When we spread out to face the wyvern, we arrayed ourselves in a loose arc. Aleyda occupied the middle of our formation. After all, she was the most experienced and was well armored as well. I took the left side and Bowen was on the right.

“Bowen, be very careful,” I called out to him. “Aleyda has armor and I can heal but you can’t afford to take a hit.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said.

The wyvern wasn’t idle during this time. It had enough cunning to understand that we were threatening its flanks and it didn’t seem very pleased about it. It spun one way and then the other, its tail swishing back and forth and hissing all the while. I assume it was trying to intimidate us but it really didn’t need to try that hard. I was already intimidated. It wasn’t enough to keep me from acting, from fighting the thing, but it seemed so huge, well armed, and with a downright nasty disposition.

Aleyda wasted no time. When the creature’s gaze wasn’t locked on her she sprang forward and delivered a nasty chopping cut to one of its wings. A thin rivulet of blood welled from the place that she had struck but the thing’s scales must have provided some degree of protection because there wasn’t nearly as much damage as I expected. The wyvern spun to face her, its neck elongating, trying to bite her. After she had delivered her attack, though, she had immediately backpedaled and ended up just outside its reach, its jaws gnashing together mere inches from her.

I guess it is my turn. I bounded forward thrusting at its exposed side. I was briefly satisfied when several inches of my sword penetrated through the thing’s folded wing into its flank, but that satisfaction was short lived. I wasn’t nearly as adroit as Aleyda was when I retreated and the thing’s tail came whooshing at me through the air and powerfully cracked into my left hip. I tried to throw myself away from the impact to lessen the force but it caught me in midair sending me tumbling a couple of times across the hard, rocky ground. When I immediately tried to bound to my feet, I could feel a serious ache deep within the joint. Yep, that left a mark.

Seeing that the creature was occupied dealing with my attack and Aleyda’s, Bowen had apparently launched one of his own. He was much more careful than I was, though, making certain that he had a means to escape from the inevitable counter attack, so he hadn’t been able to put much power into it. Although his attack didn’t do much damage, it was enough to let the wyvern know that he was a threat as well.

When I reached my feet, I found that I had been pushed out of position so I started limping my way back over to threaten it again. As I did, I saw one of its taloned legs flash towards Aleyda. The thing was so strong that I thought any attempt at parrying the blow would be useless. Aleyda had obviously reached the same conclusion because instead of trying to face the attack head on, she dodged to her right. The wyvern turned with her. Bowen scrambled to maintain his spacing but I didn’t move. Why? The creature was giving me its back and I wanted to take full advantage of the position. I staggered forward and chopped down with all my strength at the end of its bifurcated tail. The scales on the tail must have been thinner and provided less protection because I severed the end of it, cutting off the last foot or so. This time, blood ran from the wound in earnest. The wyvern loosed another ear-rending scream, but this time it was a scream of pain and not of challenge.

As it swung its tail around out of reflex, some of the blood splashed over me, covering the front of my body. A little got into my mouth and I could taste it. It was disgusting. More blood ran down my face obscuring my vision. I quickly disengaged and frantically wiped my face with my shirt sleeve. When I could see again, I didn’t like what I saw. It had obviously decided there was time for revenge and that time was now. Through watering eyes I saw the creature lunge towards me, its jaws opened wide. Out of reflex, I reached out with my right arm trying to ward it off. Yeah, like that was going to happen. I had as much chance of stopping the thing as I did a speeding compact car. They probably weighed about the same. As its bite closed, I felt a crunch then a searing pain. When I looked down at my hand, I realized that half of it was gone. I was missing all four fingers and the tip of my thumb. Now, it was my blood spraying out into the air, but it didn’t seem to mind. It probably found me delicious.

“James!” Aleyda cried out in horror. Overcome by anger, she moved forward and started delivering a series of punishing blows to its right side, staying in close. After absorbing a couple of them, the creature decided it had enough and lashed out with its left leg blasting her away. Now, Bowen had its back and he moved in and started cutting at the thing’s exposed tail. The wyvern started spinning to face him, obviously thinking I was out of the fight but I wasn’t. This was a life or death battle. It was either kill or be killed. Missing half my hand wasn’t going to keep me from doing what I had to do.

Bracing my sword on its pommel with the heel of my still bleeding right hand, I dashed forward, thrusting at its right side. Trying to generate as much power as I could through my legs, I plunged my sword into its side, piercing its wing and burying the length of my sword it its body almost to the hilt.

Of course, the creature didn’t appreciate the attack very much. It started wildly thrashing and I lost my grip on the sword before I could withdraw it to thrust again. Spinning to its right, one of its hind legs flashed towards me. My effort to maintain my grip on the sword was actually a good thing. That effort overbalanced me and sent me tumbling away outside the range of the attack. When I came to a stop, I noticed that the thing was still advancing towards me. Its right wing was pinned to its body by my sword. My initial hope was that we would do enough damage that it would fly off looking for easier prey but it seemed like that option was no longer on the table unless it wanted to extend its wing and rip it loose from the embedded sword. I didn’t think that was what it had in mind, though, because it looked angry. Very, very angry.

I got to my feet and reached down and drew my backup weapon, which was my rapier. What good would the rapier be against that monstrosity? It was a sword meant for fighting humans with no armor, not some creature out of my nightmares. It’s all I had, though, unless I wanted to engage with my belt knife, so I just had to make it work. I wasn’t even certain that it could withstand more than a strike or two without breaking.

