior women flanked by curaogine followed brown furs dappled white by snow. Hours passed. Gradual incline became a cramped stairway cut into the mountainside. Steps at her knee height had Danielle gasping for breath after a while, cursing the weight of her beloved plate mail and the family shield. Painted red horned unicorn on blue held a green sword in its teeth.

Djeither and Shalakhir bemoaned the narrow pass through a cave where they were forced to wait for Danielle and Lupita, unable to follow.

Ducking under one last dip in the ceiling they emerged into a courtyard. Trees drank up sunlight from a break in the rocky walls all around. Steam rose from pools near the trees which should have withered from the cold that killed everything else on the mountain. Dry air turned humid.

“Hot springs?” Lupita asked the monk as he pulled back his fur hood.

“Yes. Welcome to Redwing Abbey. This was once the fortress of Queen Lilena. For many years she ruled a kingdom only put to shame by the Empire of the Holy Proclamation. One day the people saw the truth of what she was. She fled up the mountain where none could follow her.”

“What’s is your name?”

“I am brother Mark.” He pushed his way through a door that scraped over dark granite.

“Glass?” Danielle said as light poured into the building through the western wall. “I thought this place was old?”

“It is. Queen Lilena scoured the world for innovations for her domain. We had glass here long before the rest of the continent imported it from the south. Those windows are hundreds of years old.” Silica had melted since the reign of the harpy. Each pain was thin at the top and dripping over the lead seam at the base.

Tapestries faded beyond all hope of identifying their image draped every wall. Fire crackled in the hearth. Another man sat on a stool. Tiny flames meant his hands almost touched them for warmth.

“You brought women here? Brother Mark, have you lost your mind?” A withered man thick with rags turned to face them in the thick shadows of the dark abbey.

“I gave my mind to this cursed mountain a long time ago, Brother Jeremy. When we die there will be no one to watch the mountain. What have we achieved? Who have we saved?”

“It is our duty.” Jeremy spoke with raging passion born of a life dedicated to a thankless cause. Liver spots were the only distraction from every vein showing through the skin across his skull. Black hair clung in horseshoe formation to his scalp.

“Just imagine the monster was gone. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” Mark had the reborn light of long dead hope in his blue eyes. “I want to go home before I meet my end.”

“What was the purpose of our years of service if we abandon it now?” Jeremy coughed into his hand, sagging under the weight of inevitability.

“No one is coming, brother. It ends with us. We should take the chance that would vindicate our watch and that of every brother before us.” Mark removed his fur cloak, revealing skin stretched tight over ropey muscles and protruding bones. Slumping by the fire he handed his uniform to Jeremy. “Your choice. Neither of us will have long to live with it.”

“Do you need rest?” Jeremy’s joints crackled like dry twigs snapping as he stretched. Donning the cloak and the woolen mask he pulled it down to cover the thin black beard over his chin.

Danielle turned to her wife. Lupita shrugged. “I’m eager to have this done. One way or another.” Stepping into enormous snow boots Jeremy nodded. Wearing the pelt doubled him in size and yet he wore it like his own skin.

“May the mountain scream its last.” Mark turned his back to them at the fire.

“May the mountain scream its last,” Jeremy replied. “Come with me. If you want to walk to your doom, I will make sure it is Queen Lilena that kills you, not Sgread.” He pushed through another door at the other side of the abbey. A shovel sat in an inch of drift, waiting to be put to work clearing the way.

Jeremy moved faster than Danielle would have believed possible for a man of his age on the mountain. A curtain of snow revealed the bitter history of what had once been a thriving town. Wooden homes burnt to stumps sat in blocks and rows on the shelf by the abbey which had been the guard house of Queen Lilena’s castle.

Rubble from the keep had been thrown down the mountain long before, leaving nowhere for refugees from the capital to return to.

Past a town Jeremy had been home to a thousand in its heyday was only more mountain. Up and up. Danielle and Lupita were lightheaded long before Jeremy told them to rest in a cave. “The peak should just be another hour’s hike up the same trail.”

