The hot summer sun beat down on him as he jogged, sweat dripping into his eyes. He swiped at his forehead again, rough cloth of his fatigues scraping his forehead, dust mixing with sweat on the sleeve.

Before him jogged Michaels and Gonzales, and in front of them the Gunny led them inexorably on.

"Are, we, almost, there?" gasped out Gonzales for the third time.

"Just around the next bend," called back Gunny. There was a grunt of amusement from the three, not enough breath between them for actual laughter. It was flat out here. There were no bends.

–

The jeep roared as Gunny revved the engine in neutral, Michaels climbing in on the other side.

"Let's go, ladies!" he called out.

–

"I've got to take a leak," called out Gonzales, stress tightening his voice.

Grace looked over. We're in det range of an IED, back up slowly, do not alarm the trigger man, Gonzales's hands said.

This was a bad day. It was the second IED they'd found in as many hours.

Grace backed away, finger on the casing of his rifle, itching to slip it inside the trigger guard. Anywhere on the rooftops of the ramshackle houses around them could be an insurgent with the detonator, just waiting for them to get close enough.

He fingered the button on his walkie after getting out of range. "Got another live one. I'm going to disable it."

He waited for a response. "Roger that, Grace. Be careful."

Then he powered on the warlock, moving forward as Gonzales continued to back up, eyes scanning the surroundings.

–

They were driving along a narrow road in the outskirts of the town when it happened. Grace had led the foot sweep that morning, so this was just a precautionary cleanup pass before the main column got here. Shouldn't be anything to worry about. They'd been out for almost seven hours already, not a sign of the insurgents. It was quiet today.

Gunny turned to Grace in the passenger seat to say something, his mouth opening –

a sudden explosion, Jeep flying end over end

screaming

he was the one screaming

–

"Wake up, Grace!" It was Gunny's voice. But it couldn't be. Gunny was dead. "I said wake up, soldier, this is no time to take a nap!"

Oliver's eyes snapped open. The smell that invaded his nostrils was even fouler than that from the harpy – oh. The harpy. Memory flooded back. Then he retched immediately before he even had time to get a full breath in.

The violent movement caused agony to explode from his injured shoulder, which caused him to twitch further – which only hurt more.

When the retching passed and the vicious cycle subsided, he was shaking in pain. He took his time looking around from where he lay on the ground, unsure of where he was. He was laying on his side on a hard surface. Stone, maybe. There was something underneath him, poking into his side.

It was dim, dusk, and a heavy fog hung in the air, reducing visibility. Wisps of mist hung low in the air, drifting a few feet from the ground in lazy curls. Either somebody had a smoke machine going or he was still in the cloud layer.

Stolen novel; please report.

He recoiled in horror, wincing as the movement tugged on his shoulder. A few feet from him was the back of somebody's shoulder – most of it, anyway. He raised his head. It was a body. It had been there for a while. Probably the source of the smell.

He slowly pushed himself to a half-laying, half-sitting position, clenching his teeth against the pain, fighting down a groan.

About ten feet in front of him there was a low wall that seemed constructed of branches, sticks, strips of cloth. There were another couple of bodies, and bones. Human bones. A lot of them.

What kind of charnel pit was this? He glanced about frantically, horror giving way to panic. To his left, five or six feet away, there were several large, round, whitish... oh. Eggs. The size of basketballs.

It all clicked together. He was in a nest. A harpy nest.

If he was in a harpy nest, where was the mother? Then, almost as if it had read his thoughts, he heard a rustling sound just behind him. He turned slowly, dread pulsing through him but unable to stop himself.

There she was. Feathery torso, enormous wings hunched behind her, raptor's claws clutching the other side of the nest, and a female face with brown eyes and long, lank black hair. She was watching him, unblinking, head canted to one side at an unnatural angle. She was a little taller, a little thinner than a human, but not by much.

He heard a cracking sound, watched the harpy look down, distracted by the sound. He chanced a quick glance down himself. One of the eggs was hatching, rocking slightly in place.

A memory stole into his mind. Hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey were known for bringing live food back to the nest to teach their young how to hunt.

He wasn't even dinner. He was practice.

Predators were often triggered by quick movements. He pushed down the fear, forced himself to be still as he waited for the familiar sudden rush of anger and adrenaline to kick in.

Nothing happened. He'd hit his limits. His body and his mind had had enough. One too many life-or-death situations in the last few days.

Instead, he just felt a dull despair, lethargy stealing through him, telling him to give up, to wait. That it would all be over soon.

The bird woman shifted, watching, waiting for him to make a move. He thought it might be waiting for a long time.

Then he remembered Joanna. The baby. He knew, all too well, what it was like to grow up without a father. With only one parent because the other just gave up. He'd seen firsthand what happened to a mother when her husband left and didn't come back.

The longing and pain that had haunted him his entire life now turned to fuel. He pictured the first ultrasound they'd gotten together, the baby so small, but still so recognizably human. Joanna's face, on their wedding day. The time they first met. He reached deeper, the trickle of memories becoming a flood – and with them he set that fuel ablaze.

Resolve flooded through him. Oliver wouldn't give up. Couldn't. He would fight to his last breath, his last drop of blood, and then keep fighting until he got home.

Without moving, he opened his Character Sheet. There, at the top, beside his name – a blank where his class selection would go. He imagined writing his class in, waited a breath, then saw it become true.

Oliver Grace. Fighter.

He looked to the abilities tab, hoping – yes, it was there – Second Wind. An ability designed for just this purpose, to get a fighter back on his feet against all odds, when there was nothing left, when the well of resolve had run dry.

He reached out mentally and pressed it like a button.

Nothing happened. He realized he could hear the harpy breathing. One of the eggs rocked again, a thin line of cracks appearing in its shell.

"Come on," he hissed under his breath. He reached out mentally and mashed the button again. Still, nothing happened.

He fought down panic, trying to force himself to think slowly, clearly. He needed a different mental model. Something was wrong with this one. This was a character sheet, not a screen, not a button he could press. How would he – ah.

Feeling self-conscious under the gimlet eye of the harpy, he muttered under his breath, "I use Second Wind". As if he were playing a Dungeons and Dragons character.

He felt like an idiot for all of the three seconds it took the skill to activate.

Then a surge of adrenaline tore through him and his breath caught in his throat. From nowhere a feeling of vitality surged through him, into his head, the rush making him feel a little dizzy. He could feel the pain receding, didn't dare to look, but knew that the wound in his shoulder was knitting closed. He could feel his pulse speeding up, his muscles tensing – he was ready to move. Ready to fight.

He glanced about the nest, moving his eyes only, hardly daring to breathe. He needed a weapon. His gaze lighted on the bodies. One of them was fresh, blood pooled beneath it. One of the wounded from the caravan. What had brought it here? He'd been alone in his flight.

The other two bodies were long gone, one in the advanced stages of decomposition and almost impossible to recognize as human, the other corpse well on its the way. There were no other kinds of prey in the nest, just... people. He looked away from them.

Something caught his eye, a glint of steel. Pushed up against one side of the nest was the headless torso of a skeleton partially clad in armor. There was a leather strap going around its front, and underneath the back plate of armor he could see the metal hilt of a sword poking out. He followed the lines of the blade. There was a long leather scabbard. Bite and claw marks had shredded parts of it, revealing bright steel beneath where the leather was torn away.

That would do nicely. The only problem was, it was on the other side of the eggs. Towards the mother harpy.