“Of all the people in the whole of the bloody Kaden Circle, I have to get stuck on a boat with you,” the orange-robed, orange-haired man said. His hair was the perfect shade of ginger for creating a steady gradient between peach cheeks and satsuma hood, so that the garment appeared to grow organically from his eyebrows.

“Told myself I’d kill you if I ever saw you again, mind-fucker. I hope fate won’t be so cruel as to make me a liar,” a greying man in a sleeveless jerkin sneered, dangling an iron rod like a pendulum.

Vish stared straight back at his fan club, “Thomas, Raymond,” he nodded to the men in turn, “Person I don’t know.”

“Oh, how rude of me!” the slightly plump lady in stained yellow overalls extended a hand to the mind-mapper, “I’m Violet. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Oh, er, okay then,” Vish took the hand before he even knew what he was doing.

“Shouldn’t touch him, Vie,” the mage, Thomas, cautioned, “you might catch cowardice.”

“Unless you’ve caught twatishness from these two, I think we’re going to have to conclude things don’t work that way,” Vish said.

Violet looked uneasily from the mind-mapper to her comrades. After a little internal wrestling, she seemed to make a decision, “Be nice, you two. Archimedes would want us to be polite.”

“Archimedes seems to have a shorter memory than we do,” Raymond was watching their platinum-haired leader converse with Gabriel as he spoke.

“Well, it costs us nothing to be civil,” Violet released Vish’s hand and made to take Natasha’s.

Bling chomped at Violet’s fingers like a rabid dog. Vish had to put an arm in the way to prevent her from taking a couple of digits.

“Gosh!” Violet squealed, reeling her hand in.

“She’s,” Vish tried to think of a valid excuse and landed on an old favourite, “not from around here.”

Violet eyed the slathering redhead cautiously, “I see. I hope I haven’t offended?”

“You’re good, you’re good. Just, maybe keep your hands to yourself.”

Violet was nodding enthusiastically.

“Don’t let the pretty face fool you, Violet,” Thomas grinned maliciously behind a cosmos of freckles, “Natasha here is a bird brain. Literally. She’s living proof that Justice is one of the thinking gods, and that he has a sense of humour.”

“I don’t know if you’re in a strong position to be calling people names,” Vish said.

“Why’s that, dark-skin? Because I’m ginger?” Thomas snorted.

“Nope, because you’re a dick. And that’s coming from me.”

“I’m not about to be insulted by some cursed mind-manipulator. Necromancers and cannibals are less despised than your kind.”

“Well, I’m not about to be insulted by someone wearing a,” Vish looked the mage up and down, “actually pretty cool robe… Too bad the guy wearing it is a waste of the two minutes his dad spent at the brothel making him.”

“How about I shove a lightning bolt up your arse?”

“How about I turn you into an avocado for the rest of the trip?”

The two men were squaring off, a coin’s breadth from one another’s faces. Thomas twitched with rage. Vish held his ground stoically.

There was a screeching sound from high up in the sky.

All five turned to look.

As they watched, a black shape spiraled upwards. When it seemed it was kissing the sun, the creature nose-dived at speeds near impossible to track. It hurtled towards the left bank of the river and, moments before colliding with the ground, pulled up to track parallel with the surface.

The beast extended its claws and raked them along the raft just in front of Gabriel’s, capsizing the floating island and sending its cargo and occupants spilling in the river.

“How about we call a truce?” Violet suggested.

Grudgingly, the three men nodded.

All along the line teamsters and handlers were barking orders. Those closest to the carnage were cutting loose their horses, worried that the terrified beasts would send the rafts careening into one another.

Gabriel sat dripping from head to toe, staring uncomprehendingly at the flotsam and jetsam from the raft ahead. He blinked river water from his lashes.

“What, by the aether, was that?”

“Curved stone beak, squat face with a mane around its neck and throat, serpentine body with bat-like wings… That was a mountain wyvern,” Figo said, awe-struck.

