Harpy? Manticore? No, these have wings, but they aren’t otherwise “birdlike” in the sense that they make sounds anything like those of a bird. Their heads are mammalian.
Wyvern.
While the flying reptiles have fox-like heads, the noise they make is an avian screech.
There are wyverns ahead, and I’m armed with a jackalope and a dagger.
The rumble comes again, and I frown as I tilt my head. That isn’t wyverns. It must be the mountain. An earthquake? I almost laugh at the thought—that would be the worst luck possible. More likely it’s the sound of the mountain itself, shifting.
Those who’ve guessed at why the Michty River dried up blame the mountain’s structure, speculating that something inside shifted, sending the water back into the earth and other smaller tributaries. That might be an ongoing process, like a volcano rumbling for years before or after an eruption. That means that while the rumbling sounds bad, it isn’t any reason for me to turn back. Especially when turning back means going deeper into the mountain.
Jacko looks behind us and then in front. I offer to pick him up again, but he wants to stay on the ground, and he wants to continue. We do so, with extreme care. I have my dagger out now, the moss stuffed into my clothing with the scale to leave my hands free. And then, as the tunnel curves, there is true light—dawn’s light, somewhere in the distance.
“Look,” I whisper, pointing for Jacko. “Light! Sunlight! We’re almost there.”
His quiet chitter nicely warns me that my “whispers” aren’t as quiet as they should be.
“Sorry,” I murmur and motion buttoning my lips.
The rumbling has stopped, but we still catch the occasional wyvern cry. At one point, it sounds as if two are bickering over something, maybe leftovers from the night’s hunting. Then that stops, and all I hear is a distant scratching, like talons on rock.
Another ten paces and Jacko zips ahead to point out a crevice in the side wall. Until now, the walls have been smooth and unbroken. Here, though, there’s a crack wide enough to slip through.
Should we slip through it? That is the question. While the sunlight comes from somewhere up ahead, so do the scrapes of talon on rock.
I crawl quietly into the crevice to take a better look. It’s maybe ten feet long, and beyond it there seems to be another cavern. A dark cavern.
All right. This isn’t an obvious alternate route, but if those wyverns are right at the end of the main tunnel—and we can’t get out without passing them—I’ll reconsider this one.
I’m about to withdraw when Jacko hops inside and nudges a rock on the floor. Before I can bend to look more closely, he picks it up and carries it to the main passage. Once I’m out, he drops it at my feet.
I crouch and touch it.
“Not a rock,” I mumble. “A tooth.”
It’s a wyvern tooth. I recognize it because we had to kill one of the wyverns that attacked us this summer, and Wilmot returned to the body to remove the teeth for me.
I don’t like the reminder that I had to kill a beast, but as Jannah said, these “trophies” can remind us of a failure—if we believe the violence could have been avoided—or of a harsh necessity, as with the wyvern.
This tooth is bigger than the ones I have. While I brought that wyvern down, Malric dealt the killing blow. I don’t have my sword or my hardened leather tunic. With only my dagger and my nightclothes, I’m not fighting anything unless I have absolutely no choice.
The tooth also seems a little different from the ones I have. There’s an extra ridge along the side. That could indicate age. I consider taking it with me, but I’d need to swap it for the black scale, and that’s more scientifically interesting. The scale would also make a better weapon.
With reluctance, I set the tooth down. Then we continue along. The clicking of talons sounds to our right now, but muffled enough for me to know it’s behind rock. All the more reason not to take that side passage.
I’m picking up my pace when Jacko chatters and bumps my leg. I stop and follow his gaze. It’s aimed back at that crevice. Something moves, dark against the dim light of my phosphorescent moss. I plaster myself to the right-hand wall. Jacko does the same, and we both look toward that movement. It’s gone now, leaving the tunnel quiet and still.
Did I imagine it?
One look at Jacko tells me I didn’t. He’s staring wide-eyed in that direction, fur on end. Another movement. I blink hard to see better, but the sunlight is coming from the opposite end.
And then a snout appears, followed by a head, peeking around the corner. It’s a long snout, dark, and the shape confirms it’s a wyvern even if I can’t see the fox-like ears.
The beast sniffs, the sound carrying to us. From the size of its head, I see that it could be the wyvern whose tooth we found—it’s definitely bigger than the ones we encountered before.
It seems darker than the others, too, and its head is smoother. While a wyvern has the head of a fox, it’s probably better to think of it as part bat and part reptile. There are bats with that fox-like head and fur. A wyvern’s wings are definitely bat-like—membranes stretched between the torso and the forelegs, which are part of the wings. Those forelegs end in talons, and the beast is awkward on the ground, like a bat, waddling on its wing tips and hind legs. I listen for that distinctive sound—more a dragging than a scratching—but I hear nothing. Even when the beast pulls back out of sight, it’s silent. Then it peeks again, and this time, it stretches its neck out and…
There are no fox-like ears. No ears at all.
I shake my head sharply. Does that matter right
