The Coming of the Harpies (or, Daggerfall meets Rincewind) :) by Linflas a.k.a. Dave Booth Parte Diem - continued from Issue 51 As expected when confronted with an airbound hairy horror from hell, Al's reaction was to bugger off ASAP. ASAP is in fact too long a phrase to use. Before you could say the second 'A', he was out of there, and down the battlement steps as quick as his pins could carry him. His staff lay in bits. Maybe the Harpy above might notice the woodworms nibbling round in the breaks that they had made, and decide that a 1/8 inch long wiggly white thing was a better meal than a five-foot-eight pink thing with just a trace of a beer gut to feast on. On the other hand, no contest. With a further, and this time triumphal 'EEK' the flying menace swooped down towards the scuttling Guard. I've mentioned before the sound that a Harpy 'eek' in attack mode is like. This one smelt Al's blood, literally because they have a really keen sense of smell for it (honest! I asked one!), and sensed from his running-away behaviour that he was in no mood for a fight. The resulting 'EEK' had the tone of a sharpened razor blade being pulled slowly down a freshly cleaned window. His "mates" slept still. It's a tribute to their tenacity at holding their posts that they stayed there while their compatriot fled from certain death. Or, maybe, it reflects the fact that they had all been on duty too long and were too buggered to wake up. Whatever, not a single soul ventured forward to his aid. Against all odds, Al reached the floor of the fortress, and bounded towards the nearest sanctuary, viz : the open door of the alehouse. (What, an alehouse in a fortress? Surely you jest Linflas! I hear you expostulate. Poetic licence I call it. So there! ;} As he reached the door, the furry fury behind him swiped at his back, and gouged a nice bit of bacon rind from his midriff. That was one less Weight Watcher's class he would have to attend. Al got through the door intact, well, net of 1/2 lb of back flab, and the bit of skin off his head that the Harpy had detached when it first attacked. Lucky for him, the Harpy had first spiked at him only in surprise, hearing the strange deep noise (that it had taken for a bugle call) that had emanated from his rear end. Castle doorways are high, but narrow, and Harpies are short, but with wings outspanned, quite a bit wider. The thing hit the entrance with a sickening thwap, broke both wings, and fell to the ground outside. It lay there, on its back, EEKING now in fear. But this meant nothing to Al, who by now was halfway down the pub, dashing past the overturned tables and over the broken tankards. Aloysius O'Farrell (to give him his full name) ran till an ill- positioned wall blocked his way. He turned in horror to face his assailant. Of course, his next sight was a horizontal hippie, wearing a smashed-up Batman costume, in obvious pain and distress. Oh dear. Poor thing. Our HERO (wow, what a turn of events can do for a person's self- confidence) now found the iota of Courage that had lain dormant in him since his younger sister had slapped him with her bib. "Yuh - yuh - yuh - are - fauh - (coff coff) - it - nah!" he spluttered (in a voice booming with exertion and scaredy catness). He slowly drew his dagger, as might be expected from someone who has gone from fast asleep to doing a 100 metre dash in 30 seconds, and who is severely unfit. He strode, no wobbled, towards his prey with the blade waving around in his unsteady hand. The Harpy laid prone, still furious, but now fearing for its life. A word about the Harpy folks. Being a Harpy is a rough existence. Life is tough when all of your family and friends look like flying hippies. You get a bad deal at the Best Monster of the Year parties (the Dragons *always* win those). The claws are useless at manipulating Scrabble tiles, so you end up losing to thick Trolls, for pity's sake. Novels consisting of 'Eek' don't win Pulitzers. All told, they are a race which has not a lot going for it. They have become creatures (with horrible halitosis by the way) which hunt at night, so as to avoid the laughter of the less fashionably-challenged beasts. If you don't feel a pang of sorrow for the prone beast, then you have no heart. As Al was convinced that this one would have when he was done with it. Aloysius had decided that the best way to disable his opponent was not by a quick stabbing or a limb breakage, but by doing both, then subjecting it to involuntary coronary donation. With a blunt knife. What a sadist. ;) In no time at all, if you call four minutes of shambling across a bar 'no time', Al had reached his erstwhile assassin. Al had now caught his breath, and the stitch in his belly had laid off a bit. He stood over the shrieking Orc-budgerigar, knife aloft. "This will impress the guys in the barracks in the morning!" he thought. "Just wait 'til Brickchew McBeergut comes back from a reccie, boasting about his encounters. He says he has killed zombies with his bare hands, but we know he knocks them out with one belch. This souvenir will have him buying me the beer tonight!" The blade rose, the bird froze in anticipation of oncoming doom. The knife flashed in the moonlight, and began its descent towards some bit of the Harpy. Al's aim wasn't much good. Oh dear, something else was about to sod up Aloysius' night. One of the younger guards had woken up whilst Al was running like a hare with its bun on fire. Not at the sound of him dashing to the sanctuary of the Broken Knuckle, nor that of the Harpy who had been squeaking like some sort of demented mouse on speed. Oh no. He was less tired than the others, and too young for officer material, so had come out of his slumber when he heard the noise in front of him. No, not behind him. You see, Stumpy O'Dogdo had been awakened not by the sound of an attacking Harpy. He had been alerted by the noise made by several dozen Harpies. Hungry ones. Ones with 'eeks' right across the aural spectrum. There were bass, baritone, and alto Harpies in that lot. In a different place, for example round the camp fire after a successful foray, they would have made an impressive Welsh Voice Choir. Tonight, they sounded like a lot of noisy, angry, vengeful flying thingies with steak knives on their feet (oops, I said that already). He yelled to anyone, if anyone was corpus mentus. "ATTACK!" he cried several times. Several being between two and forty. Anyway, it alerted Al. He looked out of the door and up; and there, framed in the light of the early dawn, was a panoply of flying things (the description of which you know by now). "Harpies! Fahsands of them! Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes, lads!" cried good Stumpy. Al didn't hear that bit. He was back in the boozer and heading for the cellar. It might be safe there, at least it was dark, and if all else failed they might be bribed with rancid beer. Probably not. But he wasn't going to risk taking on a phalanx of them. This left Stumpy on the parapets, alone amidst his STILL dozing comrades (who had recently discovered Mogadon Weed and were still communing with the Sandman). Stumpy, four feet eleven, still sporting his first moustache, against a veritable storm of Harpies. And their amigo was eeking madly on the ground, encouraging them in Harpie-ese to come in and pick a landing site. Some odds. Will the Harpies overrun the somnambulant Guards? Will the Guards come out of their slumber and slaughter the upstart birdy things? Will Stumpy earn his manhood in defence of the Castle? Will Aloysius locate a magical wand of Kill Everything in Sight? Would he use it if he did find one, or hide behind a particularly stout barrel? Answers to these questions, and more, in the next episode of "Aloysius meets the Oversized Canaries from Hell"! @~... which will be in Issue 53 - o -