Of Arms and Arcane
Chapter 232

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Freshly stocked with more anesthetic incense than I started this job with, I was back at it again with the harpies. When I first got back, the Harpy Queen was no longer on the lookout, making my job easier as I celebrated my return to the harpy peaks by raiding another two more peaks.

When morning came, I expected to see the Harpy Queen checking on my newest victims, but to my mild surprise, she did not show up. I guess she has other things to do than to wait around for me to show up and mess with her minions.

The following night, I continued with my pilfering of valuab- I mean searching of harpies’ nests for the jewel-encrusted family heirloom I was tasked to find. However, unlike other nights, I was having a hard time guiding the incense to envelop the harpies due to the unexpectedly strong winds when I climbed my first peak of the night.

Every time I tried to gather the incense smoke, the strong wind would disrupt my hold on the smoke, forcing me to focus on the stream of smoke, wasting my time and effort on what should have been a simple magical task, something a child could accomplish with a bit of chore magic. The worst part was that I was still at the lower nests of this peak. If this continues, I may only manage to search one nest tonight.

I eventually made my way to the top of the mountain peak and was just getting up from the latest nest I had raided, which just left one last nest for this peak just a few steps away. As I took a few steps toward the last nest for this peak, something grabbed me from behind by my shoulders and lifted me into the air. And whatever was grabbing me was doing it hard enough for the enchantments on my armor to kick in to resist damage.

On instinct, I reached up and grabbed at what was grabbing me. When I looked up, there she was, the Harpy Queen.

I reached for my dagger, but before I was able to draw it, the Harpy Queen performed a mighty flap to arrest her forward momentum and released her grip on me. I would have fallen to my death if I had not had a hand grip on one of her legs.

As I was snapped forward while still holding on to the Harpy Queen, this also caused her to jerk forward and proceed to flap her wings to correct herself in the air.

As she was correcting herself, the Harpy Queen was kicking me with her free leg in an effort to get me to let go. This forced me to use my free hand to defend myself so I do not catch a face full of powerful talons. I was not so sure how durable the mask the Steward’s Guild provided me was, but I was not willing to risk it because my enchanted nightvision glasses were glued to the inside of the mask.

After blocking a few kicks, I caught her kick with my hand, causing my fingers to interlock with her talons, taking away her ability to attack me directly. She then started bucking both her legs to try and shake me off.

While she was trying to shake me off, I noticed that we were both diving towards the ground, and when I looked to where we were headed, I saw that she was aiming to slam me against the tip of one of the peaks.

Wanting to avoid being smeared across a mountain peak, I timed for when she pulled her legs in to buck me off and released mt grip on one of her legs to wrap my free arm around her thigh and pulled myself up behind her.

I then pulled my hand that was entangled with her talons up behind her, forcing her to let go. That gave me free rein to climb up her body from behind and put her in a sleeperhold, hoping that it would force her to make a somewhat controlled landing.

I soon got my landing, as for whether it was controlled, it was debatable. Just before we landed, the Harpy Queen beat just one of her wings, flipping herself 180° and crash-landed with me at the bottom.

The landing knocked the air out of my lungs and disoriented me as I rolled across the ground. At some point during my roll, I lost my grip on the Harpy Queen, and I was gasping to recover my breath as I looked around. 

That was when I heard an ear-piercing screech that rolled across the mountain peaks. I looked back to where the screech came from and saw the Harpy Queen look back down at me from her perch, and launched herself into the air.

Just as her screech was done echoing, I heard a rustling and turned to see a harpy stirring from its sleep. That could only mean that we landed on another peak than the one I just hit.

There was a second screech from the Harpy Queen who was circling in the air and a second after, there were the return calls from the rest of the harpies, followed by the sound of hundreds of wings fluttering near me and in the distance.

I could very well be fucked.

***

I ducked and weaved as harpies swooped down at me, or to be more specific, in my general direction. Turns out that normal harpies have comparable or worse night vision compared to humans, so they were able to see me somewhat as I dodged and ducked between rocks and boulders as I tried to break line of sight and slip my way down the mountain.

Unfortunately for me, the Harpy Queen was a lot more accurate than the rest of the harpies. She either had better night vision compared to the other harpies, or she was using some other way to keep track of me. When she swooped down at me, I had to either dodge and block her swoops with my sword, and it was through those attacks that I confirmed that I had been suspicious of her since the first time I saw her. She was a magic beast.