Bird of Chaos: Book One of the Harpy's Curse

by Susie Mander

  I try to come between them. “We must work together. Stop seeing ourselves as—”

  “Verne’s right,” Drayk says.

  They ignore us. Demostrate pushes her chair back. Petra is on her feet. They are ready to launch across the table when Maud slams her staff down on the ground. “Enough.”

  Shamefaced, Petra and Demostrate take their seats.

  Maud clears her throat. “You were saying?” she says, nodding at the leader of the Shark’s Teeth.

  “I propose we adopt the Shark’s Teeth way. Unlike the army—” the Shark’s Tooth glares at Petra “—we have experience fighting in these conditions. We can take them unaware and make them distrust the shadows.”

  “We are not cowards. We should face them in open battle on the Holy Way,” Petra says.

  “Highness, this is not a conventional battle. We are outnumbered. They will slaughter us if we fight the way Petra proposes. We must think of preserving as many lives as we can. That is honour, too. Retreat from the Sacred Precinct, find a safe haven in the abandoned mines, send smaller units on more frequent missions from there.”

  “Absolutely not. We must not forsake this holy place,” the high priestess says.

  “Maud—” I say.

  “I am not leaving. I will die here if I must but I will defend Shea’s Fire. Without it I have nothing.”

  Drayk clears his throat. “If I might interrupt?” He pauses and, when no one objects, continues, “The terrain here works in our favour. They will struggle to get through the temple wall and though we will have a battle on both sides, one from the water to the east and another at the gate to the west, we can pull back into the temple and cut them down one at a time.”

  Maud nods. “Here we will be closer to my source of power.”

  I clear my throat. “Demostrate, you and your rebels will go with Gelesia and take strongholds in Veraura and Minesend. Round up as many fighters as you can. Then launch an attack on Bidwell Heights and another as the queen’s army departs the palace. Split up your troops to do maximum damage.” I take a deep breath. “Petra and Drayk, your women will remain here.”

  Petra sighs in resignation. “I will put my soldiers on fatigue duty to lay traps inside and outside the temple. I propose we build a barricade along the water and one inside the wall. And a trench in front of it laid with booby-traps. Sinkholes outside. We ought to destroy the bridge, too, if time permits.”

  “The Shark’s Teeth are experienced in setting traps. I will leave Sophos behind to help you,” Demostrate says by way of a truce.

  We are cut short by a knock on the door. A spy returned from the palace, where she was disguised as a leper, stands at attention. “The queen has made her declaration of war against you. They are expected to march at dawn.”

  Chapter twenty

  Dawn heralds the enemy’s arrival. Everything has turned to gold and already the gods have sent us heat to warn of us of our damnation. Perspiration trickles down the back of my neck. The sound of the shofars reaches me atop the pyramid where I crouch beside Petra beneath our camouflaged observation post. I have a view of the battlefield on both sides. The Tri-Nation army are fifteen thousand fireflies advancing on the wind. We are but six thousand.

  Soon I will give the order to attack. I feel like a goddess with a magnifying glass burning ants.

  Death is beautiful, I think. And ghastly, too. It brings peace and panic; it is an enemy and a friend.

  This is a mistake.

  Callirhoe circles overhead.

  The shofar sounds, this time much closer.

  Maud is propped up on a chair in the bunker. “I’ll send word,” she says and her features swim across the canvass of her face, which falls inwards like a sinkhole before going blank. She exits her body, leaving behind a shell, to travel unseen in spirit form down from the observation post to the front line. The red priestess who acts as her conduit is waiting to accept her on the wall. Another is with Hydra, Petra’s chiliarch, behind the fortification on the gate to the west. Yet another is with Drayk behind the barricade to the east. Ried has gone with the other red priestesses.

  Moments later Maud’s features reappear and her body is animate once again. “I have been to the wall. The enemy is less than a league away,” she says before disappearing again to speak to Drayk through her red priestess.

  The message ripples through the ranks: “They are here.”

  “Demostrate has hardly made a dint,” I whisper to Petra, wondering how many of my mother’s soldiers lie dead on the Holy Way. And how many Shark’s Teeth. Wondering also if Demostrate is among them. Petra does not respond. She concentrates on the advancing army.

