The Witch's Relay

Chapter 42: Wyvern

The wyvern continues to sleep as Linda and Grim slowly near it, and I am a bit surprised over how close they can get. For Linda it is expected, since she already carries herself light and graciously in her day-to-day life, but Grim is somehow also moving incredibly quietly, despite him being built like a boulder.

When they are just about fifteen feet away however, the monster opens its eyes, and immediately takes a defensive stance over the dead bodies. Looks like it wants to defend its meal.

Upon being discovered, Linda starts running towards it with a shout, her knives raised but in a defensive stance.

Just like Linda predicted, the wyvern focuses on the loud one, giving Grim an opportunity to swiftly close in unnoticed.

Before Grim has the time to make his move however, the wyvern lashes out at Linda, attempting to slice her with its claws. But of course, being the B-rank that she is, Linda dodges, but in an attempt to hold the monster's attention, she dodges with a backwards cartwheel.

My eyes go a bit wide at her gracefulness.

Grim however, ends up even further away from his target as the wyvern jumps towards Linda.

But when Grin accidentally kicks a couple rocks while shuffling along, he creates the faintest sound, causing the wyvern to spin around. Seeing Grim standing near its prey, it now ignores Linda and rushes towards Grim and with a whoosh, snaps at him.

Thankfully, while I stare with awe, Grim jumps to the side, and for a moment, the monster's neck is completely exposed. Unfortunately however, the wyvern reacts too quickly for the ensuing blow that attempts to behead it, but all it does is to give it a deep slash on the side, as it isn't able to completely move out of the way.

Jumping out of the way, the wyvern quickly makes note of both Grim and Linda's positions, before spreading its wings and gets ready to leap into the sky.

In an attempt to stop the wyvern from taking to the air, Linda dashes forward, and as the wyvern spreads its wings, she raises both her knives, plunging them straight through the leathery webbing, and slashes a long cut, that severs a major part of the wing clean apart.

As a result of Linda's action, when the wyvern flaps its wings, unable to gain support from the injured side, it spins around, and crashes onto its side, nearly, but still not even close to crushing Linda underneath the monster's enormous body.

Grim, seeing the opportunity, strays from the original plan, and with a grunt and a wide swing, he slices off the wyvern's uninjured wing.

Now that the wyvern can't actually fly, there is no reason not to injure it, since it can't flee into the sky as we had feared, so taking advantage, Linda once again leaps at the monster, and this time, plunges her blades deep into the wyvern's shoulder.

The monster shrieks in pain, and tries to shake Linda off, and succeeds, but in the process forces Linda to cut even deeper. She nimbly jumps off the wyvern, and doing a backflip, lands on her feet and immediately gets ready to face the monster once again.

But during the time Linda attacks, the monster entirely forgets about Grim. And when the monster entirely turns away, Grim takes the opportunity to quickly get close, and with one swing, he finishes the job.

The wyvern's growl is cut off as its head, suddenly severed from its neck, falls to the ground with a loud thump.

The battle is won, and I get up from behind the bushes and walk towards the two victors.

Both Linda and Grim take a few steps back to avoid getting hit by any muscle spasms of the dead monster. Once everything calms down, they both step in to observe their work.

If one were to ignore the ferocity of the wyvern, it really was a beautiful beast. The gray metallic scales gently reflect the sunlight, lighting up the ground all around the dead monster, which somehow makes one feel sad that it had to be dispatched. But once I turn my head to the corpses of the dead adventurers, all such feelings vanish.

"Wyverns are monsters, and despite their noble appearances, they are ferocious beasts that cause nothing but death." Grim utters, him too looking over at the dead bodies. "We should bring them back. Their families deserve to see them one final time."

...

"My master used to tell me tales of mages with the abilities to tame monsters. Beast-tamers he called them. They would wander into the mountains and come back riding wyverns, wolves and other monsters, and once they had been brought back, they would no longer be hostile. They could be sold, and they would obey their new masters." Heather's voice echoes in my head. "Their techniques were always kept secret, only being passed on from one generation of beast-tamers to the next."

"Eventually they started bringing back dragons, and each one sold for a fortune. Kings and emperors would purchase them, and for every one purchase, the demand would only grow higher as their uses got more and more exploited."

"Used in battle, just one dragon could turn the tide entirely. The way warfare worked changed because of it. Powerful mages were the only ones who could do anything against the new rulers of the sky, so the common foot-soldier became nearly obsolete, only useful for dragon fodder and shields."

"The larger countries who already had large economies would purchase these dragons, and they would use them for war and expand, but almost all smaller countries were swallowed up by the larger ones as they could not afford the new war-beasts."

"But eventually the tamers began to come home empty-handed, until, one day, no more dragons were up in those mountains. But in the absence of dragons, the numbers of wyverns grew, and they once again got their turn in ruling the skies." She then turned to me and smiled with a sad look in her eyes. "You see Kade, when the world cast out us mages, they also casted out the magic beasts. Who knows, maybe one day they'll be your allies.

...

"Yes.. We should. Let's make stretchers to drag them along in. Since there are three of them, each one of us can take one." I get down on one knee by the one nearest to me and cover the dead man's face with his cloak.

"Alright. You two start on that, I'll collect the useful parts of this wyvern. Although for a creator like this, I'll probably send someone to collect the scales once we're back in town. When I'm finished with this I'll join you." Linda states her plan.

"Alright." Grim replies, his voice grim.

I nod in agreement and we all get started.