Gabriel was incredulous, “You saw all of that?”

“I suppose I can’t be completely sure but, well, yes.”

Archimedes came up beside Figo, sword in hand, “Where did it come from?”

“Up, Archimedes, it came from up,” Gabriel said.

“It must be down from The Crest, the elven highlands north of Jandrir,” Figo frowned.

“A long way from home, then,” Archimedes said, “It’s coming back.”

The wyvern carved a crescent trail through some low clouds and then swooped in for another sortie.

Those on the rafts below braced themselves and prayed they were not its target.

Curiously, Luck had a habit of consistently ignoring some people.

The creature was heading directly for Gabriel’s raft, its beak pointing at them like an arrow’s head. It let out a high whistle as it dove, that Gabriel could feel in his teeth.

At the last moment, the wyvern became distracted by the whinnying of a spooked horse, and changed targets to silence the bucking animal. Its claws pivoted in front of its body and its wings spread wide to slow its descent. It plucked the mare from the ground by its neck and dropped it from a four-storey height.

Gabriel was quietly grateful that the horse was dead before it hit the ground.

“It doesn’t appear to be hunting,” Archimedes noted, “What might it be doing here?”

“Perhaps it has young nearby?” Figo said.

“Save the Zoology class for later,” Lydia shouted over the din of stampeding horses and screaming men and women, “How do we get rid of it?”

The wyvern made another low pass, further along the line. This time it missed its mark, and the passengers on the raft were able to duck out of the way and maintain their balance.

“Excellent question,” Archimedes said, “I recall a monster-hunting gentleman with hair as white as mine suggesting silver was the go-to solution for almost any creature born of the aether, but I have no idea how true that is. He also said there were a number of oils and concoctions that might help.”

“Which oils? If it’s olive oil, we are set,” Gabriel said, pointing at the crates.

“I don’t think he meant to fry it, Gabriel. Anyway, it’s sadly irrelevant, for I do not recall the details. I got rather distracted by a delightfully quaint card game,” Archimedes explained apologetically.

“Helpful, Archimedes, helpful. Anyone got anything silver? No? Right, entirely bloody useless then.”

“Here it comes!” Lydia called.

The five of them split up and spaced out as far away from the edges of the raft as they dared. The wyvern had another moment of indecision, but eventually decided to aim for Eileen, who ducked behind a crate like a rabbit diving into its hole. As before, the beast slowed down and brought its legs forward to clasp its victim. However, as it passed her, Lydia hacked at the creature’s feet, severing a toe, and Figo loosed an arrow that sank into its flank, not too far from where Figo had hit Gabriel, as it goes. The archer had to be pleased with that consistency.

The wyvern broke off its attack with a shriek that sounded like a combination between a tone-deaf child playing a recorder, and a titan wringing out an enormous sponge.

“We got it!” Figo said.

“We pissed it off, you mean.” Gabriel corrected.

Archimedes strode back to the center of the raft, “Good job, everyone. If we can keep that up then we may be able to drive it away.”

Three of them nodded their agreement. Gabriel rolled his eyes.

“Everyone, make ready!”

The wyvern’s next attack was not for them, though, it struck out at the raft behind.

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“Here it comes!” Raymond growled, spinning his iron rod in one hand, “Violet, orb.”

“Right!” Violet took a half full jar of something gelatinous from her pack, and popped open the top. She uncorked a small vial of blue liquid at her belt and added it to the concoction, shaking it vigorously before passing the glass container to Raymond.

“Let’s see how it likes this,” Raymond smiled.

As the wyvern raced towards them, Raymond cocked his arm and made ready. When its beaked face was almost in line with the edge of the raft, the muscular old man hurled his projectile right into the creature’s eyes. The glass shattered on impact and a cloud of aquamarine dust exploded around the wyvern’s head.

