The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm

Her whistle of outrage changed to a heartrending scream, so human that Ki echoed it. The Harpy opened wide her blue wings, flapping them frantically to break the speed of her dive. Ki was forgotten. The Harpy’s small bony forearms were outstretched instead to the gaunt figure that staggered from the den mouth on stalky legs. He spread wide his wings, showing the seared plumage that dropped from them to smoke on the bare ledge. His dull turtle beak was opened wide, gasping for clean air. His eyes were clouded over with a protective white membrane. As Ki gaped in horror, he dropped to his knees and rolled over, the leathery egg still clutched to his high bird chest. Even as Ki watched, his forearms jerked spasmodically and the egg fell, to split open on the ledge. The ruined infant rode the wave that should have been its birth. Before Ki’s eyes the tiny body jerked, splashed in the egg liquids, and was still.

      The female Harpy landed on the ledge, fanning Ki with the wake of her outstretched wings. Her golden eyes darted from the ruined egg to the still, smoking body of her mate. Dark, foul-smelling smoke poured from the gaping aerie den.

      Her leathery wings were still half spread as she whirled on Ki. ‘Gone! All gone!’ A world of loss was in the words she cried.

      ‘As are mine!’ Ki shrieked back. Her own grief and agony burst out afresh inside her, like an infected wound that covers itself over only to split and gush anew. The Harpy started for her; Ki rushed to meet her.

      Ki was inside the range of the wide wings before she could be stunned by a blow from them. The top of Ki’s head was not as high as the top of the Harpy’s breastbone. Ki thanked whatever nameless fates had allowed her to meet the creature on the ledge instead of receiving the weight of that body in the ripping force of its talons.

      The Harpy’s bony forearms and clenching hands shot out to close in Ki’s hair and jerk Ki close to her. The wide turtle beak gaped over her skull, the gust of her fetid breath enveloping Ki. Ki saw the single great taloned foot begin to rise, to claw her entrails from her. Ki did not resist the Harpy’s jerk that snatched her toward the plumaged chest. Instead, she butted her head into it with a will of her own. Ki’s left hand gripped the Harpy’s right wrist desperately. She sprang to wrap her legs suddenly about the Harpy’s high waist, curling her body up out of reach of the questing talons. Ki’s right hand, with the bare knife in it, rose and fell. The Harpy staggered under the double impact of Ki’s weight and the knife blow. The blade skittered across the Harpy’s ribs, to finally sink into her tough abdomen. Ki clung to the knife haft, tucking her chin into her chest to avoid the Harpy’s snapping beak. Ki dragged down on the knife blade with all the strength of her hatred. It bit slowly through the Harpy’s thick skin and chewed down. The great wings beat angrily against her, but Ki remained curled on the Harpy’s long belly, hugging her as tightly as a lover.

      The wide wings beat wider. Ki was jerked up. She squeezed her legs tightly about the Harpy’s body, refusing to be shaken off, to have her life dashed out on the rocks below – for now the ledge was gone. They were rising, then suddenly wheeling down. The hands locked in Ki’s hair rattled her head. She lost her orientation; there was no up or down. The sky rushed past her, revealed and then hidden by the beating wings. Ki buried her face against the Harpy’s body, trying to avoid the fingers that sought her eyes. Ki could not tell if they climbed or swooped. Ki dug her own nails into the leather and bone wrist of the Harpy. The Harpy drew her free hand clawing down Ki’s face.

      Ki loosened the grip of one leg, drove the knee in a short jolt to the Harpy’s hard belly. The rhythm of the wings paused. Ki quickly locked her leg about the Harpy again. She pulled her knife clear of the creature, reached high, and sank the blade to its hilt in the Harpy’s chest.

      A too-Human scream. The control of the flight faltered. The great wings flapped and battered the sky erratically, not checking the speed of their sudden fall. Ki and the Harpy tumbled together, locked in disaster. Ki shrieked out her final triumph and terror. The Harpy was silent, perhaps dead already, her wings beating only in after-death spasms. Sky and cliff wheeled endlessly about them. One wing tip brushed the cliff face, swinging them about and checking, for an instant, their fall. Ki tasted the Harpy’s warm blood as it spattered against her face. She clutched tightly to the tumbling body.