  Our ears fill with the sound of fifteen thousand women and men marching, marching, marching, the snorting of beasts, and the bloodthirsty cry of war. The air prickles with anticipation. Gold-and-black heraldic banners depicting the Tibutan snake flutter in the wind like a sea of mocking consorts’ handkerchiefs. Beside them the Whyte rabbit dances with the Gregarian bull. A lithobolos as big as a house rolls ahead of the army on creaking wooden wheels. Behind it come two smaller catapults and a battering ram. Next come the siege towers, three in total, then the archers, the hoplites who march on foot carrying shields and spears, the cavalry riding argutans and finally the masses of helots.

  The lithobolos and the catapults ease to a stop on the other side of the destroyed bridge. For a moment I think we have done it; we have stopped them in their tracks. But planks of wood appear from the back of the ranks. They seem to float over the soldiers’ heads as they are passed forwards. Soldiers lay the planks over the inlet to replace the bridge. The catapults lumber on.

  Women winch down the catapults’ arms and secure them in place. Rocks and the heads of those who fell at the battle in the marketplace are loaded into the baskets. There is a moment of grace and then the bindings are cut. Rocks and heads hiss through the air.

  The first hit turns brick to sugar. The second takes a bite of the wall, the third another morsel. We are afforded a few seconds respite before they start all over again.

  “They will be through in no time,” Petra says.

  Our archers—fighting with Whyte longbows and arrows—hold their fire until the enemy comes into range. Hidden behind a makeshift palisade of felled trees and branches, Hydra is poised to throw her spear. She glances up at us, waiting for Maud’s signal. Her women tremble beside her, watching her face for the sign to advance.

  Waves of soldiers smash against the wall. Bilobate and barbed arrows whistle through the air. The siege towers lumber forwards, sending a shower of arrows from beneath their skirts. Hoplites scuttle out of the way. Others attack the wall with siege hooks, the iron sickles tearing off the battlements and ripping through stone and mortar. The escalade begins. People scuttle up ladders resting against the wall, only to be pushed back with fire and brimstone. The noise is unbearable.

  A hole appears.

  “Drayk says a trail of enemy bubbles has been spotted off shore to the east,” Maud says. “As predicted, they have swum all the way from Elea Bay.”

  “I think we should—”

  “Tell him to hold his fire,” is Petra’s response. Then to me she says, “Apologies, highness. I am not used to sharing command.”

  And you are not confident of my ability, I think. “Petra’s right,” I say to the high priestess. She relays the message to Drayk and his women who, in their helmets and whalebone armour, look like ferocious horned beasts. Drayk marches up and down barking orders and speaking words of encouragements to strengthen his soldiers’ resolve. Alexis and Carmyl are among them and I wonder if they fear the advancing army or if their fear has been trained out of them.

  “If only we had more time,” I say to myself.

  “Look,” Maud croaks, pointing a crooked finger through the gap in our bunker. A wall of my mother’s hoplites emerges from Ayfra’s Inlet. Water streams from their shields, which they hold over their heads. They lower their shields and bring their
spears up to stampede like water buffalo straight into the traps laid just beneath the water: caltrops, tetrahedron spines that imbed themselves in soldiers’ feet, and arrows triggered by a tripwire that aim for their calves.

  “They should have sent the orca first,” Petra says.

  Three black dorsal fins slice through the water making barely a ripple. Faster and faster they come, heading directly for shore. They demolish our foothold traps, drag the tripwire and plough through the stakes hidden beneath the surface. The killer whales propel themselves onto the pebbly beach and scream in delight or despair, it is impossible to tell which.

  “Fire!” Petra yells. There is a delay as Maud travels down to the battleground, then hundreds of arrows shoot into the air. They exclaim in protest when they hit metal or timber. One rejoices when its hits a knee. Another when it embeds itself in a bicep. At least twenty have hit their mark and they celebrate with blood. Men and women fall face first into the water. The transmuting orca are unscathed.

  Still the enemy comes.