The monstrous bird snapped back its head in panic, its eyes closed and its mouth relentlessly shrieking. It pulled into a near-hover, its instinct clearly not to fly blind, and suffered even more for its attempt at self-preservation: Bling dug her twin blades into the creatures leg, and Thomas struck the wyvern’s wing with a concentrated ball of energy. The wyvern span, and scrabbled with its feet to find purchase.

The wyvern was almost as deadly in its panic as it was in its pursuit. The beast’s talons cartwheeled above the deck of the raft, threatening to eviscerate any it came into contact with. When it did try to touch-down, favouring its uninjured foot, it almost tipped the raft. Crates skidded across the deck, sinking to the bottom of the river, and the creature only decided to flee when one struck its ankle. The wyvern pumped its wings, creating a localized gale, and gained as much height as possible.

Once in the air, the bird-lizard flew circles overhead, shaking its head violently to disperse the offending substance cast at it.

“What was that?” Vish asked a dejected Violet.

“A paralysis bomb. At least, that’s what it was supposed to be. It works on humans,” she sulked.

Vish squinted at the wyvern. It looked pissed.

“No problem, we’ve got this. It’s just an angry dragon-esque, bird-demon of legend,” Vish stroked his chin, “that glitters.”

“Sounds like you have a plan.”

“Yeah,” Vish pointed at the raft ahead, “try and look less tasty than those guys.”

Gabriel had watched in horror as the wyvern had almost upturned the second raft.

“Lydia, we have to find a way to help the others! Natasha’s wearing too much fabric, if she falls in the river she won’t be able to swim!”

The one-armed, fully armoured warrior stared back at him.

Gabriel looked desperately from the raft to the warrior.

Lydia carried on staring.

Gabriel finally caught her expression. He looked the colossal iron giant up and down.

“Figo, we have to find a way to help the others!” Gabriel said.

“Perhaps I can draw its attention? Bring the fight to us?”

“Do it!”

The wyvern stayed airborne for a lot longer this time, giving the mercenaries time to catch their breath. It was almost too long. The suspense was palpable, and, whilst the fighting had eased up, they couldn’t relax their guard even for a moment.

When the wyvern plunged again, it went for revenge. It dropped from the sky like an asteroid, barely slowing its dive at all. Figo tried in vain to track the beast; its aerial assault was just too fast, and it was clearly not sparing any energy in its efforts to claim retribution.

The wyvern caught Raymond as he tried to duck, slamming into him with the force of a tidal wave. The impact sounded like a wet slap, too quick and too hard for the individual sounds of breaking bones to ring through.

Raymond was launched off the raft like stone from a catapult, and sent ricocheting off of the opposite bank.

The other four blinked in petrified surprise as their ally sank into the shallows.

“By all that is holy!” Gabriel cried out as he watched Raymond bounce from bank to water, “We have to run! We have to get to shore!”

“There’s no time, we’ve drifted too far,” Archimedes shouted back.

“Damn it! Okay, keep it busy for a second.”

“What are you doing?”

“Just keep it busy!”

Gabriel had seen some splashing in the water and noticed a flash of flesh winking in and out of the ripples caused by the capsized raft. He crawled to the edge and noticed that two of the merchants who had been ahead of them were still alive, albeit struggling to stay afloat in their finery.

Frantically, Gabriel searched around, looking for anything that might be of use. He finally found a length of rope that had previously been tying down some crates. He gathered up the coil and threw it out for the men to take hold. One at a time, with the wyvern stalking overhead, he reeled them in.

The two men, a middle-aged man in a red and gold tunic and an older, pock-marked man in black, spluttered on the deck. They desperately tried to eject half a river’s worth of water from their lungs and stomachs.

“Thank you. Gods, thank you,” the man in red eventually managed to cough out.

“Don’t mention it,” Gabriel replied coolly, “Just stay safe and keep your heads down. I’m going to see if I can find any others.

Gabriel scanned the water once more. Desperately searching for signs of life. He saw none.

“Gabriel!” Figo called.

Without looking, Gabriel dropped to his stomach and rolled to the side. A heartbeat later, he felt the air sucked from around his body. It was so strong it almost pulled him from the raft.

