The bolt flew from the bow faster than Leslyn’s eye could follow. An ugly bellow erupted from the dracat closing in behind and above him, much, much closer than he wanted it to be.

Kaleit calmly stepped forward, grabbed him by his shirt, and half-flung, half-carried him off to the side with more ease than Leslyn expected, or would ever admit later on.

A loud grunt accompanied the heavy thud as the dracat hit the ground right near where they’d been standing a few moments before. Leslyn couldn’t see the bolt anywhere, but judging by the way the beast mouthed the air and stuck out its tongue while thrashing about, he assumed it had gone right in through its open maw and lodged in the back of its throat.

While it looked very painful, the shot didn’t seem fatal. Even so, the dracat never left the ground again, for several griffins surrounded the creature and quickly finished the job Kaleit had started.

Leslyn took a moment to straighten his shirt, unreasonably miffed at the wrinkles that Kaleit had pressed into the area around his collarbone. “Thanks,” he said, trying not to sound as annoyed as he felt.

Kaleit merely curled his lip in reply, as if disgusted with himself for stooping so low as to help someone like Leslyn.

“I didn’t expect you could shoot so well,” he tried again.

“This is far from my first time at ground level on the battlefield,” he said, eyes returning to the sky. Led by Gunu on his white, the second unit of griffins was starting to go up, while those who’d been fighting were on their way down, their destination looking to be very close to the Aerie itself. Kaleit stalked off to where they were heading in to land.

Leslyn hadn’t expected a children’s tale of blooming friendship from the unexpected rescue, so wasn’t disappointed by the dismissive exit. It was more a hope of eventually getting on Kaleit’s less-hostile side. He liked his nose where it was, and if the taller youth was anything like his father, he might be the type to enjoy rearranging the faces of people he decided weren’t worth holding back on.

He noticed several other new recruits hurrying toward the landing formation, including Arlis, and went to join them. They were forming a line starting from behind the building, passing large wooden buckets from person to person. Erin was nowhere to be seen, which was concerning.

Leslyn joined the line and found that the buckets contained a still-warm, pungent red liquid. He heard bleating coming from the start of the line and understood immediately what was taking place. That certainly explained why Erin had made herself scarce.

When the buckets reached the end of the line, recruits and volunteers carried them to each exhausted griffin and let them drink as much as they wished. From the limited view he had in the line, Leslyn watched some of the animals—Koben’s griffin Romo among them—down as many as five buckets. Even in light of the ugly things that were happening up in the air, he shuddered to imagine the purest carnage that was going on behind the Aerie.

The process was very well-rehearsed, and with so many workers, it only took a few minutes. Once the griffins had taken their refreshment, new buckets were swapped in with water with a couple of ladles dropped into each one. This was for the riders, some of whom had already shed layers of gear and clothing and were laying across their griffins’ backs to cool off while they rested.

Leslyn was near to overheating himself after running here and there like a beheaded chicken, but, luckily, he didn’t have to wear heavy protective gear as the riders did.

A quick glance above proved that Gunu’s unit was doing well, the number of skyborne dracats noticeably dwindling. Off to the north, General Xavara’s group appeared to have neatly swept the air of enemies, but weren’t returning to the ground to rest. Instead, their griffins were wheeling about in circles like Koben’s unit had done while waiting for the dracats to bring the fight to them.

Suddenly, the entire unit broke the circle and immediately went into a deep dive, leveling out close to the ground and using the gained momentum to head back toward the Aerie at top speed.

A second cloud of dracats had just cleared the edge of the cliffs on the northern-most edge of Nilvar’s island, and appeared to be in pursuit of Xavara’s men. There were shouts across the ground and in the sky as soldiers warned each other of the two approaching groups.

Xavara’s team came in low, each rider-griffin pair landing wherever they could fit outside the Aerie and among Koben’s resting unit. The bucket-line formed again to take care of them, and this time, Leslyn was one of the runners. As he took a bucket and headed straight for the general, he saw Gunu and Sythe leave the formation above, likely returning to the Aerie to check in with Xavara.

He offered the bucket to the general’s black, just after the woman had shed her helmet and was tearing the goggles from her face as if they were burning her skin. It was only an instant, but Leslyn saw the cold hollowness in her eyes before the black griffin threw back his head to swallow, hiding her fully from the youth’s view.

She was General Xavara again when the black bowed to dip his beak a second time, noticing Leslyn below with a calm and collected gaze. “Leslyn, go and fetch Koben and Gunu. Quick, now. Don’t stop for anything.”

Something about her words, though barely loud enough to hear above the bells and sounds of battle, sent a tremorous chill through him. He left the bucket and ran.

He had the Aeriemaster in his sights when he suddenly spotted Erin carrying a bag of healing herbs, and went to her. “Get Aeriemaster Gunu,” he spat, sparing no time for an explanation. “Send him to the general, over there.”

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A confused Erin was left in his wake when he went on to find Koben, but a glance over his shoulder a few seconds later proved that she’d absorbed the message after all, for she was running toward the man on the beacon-like white griffin.

He found Koben still seated upon Romo’s back and speaking with one of the physicians who were working on the one-winged brown griffin. It had either fainted or was medicated into oblivion, lying limp on the net that had been used to deliver it safely to the ground. Leslyn’s gaze naturally went to the gaping wound on its back, sympathy instantly closing up his throat, but he quickly turned away, remembering his task.

“The general needs you,” he called up to Koben. “Something’s wrong.”

