Oh, no! In the numbness of fatigue, he had been so careless as to lie in a bed of carnivorous grass! The root blades had grown up into his body, infiltrating it so slowly and subtly that it had not disturbed his sleep- and now he was caught. Once he had happened on a patch of the stuff near the North Village with an animal skeleton on it. The grass had consumed all the flesh. He had wondered how any creature could have been so stupid as to be trapped by such a thing. Now he knew.
He was still breathing, therefore he could still yell. He did so with a certain gusto. 'Help!'
There was no response.
'Fanchon!' he cried. 'I'm tied down. The grass is eating me up.' Actually that was an exaggeration; he was not hurt, merely bound to the ground. But the tendrils continued to grow into him, and soon they would start to feed, drawing the life proteins from his flesh.
Still nothing. He realized she would not or could not help him. Probably something had put a sleep spell on her. It was obvious, in retrospect, that there were plenty of deadly threats right here at the edge of the beach; she must have fallen into another. She might be dead already.
'Help! Anybody!' he screamed desperately.
That was another mistake. All around him, in the forest and along the beach, things were stirring. He had advertised his helplessness, and now they were coming to take advantage of it. Had he struggled with the grass in silence, he might have managed in time to work his way free; he had awakened before it was ready for the kill, luckily. Maybe he had tried to turn over in his sleep, and his body had objected to the resistance strongly enough to throw off the stasis spell the grass was applying. If he struggled and failed, his demise at least would have been fairly comfortable-just a slow sinking into eternal sleep. Now by his noise he had summoned much less comfortable menaces. He could not see them, but he could hear them.
From the nearby tree came a rustle, as of meat-eating squirrels. From the beach came a scrape, as of hungry acid crabs. From the sea came a horrible kind of splashing, as of a small sea monster who had sneaked into the territory of the big sea monster Trent had transformed. Now this little one struggled to get out of the water and cross to the prey before it was gone. But the most dreadful sound of all was the pound-pound-pound of the footfalls of something deep in the forest, large and far away but moving extremely rapidly.
A shadow fell on him. 'Hi!' a shrill voice cried. It was a harpy, cousin to the one he had met on the way back to the North Village. She was every bit as ugly, smelly, and obnoxious-and now she was dangerous. She descended slowly, her talons reaching down, twitching. The other harpy had seen him healthy, so had stayed well out of reach-though she might have descended had he actually drunk from the Spring of Love. Ugh! This one saw him helpless.
She had a human face and human breasts, so was in that sense female, like the mermaids. But in lieu of arms she had great greasy wings, and her body was that of a gross bird. And she was a dirty bird; not only were her face and breasts grotesquely shaped, grime was caked on them. It was a wonder she could fly at all. Bink had not had the opportunity-or desire-to appreciate the qualifies of the prior harpy at close range; now he had a really excellent nether view. Double agh! The mermaids had represented much that was lovely in the female form; this harpy was the ugly aspect. She made Fanchon look halfway decent in comparison; at least Fanchon was clean.
She dropped on him, claws clutching and unclutching in air, in anticipation of the glob of entrails they were about to rip out of his exposed gut. Some of the nails were broken and jagged. He caught the odor of her, a stink like none he remembered. 'Oooh, you big handsome hunk of meat!' she screeched. 'You look good enough to eat. I can hardly choose what to take first.' And she burst into maniacal laughter.
Bink, absolutely horrified, put forth the supreme effort of his life and wrenched one arm free of the grass. Little roots trailed from it, and the separation was painful. He was lying partly on his side, one cheek anchored, so he had a very limited field of vision, but his ears continued to bring him the dreadful news of the threats about him. He struck at the harpy, scaring her off for the moment. She was of course a coward; her character matched her appearance.
Her wings fluttered heavily. A soiled feather drifted down. 'Oooh, you naughty boy!' she screeched. She seemed to be unable to converse in anything less than a screech; her voice was so harsh as to be almost incomprehensible. 'I'll goozle your gizzard for that.' And she emitted her horrible cackle again.
But now a shadow fell on Bink, from something he could not see-but the outline was awful. He heard heavy breathing, as of some great animal, and smelled its carrion-coated breath, which for the moment overrode the stench of the harpy. It was the thing from the sea, its feet dragging as it hunched forward. It sniffed him-and the other creatures stopped moving in, afraid to stand up to this predator.
All except the harpy. She was ready to heap vilification on anything, from the safety of the air. 'Get away, argus!' she screeched. 'He's mine, all mine, especially his gizzard.' And she dropped down again, forgetting Bink's free arm. For once Bink didn't mind. He could fight off the dirty bird, but this other thing was too much for him. Let her interfere all she wanted.
The unseen thing snorted and leaped, passing right over Bink's body with amazing agility. Now he saw it: body and tail of a large fish, four stout short legs terminating in flippers, tusked head of a boar, no neck. Three eyes were set along its torso, the middle one set lower than the others. Bink had never seen a monster quite like this before-a land-walking fish.
The harpy flew up out of the way just in time, narrowly missing being gored by the thing's semicircular horns. Another stinking feather fell. She screeched some really disgusting insults in her ire, and let fly with a gooey dropping, but the monster ignored her and turned to concentrate on Bink. It opened its mouth, and Bink made a fist to punch it in the snout-for what little good that might do-when abruptly it paused, gazing balefully over Bink's shoulder.
'Now you'll get it, argus,' the harpy screeched gleefully. 'Even a fishy lout like you can't ignore catoblepas.'
Bink had never heard of either argus or catoblepas, but another quake of deep misgiving went through him. He felt the muzzle of the hidden monster nudge him. It was oddly soft-but such was its power that it ripped him half out of the grass.
Then the pig-snouted argus charged, furious that its meal should be taken away. Bink dropped flat again, letting the slimy flippers pass over him-and their impact dislodged more of his body. He was getting free!
The two brutes collided. 'Sic 'em, monsters!' the harpy screeched, hovering overhead. In her excitement over this mischief she let fall another large squishy dropping, which just missed Bink's head. If only he had a rock to throw at her!
