Chương 84: It's Not a Dragon

The party reached the edge of the plain the next morning. This was where Argaon said the reindeer herds gathered. A wide snow-covered field opened before them, with wind circling between low hills. Kichan had thought the aurora appeared only at night, but traces remained here even in daylight. Some patterns in the snow shone blue beneath the sun, and a faint glow gathered inside the marks carved by reindeer hooves. The problem was that not one living animal remained. There were tracks. An enormous number of them.

A great herd had stayed here for a long time. Overlapping hoofprints had packed the ground hard, while wolf tracks ran along the outer edges. Only their traces preserved a landscape where prey and hunter had circled the same plain while measuring the distance between them. Now it was empty. Kichan said nothing for some time. He slowly followed the direction of the tracks. At one point, the herd's movement had changed into flight. Hooves dug deeper. Directions turned sharply.

Small tracks collapsed beneath larger ones. Riphiel looked around and spoke low.

"It is far too quiet."

"Quiet is the worst," Kichan said.

"A place that had everything is empty." The marks along the outer edge were more obvious. Long scratches scored the snow. Clots of blood remained where the wind had failed to erase them. Large claws had punched deep holes into the ground, then driven forward after landing on two feet. Torn bones lay scattered around them. Several teeth from white wolves were embedded in the snow. They had not fallen out. They had broken at the roots and bounced into the ground. Kichan picked one up.

Cold and hard, with an unusually fine edge. Properly preserved, it could reinforce a blade or support precise alchemy.

"This much survived." A wider search showed that it was nearly all that survived. Wolf jaws had been torn away. Entire reindeer antlers were missing. Only broken faces and chewed scraps remained. Kichan grew quieter. He picked up one split fragment of antler and studied it for a long time. A little aurora light remained. The antler had once grown far larger. It should have held longer grain, clearer cold, a more useful core. Someone had already swallowed those parts.

"They ate everything before I got here?" Riphiel answered carefully.

"It appears… so." Kichan rubbed one thumb over the surface. Cold light clung to his finger. Good material. That made it more irritating. He had traveled all this way to find exactly the things he liked, only to discover that something else had ripped them apart first. The saber-toothed tiger growled suddenly. Its mane rose. Valkyrie climbed to Kichan's shoulder and pushed the scale shield forward, holding the small spear behind it. Dust half-hid inside the bag.

A weight different from the wind descended from the ridge. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Kichan and Riphiel looked up together. A giant shadow landed on the mountainside. A body standing on two legs. Wings far larger than the torso. A long, sinewy neck. Teeth packed along the mouth. From a distance, it might be mistaken for a dragon. Its posture was different. Its gaze was different. It lacked the old depth in Argaon's eyes.

Hunger came before thought in this creature. Argaon spoke calmly.

"A wyvern." The wyvern did not attack immediately. Instead, it pulled a buried reindeer bone from beneath one forefoot and crushed it in its jaws as if it had been waiting. This was not a dry crunch. Hard bone and antler shattered together. As it raised its head and swallowed, faint blue light traveled down its throat. Kichan's face hardened further.

"Can I catch it?" Argaon did not look at him.

"If you can defeat it." Riphiel tightened her grip on the bow. She began, "If it is a wyvern, then compared to a dragon—" and stopped. Her face admitted that the comparison would not help. Kichan stepped forward, glaring at the wyvern. It was still chewing bone. The broken tip of a reindeer antler caught at the corner of its mouth, then vanished beneath its tongue. The sight scraped directly across Kichan's nerves.

"That was my material." Riphiel inhaled softly beside him. Only then did the wyvern raise its head. Yellow eyes—not gold, not blue, but the eyes of a hungry beast—swept over the party. They stopped first on the saber-toothed tiger. It instinctively recognized living meat. The tiger growled louder. Kichan stepped in front of it at once.

"Not that one." The wyvern half-spread its wings, blasting snow from below. It might have been smaller than Argaon's true body, but by human standards it was disaster enough. The sound of its claws biting into stone sent cold along Riphiel's back. Then another shadow moved behind the ridge. A second wyvern. Behind it, a third wing briefly blocked the aurora light. A fourth head rose over a low hill. They had not found one creature. They had found a hunting group guarding the plain it had emptied.

Riphiel's voice lowered.

"…There are many."

"I can see that." Kichan settled the wake-up rod in his hand. Its weight pressed familiarly into his palm. He rapidly measured the plain, the ridge, the remaining bones, and the number of wings. This was a terrible place to fight. Open sky. Flying enemies. Most of the materials he had come to collect already torn apart. Not the worst imaginable, but bad enough. Argaon remained in human form. He showed no intention of changing. Riphiel glanced at him, but he returned only a level gaze. He was not joining yet.

Kichan did not expect him to. Instead, he checked the snow beneath his feet. Snow steeped in aurora light was more slippery than ordinary ice, and Valkyrie's water could set its grain even faster. He still had pieces of the heat sac and the dual-temperature stone. Whatever the wyverns had eaten, the light around their mouths suggested materials had accumulated inside them. The problem was their number. The first wyvern spread its wings fully. Aurora light shone faintly through the membrane. Kichan's brows moved.

This was not reflection alone. Something had gathered inside the beast—perhaps reindeer antler, wolf blood, and years of aurora snow. The wyvern raised its neck and smelled the air. Kichan disliked that too. With the same mouth that had chewed reindeer bones, it weighed the humans against the tiger. Its stomach was not full. It was choosing which living meat moved most. This was not a dragon's gaze, classifying an opponent and reading meaning. It decided only whether to eat. Riphiel asked very quietly,"Argaon.

Why do people say wyverns resemble dragons?" Argaon never looked away from them.

"Because their shapes are similar. Wings, scales, and teeth do not make us the same. A dragon does not chew the first bone before his eyes merely because he is hungry." Kichan muttered,"That one chewed my materials first." He still had to survive before inspecting them. One wyvern folded its wings and prepared to leap from the ridge. The others lowered their heads and set themselves behind it. The group was turning to the hunt. Kichan breathed out once.

"Ah. I really don't like them." Riphiel asked,"What part?"

"All of that could've been mine." The first wyvern leaped, kicking a storm of snow into the air.