  The orca run across the bare earth through a rainstorm of arrows, omitting a high pitched note that beckons the others to die for their cause. But what cause? Do the orca fight for freedom or peace? Do they fight for relevance? No, they fight for blood. Their black and white arms flail. Their smooth genderless bodies quiver as they smell the upturned earth, the disorder, the fear. The Tibutan hoplites take cover behind the mossy stone heads of Ballus and Heritia. Others attack the barricade.

  “There are too many of them,” I say.

  Petra follows my gaze. “Don’t underestimate the red priestesses.” Shifting my weight to get a better view from an arrowslit, I look to the far side of Ayfra’s Inlet, where an ancient wall crumbles into the water. The inlet snakes around the corner. Maud leaves her body. Moments later she returns and points a gnarled finger across the inlet. “Watch there. Ried is coming.”

  A line of heavy, thick-shouldered argutan reach the top of the hill. On their backs ride the red priestesses, strapped securely into their saddles. Each of them carries a long spear. Ried spurs her mount on. It snorts at the water then enters on strong knuckles. Its armoured back disappears beneath the surface until only its nostrils are visible. The others follow until they, too, are submerged.

  Bunches of weed float on the surface and swirl out of the way as the argutans pass silently below the surface, moving ever closer to the fighting beneath the pyramid.

  From behind the barricade Drayk aims and throws his spear with its iron leaf head. The spear rebounds off an orca’s bare stomach. He draws his xiphos and stabs the soldiers who have reached the top. Metal rings against metal.

  As the orca and Tibutan soldiers swarm over the barricade, Ried and the red priestesses reach the shore, the argutans carefully stepping over the corpses that lie face down in the water and avoiding the remnants of the traps. Water drips from the beasts’ curly hair. Ried’s argutan rears and with raised sword she calls, “Attack!”

  Some of the red priestesses hold crossbows and they loose arrows into the enemy’s back. Tibutan soldiers fall across the barricade. There is much cheering. But the arrows that hit orca rebound.

  “The queen’s men have breached the western wall,” Maud says, re-entering her body. Sure enough, when we move to the other side of the observation deck, we discover that the battering ram has been discarded and a gaping wound in the wall is seeping with enemy soldiers. An arrowhead of war-wits appears through the rubble. Under fire from above, they race heedlessly towards the camouflaged traps, the arrows bouncing off their armoured skin. They plummet through the thin earth onto the stakes below. Feet impaled, howling, their blood gurgles. I wonder if Nike and Adamon are among them.

  Petra curses. “Not enough. They will not make the same mistake twice.”

  As she predicted, the rest of the army stream in behind the screaming war-wits but stop short of the concealed traps.

  Sky-blue feathers bob along what remains of the wall as Whyte hoplites send Petra’s forces falling like spinning leaves in autumn. Burning missiles, rocks and arrows from both sides hurtle through the air.

  My treacherous heart threatens to march right out of my chest. I glance at Maud’s lifeless body. “She said there would be chaos but this…” I whisper.

  Maud returns. “If we don’t do something, they’ll be here in minutes.”

  “Can you keep them back?” Petra says.

  “I will do my best.” The old woman climbs down from the bunker through a trapdoor in the floor. At the top of the temple stairs she swings her staff back over her head then thrusts it towards Shea’s Fire. Her face scrunches in concentration as she draws a long thread of flame out of the marble chalice and through the sanctuary. With a swish of her wrist she sends it hurtling into the sky, directly towards the Tri-Nation army. Before it hits, a spurt of water shoots out to meet it. Two mighty forces come together with a hiss and the battle resumes.

  “Damn Berenice,” I say.

  Fire lights up the sky. It crashes to the earth in shards of light. The grass is dry and flames burst to life then slither across the ground. Smoke billows through the air. Berenice draws water from the canal and uses it to meet Maud’s fire head-on and extinguish the flame.

  “Look!” Petra points. Columns of flame spurt from the enemy’s ranks. “Liquid fire,” she whispers.