When Gabriel looked up, the wyvern was overhead the far bank, the merchant in red clasped firmly in its claws.

Gabriel groaned.

The wyvern released the merchant at a hefty height, where he fell below Gabriel’s eyeline with a scream that ended abruptly.

“Why do I even bother?”

There was little enough time for self-pity, the wyvern was back on the rafts again in no time.

Figo caught the beast in its hairy back with a well-timed shot as it zipped by once more. Whilst Gabriel was impressed, he wondered if they weren’t taking the heroism a little beyond their means. The wyvern had all but given up on the other rafts; it was whole-heartedly invested in decimating every living creature that had caused it harm. Far from being cowed by the wounds it had received, each drop of suffering elicited a torrent of rage.

On its next approach, Figo caught the beast twice. One arrow it shrugged off, but the other struck its prehensile wing, encouraging the beast to land rather than risk being shot out of the air.

Again, impressive.

Wise? Perhaps not.

The wyvern slammed squarely into the centre of the raft, setting it rocking like a jester’s spinning plate. All but Lydia were knocked from their feet.

Fortunately, even the wyvern had to agree that Lydia was a pretty intimidating sight. The warrior dueled with the creature long enough to distract it from snapping up the fallen in its blade-sharp beak.

The others regained their senses quickly, and came at the wyvern from all angles. Archimedes slashed the creature along its pelvis, Eileen joined Figo in riddling the creature with missiles, favouring throwing knives over arrows, and Lydia chipped away at the monster’s stone beak, trying to obscure its vision with blow after blow of glinting metal.

Their attacks were seemingly effective, drawing blood and causing the creature to hunch in on itself to protect its exposed limbs. It began to whimper and cry in its state of fear and frustration.

Just when the mercenaries thought they might take the day, the creatures gullet distended like that of a toad’s, and its neck curved over its spine. When it opened its mouth next, it was not to cry or shriek, but to gush bouts of viscous, putrid, puce-coloured liquid over Lydia.

The bile splashed across Lydia’s breastplate and faulds, and immediately got to work devouring its way through the iron armour. Lydia fell back onto all-threes, frantically trying to unclasp her protective gear as it threatened to melt to her flesh. Her fingers fumbled on the straps and buckles, adrenaline and desperation robbing her of her usual dexterity.

The wyvern had regained the upper-hand, batting at Archimedes and Eileen, and spitting gobs of acid at Figo as he danced around the raft, loosing shot after ineffective shot. Thick hair matted the creatures chest and neck, tangling the arrows and greatly reducing their velocity. The wyvern may have looked frail, with its chicken-esque feet and iguana-like abdomen, but it was a hardy creature, with a seemingly limitless threshold for pain.

The beast was becoming eager for its next kill. The wyvern made a lunge for Figo that almost sent it careening into the water. It struggled for a while to regain its footing, each application of weight tipping the raft like a purser’s scales.

Gabriel took this as his cue, and slithered on his belly to Lydia’s side. The warrior was almost hyperventilating in her anxious state. She strained to see past her plate long enough to find the bindings that trapped her.

“Okay, don’t panic, I’m here to help,” Gabriel said.

“Get this fucking thing off me!”

“That sounds an awful lot like panicking.”

“Gabriel!”

“On it, on it.”

Gabriel had marginally better luck than Lydia, having two hands and being able to see, and managed to unfasten the breastplate before the acid had made its way through.

Lydia flipped the iron plate off of her with ease, and cast the offending garment into the water. She inspected herself thoroughly and then lay back, breathing heavily.

“I never thought I’d be saying this to you, but thanks,” Lydia spluttered between gasping breaths.

Gabriel was frowning, “Tailor! That’s it!”

“Come again?”

“Oh, I was wondering the other day what I’d be if I weren’t a mercenary.”

Lydia shook her head, “Don’t worry, you’re not.”