Our combined attacks must have done a decent amount of damage because the wyvern wasn’t moving nearly as gracefully as it had at the start of the fight. Bowen was still attacking from the rear, swinging again and again at the exposed tail. Aleyda had regained her feet and harassed its left side, chopping and poking for all she was worth. The wyvern aborted its charge towards me and turned to face her, once again attacking powerfully with its clawed left foot. Aleyda was too close to dodge and had to once again absorb the blow on her armored torso. The sound of the impact, a loud cracking noise, made me cringe as she was knocked backwards.

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Then, the creature continued spinning to face Bowen. Bowen, being the smart man that he was, wanted no part of fighting the thing head on. Rather than staying in place to exchange blows, as soon as the wyvern started to spin in his direction he took off running trying to get as far away as possible. That once again put its back to me.

What in the hell was I going to do? I had one companion running away and another laboriously trying to get to her feet. When I got a good look at its tail, it was clear that Bowen had macerated it. Blood was pouring out of it. I thought that my sword had done some internal damage and that it was probably bleeding out inside as well. Aleyda’s attacks had opened a host of wounds on its left flank. What we needed was time, time to let all of its wounds take their toll.

“Kite it!” I cried out to my companions.

“I have no idea what that means,” Aleyda yelled back.

“Harass it and stay out of striking range,” I responded loudly. “We need to let the wounds we have already inflicted do their work.”

“Good plan!” Bowen yelled, still hauling ass around the clearing.

So, that’s what we did. One or the other of us would dash towards it, yelling and screaming to try to draw its attention. When it spun to face the threat, instead of attacking that person would dash off in another direction. Then it was another person’s turn, trying to draw its attention from its blind side. This went on for quite awhile, so long in fact that my hip stopped hurting and blood stopped flowing from the stumps of my severed fingers. As time passed, we were soon all out of breath but that didn’t stop us. We weren’t the only ones slowing, the wyvern was slowing as well. I think it got far more than it bargained for when it attacked us. We weren’t the easy prey that it thought that it had found.

Finally, it decided that it was time to retreat. With a flex of its wings it freed the wing that was pinned by my sword. Then it bounded forward and with a couple of flaps tried to push its way into the sky. I wouldn’t be sad to see it go, even if it meant losing my most effective weapon. It made it approximately twenty feet into the air, but apparently its tail was integral to its airborne balance because it listed from side to side not making a tremendous amount of forward headway. It was only about fifty feet away when its strength gave out and it plummeted to the ground, impacting it with a meaty thunk. It lay there, its chest heaving but it didn’t seem to have the strength to rise again. We didn’t approach it until it expelled its last rattling breath. Then we waited for several minutes more, just to be sure.

While we were waiting, we came together to survey our injuries. Both Aleyda and Bowen were limping and wincing in pain as they moved towards me.

“Why are you limping, Bowen?” I asked. “You never even got hit. At least not that I noticed anyway.”

“I pulled a muscle in the back of my leg running away,” he said. “It really hurts.”

To make a point, I waved at him with my stumpy hand.

“Oh, no!” he said.

“Don’t worry, I think it will grow back,” I said, hoping desperately that it would, in fact, grow back.

Glancing at Aleyda, I saw that the tabard covering her armor was rent in several places. The armor that peeked out from underneath looked dented and deformed. “Are you alright?” I asked her.

“I think I have a bunch of cracked ribs or broken ribs,” she said. “It hurts every time I breathe.

That’s the thing about armor. It does wonders against penetrating wounds but the kinetic energy of the force behind them has to go somewhere and the squishy insides of a human aren’t meant to withstand that punishment.

“Are you certain you aren’t bleeding internally?” I asked.

“Fairly certain,” she said, still trying to get her wind back. “I don’t feel light headed or anything and beyond the pain I can breathe alright.”

“Bowen, can you help her get her armor off so we can survey the damage?” I asked. “I don’t think I will be much help right about now.”

With a nod, he moved towards Aleyda and helped her out of the battered chest piece. One she was free of the armor, I could see that it had seriously deformed in a couple of places.

“It looks like the blacksmith is going to get more of our gold,” I said. “I don’t see us pounding those dents out with rocks or anything.”

“No, it will have to spend some time back at the forge,” Aleyda opined. “And it will never be as strong again in those two places. Thankfully, with the armor off it doesn’t hurt as much to breathe.”

“You’re the one with medical training,” I said. “Is there anything we can do for broken ribs?”

“Not much,” Aleyda said. “They will heal in time, as long as I don’t get some sort of lung infection and die.”

I knew I still had a very small number of antibiotic capsules in my pack. If she showed any signs of infection, she would be taking them.

“We do need to get your hand wrapped, James,” she said. “Why do you think your hand will get better, though?”

“Magic,” I said, trying and failing to sound inscrutable. “If it can heal my spinal cord, a few fingers shouldn’t be much of an issue.” I dearly hoped that would be the case. I really didn’t feel like going through the rest of my life with the nickname stumpy. Right now, my hand looked like it belonged to a high school shop teacher who had a penchant for playing with a table saw when he was drunk.

“Well, that thing looks like it has finally died,” I said. “I’m going to go get my sword back.

I stood and walked over to the now quite dead wyvern. Crashing into the ground like it did certainly hastened its demise. I warily approached, worried that the monster was just playing possum and might bolt back to life at any moment, but I needn’t have worried. Drawing my sword from its side, the only blood that dripped out was due to gravity, not the force of a still beating heart.

“Well, no rest for the wicked,” I yelled to my companions. “I guarantee that this skin is valuable and maybe the teeth as well. Unfortunately, I am a little indisposed at the moment, so all that nasty work is going to have to be done by you two.”

“Careful with the teeth,” Aleyda said. “We’re still not sure if the thing is venomous.”