      Suddenly, rough tree branches reached up and seized them, ripping them apart from one another.

      Ki opened her eyes to evening. Idly she observed her feet and legs where they rested, higher than her head, in a tangled bush. Snapped branches above told the passage of her fall and let in the last of the day’s light. Ki lay still, looking at the moon that was beginning its nightly stroll. The Romni said the moon saw everything there was to be seen, and remembered it all. She grinned up at it foolishly. It need watch her no more. She was finished. The moon had seen all that Ki would ever do. She could think of nothing left in her life that had to be done. She closed her eyes.

      When she opened them again, the moon was higher, looking curiously down at her through the snapped branches. Her body wanted water. Ki herself felt immune to such needs, apart from them. But her body would not go away. She listened for a long time to the nagging of her dry mouth and throat. Finally she began to stir herself. She pulled her legs free of the bush so that they fell to the ground. Her left arm seemed to be gone. Ki looked for it, found it still attached to her body. She reached over and picked up its hand and set it gently down between her breasts. She cradled it there. Slowly she rolled to her right shoulder. She waited for a jab of pain from her disjointed arm, but it was silent and numb. The Harpy’s dead eyes stared into Ki’s.

      She was not an armspan away. In death she was a broken thing, a kite of paper and sticks crushed in a gust of wind. Ki looked deep into the ruined golden eyes that had gone rotten brown in death. It was a cold look. She was glad that they had fought, glad that she had had the chance to rend that flesh and scatter its blood. She wondered if the Harpy could remember her death throes in hell. A grim smile set on Ki’s face. She rolled up onto her knees, forced her shaken body to stand. For the moment, she had decided to live.

      Ki read the stars that sprinkled the night sky. They had fallen far from where Ki had begun her climb, and farther still from where Ki had left her wagon and team concealed. She took her bearings, brushed hair and dried blood from her eyes, and limped off through the forest.

      Gray daylight had begun to stain the sky and return color to the leaves when Ki heard the welcoming snorts of her team. They had scented her. She wanted to call out to them, but her throat was too dry. She limped toward the sounds.

      The wagon stood in a small clearing. The unhobbled team raised their heads to gaze at her curiously. Sigurd snorted suspiciously at the smell of Harpy and moved beyond the range of Ki’s touch. Docile Sigmund watched her limping approach calmly. Ki stumbled past him, watching him shy suddenly as he caught the smell of blood on her. She went to the water cask strapped to the side of her wagon. She let the spigot of the cask run wastefully as she wet her hands, her face, and head, then drank in greedy gasps. The coolness of the water awoke her shoulder, and it began to beat in throbs of hot red. Ki forced herself to reach up and turn the spigot off. She sat limply in the muddy place it had made beside the wagon.

      Her shoulder had begun to swell; her jerkin was tight against it. She would have to find help while she was still capable. She climbed painfully up the tall yellow wheel of the wagon onto the plank seat. Behind the seat rose the small enclosed cuddy that made up the wagon’s living quarters. She tugged loose a little wooden peg from its leather loop and slid the small door open. She clambered in, careful not to let her shoulder brush against the narrow door frame. She could not muster the energy to hop up onto the high sleeping platform. The folded blankets stacked on the straw-stuffed mattress beckoned to her, but she could not rest yet. The walls of the cramped cuddy were dominated by cupboards and shelves, hooks and pegs. Ki tugged open a drawer and drew out the ragged remains of an old skirt. With her good hand and her teeth she ripped loose a piece and fastened a support for her arm. Then she snagged a sausage from a string that swung from a hook on the low ceiling. Her teeth sank into the tough, spicy meat. Her stomach awoke, growling, to remind her that a full day and night had passed since last she ate. Her jaws and bruised face ached as she chewed. She remembered again the Harpy’s claws down the side of her face. Ki swallowed, and took another bite.

      A small window in the cuddy