Chapter 15 The Flightless
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE FLIGHTLESS
He said his name was Buzzard.
Ridan had no reason not to believe him, but honestly, he was having a hard time believing anything. His fingers were still tingling from where his sword harmlessly bounced off the Gollum. What should have been a killing blow hadn’t even fazed the creature.
The dead things were slumped over in a pile of sludge.
What could have been hair were stalks of thin looking reeds sticking out at all angles around their heads.
The rest of their bodies comprised soft grey flesh, discolored in many places.
When he poked one with his boot, the flesh gave only a little until it hit something hard.
Scraping away at it with the toe of his boot revealed overlapping wood.
Ridan stared for long moments and still didn’t understand what exactly he was looking at.
“Gollums,” Buzzard rasped from across the cavern. Ridan turned to see Brune lifting him to his feet. “Nasty buggers.”
Osmond used to tell them stories of Gollums to frighten them when they annoyed him. Creatures born of festering magic.
“Are they yours?”
Buzzard started to laugh, but he doubled over in pain, fingers clawing at Brune’s bicep to keep upright. “No,” he wheezed, head dropped as he caught his breath. “They must have a master, but they are unknown to me.”
Keeping his sword raised, Ridan stalked over to the chained man. “Perhaps you should tell us what you do know.”
“You first. Where is Schok?”
He lifted his sword. “You’re not in any position to—”
“Ridan.” Brune’s voice was quiet, but stern. He was looking at him over Buzzard’ss drooping head. “We all need answers. But this isn’t the place to get them.”
The anger didn’t abate in the face of Brune’s logic, but it did concede to it.
None of them wanted to spend a moment longer in the presence of the decomposing Gollums. And while he didn’t trust Buzzard, it was clear he wasn’t working with them by choice.
If his poor condition didn’t give it away, then the massive chain locked around his neck did.
The bulk of their supplies were with the horses, but Ridan did have some jerky with him. While Brune tried to find a way to release the chain, he offered it to Buzzard.
“Can you eat that?”
“I’d eat my own feathers at this point,” the man grumbled, leaning against the wall for support. He plucked the meat off of Ridan’s palm carefully with blackened talons. They were dull, cracked and bloody. Buzzard chewed the jerky, eyes closed.
He took in the warped wings and the flattened nose. The claws.
“You’re a harpy.”
Golden eyes flicked back open. “Or I’m just a fucked up bird.”
Ridan might have believed that if it hadn’t been for the wings.
Wider than Ridan was tall, their color difficult to distinguish, but they appeared mottled in dark and light.
At some point, they were probably beautiful.
But now they were horrific to look at. Atrophied with bald patches where the feathers had either fallen out or been plucked.
His sternum was prominent under his ragged shirt, ribs sticking out underneath, chest caving under the weight of the wings with no muscle to support them.
His skin was pallid, glowing near as white as the bones piled beside him.
Closer to him, Ridan could see that it wasn’t tangles that his hair fell in, but feathers interspersed with human hair, draping down his back.
Ridan knew little about harpies. They were creatures of magic and as such had left the land when Sinestrus poisoned it millennia ago. By all the legends, they had never returned.
So how was it in the span of one afternoon, Ridan had run into not one, but two magical creatures?
Buzzard was trembling, his hands held close as he used his remaining strength to stand upright. He still had the feather clutched in one hand.
If asked, Ridan would say it was the shock of the day. Not that he felt any sort of empathy for the chained man.
“Schok is fine,” he started, then stopped. “He’s alive.”
Buzzard jerked his head up to look at Ridan, stopping mid chew. Ridan rolled his eyes, encouraging him to keep eating. “He’s with his brother at my clan. He…he’s being cared for.”
Something that looked suspiciously like relief washed across Buzzard’s face. “The little brother? That’s good. He always spoke of him fondly.”
Buzzard knew Schok before he became a thrall. And they were close enough that they spoke of family. That was interesting. Ridan wasn’t sure what to do with that information just yet. Filing it away, he moved to help Brune.
Getting the collar off Buzzard proved to be impossible with the tools they had.
They would have to settle for hacking at the chain as close to his neck as possible.
Buzzard laid flat on the floor—looking understandably dubious—while Ridan fished around the cavern for some kind of chisel.
