Scree Harpy

THE WILDS

The high passes fed carrion-birds well during the war, and the rot fed on them in turn. Scree Harpies nest in the slide-country above the trade-roads, wearing scraps of the refugees they picked clean, calling down the passes in borrowed voices — a child's, a soldier's, a mother's. Travelers who climb toward the crying find only stones and wings. The harpies learned the trick from the land itself.