The prince pressed Romo’s shoulder, and the red crouched low in response. Koben hooked his boot into a niche on the saddle and hung down, holding out his hand. As if they’d been working together for years instead of a month or two, Leslyn automatically took it, and was swung up high enough to cling and clamber onto the saddle.

Romo could only manage a slow lope as he picked his way through the crowded field, but those who saw him coming made way as best they could, clearing a straight path back to the general. Erin was waiting there on the ground beside Gunu and white Sythe.

As Koben and Leslyn rode up, Xavara and Gunu both dismounted. The prince followed suit and the three stood close together. After only a few words from the general, the two men both startled, their disbelieving faces hardening severely a moment later.

Leslyn got down from Romo’s back and went to Erin.

“What’s going on?” she asked, looking back and forth between Leslyn and the three officials. “Are they meeting about those other dracats?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m not sure it’s the dracats they’re worried about.” With three units of griffins joining forces, that second cloud couldn’t have been that much of a threat… could it?

The trio of leaders ended their meeting, going back to their griffins and moving off in separate directions. Koben brought Romo over to Erin and Leslyn, a stone-like determination on his face. “You two, gather up every non-rider you can find, and go inside. You’re not to come out until an official gives the all-clear.”

Dread filled him from head to toe with an awful sensation he would’ve compared to a sick stomach. “Sire, what’s happening?”

In a move quite unlike the prince Leslyn knew, Koben ignored the question and urged Romo into the air. They flew up, presumably to give orders to the soldiers who were engaged with the remnants of the first dracat swarm. Additionally, Leslyn spotted two riders heading off to the east and south. He had a feeling they were going to fetch Captains Tannoran and Esmor.

Already, people on foot were heading in toward the Aerie. Leslyn and Erin moved across the grounds and passed along the directive to anyone who hadn’t heard it from Xavara or Gunu.

When they found Kaleit completely engrossed in assisting a couple of healers, Leslyn noticed that Erin wore a look as dour as he felt for having to interact with him again.

The tall youth was engaged in helping to restrain a man who’d recently left the battle and landed because of his wounds. The bone of his thigh appeared to have been spared, but bits of his shredded leather tassets were buried deeply into gashes made by dracat talons, and had to be extracted immediately before the wounds sealed themselves shut and compounded the risk of infection.

Erin, who was apparently so disturbed that she couldn’t look away as the physician started probing one of the wounds with a metal tool, flinched and hid her face against Leslyn’s shoulder when the man screamed in agony, even with the painkilling salve that had been applied to his leg. Kaleit and two other men increased their efforts to hold him down.

Leslyn thought he had the stomach to watch, but by the time the procedure was done, he envied Erin for the decidedly ignoble way she’d avoided the worst of it by sitting on the ground behind him, facing away and squashing her hands over her ears.

Swallowing to try and relieve the nausea, the youth took it upon himself to go over to where the men still knelt around the patient, ready to give Kaleit the news.

“Spare me the inane compliments,” Kaleit snapped before Leslyn even said a word. “We’re in the middle of a battle, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Not in the mood for a fight, Leslyn glared. “I’m here because Koben ordered that we all go inside, and stay there. There’s a second wave coming.”

“Why would he order us inside over a few more dracats? The only reason he’d do that is if—” The youth went silent, his eyes opening wide. He glanced around, saw Xavara’s men scattered about the field, and shot to his feet to look north.

The clanging of the warning bells slowly faded back into awareness as Leslyn followed his gaze to the distant cliff’s edge.

He saw nothing at first, except the broad crystalline face of Crylis hovering in the sky over the water.

Then, flapping wings rose into view from below the cliff: wide, featherless, flattened wedges of stretched skin like body of a giant ocean ray coming up from the sea. The wings were joined to a creature with greenish flesh-colored skin. It had a bulky torso and shoulders and a thick, snake-like neck with a fringe of some sort of hair or fur trailing down from its throat and spreading across its chest. The sails of its wings continued back along its sides and blended into additional sails along either side of its tree trunk-like tail.

It had come from below, possibly purposely hiding itself from the soldiers by approaching at sea level from a different direction as the second wave of dracats, to whom it was quickly catching up with powerful sweeps of its broad wings.

Like those dracats, its hindquarters were heavily-muscled and ended in hooked claws that were made for the bloodiest of battles.

Unlike the dracats, the creature was monstrous in size, dwarfing them like a whale dwarfed a man and making it impossible for Leslyn to not know exactly what it was at a single glance.

“A wyvern,” he breathed.

As if it had heard him from far across the grazing pastures, the wyvern’s maw opened in a thunder-like bellow, splitting its face with a display of wicked, forward-angled teeth.

It was a creature built wholly for destruction.

Unable to look away from the approaching monster, Leslyn’s heart stopped when a second roar shook the air all around him.

The wyvern’s mate crested up and over the cliff’s edge, beating its wings with fresh energy as it instantly spotted the huge herd of livestock that the first wyvern was already well on its way to sample. This one’s flesh was the sickly green of pond scum.

“Please, please let me wake up,” Erin moaned, snapping Leslyn out of his daze. He looked over and saw her collapsed onto her hip, staring in pained horror at the fast-moving behemoths. “I don’t want to die. Please, don’t let me die. Give me my old life back. I want to go back.”

He was scared, too, but somehow, her utter terror wrenched him in the other direction, filling him with a burst of strength that he felt could rival a griffin’s. He bent toward her, arms held out to take her up and get her back to the Aerie.

In a flash of movement, Kaleit snatched her by the wrist and yanked her to her feet, hauling her bodily while she clumsily flailed and tripped her way along behind him.

Leslyn sprinted after them, heart thundering in his chest.