The harpy shrieked, a final, useless attempt to petrify me. I gave it a little room while it kicked madly with eagle-like feet, back arching at a crazy angle. My blow, however, was fatal. Black eyes glazed over, and leathery wings folded up, wrapping themselves slowly around the harpy’s slackening body as it let out a death rattle and became still.
I released a long, slow sigh and dusted myself off. The others were still paralyzed as I plucked the blade of my kusarigama out of the harpy’s chest. The five skeletons I’d drawn strength from were nothing but piles of bone shards now, but I didn’t care. Taking this thing down was worth it, because I had a plan. I’d been thinking for a while that an eye in the sky would be tremendously useful for battles and scouting. Up until encountering this harpy, I’d had no idea how I would find one.
Fate, however, had dropped exactly what I needed right at my feet.
“What… happened?” Elyse staggered forward on jelly-like legs. “I… couldn’t… move…”
“Ugh,” Rami gasped as she too came out of the state of paralysis. “That… was… bad.”
“Well, it’s all over now.” I stared at the dead harpy at my feet. “And I have something new.”
Elyse massaged her temples, still groggy. “You plan to—”
“Of course. I wouldn’t be the God of Death if I didn’t give it a shot.”
Chapter Five
I’d had a bunch of practice resurrecting beasts, so it was fairly simple to resurrect the dead harpy as a zombie-beast, like Fang. I poured magical energy into its heart, and the organ started pumping that eerie yellow-green liquid through its veins. The harpy’s folded-over wings unfurled, and its dull, glazed-over eyes turned from black to glowing yellow-green. Its massive hinged jaw opened, and it let out a menacing hiss, its black snake-like tongue curling. Despite its aggressive demeanor, this creature would be absolutely loyal to me.
Rami and Elyse weren’t so convinced, and they jumped back with fright. Rami whipped out her sais, and Elyse’s hands were glowing as she prepared to unleash her ethereal ropes. Isu was still in the wagon out of view, but Cranton and Grast were both wide-eyed as they stared at my new creation.
“Relax,” I said to the women, dusting off my hands. “She’s with us now, and she’s as harmless as Fang. Unless you’re one of my enemies, of course.”
The others stepped back as the harpy stood up on her birdlike feet and stretched her huge bat-like wings. They were half-translucent and seemed to glow as the light of the sun shone through them. She really was a damn impressive creature, even if she was as ugly as a goblin scrotum.
I wanted her for her eyes, although if she could still perform her paralyzing scream magic as a zombie, that’d be pretty handy too. I’d need to ensure the paralysis wouldn’t also affect my party, but that could wait. First, I wanted to test what it would be like for my consciousness to enter her undead body as I’d done previously with my skeletons.
I flung a small part of myself into the harpy and commanded her to fly. She took off, her huge wings beating the air so hard that Rami and Elyse stumbled back from the force of the wind she generated. Soon, she was soaring through the sky.
My consciousness was still linked to hers, like an unbreakable, infinitely malleable strand of sinew that stretched further and further as she soared higher. I sent more of myself into her, concentrating now on merging my consciousness with hers, on feeling what she felt, hearing what she heard, and, most importantly, seeing what she saw. To do this completely, I needed to cut out the input that was coming from my senses, so I closed my eyes, held my breath, and pressed my hands against my ears, doing my best to shut everything else out. For a second, everything was black, calm, and silent.
Then, it happened: my senses merged completely with the harpy’s senses.
The earth was below me, like an enormous patchwork quilt. Trees looked like blades of grass, and rivers were mere strands of silver thread, glinting and glistening with the light of the reflected sun. The wind rippled through my crest of plume feathers and rushed over my limbs.
I could see myself far below, and Elyse and Rami, all looking like tiny, thumb-sized figurines. Even Fang looked like a little gecko, while the huge wagon, the oxen, and my skeleton army looked like toys. Mountains were molehills, villages were mere scatterings of crumbs, and lakes were puddles.
Unlike when I’d entered my skeletons, this was a total loss of my own sense of self. I was the harpy now, and the entire experience was unnerving. Afraid I might lose myself inside the harpy’s body, I sent a sliver of consciousness back to my body and removed my fingers from my ears.
“Holy fuck,” I whispered as the feeling of gliding through the air overwhelmed me.
“What’s wrong?” Elyse asked.
“I’m higher than Cranton has ever been,” I said as the harpy flew higher and higher.
“I doubt that, my lord,” I heard Cranton say.
I pulled my consciousness out of the harpy and back into my own body.
“That was incredible,” I said as I opened my eyes.
As fun as flying had been, I needed to think more about its practical application. The harpy would be perfect as a tool for scouting and spying on enemy movements. When it came to the bigger battles, when I had a real army at my command, a bird’s eye
