Read Online Ilbei Spadebreaker and the Harpy's Wild by John Daulton - Free Book Online Page A

the torturous terrain were the occasional wild apple trees, whose large, sour fruit had provided them with the occasional treat and, when squeezed, with liquid that hadn’t gone completely hot in the heat of the day. But even the lukewarm juice of a few sour apples was hardly enough to sustain him past noon, so when Meggins suggested Kaige “lend the old man a breather,” Ilbei was more than happy to oblige.
    They stopped long enough for Ilbei to gulp down half a jug of water, hot as it was, and he dumped the other half over his head. “Forge of Anvilwrath, but it’s shapin up a hot one,” he said. “Heat’s drippin out of the desert like acid off a dragon’s jaw.” He picked up his kettle helm from the ground where he’d set it, touching its wide metal brim gingerly. It would have raised a blister had he left his finger on it. “No use fer heat like this,” he grumbled. “None at all.”
    “It will be better when we get to …,” Meggins rolled out the map he carried for them and glanced at it briefly before finishing, “… Harpy Creek. Shouldn’t be a whole lot more.”
    Kaige’s eyes went wide at that, and he tilted his face upward and scanned the skies through the gaps in the trees, of which there were plenty, being that they had come down nearly a thousand feet as they traveled. Most of the pines had given way to scraggly oaks that were half-strangled by the heat of the sun most of the year, living mainly on the memory of sparse winter and springtime rains and gleaning whatever moisture was squeezed up from the depths by the weight of the mountains sitting so heavily upon the land higher up. Kaige’s head moved back and forth as he warily tried to sight through and around the sporadic growth.
    “Why do you suppose they named it that?” Jasper asked.
    Ilbei shook his head, blinking water out of his eyes. “Named what what?”
    “The creek. Why would they name it that?”
    “Why wouldn’t they?” Ilbei said. “You know the minin sorts well as I do. They don’t reach too far fer highbrow ideas when it comes to namin things. We’re standin on Deer Trail Road, fer Hestra’s sake. There’s damned straight more deer trail to it than road .”
    “Precisely as I feared,” the young mage said. “Such nomenclature suggests a similar justification behind the name of a creek designated Harpy Creek.”
    That was when Ilbei realized that Kaige was still scanning the skies, nervous as a priestess in a prison camp. He looked back at Jasper. “What’s yer point, son?”
    “If the creek is named for them, then there will likely be harpies somewhere in the vicinity.”
    Ilbei glanced skyward, thought about what he’d heard, which was nothing on the matter, then shook his head. “Weren’t likely to be no harpies this close to human settlements. Folks’d have run em off long ago. No reason fer em to come down this far with humans about.”
    “Well,” said Jasper. “They do tend to follow roosting patterns, and they have great range. If there’s a harpy wild within a hundred measures, they might come around.”
    “There ain’t no harpy wilds around here. There ain’t one on the map, and this here is a brand new-made map what weren’t like to ignore a thing like that. So ya can all just quit with the harpy whinin. It’s a damned creek what got a name off some story someone heard or some shape some miner’s kid saw in the clouds.”
    “I don’t want to be dinner for no damn harpy,” Kaige said. “We should have brought the rest of them bowmen out here with us.”
    “Oh fer dungeon’s sake, lad. You’re too damn thick to carry off,” Ilbei said. “And they got to get to ya first, so ya can just carve em with that giant sword ya got there on yer back. Quit actin the helpless child, and quit yankin yer head out of joint fer fearin skyward.” He turned on Jasper and set his shoulders squarely. “And you. Don’t be throwin oil on my haystack, ya hear me, boy? There weren’t no harpies