by Sam Hall
“Ah, fuck,” McQuade said, scratching at his impressively hairy chest, “What weapons do you have?” he said.
“None,” I said.
“Cars, bikes, shit, an overpowered moped would be something right now.”
“There’s a Harley and a dirt bike in the stables, but it would be difficult to get near them without alerting the prince’s men,” Flea said.
McQuade looked us all over, his face drawing down into an even more forbidding expression. It was as if our situation offended him personally. The stare drew out longer and longer until I felt like I had to say something to break the rising tension. Then the door opened. “You are due in the dining room in fifteen minutes and here are your clothes . . . Who is this?” Mellors asked.
“Knox McQuade and who the fuck are you, Rover?” Morris asked.
Mellors didn’t bother with answering the man. He just looked at me, eyes narrowed and said, “Who is this?”
“Our father sent him. We haven’t spoken to Dad for some time and he was concerned. He came to see how we were.”
“Ah yes, your father. Lord McKinnon or was it King Pendragon?” Mellors asked.
“McKinnon and you’d do well to keep a civil tongue in your head,” McQuade said.
“Really? And you and what army will make sure I do? If you’re a man of the house of McKinnon, then I expect you to act as such in the presence of the prince. You will be silent and servile, am I clear?” Mellors asked, his lips curled back, revealing his very sharp fangs. I held my breath as McQuade closed the gap between the both of them, staring straight into the yellow eyes of the wolf man, then smirking and moving away. “Quite an interesting choice of manservant your father chose to send,” Mellors said to me. “Keep him in line, or I will.”
“So, we need to get dressed in these?” Tess asked with a nervous smile, moving to take the pile of clothes gingerly from the wolf man’s grip, having to tug a little to get them out from between his claws. Mellors’ eyes finally dropped from watching McQuade walk away, letting the clothes fall from his grip.
“Fifteen minutes,” Mellors said, “or you’ll be leaving without breakfast.” He left the room with a slam of the door.
“Can you look after Gabe again?” I asked Natty.
“But, what if—?”
“I need someone who can care for him,” I said in a low murmur, “and someone who can protect him when I can’t. We’ll have McQuade and Flea. We should be fine.”
We weren’t fine. “Today we’re going to visit the great tomb of Lord Donaltson,” Prince Damon said as we came down to breakfast. “It’s one of the few nearly intact examples of Brigintinian architecture in the country. Quite remarkable.”
“Oh, that sounds lovely,” Tess said, real pleasure flushing her cheeks.
“Yes, it’s also the site of a particularly virulent nest of harpies. Disgusting beasts and beyond time for a cull. We will visit a historic site and do a spot of hunting. It will be a capital day.”
“Hunting?” I asked, feeling the food I’d been eating roil inside my belly.
“Yes, the lads brought in some of the new-fangled crossbows last night. Positively itching to try them!”
“We’re going to kill . . . harpies?” Tess asked, putting her spoon down into her bowl of cereal.
“Yes, and don’t feel sorry for the horrid beasts. They are putrid things. One scratch and you’ll be septic within days and we wouldn’t want that.” The prince’s eyes swept over us lazily, then down to the plate in front of him and back again. “You can leave your men here, wouldn’t want to bore them, standing around and watching.”
“I’ve a mind to give bow hunting a go myself,” Knox said from where he stood behind our chairs. “I’m a pretty good shot. Are we talking recurve or compound crossbows? I’ve got a sweet set-up at home, a custom-built rifle crossbow, accurate to eighty yards. Brings down white-tailed deer nice and clean. With your permission, of course, Your Highness.”
“Well, if you insist. . . .” Tess and I both nodded our heads vehemently. “Oh, very well. Mellors, ask the stable master to bring one of the carts around for the help,” the prince said with a flip of his hand.
“I need to stay with the ladies,” Knox insisted. “I was supposed to travel with them, but the naughty minxes took off on their own, they were so keen to make your acquaintance.”
“Well, then have the royal carriage brought around. Men, you’re with me,” the prince said, getting to his feet, the furry officers dropping their breakfasts and following hard on his heels as he exited the room.
