I was armed with my Death longbow, and had taken bets with both Yumo-Rezu and Rami-Xayon—who were excellent shots due to their enjarta training—on who would be able to bring down the most harpies.
As we rowed our respective boats in the direction of Castle Island, we fanned out our formation. The more spread out we were, the more enticing we’d be as targets for the harpies, and the more they’d have to spread out when they inevitably attacked us.
It didn’t take long for the harpies to notice our approach. They were perhaps a mile away when the first of them saw us, but even at that distance their terrible shrieks resounded across the water, and felt like sharp rapiers being stabbed through our ears into our brains.
“It’s even worse than I imagined!” Anna-Lucielle gasped. “And they’re still so far away!”
“One roar from a dragon would silence this whole flock of shrieking vermin,” Yumo-Rezu said scornfully. “These ugly beasts think they own the skies now, with the dragons’ demise, but the soul of dragons still burns its eternal fire in my heart, and I’m about to show these sky-rats that dragons are still the undisputed lords of the heavens!”
“Helmets on,” I said grimly, “it’s all visual communication from this point on.”
We all slipped our Death-Wind helms on, and immediately the distant shrieks, the lapping of the ocean waves at the sides of the boat, and all other sounds vanished, replaced by the deep, unending roar of a hurricane wind. Scores of harpies began wheeling away from the black mass of the flock and heading straight for us, but while their fanged mouths were wide open as they belted out their shrieks at us, I could hear nothing but the wind in my ears. I picked up a green flag and waved it, signaling to everyone in the other boats, and Percy and his pirates on deck, that the battle was starting.
Everyone got their helms on, nocked arrows to bowstrings and loaded crossbows, and lined up their targets as the sky grew black with charging harpies. I got a harpy in the sights of my bow and pulled the string back, but before I could release the arrow, a streak of black, barely visible, zipped through the sky and punched a barrel sized hole through the harpy’s chest, from over half a mile away.
As the dead harpy dropped into the ocean with a huge splash, I turned to look behind me at the ship. I saw Percy, at the controls of a ballista, punching a triumphant fist into the air; he’d made the first kill of the battle.
Enraged to see one of their own killed, the harpies shrieked with fury and beat their huge wings, organizing themselves into aerial formations; it seemed that they were more intelligent and organized than perhaps we’d given them credit for.
More ballista spears streaked through the air as Percy’s pirates started firing at the harpies, and more of them dropped out of the sky, plummeting into the ocean with massive holes blasted through their torsos. The beasts were not intimidated at all, though; if anything, the sight of our ballistae dropping them like flies enraged them and made them charge in with even greater fury.
Eager to possess a large force of undead harpies, I started shooting out threads of black energy, resurrecting the harpies as my own undead minions as they fell from the sky. I soon started resurrecting them with such precision and rapidity that they were flying again as undead creatures before they even hit the water.
A group of over two dozen screaming harpies made a beeline for our boat, arranging themselves into an arrowhead formation as they flew. As they approached, they flew higher and higher, staying frustratingly out of bowshot reach. I couldn’t hear what Yumo-Rezu was saying, but from the scowl on her face, it was plain to see that she was pissed that she wasn’t able to shoot down any harpies.
Then, when they were directly overhead, right above our boat, I realized what they were hoping to do. They circled us in their arrowhead formation, so high above the boat that they were visible only as black specks in the sky. The lead harpy tucked her wings in and dived, dropping from the heavens like a boulder. The other harpies did the same thing, plummeting down toward us like meteors flung to earth from the stars.
They picked up speed at an incredible rate, and I knew that if they hit our boat they would smash it to splinters, and pulverize us into a mash of blood and guts—and impact would be in a few short seconds. Yumo-Rezu and Anna-Lucielle began loosing arrows at the diving harpies, but even the enjarta was nowhere near rapid enough to take out enough of the beasts to prevent us being flattened. I had to act fast to save us, so I loosed my own arrow in a precise shot that skewered the lead harpy right through her skull, and then, the instant I turned her plummeting corpse into one of my undead creatures, I flung my spirit into it.
Controlling the undead harpy with the expert finesse of a master puppeteer, I swooped in a broad arc, smashing the other diving harpies side-on and lowing through their formation and sending a number of them into a chaotic mid-air tumble. Realizing that one of their number had turned against them, the remaining half pulled up out of their dive to begin attacking the undead traitor. The others continued hurtling toward
