Ilbei Spadebreaker and the Harpy's Wild Read Online Free PDF Page A

breath—where she had expected him to go, where she darted in anticipation—but downstream, low and away.
    He straightened his body like a dart and shot out into the current where it was swifter, then bent himself against the current as the rope went taut again. This time, he angled his body like a rudder and steered himself upward and toward the opposite bank.
    It worked well, and quickly, and he came right up, gasping for air, grasping into the mud for the purchase by which he might haul himself free. He shouted at his companions as soon as he could breathe well enough to do so. “Pour the gods-be-damned wine! Pour it into the water!”
    He got hold of a thick clump of weeds and clambered up onto the bank, still gasping as he wriggled clear of the water. He spun round and crabbed backwards, his knife in his fist, ready to fight. He watched the churning current for signs of her, for where she would rise up and once more set the full force of temptation upon him, the will-draining power of a magical allure, but she did not. She did not chase him at all.
    She was moving toward the others instead, swimming against the current as easily as if she were in a quiet little pond, raised to her waist above the waters and having mesmerized them all to statues, their round mouths as hollow and vacant as their minds.
    “Give her the wine, for Mercy’s sake, ya fools. The wine!” He shouted it as he ran back up the bank.
    Jasper was the first to look up, Ilbei’s voice jarring him free of the stupefying loveliness for a time. He blinked rapidly and made a point of looking up and away.
    “I love you,” the water creature said, looking directly into Meggins’ eyes instead.
    “I love you too,” Meggins replied. He stepped toward her, reaching out with the wine he’d brought at Ilbei’s command.
    “Meggins, ya sod, pour the wine into the water,” Ilbei called, still closing the distance between them as fast as his bowed legs could run.
    Meggins turned, dazed, the addled remnants of his mind staring through the orifices of his pupils like a prisoner through his cage.
    Ilbei snatched the wineskin from his hand and yanked the stopper off, but Jasper grabbed his wrist and yanked it back as Ilbei began to squeeze. The jet of red liquid shot uselessly into the grass.
    “Jasper, by the gods!” Ilbei began to swear, but Jasper, for once, cut him off.
    “Potameide,” the young wizard said, his head shaking steadily side to side. “She won’t like the wine.”
    Ilbei scowled at him, blinking, confused. Meggins took another step toward the beautiful figure in the water beckoning him, her soft eyes batting, lips pouting at his delay. The water running from her body shaped her figure with a sheen. “Be with me,” she said to him.
    Ilbei jerked his hand free from Jasper’s grasp, but Jasper snatched at it again, spastically, his grip on Ilbei’s wrist weak, but his purpose urgent and clear. “You’ll only anger her with that. You need mead. Give her mead if you must give her alcohol, or better still, just honey. Even milk will do. But not wine. She’ll kill us all if you poison her water with that wine.”
    Ilbei glared at the scrawny magician, deciding whether to break his fingers or heed what he had to say. “They taught us wine up north. Everyone knows wine will suit a nymph, satyr-lovin whores they are.”
    “Some northern varieties, yes. The nymphs of Great Forest and the Daggerspines are known to favor wine, but not this one. She’s a potameide of the old-world kind. Just look.” He pointed with a movement of his face, unwilling to let go of Ilbei’s wrist.
    Meggins stepped into the water. Ilbei heard the splash and grabbed him by the waist with his free hand, scooping him into the crook of his arm and flinging him up the bank as if he were some great fish Ilbei had caught. He spun back to face Jasper right after, his hand twitching to pour the wine. But there was such conviction in Jasper’s eyes.
    Jasper saw the