“Crossbows are good,” Knox said, eyeing the open doorway, pitching his voice low. “I’d prefer some AKs or some C4, but it’s better than nothing. We've gotta cut the head off this rattlesnake. One headshot to His Highness there, and usually the operation falls apart.”
Or everyone else just gets really, really angry, I thought. “Are you sure about this? Natty and Gabe are going to be back here, vulnerable. We can’t afford to jeopardise them in any way.”
“I’ve stood up to bullies like this before. Half of the power they have over you is fear. You think they’re going to hurt you; you think they’re going to rape you, hurt your friends, so you can’t do anything to piss them off. This way, I take the risk, you can distance yourself from me if that’s what it takes.”
I had a bad feeling we would have to do just that. We rode in silence. The prince was wedged in beside us, refusing to go in the other carriage with his men, which left us facing Knox. The prince started the journey quite jauntily, discussing with enthusiasm his plans for the harpies but that died away in the face of our combined silence. I just stared at the slatted blinds that covered the windows, watching the light flicker through it as we travelled. “We’re here, finally,” the prince said as the vehicle drew to a halt. He shot me a quick glare, jerking his gaze to Tess. I straightened, plastering a smile on my face.
“C’mon, Tess,” I said, “you’ve always wanted to get your Katniss on and now’s your chance.”
“Yes, of course,” she said and took the prince’s hand as he helped her out.
The ruins were beautiful. Massive hewn blocks of stone that were covered in sweeping carvings, depicting animals and plants I’d never seen before. Tess and I moved towards them automatically, no more able to resist their allure than an insect could bright lights. “Oh, my . . .,” Tess said, tracing a finger down the side of one beast. He’d been carved like a combination of a stag and a tree, the branches a huge array growing from his head like a rack of horns. We were tiny by comparison, forced to crane our necks upwards to see the entire artwork.
“Look at this detail,” I said, running my hand along the bas-relief of its fetlock, the veins and sinews carved into the grey stone.
“God, it’s like he could step out from the carving and walk free. Is he a god, or some kind of ancient wildlife?”
“Ladies!” Our heads whipped around to see the prince striding over, crossbow in tow. He wasn’t looking at us, though, his eyes staring upward.
“Oh shit!” I said. The stench hit us, an eye-watering combination of chook poo, rotting meat and ashes and then came the scream. “Tess!” I struggled to shove her out the way as a harpy swooped down at us. The prince yanked her from my grip, pushing her behind him and taking aim just as the bloody thing’s claws stretched outward, ready to tear and rend. The beast jerked mid-air as the arrow ripped through its body, falling to the ground with a dull thump.
“Oh, ho! First blood to me!” the prince said, walking over to the wounded beast and putting another arrow into its skull while it scrabbled to get away. He strolled over with a smirk, then placed his boot on its ribcage and jerked the arrows free. “That shot has buggered the breast on the left side,” he said to Mellors. “We’ll tell Cookie to make mince from it. Now a knife, before the meat begins to sour.” The furries descended on the corpse, well, like a herd of animals.
Unfortunately, there weren’t enough of them to form a complete circle around the cor
pse. She lay in a limp bundle on the ground, her long light-brown hair pooling around her, similar in colour to the feathers that covered her lower bird-like limbs and broad wings. Only her chest and face had bare human-like skin. I watched the men’s sharp-toothed jaws fall open as the prince bent down, grabbing the harpy’s bare breast around the nipple and pulling it far harder than I would want anyone tweaking me. He lay the gleaming knife flat against her ribcage and then began to saw it, a line of red appearing, then a steady trickle of blood as he separated it from the body. I swallowed as he slapped it onto a silver platter, held by one of the servants for just this purpose, the disembodied breast wobbling slightly on the surface, the red fingerprints on the otherwise spotless skin the only hint of what had happened. Tess and I took steps back as one.
“It’s OK, never show fear in front of a carnivore,” Knox whispered in my ear, hands on my shoulders, stopping me from fleeing further. “You look like you’re the weak one here, you’ll be next.”
