Chapter 2
As she dipped in closer, Skrch saw that there were, in fact, more than five centaurs. The other six, lying in various stages of disembowelment, were not likely to threaten the Orc any longer. Some of the bodies lay in the shadow of the outcrop of rock that the Orc had chosen for his last stand.
One gray Orc and eleven centaurs, she thought. There were no other Orcs nearby, alive or dead. The rider on the wolf bled in several places, staining his lighter gray trousers, and the smell of blood rose on the wind as Skrch circled. The Orc had lost his helmet, and a long black braid whipped around as he batted down another arrow with his scimitar.
A centaur drudge looked up as Skrch's shadow covered him.
"Harpy!" he called in the Common tongue. His voice was a coarse baritone. "The Orc's got a fat purse of gold. Help us kill it and we'll share it with you!"
"It's got shinies?" Vrawk said from behind Skrch. She said it in Saark, so the creatures below heard only a raptor shriek.
"Can we kill it?" Ckkk said.
Skrch reluctantly gave up any hope of getting home soon. She let go of her half a kodo. It hit the ground far below with a wet thunk, producing a nervous start from the centaurs.
"Here's a good time to use your heads, little krrrahk," she said to her daughters. "Six of the centaurs are dead, and this one warrior is still alive. And two of the centaurs have bows, which they could use on us as easily as on the Orc. Who doesn't, by the way, have a purse that I can see. What does that tell you?"
"The centaurs are liars?" suggested Ckkk after a moment's thought. "They can't kill the Orc, so they want us to?"
"Jhha," Skrch agreed. "And what do you see all the centaurs carrying?"
"Belts… With purses?" Vrawk said. Skrch could almost hear the tiny wheels turning in her head. "They have pretties?"
"Jhha!" said Ckkk. "Let's kill them!"
"Very good," Skrch said. "Kill them."
She sighed at the shriek of delight this produced. They really are hopeless. Then she pulled in the mana from around herself, condensed it into the air, and blew the nearest centaur archer up into a cyclone.
Ckkk and Vrawk dropped their half kodo onto another centaur. As usual, their aim was very good. Five hundred pounds of meat traveling at high speed struck the second archer directly in the head. He seemed unlikely to get up again afterwards.
The Orc did not hesitate to take advantage of the distraction. The wolf lunged forward, and the centaur drudge lost his arm and shortly thereafter his head. The gray Orc easily parried a javelin thrust from another centaur at about the same time that Ckkk's sleep spell hit the fifth and last one.
Skrch watched as her cyclone started to subside. She hovered over the miniature tornado as it spun down into nothing, depositing a very dizzy centaur on the ground. Then she folded her wings and dove.
Air rushed past her ears as she watched the centaur zooming closer. At precisely the correct second she spread her tail feathers and her wings, braking sharply in the manner known to raptors the world over since the beginning of time. Her momentum was only partly canceled, but her direction changed sufficiently that her claws drove straight into the centaur's face.
The result was not pretty. Skrch alighted beside the body as it thudded to the ground. She tried to wipe the gore off her talons in the dust. This resulted, not surprisingly, in dirtier talons.
"Ugh," she said. "Are they all dead yet?"
"Jhha, Mother," her daughters chorused.
"Except the Orc," Vrawk said. "Were we supposed to kill the Orc?"
"Hhek," Skrch said. "Leave him alone. Unless he starts attacking us."
"Can we get some shinies now?" Ckkk said.
"Fine, go ahead. Just make sure they're dead before you get inside their reach, all right?"
Skrch stalked across the ground to the edge of the tall grass and wiped her talons on that. This was slightly more effective. She turned to see the Orc sitting slumped in his saddle, breathing hard. He still held his scimitar, but his knuckles were white with the effort.
"Well?" the Orc said, as he saw the harpy watching him.
"We're not going to attack you. I, at least, am not stupid," Skrch said. She turned and walked over toward her half a kodo. "And yes, you're welcome, and yes, I do speak Orcish very well for a devil bird woman, thank you so very much. Why are you gray, by the way?"
Ckkk and Vrawk were busy rifling the centaurs' belts and purses. Skrch had been right: they were carrying any number of pretties, both in coin and jewelry. The harpy queen prodded her dead kodo unhappily. It had suffered somewhat on its plunging flight, and was now both battered and dirty.
From the corner of her eye she saw the Orc put away the scimitar. He did not take his eyes from Skrch as he pulled off his belt and started to tighten it around his right thigh. The flow of blood had already soaked his trouser leg.
"I'm with… The Tattered Banner Clan," he said. "We're not… From here…" His voice sounded more or less like any other Orc's voice, gruff and low, except that he had an odd accent.
And he's getting weaker by the minute.
"Lost a lot of blood, have you?" Skrch abandoned the carcass and moved closer to the Orc, picking her way delicately between dead centaurs. "You must be quite a fighter, for such a skinny Orc."
"Un huh," the Orc said. The wolf growled.
"I'm not meaning any harm," Skrch said. "Like I said, I'm not stupid."
She concentrated on the mana again. Then she clapped her wing talons together over her head.
Golden rings swirled up out of nowhere, spinning around the Orc and the wolf. Skrch watched with satisfaction as the Orc's wounds began to close, the notches on his bare chest knitting together at their edges. She leapt from the ground and went to perch on the rock outcrop to the Orc's left. He turned laboriously in his seat, watching in suspicion and dawning surprise.
"My fledglings and I have killed your enemies," she said. "I've seen to it that you won't die from your wounds. We want the centaurs' jewelry and their weapons, and I'll give you ten percent of the gold." She ignored her daughters' protests in Saark. "Fair?"
"Fair… Enough," the gray Orc said.
He must be worse off than I thought. Skrch eyed the Orc thoughtfully.
"Good." She turned to look down at her fledglings, switching back to Saark. "You two, go get all your sisters. We want to get all this back to the nest as fast as may be, understand?"
"Can I keep it?" Ckkk asked hopefully, holding up a gold chain. "It's really shiny."
"I suppose," Skrch said. "One each. Now go. And be careful."
Ckkk and Vrawk quickly picked out a trinket apiece and hurled themselves skyward. A moment later, their frantically flapping silhouettes dwindled out of view.