Page 81 of The Ruin of Eros

“There are more of those,” I shout, “for the next one who comes for me.”

I look down at my arm, where a trail of her blood is dotted.If she dies, will her companions retreat? Or will they come after me in vengeance?

The one who seems to be the leader wheels, circling until she is in front of us once more. Her wings open wide as she glides down to my level.

“Very well,” she hisses. “Keep your charm, for now.” Her wings beat once, hard, and she hovers above me.

“We shall take it later. We shall lift it from your corpse instead.” She drops toward me once more. I have another arrow ready, clutched in my fist, but she doesn’t come for the Shroud, nor within reach of my hand. At first I don’t understand what’s happening—all I hear is a ripping, tearing sound but the pain does not come. Then I realize: it’s the cloak she’s ripping from my back, shearing it as easily as if it were paper. And then I lurch as I feel wings by my leg, and realize she’s snatched one of the saddlebags, too. But not the one with the gold, not the one I offered her before.

She’s taken the one with the food.

In the grass lie the torn remains of my father’s cape, shredded like some helpless creature. I feel naked without it. Mychitonis light cotton, damp with sweat.

“Keep climbing, girl,” she squawks flapping back toward the tree. “Keep climbing, and we will come for you tomorrow, when your body lies cold on the ground!”

Her words make me shiver, but I will not wait to hear more. If they come for me tomorrow, it’s still better than today. I snap the reins hard, refusing to look at the tatters of my father’s cloak again.

“Go, Ajax, as fast as you can,” I breathe into his ear.

*

I’m shivering.

I’m trying not to fear the unknown, but it’s hard not to wonder what else waits for me on these slopes. It’s a thin line, is it not, between courage and foolhardiness?

And now my bread is gone, along with my waterskin. I will have to find food and water on the mountain, if I am to survive this place, and there is none of either on this stretch. There are woods ahead though; maybe there will be a stream there, and some berries I can forage. I kick myself for keeping the bread in my saddle-bags; for not allowing myself even a crumb since starting out today. I should have eaten the damned stuff when I had the chance.This is what comes of self-denial, I think with gritted teeth. I was always taught that self-denial was among the greatest of virtues. Now I think it’s just something people with more power made up, to keep people like me from complaining.

We’re entering a forest, and I shiver again.

It seems to me the air has grown colder. I inhale it, smelling its crispness, dry and bright where only hours ago it was thick and humid. And the landscape around us is changing, too. The lush grass grows browner and the trees sparser, their canopies less dense. Leaves begin to litter the ground, first singly, and then in small, wind-tossed piles of yellow and orange.

It is not my imagination, then. On this accursed mountain, the seasons cycle through at some unnatural pace. And it starts to make sense, what the harpy said to me. In the height of summer, I could travel comfortably without any cloak. But I wonder how long I will last out here, as I ride higher into the mountains. The harpies’ plan begins to sound quite efficient now. Easier not to kill me, and let this monstrous mountain do the work for them, leeching my life from me slowly.

I look upwards, to where the great body of the mountain still soars higher, its peak buried still in the fog. I cannot tell how much farther there is to go.

Well, I suppose there is only one answer.

I must go faster.

I must scale these cursed slopes before they have the time to kill me.

*

It’s dark in the forest, all its foliage cloaked in colors of the waning year: rust and crimson red, browns and dying yellows. I try to ignore the hunger in my belly. When we round a bend and hear the babbling of a stream, I pull Ajax to a halt.

Lack of water is more dangerous than lack of food, and in the high summer heat, we have lost much.

The stream isn’t hard to locate—we almost stumble across it at the next bend. I will have to drink my fill here, without a waterskin to refill. I stroke the horse’s warm, shivering hide and nudge him toward the stream so he can drink first.

But Ajax doesn’t seem interested.

“What’s got into you?” I nudge him again with my foot, but he turns his great head away. I slide from his back—the ground is wet here, squelching beneath my sandals, and the mere sound of the stream makes my mouth water. I take Ajax by the bridle and give it a tug.

“Don’t you understand? It may be days before we come to running water again.”

I try to reason with him, but he tugs his great head back away from me. I sigh—I have no solution for this strange display of contrariness. Hopefully, there’ll be more streams uphill, and a horse can go longer without water than I can.

I crouch down, trying to find a dry-ish part of the bank to bend and drink. But Ajax stamps his foot and whinnies loudly, making me turn.

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