  Satah’s men have reeds to their mouths. When they blow, the inflammable pine resin and naphtha catch fire. A fiery whirlwind whips our soldiers in the face. They fall and, twisting and screaming, expire. Inextinguishable heat ripples across the blood-soaked earth: damnation has arrived.

  More and more Tibutan helots come, unit after unit. “Quick. We have to cut them off. Where is Maud?” Petra calls. I clamber down the trapdoor and run to the high priestess. She has her staff raised over her head with a stream of flame shooting into the enemy’s line. Berenice matches her blow for blow.

  “It is no use,” she gasps, pushing against Berenice’s power.

  “You have to tell them to cut the enemy off. They must not get between us and the temple.” Maud lets the flame die and a spout of water hits the stairs. She returns to the safety of the bunker to relay her message. I watch as a unit of Petra’s best hoplites form a phalanx between the Tri-Nation Army and the temple. They engage, shields fracturing, spears splintering. The formation succeeds and our soldiers rip through the enemy line only to be pushed back.

  Though she is nowhere to be seen, Adelpha’s gift ripples through the air, bringing women to their knees. War-wits demolish and burn the palisade. Tri-Nation soldiers push us back to the base of the temple.

  “We must retreat. Now, before everyone is killed,” Petra says.

  “Not after the marketplace. We will not fail a second time.”

  “Highness,” Petra says, standing so her head is bent against the low ceiling. “Your soldiers have entrusted themselves to you. You must make the call.”

  Please, not again, I think and peer into her eyes. I look away and nod.

  “Good,” Petra says. Maud reaches out and takes my hand. She squeezes it gently.

  “Leadership is never easy.” She goes limp as she exits her body to send the message. Hydra calls out and points towards the temple. Her soldiers disengage and run backwards to take the higher ground.

  I cross to the other side of the observation post to check on the eastern front. A handful of Tri-Nation soldiers are still caught in hand-to-hand combat with Drayk’s unit on the barricade.

  “Tell Drayk to fall back,” Petra says, glancing at me, and I nod. The message is sent. Drayk and his soldiers climb onto the temple’s bottom step.

  On the western front our soldiers are halfway up the temple, jumping to avoid the swords that swing for their calves. At the desolated wall the queen and her followers march across the threshold, black hooded like death’s harbingers. Slay is among them with two orca, their long arms almost dragging along the ground. Their unseeing eyes are glassy. They are led by their noses
, their faces tilted to the sky as if they sniff the sun. My cousin Odell looks afraid. Like me, his guilt is inescapable. He has blood on his hands. Berenice looks bored. Her white hair is lank and she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Thera is missing, probably gone to Bidwell Heights to defend her castle from Demostrate.

  Hero appears from behind the burning tents. He has his sword raised.

  “What in the tides is he doing?” I whisper. He was supposed to stay in the hospital. Hero’s brother sees him running across the charred earth, jumping the flames like a gazelle. Odell passes through the smoke like a demon risen from the molten earth. “Hero, no!” I yell but to no effect. Odell faces his brother and for a moment I believe their blood will save them, that whatever flows through one flows through both and tempers their hate.

  I am wrong.

  Odell lunges first. He hits Hero in the chest with both palms, sending his little brother flying backwards. Hero gets to his feet. He crouches in the warrior position, one arm inviting, the other up by his ear, threatening. His brother slaps his hands away, mocking him.

  “I have to do something,” I say, standing. Petra’s grip is firm on my arm. She pulls me back down.

  “You are here to command. You must not be distracted.”

  Odell easily blocks Hero’s punch and strikes with ice, which misses. Just.

  “Ayfra no!” I yell but Odell hits his brother in the knees, making him fall to the ground in a disfigured heap.

  Odell stands over him and kicks him, tentatively at first and then, when he does not move, with greater ferocity. Each kick says, “Why can’t you be like me?” I imagine he cries while he kicks his brother to death. Once Hero’s atrama has left him and he is little more than an empty vessel, Odell steps back to admire his handiwork. He raises his hand and offers the finishing touch: a stream of crystal that slices through Hero’s heart. He turns his back; an eaglet, he has pushed his brother out of the nest and is now that much closer to a monopoly of his mother’s love.

  Chapter twenty-one