113. Rorax
“I’ve been instructed ta stay righ’ here. Good luck, Greywood.” Lamonte stopped on the edge of the cluster of small buildings, a dilapidated and crumbling village, folding his arms over his chest as he looked down at Rorax.
The transport dragons had dropped the necessary people for the trial a few miles south of the border, and from there Lamonte had been Rorax’s guide from the camp to here. The Guardian had given the three remaining Contestars very clear instructions. “Harpies have infiltrated some of the small villages on the border. Your task is to identify and kill the Harpies in your given village. Bring me a head so I know the job has been completed.”
Rorax gave him a nod and turned to the village. Harpies were foul creatures. They took pleasure in killing, and the males were known to rape their victims. They usually left nothing standing. Rorax had seen many villages turned into nothing but ashes after a visit from a harpy.
Using the Life magick, she sent a pulse through the village. Maybe . . . four forms? Three?
Rorax could smell the rot, smell the decay from all around the village, seeping into her nose. She crept forward through the underbrush surrounding the village, until she stepped on something soft that crunched under her boot. Rorax looked down to find a severed hand. Flies buzzed angrily around the removed appendage and her stomach roiled. The smell of decay wasn’t a mystery anymore, and as she looked closer at the land around her, she noticed several missing chunks and appendages that had been carelessly discarded.
“Disgusting,” Rorax grumbled as she crept forward and pushed her way inside the first cabin where the closest energy signature was.
It turned out there were twoenergy signatures.
A woman standing at a stove, pulled a small child behind her, both scared and skittish upon Rorax’s intrusion.
“Hello, Harpy,” Rorax drawled, pulling her sword.
The woman didn’t say anything, just looked wildly around the kitchen for an escape.
“You and your clan just killed a small contingent of the Guardian’s men and you slaughtered this entire village. How do you plead?”
“Not guilty. It’s not true,” the harpy shrieked.
“I stepped on a severed hand just outside,” Rorax snarled.
“Lies. We would never do such a thing.” The harpy pulled the child to her side, and Rorax’s upper lip curled.
“We did it.” The child sneered at Rorax. “I would do it again.”
The harpy hissed in outrage, but Rorax didn’t have time for this.
In one fell swoop, Rorax decapitated the harpy, the humanistic head falling to the floor with a wet thump.
The child blinked at the decapitated human form on the floor twice before it snapped its eyes up to Rorax. The young harpy didn’t have the same control of its glamor magick its mother had. It’s irises switched between the human-like, chocolate brown to yellow with vertical slitted pupils.
With a loud, inhuman screech, the harpy started to shift. Even though the harpy was still not full grown, it towered over Rorax by a foot. The smooth, childlike skin of its upper body gave way to flesh colored scales while its legs were covered in brown feathers. Wings erupted out of its back, and claws grew out of its hands.
Rorax threw Glimr, but the harpy swatted it out of the air, hissing in pain as the blade cut into its taloned hand.
It screamed again, the jaw distending past what was human, showing its rows and rows of sharp, long, needle-like teeth.
Rorax swung her hand, and a pick of ice shot from her palms and rammed right down the harpy’s throat.
The harpy dropped, its blue and black blood splattering across the wall behind it.
Rorax turned and exited the hut, to find two other harpies already waiting for her, in their full forms. Claws and wings out.
“Contestar,” the tallest one purred. “We speculated if the Guardian would send her disposable lap dogs after us.”
“Harpies always talk too much.” Rorax pulled Glimr close to her face, watching as the black harpy blood dripped down the blade and onto her fingers, seeping into the horizontal lines of the skin on her knuckles. “But you never tell me what I really want to know.”
“Which is what?”
She dropped her blade away from her face to focus on the two oversized birds. “What are you doing here? I thought your home was in Wymeria’s mountains.”
“Koleti has allowed us to expand our borders.” The harpy gave Rorax a cold smile. “Expand our menus.”
“Oh? Have you been speaking to him? Or was this a decision based on delusion or bloodlust?”
The harpy smiled, showing its sharp rows of teeth, but said nothing.
Rorax forced her frustration down. “Tell me, who is Koleti communicating with?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Has Koleti agreed to help Lyondrea win the war against the Realms?” When the harpy said nothing, Rorax gritted her teeth. “Tell me, or your demise will be so painful I’ll have you begging me for death for days.”
The harpy looked Rorax up and down slowly, focusing in on her eyes. “If my death was destined to be brought upon by you, Spine Cleaver, it was always destined to be painful and slow.”
The harpy lunged.
Her talons ripped long gashes around Rorax’s arm as Rorax spun and set it on fire. The harpy screamed in pain causing enough of a distraction, Rorax spun and hacked the harpy’s head clean off with her sword.
She turned in time to see the other harpy bend to lunge, but with her Death magick she reached out to feel his soul and pulled. With what felt like a subtle pop, the second harpy dropped to the ground.
She stared at it for a moment, breathing heavily before she walked over and toed the harpy’s taloned hand carefully. It was dead.
“Nice work.” Rorax spun to find Lamonte leaning against one of the posts of the hut, watching her with those beautiful green eyes. “Most new Contestars are frightened of their new Death Magick.”
“I have never been scared of death,” she said, before she turned, lifted her sword, and chopped the harpy’s head free.