“I’ll argue that another time. For now, Wyvern?” he reminded her.

“Can’t catch a break around here,” Lydia sighed as she climbed awkwardly to her feet.

Her leg and arm armour were intact, but her chest was protected by nothing more than a loose cotton shirt. Nonetheless, there was still a lot of Lydia to deal with, and a Lydia with a bastard sword was a force of nature to contend with.

The wyvern was in the process of crushing Archimedes’ leg when Lydia thrust her sword between its ribs, halfway to the hilt. The creature emptied its lungs in a wail that could be heard from Ponbus to Jandrir. It span around aimlessly, striking at everything and anything, shielding its wound with one wing. Its attack was uncoordinated, but effective. Figo and Archimedes were flung into the water, Lydia was sent sprawling into a stack of crates, smashing the last surviving bottle of olive oil, and Gabriel and Eileen were knocked to their knees at the feet of the last surviving merchant, who was desperately trying to stay out of sight behind a pile of debris.

“Ow, and, ow,” Gabriel said.

“That things packs a punch,” Eileen agreed.

“You okay?”

“I’ll live,” Eileen’s lips thinned, “or at least, this won’t be the wound to kill me.”

Gabriel nodded sympathetically.

The pair of mercenaries noticed the pock-marked man in black huddled in front of them. They frowned, and spoke in unison.

“Hey, don’t I know y-” the pair started to say before the wyvern sent them headlong into the river as it took off once more.

Vish watched with less joy than he might of anticipated as he saw Gabriel and the others plunged into the tumultuous waters of the Malin. The wyvern was banking sharply, coming around for another assault.

“It doesn’t make any sense! No semi-intelligent creature would keep fighting at this point,” Violet practically sobbed.

“Take it up with the enormous herald-of-death, just about to dive-bomb us. I’ll be over here,” Vish said, slinking away to the corner.

Bling crouched low at the edge of the raft, blades in hand, ready to tackle the wyvern head on. She almost beheaded Thomas when he placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to usher her out of the way. The mage had a staff in hand that looked like it had been cast from solid quicksilver.

“Easy there, Natasha, we’re on the same side… this time,” Thomas stepped in front of the confused woman, “This beast has cost us more than enough. I’m going to put an end to this.”

Thomas dipped the end of his staff into the water and muttered an incantation.

The wyvern was racing towards them, oblivious of the mage’s antics.

Thomas’ muttering grew faster.

The wyvern whistled once more.

The words in Thomas’ mantra blurred into one as he repeated the spell on loop, each time faster than the last.

The wyvern’s talons scraped the tall grass as it soared towards them along the Eastern bank.

The water began to swell and bubble around the staff.

The wyvern closed in.

When the creature crossed the threshold from bank to river, Thomas jerked his staff from the water. As the spell broke, a gigantic plume of water launched into the air, well over the height of eight men, and as wide as four. It was like a spike had been hammered through the planet, its tip a spire of white foam.

The wyvern flew right through the geyser and continued on its merry way.

Thomas watched dumbstruck as the wyvern passed overhead, raining droplets on the barge and its occupants. It flew on and turned for another attack, completely undeterred by its recent moistening.

“Nice one, bud! It appears you got it wet. That’ll show it,” Vish called from behind a barrier of boxes.

Thomas gritted his teeth, “I’d like to see you do any better!”

“Hey, getting things wet is actually something I - Oh shit!” Vish broke off as the wyvern hurtled towards him.

The beast had the mind-mapper in its sights, and adjusted its course to follow Vish as he sprinted up and down the deck, trying and failing to shake its attention.

The wyvern twisted its body to bring its talons to bear, ready to pluck Vish from the floating platform.

Vish covered his face with his hands and peeked through the cracks between his fingers.

Apparently it could still see him.

The wyvern came so close that Vish caught his reflection in its glassy black eyes.

The beast cried out triumphantly.

Vish took a last deep breath.

“Fine then. Here goes nothing,” the mind-mapper whispered.