The Ruin of Eros

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 does I 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.

“There are more of those,” I shout, “for the next one who comes for me.”

I look down at my arm, where a trail of her blood is dotted. If she dies, will her companions retreat? Or will they come after me in vengeance?

The one who seems to be the leader wheels, circling until she is in front of us once more. Her wings open wide as she glides down to my level.

“Very well,” she hisses. “Keep your charm, for now.” Her wings beat once, hard, and she hovers above me.

“We shall take it later. We shall lift it from your corpse instead.” She drops toward me once more. I have another arrow ready, clutched in my fist, but she doesn’t come for the Shroud, nor within reach of my hand. At first I don’t understand what’s happening—all I hear is a ripping, tearing sound but the pain does not come. Then I realize: it’s the cloak she’s ripping from my back, shearing it as easily as if it were paper. And then I lurch as I feel wings by my leg, and realize she’s snatched one of the saddlebags, too. But not the one with the gold, not the one I offered her before.

She’s taken the one with the food.

In the grass lie the torn remains of my father’s cape, shredded like some helpless creature. I feel naked without it. My chiton is light cotton, damp with sweat.

“Keep climbing, girl,” she squawks flapping back toward the tree. “Keep climbing, and we will come for you tomorrow, when your body lies cold on the ground!”

Her words make me shiver, but I will not wait to hear more. If they come for me tomorrow, it’s still better than today. I snap the reins hard, refusing to look at the tatters of my father’s cloak again.

“Go, Ajax, as fast as you can,” I breathe into his ear.

*

I’m shivering.

I’m trying not to fear the unknown, but it’s hard not to wonder what else waits for me on these slopes. It’s a thin line, is it not, between courage and foolhardiness?

And now my bread is gone, along with my waterskin. I will have to find food and water on the mountain, if I am to survive this place, and there is none of either on this stretch. There are woods ahead though; maybe there will be a stream there, and some berries I can forage. I kick myself for keeping the bread in my saddle-bags; for not allowing myself even a crumb since starting out today. I should have eaten the damned stuff when I had the chance. This is what comes of self-denial , I think with gritted teeth. I was always taught that self-denial was among the greatest of virtues. Now I think it’s just something people with more power made up, to keep people like me from complaining.

We’re entering a forest, and I shiver again.

It seems to me the air has grown colder. I inhale it, smelling its crispness, dry and bright where only hours ago it was thick and humid. And the landscape around us is changing, too. The lush grass grows browner and the trees sparser, their canopies less dense. Leaves begin to litter the ground, first singly, and then in small, wind-tossed piles of yellow and orange.

It is not my imagination, then. On this accursed mountain, the seasons cycle through at some unnatural pace. And it starts to make sense, what the harpy said to me. In the height of summer, I could travel comfortably without any cloak. But I wonder how long I will last out here, as I ride higher into the mountains. The harpies’ plan begins to sound quite efficient now. Easier not to kill me, and let this monstrous mountain do the work for them, leeching my life from me slowly.

I look upwards, to where the great body of the mountain still soars higher, its peak buried still in the fog. I cannot tell how much farther there is to go.

Well, I suppose there is only one answer.

I must go faster.

I must scale these cursed slopes before they have the time to kill me.

*

It’s dark in the forest, all its foliage cloaked in colors of the waning year: rust and crimson red, browns and dying yellows. I try to ignore the hunger in my belly. When we round a bend and hear the babbling of a stream, I pull Ajax to a halt.

Lack of water is more dangerous than lack of food, and in the high summer heat, we have lost much.

The stream isn’t hard to locate—we almost stumble across it at the next bend. I will have to drink my fill here, without a waterskin to refill. I stroke the horse’s warm, shivering hide and nudge him toward the stream so he can drink first.

But Ajax doesn’t seem interested.

“What’s got into you?” I nudge him again with my foot, but he turns his great head away. I slide from his back—the ground is wet here, squelching beneath my sandals, and the mere sound of the stream makes my mouth water. I take Ajax by the bridle and give it a tug.

“Don’t you understand? It may be days before we come to running water again.”

I try to reason with him, but he tugs his great head back away from me. I sigh—I have no solution for this strange display of contrariness. Hopefully, there’ll be more streams uphill, and a horse can go longer without water than I can.

I crouch down, trying to find a dry-ish part of the bank to bend and drink. But Ajax stamps his foot and whinnies loudly, making me turn.

“What has gotten into you?”

A thought comes to me, cold and sharp, as his golden eyes meet mine: I should be listening better . I turn back and stare down at the crystalline, flowing stream. There should be grass, shouldn’t there, on the bank? The earth here is wet and mulchy, but nothing grows on it. I step a few feet away, and rip up some tiny yellow flowers and a handful of grass. Then I go back to the bank, and scatter them into the stream.

The water’s fast, and carries them swiftly around the bend.

But not so fast that I can’t see them curl up like a dead thing, and shrivel to black.

*

I scramble back, my heart thumping. Ajax whinnies softly, treads the ground where he stands.

“Thank you, Ajax.”

He snorts, and moves his face briefly against my palm. I look into his gold-colored eyes. I’m embarrassed to have doubted his instincts, which clearly are better than mine. My heart stays in my throat until the sound of the stream disappears behind us, and even then, the forest makes my skin crawl. I’m glad when we’re free of it, back on another broad and sloping plain.

The world is brown and withered now. The rich reds and russets are gone, giving way to brown and grey. The sky is heavier than it ought to be at this hour, and I wonder if it will rain. I drop the reins for a while to rub some warmth back into my limbs, and wonder how much worse all this will get. I touch the Shroud around my neck once more: I find it hard to believe that it’s working, when I’ve never felt so hunted in my life. Only belatedly did I think how I ought to have waited until the harpies had moved along to other victims; then I could have gone back and collected the two lost arrows from the wild grass where they fell.

I suppose the gods will hear word of me soon. The creatures of this place must whisper it, whenever they see a mortal on these slopes.

It begins to rain at last.

At first it is just a drizzle, then a steady patter, and soon a driving, pelting wall. I pull the hanks of wet hair from my face, barely seeing Ajax’s mane before me, barely hearing the slush of his hooves through mud. I can’t see far in front of us, and at this rate I’m afraid of losing our path. I push a rake of rainwater from my chiton , and move the reins to my left hand.

“Ajax, what do you see, boy? Any trees nearby?”

We’re already soaked, but surely there’s somewhere around here we can take shelter.

Then in a brief gap in the rain, as if through a grey window, I glimpse a copse of dark green trees. Despite the wintry season, their foliage is still thick and lush, a dense canopy of evergreen. .

“That will do!” I exult, and bury my hands in Ajax’s mane, steering him off the path. It’s not far—we’ll be able to find our way back again as soon as the rain stops. When we pull up under the trees, it’s like stepping through a doorway into some protected place. Instantly the hammering of rain fades to a soft splashing outside its circle. The sheltering trees are tall, and their canopy so dense that barely a stray drop makes it down to us. I dismount, wipe my face, and coil my hair tight to wring out a gush of rainwater.

“Greetings, lady,” a strange voice says.