Now all those evil drooling slobbering werewolves were circling around the small group
of harpies and the one librarian,and their jaws worked and the thoughts
of cooked harpy going down their throats ,feathers and all,
was making the werewolves a little excited.
So with a loud baying sound,the pack of 33 werewolves came charging at those
harpies while other howling packs charged for the various Harpy Tribe caves.
Elsie,bless her,was a natural born leader and spun the medicine woman
around on her bird toed heels
We're outnumbered.We need to flee to the Snagr.
Whatever protests the harpy doctor and a few sleepy harpys emerging from the
caves to see what the fuss was all about was swept away as 7 more packs of
snarling yelping werewolves came over the nearby hills.
It was clear the werewolves planned to exterminate the harpy race,given the chance.
By this point other harpies were blowing alarm horns and the first engagements with
the enemy was beginning.
All the children came shrieking and scurrying out and
Elsie again screamed as loud as she could,
" we can't defend ourselves here,we need to regroup at the Snagr!"
Soon groups of harpies were taking to the air and heading west towards the mountains
Other harpies were rushing back into the caves and the 2 girls and one boy could
hear the sounds of machinery being smashed and the hiss of bursting steam
Soon the harpy demolition team had come out again,followed by smoke,steam and
flickering red light casting out from the cave entrances
Those 200 odd distant werewolves intent on extermination were loping closer
and soon the remaining harpies were taking to the air,the harpy children clinging to
the backs of their parents.
Elsie herself was hauled up by 4 harpy males
and soon only Jason,Jess and Becky were still on the ground,afraid to become
airborne but clearly even more afraid of the werewolves getting closer
Up above,the harpy doctor woman encouraged them to trying out their wings,and
one by one they joined the flock.
They all circled around the Harpy Clearing thrice to make sure no one left
alive was left behind,then the flock joined the others and headed west
towards the arid dry mountain range
*******************************************
It took three hours of flying to reach their destination.
The three new harpies had been twisting through canyon passes,flat topped pillars
of rock and "relics" and abandoned buildings for miles.
They'd totally lost their sense of direction,but Miss Elsie and the flocks
seemed to know where they were going.
They came apon a spirally pass of red glowing rock and just as they thought the
canyon walls would curve to the right forever,suddenly they were in a
vast open space,with a flat topped pillar of rock rising 500 feet from its base
to its top.
Alonng the outer edges of the open clearing lay various other rock formations,
nearly as high as the center pillar,but not quite.
And it was what sat on the flat topped center pillar that took Beckys breath away.
It looked like a beached submarine,hundreds of feet long,with a 5 stories tall
serpents head and neck made of glittering green bronzed metal scales at the bow,
a similarly high conning tower like structure halfway down the rusting iron hull
and a metallic fishes fin at the stern.
Becky was looking at the "Noahs Ark" of Monster island.
The flocks headed for the deck of the wrecked Snagr and landed.
Jess could hear the groan of the deckplates as they landed on the old ship.
Along the distant horizons,on the surrounding cliffs of rock,the other werewolf packs
lay gathered,wandering how to get across to their prey...
******************************************************
Now the Snagr itself had been built by mere-dragons,or what
some call a humanoid dragon tribe,way back whe,as a passenger liner
for the rich and spoiled dragon folk.
Then had come the Persecution War,when envious humans had desired what the animal
folk had.
Naturally a 1000 foot long iron hulled semi-submersible
passenger liner in the 16th century caused many a human admiral to
cast covetous eyes towards such craft.
The human crews,carefully planted in these dragonish luxury liners,had
seized the sea serpentes and driven the rich and the famous of meredragon kind
into the sealed chambers below,where the stress and the fumes and the terror and fear
had caused the mere-dragon passengers to devolve to a earlier state.
Which had led to the Dragon Wars,as the reawakened huge flamebreathers that
used to be mild manner mere-dragons were somehow allowed to escape from their sealed
prisons.
The dragons were driven off,but humans needed a scapegoat to explain how'd they'd
gotten their huge scaly bodies out of hatches no more then 4 feet in diameter
Obviously other animal-people,especially greedy gold gathering
surface living mere-dragons,were responsible.
So Persecutions War II started.
By this point the dragon men tribe were sneaking about in robes and trying
to be as human looking as possible.
Out went the term "mere-dragon" and in went the term
"humanized scalies" and other less offensive terms to the raging crowds
of humanity who'd taken over the world.
The Snagr by that point had lain beached and abandoned for decades,yet
due to fine mere-dragon engineering,was still functional.
The humans didn't know that.
So for three years various animal people tribes had worked on her secretly
during nights,getting her fit as a animal-people ark to take them elsewhere.
Though other animal people explored the below chambers,where relics
still remained of the doomed rich meredragons who'd transformed into fierce
dragons in these chambers,the humanized scalies refused to go anywhere near the
cursed chambers.
Yhey didn't need any remindeds of how near the surface lurked the beast
within each of them.
Finally the Snagr was shipshape again,and the various tribes of animal
people refugees crept aboard from the surrounding shores and swamps...