The sudden immersion roused the big man. He jolted up out of the water, but after looking around for a moment, he pulled both Pierce and Carter to their feet and urged them at a near run, to the safety of the trees.
Pierce’s backside burned with pain, but two things quickly became apparent. The birds were not going to attack again — in fact, they had disappeared from the sky — and the object lodged in his backside was not tipped with poison.
It still hurt like hell, though.
Carter’s focus was on Lazarus. There was a large gash in the center of his combat vest. Whatever had struck him had torn through both the overlaying fabric and the layer of woven Kevlar underneath, laying bare the ceramic small arms protective insert — SAPI — plate. The tombstone-shaped armor plate could stop a round from an AK47, but whatever had hit it had cracked it in two. Without asking permission, Carter tore open the vest and laid bare Lazarus’s broad chest.
The skin underneath was unbroken, but there was a bright red outline in the shape of the SAPI plate, and the beginning of a bruise.
“What was that thing?” Lazarus asked. His voice was tight, as if speaking or even breathing was painful. “It felt like a cannonball.” He looked at Carter for a moment, scrutinizing her for any sign of injury, then at Pierce. “Are you okay?”
“Not exactly,” Pierce admitted, and he turned to show them his wound. “I’ve got this pain in the ass.”
Carter stifled a laugh, then said, “What is that? It looks like a porcupine quill.” She bent over for a closer look.
“What?” Pierce craned his head around, but the quill was beyond the limit of his vision. “Not an arrow?”
Carter shook her head. “There’s a couple more stuck in your vest.” She carefully pulled one free and showed him. It was thicker than he expected, more like a hollow knitting needle than a stiff bristle, with a faintly opalescent sheen that made it look almost like metal.
Lazarus straightened up, as if his own injury was merely an inconvenience. “That has to come out,” he declared, reaching for a small sheath clipped to his vest. He removed a Gerber multi-tool and slid the pliers out. “This will hurt.”
Pierce opened his mouth to say that it already hurt, then there was an explosion of pain. Lazarus held up the pliers, along with the quill he had just removed. Half an inch of the tip was stained red. The relief however was instantaneous. The pain subsided to a dull ache.
“Stymphalian birds,” George said. “For his sixth Labor, Hercules was sent to get rid of a flock of man-eating birds, with beaks made of bronze that could cut through armor. They could also launch feathers like darts.”
He braced himself for a skeptical reaction, but Carter gave an encouraging nod. “Go on.”
“The Greeks believed the birds were the pets of Ares, the war god. They had a fondness for human flesh. They were probably carrion eaters who were drawn to the bodies of the slain on the battlefield. In the story, a flock of the birds had migrated to a swamp near the village of Stymphalos. Hercules was sent to deal with the problem. He killed some of the birds, and the rest were scattered. The Argonauts encountered some of them during the quest for the Golden Fleece. I guess some of them ended up here. Pausanias, a geographer from the second century, described a species of ferocious birds that he associated with the legend. He described them as being similar to ibises, but there’s no way of knowing if those were the birds from the legend, or just named that as an homage.”
“Anything else?”
“Their droppings are supposed to be poisonous.”
“Naturally,” Carter said.
“They didn’t attack until we got to the island. And they haven’t come after us since. So they’re fierce, but maybe not as bloodthirsty as in the legend.”
“Protecting the nest?” Carter suggested.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Pierce said. “But they’re not afraid of us.”
“How did Hercules beat them?” Lazarus asked.
“Athena, the goddess, gave him a magical krotala—a noisemaker, kind of like castanets — forged by the god Hephaestus. The sound frightened the birds away so they wouldn’t attack, giving Hercules a chance to shoot them down using arrows tipped with Hydra venom.”
Lazarus looked across the water to the island city. “Noisemakers.”
“The sound of a gunshot might be enough to scare them off,” Carter suggested. “That’s something Hercules didn’t have.”
“It would also give our presence away. We’d lose the element of surprise.” Lazarus ran a thumb over the torn Kevlar fibers of his vest. “We’ll have to make a run for it. The body armor will give us some protection.”
“I should have brought the Lion skin.” Pierce said. He mulled the problem for a moment. “Pausanias suggested making armor out of cork wood. The birds’ beaks would cut through, but get stuck.”
“Like darts in a dartboard,” said Carter.
“Exactly.” He glanced past her at the cypress trunks. “We don’t have cork, but maybe we could fashion something from tree bark.”
Lazarus grasped the hilt of his knife and drew it. “Good idea.”
He peeled off several large sheets of the stringy bark, each about three feet square. Then he layered them, alternating the directions of the fibers, and then bound them together using strips of parachute cord. In ten minutes, he had assembled shields for each of them.
“These should hold together long enough to get us to cover.”
Pierce slipped his forearm through the loops Lazarus had fashioned, feeling a little like an ancient Hoplite, girding for battle. “We should stay close together,” he said. “That way we can cover each other.”
“I’ll take point.” Lazarus started out toward the island, taking measured, methodical steps to ensure that Pierce and Carter did not get left behind.
There was no sign of the Stymphalian birds in the sky above, but Pierce knew they had not seen the last of them. Sure enough, when they were within fifty yards of the island, two birds leapt from a perch atop one of the old buildings and began circling. Pierce raised his shield high, angling it so that he could keep an eye on the birds, who began to tighten their orbits, swooping lower with each pass.
The bird that had struck Lazarus floated on the surface a few yards from the edge of the island. They approached it cautiously, but it did not move.
Carter stepped out of their formation, ignoring a hissed warning from Lazarus, and bent to pick up the carcass. The two men moved in to cover her, as she examined it. “Broken neck.”
“Probably happened when it hit the SAPI plate,” Lazarus said. “Leave it.”
Carter turned it over. Pierce saw that the creature’s bill had the same iridescent hues as the quills that sprouted from its white plumage. “It’s an egret,” she announced. “But I think it’s been hybridized, like the Lion. Probably with a porcupine. That would explain the quills. I’d like to sequence it when we get out of here.”
Lazarus let out an irritated growl but she ignored him, tucking the dead bird’s feet into her belt. “Ready.”
Lazarus shook his head and moved closer to the rocks. He climbed to the top but stayed low, keeping his shield up. Pierce and Carter followed suit.
When they were all in place, Pierce pointed to the nearest structure, a ruin with crumbling walls and no roof. “There. The walls will make it harder for them to hit us.”
Lazarus nodded. “When I say go, we range walk, and don’t stop until we’re inside.”