Eventually, he found a rusty dagger in the pile of bones.
Without thinking about where it came from, he settled it between the big links of the chain.
Widening his stance, Brune lifted his hammer high and brought it down on the old dagger. The thing snapped, but so did the chain. Ridan picked up the chain and glanced down at the poor welds. Derry would have a fit if he saw such shoddy metal smithing.
Between the two of them, they were able to get Buzzard up. He tried not to lean on them, but it was obvious his legs were too weak to support him. Buzzard wasn’t heavy. He was frail and shorter than Ridan.
When they got to the opening of the cave, Ridan was surprised to see it was later than they thought. Dusk was rapidly approaching and climbing down was going to be difficult, but especially without light. And none of them were eager to spend the night in the cave.
It was decided to use Brune’s and Ridan’s belts to fasten Buzzard to Ridan’s back. He was the best climber, and Brune had his shield.
Ridan was grateful no one from his clan was there to see him. It was the most ungainly, pathetic show of climbing he’d ever had. But he got them on solid ground, followed shortly by Brune.
After that, it was easy to half carry Buzzard back to the horses.
Peppercorn and Boulder were still grazing at the short, wispy grass growing from the cracks in the rock.
Buzzard looked like he was about to pass out, his eyes barely half lidded, but they couldn’t make camp here.
Shoving him onto Boulder’s broad back, they led the horses out of the rock field and back onto the plain.
They wouldn’t make it back to their campsite from the night before, but they found a suitable place. No shade, but there was plenty of grass for the horses to graze on and a small stream with fresh water.
Brune dropped beside him while he was trying to start a fire. “He needs a good meal. I’m going to head out and see if I can catch anything.”
Ridan grumbled his assent, uncomfortable with the idea of Brune going out but recognizing that even if they did have plenty of rations, Buzzard needed something more substantial.
The harpy was sitting beside the small creek, cupping his hands in the water, and bringing them to his face to scrub away at the filth. His movements were slow, and once Ridan got the fire going, he rummaged through his pack to hand some soap to the birdman.
Buzzard blinked down at the soap with his strange eyes. Eventually, Ridan sighed and settled in to help the harpy bathe.
First Brune with laundry and now this.
With the shirt off, Buzzard was unbearable to look at.
He was covered in bruises. Not to mention his smell.
Most of it was coming from his hair. It became apparent that Buzzard couldn’t reach his hair without straining his wings, his face contorting in pain when he tried.
Ridan swatted his hands away and couched on the bank to do it for him.
Once his hair was wet and soapy, he began picking through the knots, slicking his fingers through the feathers. Buzzard sighed, letting his head fall back so he could look up at the darkening sky.
“I can’t remember the last time I saw the sky.”
“Been in that cave long?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Ridan didn’t push, but Buzzard seemed to feel chattier now that he was in the open air. “Know much about Gollums?”
“Only what I was told as a child…you know, ‘don’t go too far in the woods or the Gollums will get you’ kind of thing.”
Buzzard hummed. “They’re borne of magic. Not like an elf or a dragon who can create magic. They are made of magic. Festered magic. Magic that is left alone so long it rots.”
Ridan’s fingers stilled. He listened to the bubbles in Buzzard’ss curls pop as he processed the information.
What kind of magic user was so strong they could just…
forget enough magic that it created creatures like that?
And why were they so close to the clans and not in Kaldonea, where magic was still used?
“Why didn’t my sword affect them?”
“Ah, that.” Buzzard ran his broken talons along the creek bed, muddying the water. “I can’t be sure, but I’m pretty sure whoever created them used them for protection. My guess is they were spelled to protect against blades.”
But not against hammers.
It was an unusual weapon. Likely, whoever bespelled the Gollums didn’t consider someone would use anything besides a blade. The clans were known for using all sorts of weapons—whatever worked for the warrior.
Kaldonea was not.
When Brune first arrived, he said he was forced to learn to use a sword, even though he showed no aptitude for it. The Gollum’s creator must be from Kaldonea.
Buzzard was silent, his breathing a little ragged from speaking.
Ridan tried not to let his thoughts run off with him, focusing on the task of cleaning Buzzard as best he can.
When they got back to the clan, he’d have to have Sehleh help tame the ratty nest of hair. She had lots of practice with Jonen’s.