“You don’t know?” Danielle asked.

“I’ve spent most of my life trying to keep everyone from going there. Brothers of the Red Abbey swear to stop anyone going to the peak. It’s suicide.”

“Thanks. That’s reassuring.” Lupita leaned on her silver spear. “Are you feeling lightheaded?” Drawing her inadequate pine green cloak around her with brown hands tinged blue she shivered violently.

“A little.” Danielle admitted, understating the woozy feeling and shortness of breath. “We should finish this. I doubt anyone who calls herself a queen is freezing up there on the mountaintop.

“Probably not.” Lupita huddled close to Danielle for warmth.

“I’ll be going,” said Jeremy. “Good luck.” The bear pelt turned and faded into the blur at the cave mouth.

“Are we mad?” Lupita asked with her arms wrapped around Danielle’s waist.

“Definitely.” Sir Longbow held her wife close. Warmth seemed to escape no matter how tightly they held together. “We need to confront the harpy before the cold overcomes us. The sooner the better.”

Lips pressed together passed warm air between them. Lupita smiled. “I love you. Let’s go.”

Danielle led the way up something which had not been a path for a long time. Deep beneath snow ledges that might have been steps kept her feet horizontal. Wind came at them from the side, pressing them towards a cliff. Danielle unsheathed her sword and used the point to anchor her between steps. Lupita behind her leaned on her spear. Level ground circled the point of the mountain. Cloud cover ate the world to nothing around them. Their path thinned constantly.

Lungs screaming with the pain of the cold, they found their way to level ground sided by a precipice and thick walls of black rock. A door dusted with glittering ice barred the way. This is it, Danielle thought. “Ready?” she whispered to Lupita.

Turning the handle freed an icicle. Ancient wood and steel hinges protested. Danielle raised her shield to brace for an attack. The element of surprise was gone. Wood scraped across stone. Snow blew in through the doorway. Sir Danielle stepped tentatively into the monster’s lair.

Crumbling grandiosity layered with dust smelled of frozen death. Regal carpets worn to threads crisscrossed the floor. Bookshelves with labeled skulls covered a wall. The heart of the space was the throne. Queen Lilena Redwing sat on her chair in a dip in the floor. An empty fireplace behind her held tight to charcoal. Vapour wafted from a pool in the corner of the space.

“Hello, knight. You’ve come to kill me? Who did you bring with you?”

“You keep skulls?” Danielle asked, unable to hold the question back.

“How else could I keep track of my sisters?” Yellow eyes followed Danielle’s steps into the room. Baleful teeth glinted white as a gun emerged from the knight’s gear. “The latest killing device. No matter the evil you think I am, imagine what those things will do to the world.”

“Help us kill monsters?” Danielle stepped down into the room down wide steps cut into the rock of the mountain’s peak.

“While you become monsters yourself. Murder made easy. I’ll never be as dangerous as the weapon in your hand. Imagine one in every home. Picked up in fleeting moments of rage.” Youthful and ancient at once, Lilena’s face was magnetic. Her aquiline nose had freckles that spread across high cheekbones. Black hair cut at her shoulders curled gently. Golden eyes morphed as Danielle met them, wondering if she would be hypnotised.

“You turned innocent women into monsters. Every man bitten by them died.” Holding the flintlock pistol in shield hand, Danielle drew her sword with her right.

“I never wanted that,” said Lilena. “However they end up, my sisters had free will to begin with. The curse robbed them of that in time but I never meant for that either.” Turning her head to look at the skulls lined on shelves behind her, she sighed.

“What curse?” Danielle aimed the pistol at the monster’s skull and raised her sword to strike at the harpy’s heart.

“The curse of the seventh god. My price for refusing to kill a man I loved.” Lilena’s mesmeric golden eyes grabbed Danielle’s soul and held it tight.

