The Vulture Queen 

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A short excerpt 

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I was surprised to see the entirety of the skull was intact. Her jaw was slack and hung to one side, displaying a row of straight, white teeth filed to points like that of a shark. Long tangle strands of black hair were matted together. Small bones and skulls were intertwined in a mess. By their size, I guessed they were maybe a rodent of some kind. But that wasn't what held my attention. In the center of her forehead, her skull's smooth line was interrupted by two round holes the size of dimes, each perfectly centered above each eye. The queen's arms and hands were flexed in a position of struggle as if she were in the process of pulling herself out of the ground, then passed out and died in that position. It was so out of place with what I had pictured in my mind; I froze to the spot, not quite sure what to do.  

    I'd spent a great deal of time studying up on the tomb's occupant. Though I'd never found her name, the scrolls I'd painstakingly deciphered were of a powerful queen and warlord of the sea, commanding most of the western Mediterranean. She was fierce and feared as a witch and renowned for her beauty. I was drawn back to the two holes in her skull and tangled mass of hair. A beautiful Queen, bedecked in jewels and finery she was not— or was she. I bent down and, with gentle fingers, brushed at the dust covering what I thought was a button of some kind. 

    It was a flower stamped into gold the size of a quarter. I noticed several more littering the ground around the vulture queen's skull and chest area. I wondered if they had once been attached to a headdress of elaborate costume.

    The Cursed Vulture Queen glared up at me with those empty eyes sockets. A shiver raced up my spine as I imagined what she would have looked like in the flesh with her mouth pulled into a smile, revealing those sharp as dark eyes flashed out of a massive feathered cape and hood.

    From the corner of my eye, just above my head on the smooth surface of the tomb's wall, I caught the faint streak of red and yellow. At my eye level were two rows of men kneeled with their mouths opened wide in silent screams and thin chained arms covering their heads. Above them, surrounded by a circle that reminded me of a sun, was the Vulture queen.

    She was twice the size as the men cowering below her. Her head and body were human, with two notable exceptions. The first was large feathered wings that flared out behind her, and the second was her feet, or more accurately, feet that flared into long taloned claws. 

    My eyes slid back to the physical body of the queen, where the soil still hid her legs and feet. Was it possible?