Curiosity gotthe better of her. She carefully moved down to the weapons, therewas fresh blood on the blades. She went across to the boot. Therewas a foot still in it and fresh damp blood all over the ground.There must have been a fight here within the last half an hour.Around dawn by the look of it, and it looked like a Newman judgingby the hat, boot and weapons and he was eaten almostcompletely.
‘The situationwas hazardous. Is it still around?’ she thought looking furtivelyaround but nothing stirred.
‘Maybe it’sgone through the gateway.’ she thought hopefully.
‘Well I betterget on with it, the quicker the better.’
She hurriedlycrossed the shallow stream, halted about five paces from theswirling blurry area that was the gateway and pulled out of her baga small magical device that her mother had given to her a couple ofyears ago. It was a small cube made of silver that fitted snugglyin the palm of her hand.
Three of thefaces had pictures inscribed on them and the opposite sides hadembedded gemstones. One face had a small circular door with apicture of an eye inscribed on it. A second face had a triangleshaped door with a bell inscribed on it and the third face had acircle with a cross through it. Each door was hinged on one sideand had a tiny catch enabling it to be opened.
Each of thepowers could be used once per week.
She opened thecircular door with the eye. On the inside of the door was a word inthe language the mages used. Glued underneath was a little scrap ofparchment pronouncing the word in the druid secret language. Shespoke the word whilst looking at the gate and waited. She felt asmall surge of magic and the embedded gem glowed as the gaterevealed its purpose and its origin. It went directly toMoonmist.
The use of akeyword and a small sacrifice of blood opened it when required.Recently eighteen had come through to this side and only twelve hadreturned so far. The gate closes in approximately two hours.
‘Well at leastone won’t be returning.’ she thought to herself as she rememberedthe blood on the other side of the stream.
She quicklylooked around and seeing no one smiled to herself as shethought.
‘Looks like afew of them are going to have to take the long way around.’
She closed thecircular door and opened the square door, read the trigger word andsaid it aloud.
There was asurge of magic and the gateway blinked out. Now there was nothingbut a blank wall of stone in front of her. She put the cube away,turned and started to cross the stream when she heard the sound ofsnapping twigs on the ledge about five paces above the rock facewhere the gate had been.
She turnedquickly and saw a slight movement that broke the camouflage patternon a dragon’s head looking down at her about fifteen paces away.She concentrated then saw a tail with a stinger attached, hoveringover its back. It stood over twice her height and looked like itweighed as much as a bear. The blood drained from her face.
‘Well thatexplains the missing body.’ she thought.
‘Now this couldbe nasty. I wonder why it waited for me to close the gate.’ andthen had a quick look around to see if there were any others.
She had seenwyverns before and knew a lot about them but had never faced onebefore. They looked like a cross between a dragon and a scorpionand were supposed to be pretty stupid. They stood on two clawedlegs like a giant bird of prey and behaved like one in manyrespects. They preferred to drop down from the sky like a bird ofprey, grab an animal, sting it with their poison tail, carry it upinto the sky then drop it on a rocky hilltop. If its poison didn’tkill the animal the fall would, and the wyvern could then eat itsprey with a clear view all around to watch for any threats. Theywere also quite clumsy on the ground.
Fen Fang lookeddown at the Newman woman. She was unarmed and wore no armour. Shewas difficult to see as she blended into the background like himbut he could detect her with his other senses as well. He was stillhungry even after eating the handler. He had waited for her toclose the gateway. This way he could stay in this world with lotsof lovely food and freedom. The Lord couldn’t punish him for notreturning. They would never know that he ate the handler. Now ifshe would just run, he could swoop down and grab her, then fly upand drop her further up the hillside for a snack.
Miranda quicklyreviewed her tactics. She had to get near a large tree, that way itcouldn’t attack from the air. If it had to fight on the ground shewould have the advantage.’
She checked herrings. One was a feather fall ring that could be activated if shedropped from any height. She normally wore that when she flew as aneagle, just in case anything ever went wrong. It would allow her todrift down to the ground without harm. The other was her chameleonring that allowed her to use its camouflage effect twice per day.She had already used it once and it was still active. She must behard to see but was certainly not invisible. The wyvern would havea very sensitive sense of smell and sharp hearing. It could detecther using those, even if it couldn’t see her that well.
Keeping hereyes locked on its eyes, she slowly backed away. It could see whereshe was by the water flowing around her legs in the stream. As soonas she got to the other bank she would be harder to see. Thecreature would have to move soon or she would get away.
‘It’s a shamemy magic won’t work on these dragon kin.’ she thought. ‘I don’treally want to harm it. Unfortunately, it probably only sees me asbreakfast. If I can get it onto the ground, I might be