“We’ll have quite the feast tonight,” the prince said, flicking the nipple of one of the two breasts now removed, watching them with a hungry eye as they were walked over to a box of ice that was being pulled from a cart, to keep the meat cool. I fought down a wave of nausea, my stomach jerking as they passed. I watched the prince smooth the predatory grin from his face with an effort; his cheeks flushed red, his eyes glittering before he plastered a look of concern on it. “My lady Pendragon, I do hope you are well. They are such dastardly beasts; I’m afraid I am going to have to insist you stay at my side at all times today.”
Tess’s face had gone completely white and she only nodded dumbly when his expectant gaze had settled on her for some time. “Of course, Your Highness and thank you for saving me.” He shot me a look then, eyebrow cocked and I was forced to smile and give him a thumbs up.
“Good, good, string him along,” Knox said, then strolled over to where the weapons were being distributed. The furries frowned when he picked one up, looking down the bow with one eye closed, then inspecting an arrow. It was interesting to watch; I could see them wanting to refuse to give him one, their nervous, yellow eyes flicking to the prince and Mellors. He ignored them and came back, passing a long bow to Flea and then shouldering a quiver of arrows, giving me a tight smile. “Let’s go kill some harpies.”
“But first a toast, sire?” Mellors said, bringing over a tall bottle of liquor wrapped in a plaid cloth. A servant rushed over with a brace of glasses, placing one in the prince’s hand, then the officers’. The prince frowned and took one from the servant, the dun-coloured furry jerking back in fright, almost dropping his burden. The prince’s lips peeled back in a snarl, before smoothing abruptly into a smile as he bestowed the glass on Tess. We were served last, Mellors pouring the remaining drops into my glass, giving the bottle a shake with a smirk before handing it to a server to whisk away.
“To the hunt!” the prince said, holding up his glass.
“To the strength of your arm, may your aim always be true,” Mellors said, clinking his glass against his liege’s. He watched his prince drink down the golden fluid, only taking a drink himself when the prince looked up, having swallowed a mouthful.
“There something going on there?” Knox whispered as an aside to me.
“Not sure, but if it is, it's unrequited. Look,” I hissed back as the prince turned to my sister, smiling down her over the rim of his glass.
After the toast was completed and the glasses were collected, I watched dumbly as great big hand drums were pulled from the equipment cart, some of the more slightly built officers going first, holding the drums in one paw and the wooden beaters loosely in the other. “We’ll take the lead, as the more experienced hunters,” Mellors said, looking over to where the prince steered my sister to certain smelly doom, arm wrapped around her shoulders. “Do try to keep up.”
I watched the wolf-man return to his master, eyes slitted. “So, what’s the plan, Knox?”
“Play along, wait until their bloods up, then take 'em out as fast as I can while they’re distracted. Their eyes are on the birds; ours are on them. I’ll focus on His Majesty, then the smart one with the black and white fur. Everyone else is just collateral damage.”
37
As we closed on the harpy nest, I wondered what was the point of the drums? The bird women, who appeared to have created a colony in an old dead tree, jerked up into the air the moment they sighted us, forming a foul-smelling cloud in the sky above us. I watched some flinch with each sound of the drum, but it didn’t bring them any closer. “You need to keep your weapons trained on the beasts,” the prince said, turning to look at us and frowning when he saw Knox had an arrow nocked but aimed downwards. “They could strike at any time.”
“We’ll be ready,” Knox said with a slow shrug.
“And I’ll take any damage to the Lady McKinnon out of your lazy hide. As her man, her safety is your responsibility.” Maybe there is something to Tess’s choice, I thought as I watched the two stare each other down. I could see the rise in irritation in the prince, his brows drawing down hard as if that was enough to turn away the gaze of the more impassive Knox. Finally, the prince looked to me, muttering “Be on your guard,” before turning back to Tess.