“Kill yourself. If you’re cursed then kill yourself.” Sir Longbow’s sword followed the turn of Lilena’s head which looked to Lupita and back to her.

“I TRIED.”  Rage burst through the gold in Lilena’s eyes, turning them red. “I am cursed not to die.” Rising from her throne in fury the harpy grew crimson wings. “There is no end to my torment. Companionship is only possible if I bite a woman and curse her to fade away into nothingness. Do you know how lonely it is to lock yourself away for decades at a time, fighting the impulse to reach out for company? Knowing what my bite does but feeling overwhelming desperation build until I’m no longer in control. Hating myself for every sister whose mind joins mine in a parasitic union that will devour them from within. You could never hate me as much as I hate myself.” Lilena’s voice was every widow weeping in graveyards. “I am sorry for the pain I caused you. I see it in your eyes.”

“You’re lying,” Danielle growled. She leapt back, thrusting out her sword and firing as Queen Lilena lurched forwards. Grabbing the sword as she jumped the harpy guided it into her chest where a human heart would be. Grimacing as the shot from the pistol blasted into her skull she slumped on the sword, dragging down the knight’s arm.

Thrown by the suicidal move Danielle stalled with her sword pulled down still clutched in the brown hands of the monster Lilena was morphing into. Wings stretched across the floor as the woman turned into a bird of impossible proportions.

“Danielle.” Lupita asked. “Is she dead?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Her sword emerged from a blade spurting blood. Lilena’s eyes stared blankly at the skulls that lined the wall. The hole in the monster’s chest sealed itself before Danielle’s eyes. Lilena’s skull spat out the led shot. The metal ball rolled across the floor. Skin grew across the wound.

Scarlet wings receded. Feathers shrank down to hairs until the tanned skin of the ancient queen showed beneath. Shivering, she screamed. Danielle dropped her pistol and sword, clapping both hands to her ears. Lupita’s spear clattered to the ground as she did the same.

Lilena clutched at her heart. Blood ran from her eyes. “You failed. As all others have failed.” Transfiguring to cover her nudity with regal garb, she stood.

“I could cut off your head,” Danielle offered.

“And watch the pieces grow legs to find each other?” Lilena laughed a bitter laugh and sat heavily in her crumbling throne. “That sight has driven many heroes to madness.”  She interlocked her long fingers and cracked the knuckles. “I’ve been burnt to ashes. I felt every lick of the flames. Ashes gathered. I regrew. If a god wants you to live, you live.” Mad cackles echoed. Sharp nails dragged tracks down her cheeks. Throwing her head back Lilena let loose a primal scream that shook the mountain and put Danielle on her knees.

“Why?” Lupita’s voice echoed through the ringing in her wife’s aching ears.

“Because I refused to kill the man I loved for the seventh god.”

“How long ago?” Lupita crawled to Danielle’s side.

“Before any village of this world was big enough to be called a town. There were no nations back then. Only tribes. It was before our kind swept aside all others for dominance. We were innocent then. Innocent weeds thriving wherever the wind blew our seeds.” Lilena’s eyes were lost in a past no one else could imagine.

Queen Redwing sighed and fixed the mortals with her anchoring stare. “You should go. My hunger will grow until I need the blood that flows through your veins. My tormentor was ingenious in his design. Hunger makes me the monster you fear. Loneliness leads me to cruelty you can barely fathom.”

Lilena stood and picked a skull from her collection. “When first bitten they are feral. I see what they see. Hear what they hear. Taste every drop of blood on their tongues. But I can’t control them. Intoxicating hunger subsides as our minds begin to speak. Sisters share their thoughts with me. Time drinks all that they are into me. In the end they are puppets of my hunger and despair. Individuality fades like dementia. We become one and once more I am alone.” Script in a language Danielle didn’t recognise labelled the skull Lilena put back on the shelf. “What do you do with a monster you can’t kill?”

“Use you,” said Lupita. Queen Lilena and Sir Longbow looked at her.