Unicorn Point

“Harpies perform tasks not!” she screeched. “We be dirty birds o’ prey, not beasts o’ burden!”

“This be a mock combat situation,” he explained. “Thou must engage in a siege ‘gainst a vampire Flock, the one to capture the flag o’ the other and lose not its own.”

“Mock?” she screeched, still looking for the catch she knew was there. “The only one I wish to mock is thee, thou miserable excuse for feculence!”

“Teeth and claws be nulled; their action seems real, but the victim suffers mere loss o’ function, not o’ limb or life, and after the siege be done, all victims recover without fur ther effect.”

“What kind o’ combat be that?” she screeched. “Action without the splatter o’ blood be no action at all!”

 “I agree with thee, stinkfeather, but such be the rule. It be part o’ the compromise hammered out with Stile.”

“With Stile! Thou hast no dealings with the Blue Demesnes!” But this interested her more than she could afford to let on. If some way offered to defect to Stile . . .  “This siege be ‘gainst a Flock o’ bats supporting Stile. It be one o’ three, and two o’ three gives the final victory. Canst snatch a flag from bats, dangledugs?”

Now the catch was coming clear. She wanted to defect to the side of the Adept Stile—and here she had to oppose it.  The Purple Adept, suspecting this, had devised an exquisite torment: she would have to labor to deny Blue the ultimate power. Was she to do this, as she knew she could, or suffer the torment of the tenfold tailfeather itch? She knew the Adept was making no bluff; his threat was well within his power of implementation.

She was a coward; she knew it. She could face dismemberment or death, but not the tailfeather itch. It would tear her up to do this to Stile or his minions, but she could not face the alternative. “Aye,” she murmured.

“Methinks I did not hear thee, frightface,” he said. “Dost agree to serve?”

“Aye,” she said reluctantly.

“I saw no ripple.”

“Aye!” she screeched, and now the ripple radiated out, committing her to her ultimate. She would do her very best to accomplish the thing she hated to accomplish.

“Aye,” he agreed, smiling smugly, and his cleft in the ground opened and took him in.

Phoebe surveyed the grounds of the siege personally. She well understood the importance of terrain, having had to hunt alone for the years of her tailfeather itch; a hunter who knew her ground had a significant, often critical advantage over one who did not. The key to success was to drive the prey into terrain unfamiliar to it; then it could readily be trapped and snatched.

In this case the prey was a flag; it could not be driven or spooked. But the importance of knowing the ground re mained, for creatures would be carrying that flag. Bats would be guarding it, thus they were prey. Also, bats would be seeking to steal her own flag, and any who got hold of that 9 flag had to be caught immediately. The parallels to genuine hunting were close enough.

Her flag was mounted at the top of a towering pine tree.  She had no choice about that; the Adepts had determined the regions and placements beforehand. The bats would fly low, using the concealment of the mixed forest, perhaps even crawling up the trunk of the pine tree to reach the flag. Once one of them got it—the thing was of very light fabric, so that it weighed almost nothing—that bat would head for the sky, using its superior speed to outdistance the pursuit of the har pies. The moment the two flags were put together by one creature, the siege would be over, and the victor the team of the one who held the flags.

She would have to assign hens to guard that tree, to nab any bat who tried to climb it. That was simple enough. Pre vention was obviously the best defense; she had to see that no bat got close to that flag.