We didn’t take his advice; instead we watched them, watched him take my sister, her arm tucked in his, into a flock of dangerous animals. The drummers fanned out to form a loose circle, far from the massive dead tree that had been converted into the harpy colony nest, the prince and his men taking up position behind them. Mellors, as always, shadowed the prince, bow partially drawn, legs slightly bent as he stalked forward, eyes wheeling as he looked for possible threats and targets. “Watch them,” Knox said as the furries picked up the pace, the sounds of the drums coming louder and faster. The harpies flew in tighter and tighter circles, screaming their incoherent abuse at the hunters, some even sending down a barrage of foul-smelling liquid shit. “Wait for it, wait for it . . .” The boys nocked arrows as one, as did the furry officers. I started to cough, the rank ammonia stink growing thicker and thicker the closer we got. My eyes began to water, the swooping harpies becoming little more than black blurs. “Now.” Knox’s voice was half hiss, half purr. The furries stopped, my sister was thrust behind the prince, she stumbling in her long skirts as he raised his bow, lips kissing the string, before letting his arrow fly. This was all the others needed, their arrows following his in a hail storm.
The thing I noticed most was the screaming. Some because they fell to the earth like stones, some because when they did so they weren’t dead, just injured and others because they were done hovering. We’d just declared war. Knox’s bow jerked up. “Six o’clock,” he barked at Flea and both let fly. Their wings were held close to their bodies as they swooped, hoping to take us out with their outstretched claws, but it put them in a vulnerable position. The faces, so close to a human’s it was frightening, were distorted in a venomous mask of anger, carnivore’s fangs gleaming in open mouths that softened into O’s when the arrows found their way home.
One was hit right in the heart, dropping limply a moment later, but the other, the arrow had gone slightly wide, hitting the joint of the animal’s shoulder. It fell badly to the ground; its wings a mass of wildly flapping feathers as it struggled to right itself. It screamed, its anger, its pain, before getting to its feet, one wing trailing uselessly at its side before snarling and then charging towards us. “Oh, fuck!” I said, backing up quickly, but Knox slid in front of me in one smooth movement, bow at the ready and waiting for the animal to clamber into close range–howling what it intended to do to us when it got us in its claws–before releasing the arrow, this time smashing into its heart, stopping it mid-stride.
“Well done!” the prince said, eyeing Knox thoughtfully. “Morrow, Jakers, butcher the corpse for me, will you and promptly? Mellors, we should have bought more field dressers. Half the meat is going off before they have a chance to slice it from the carcasses. I promised Cookie
there would be enough for everyone.” The drummers had stopped their bloody beating and with that, the harpies had settled back down in their roost. They screamed and postured but otherwise seemed disinclined to attack. Instead, they watched the bodies of their sisters get turned into meat.
Mellors drew closer, flicking an eye at the corpse and nodding to a bloody-fronted furry who came close, knife in hand. He chewed thoughtfully on what looked like a small red lolly, taken from a pile in his hand. “You’re right, of course, sire. I’ll have half of the men swap to butchering. There’s not really enough harpies for everyone to have a shot as it is. Would be good for some of the men to remember what it’s like to be on the business end of a knife. Now, I brought you some of your favourite delicacies . . .” He held his paw out, the violently red balls rolling across the rough surface.
“Nipples! Oh, I do love those!” My eyes went wide as he grabbed what was apparently small morsels of harpy flesh, popping it into his mouth raw and chewing on it with great gusto. “So lovely when they are fresh. That contrast between chewy flesh and smooth skin is just delightful. I would badger my father, the king, for a taste every time we went out shooting. Damned near made myself sick on them as a young fellow. I ate and ate and ate them, not paying my nanny any mind, until I cut some off myself from one of the discarded carcasses. Went quite green after that, the bile in its flesh having spread. Nanny was whipped at the post for that oversight.”
“I believe she was executed, sire,” Mellors said.
I breathed carefully in through my nose, only opening my mouth enough to let a whistle of air through. I was afraid if I did anything more, I’d be puking in the grass. The ground was awash with blood, jelly-like slabs of meat slashed from body after body, the corpses tossed onto a pile as close to the nest as they dared. The harpies were not pretty creatures by any stretch of the imagination, but I wondered as I watched the prince devour nipple after nipple from the animals' bodies, did they deserve this?