I scratch behind its owl-like ear flaps, and it rubs against my hands.
“Princess…” Dain growls.
I straighten. “I was saying goodbye. Now begone, tiny monster. I have no more suet—or petting—for you.”
The beast peeps up at me. Then the grass swishes, and the chickcharney startles in alarm. Dain steps toward us, his face fixed in a look that has the chickcharney toddling off, flapping its useless wings.
I chuckle. I don’t interfere, though. Part of being the royal monster hunter is doing what’s best for the beasts, which is to leave them alone unless they are injured or orphaned or otherwise unable to care for themselves. As I watch it go, something tickles my attention.
I glance around, frowning. I’m not sure what I picked up—a sound, a smell, a flicker of movement? Dain’s chasing the chickcharney away. Jacko’s napping in the grass. Malric is watching us with his annoyed-babysitter stare and Sunniva…
Sunniva had been eating when I glanced over. Now she’s stopped, her head up. With a whinny, she races to my side and presses tight against me, a solid wall of white horsehair.
When I found Sunniva, she was alone. She shouldn’t have been. Even full-grown mares live with a herd. While Sunniva seemed fine, she still wanted her herd, and now she has it with us, so when she’s frightened, she runs to me.
As I scan the sky, I get that feeling again—a ripple in the air, stirring the hairs on my neck.
“Princess?”
Dain follows my gaze and shades his eyes. Then he backs my way, reaching for his bow as I withdraw my sword. It’s heavy in my hand, polished steel and ebony wood with an obsidian blade.
“Your bow,” he says, without turning, hearing only the thwick of my blade leaving the scabbard. I’m more comfortable with my sword, but he’s right.
As I switch to my bow, I call, “Jacko!”
The jackalope races over, and I point down, a command that tells him to take cover at my feet. Well, no, I think he believes it means “protect Rowan’s feet,” but the end result is the same.
I nock an arrow just as Sunniva bumps me. Jacko chitters at her, and she two-steps, her dainty roan-red hooves coming too close to the jackalope for my liking. I give her a hard look, and she tosses her mane, hot breath trumpeting from her nostrils.
I try drawing my bowstring, but she’s still too close. Malric lumbers over and nudges Sunniva aside to let her huddle against him.
“Thank you, Malric,” I say.
His grunt says we’re all overreacting. He doesn’t see or smell a threat.
He might be right. Still, I keep scanning the empty sky.
A distant shout makes me jump, but it’s only Alianor, her triumphant cry suggesting they’ve caught their quarry. As for ours, the chickcharney watches us, unconcerned. Then it realizes Dain is distracted and makes a tentative hop back in my direction. Dain stamps his foot at the beast, and I open my mouth to say something just as a thin gray shape shoots from the nearby forest.
I catch a glimpse of a fox-like head with tufted ears and a long muzzle opening to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth. Bat-like wings flap twice, and the beast dives straight at Dain.
CHAPTER THREE
“Wyvern!” I shout.
I spot an outcropping of rock we can use for cover, but it’s too late for that. I run at Dain. He’s a dozen feet away, and that seems to be where the wyvern is aiming, but just before I reach him, I see it’s actually going for the chickcharney, who’s bobbing in confusion at my shout. I swerve and leap onto the chickcharney instead. The beast gives one bleating cry of alarm before huddling under me, cheeping in delight, as if I’d tackled it in a hug.
“Rowan!” Dain shouts, just as the wyvern’s claws scrape my back. My hardened leather tunic protects me, but I still feel the impact. I let out a grunt and roll, throwing the startled chickcharney aside. It keeps rolling, long legs pumping uselessly, as I leap to my feet and pull my sword.
The wyvern dives at me again. An arrow hits its wing and it aborts course, veering up, screaming. As it wheels on us, a second wyvern appears above it.
“Cover!” I shout. “Take cover!”
I grab Jacko, run for the outcropping of rock and dive into it. Dain follows, slamming into me, and at a peep of alarm, I turn to see him holding the chickcharney. He looks down at the bird monster as if to say, “How’d that get there?” before shoving it aside.
We crawl into a spot where an overhang of rock protects us from aerial attack. Malric barricades us, snarling and snapping as the wyverns scream. I catch sight of one. It’s purplish-blue, which means it’s female. The other is brownish-orange—male. A mated pair.
The female is as large as Sunniva, with a long, whipping arrowhead tail and clawed back feet. Her shadow passes over us, reminding me of the gryphon, and my blood chills at the memory.
While the wyverns aren’t eager to tangle with Malric, they will. I know that. They’re sizing up the situation, and they’ll soon realize that the two of them can take him on.
“We need to…” I trail off as I look up at the rocky overhang.
“Yeah,” Dain mutters. “They can’t attack us, but we can’t attack them either.”
I wriggle to the left, past the overhang.
“Princess,” Dain warns.
I keep wriggling. I’m still protected enough, and the wyverns are busy with Malric. Another two inches gives me an arrow-sized gap. Every few heartbeats, one of the massive beasts flies overhead.
I hesitate, hand on my bow. Then I say to Dain, “There’s a spot here. You’re better. You should take it.”
As I edge away, he eases into the spot. He peers out and then grunts. With Dain, grunts and scowls are a language all of their own. This particular noise is satisfaction, acknowledging I’ve found a spot he can indeed use.
When he grunts again, I translate that one to surprise. Concerned surprise. Something’s not right.
That’s when I realize I don’t hear the flapping of the wyverns’ leathery wings.
I cock my head to listen. The chickcharney peeps, and Jacko growls like an older child warning a younger one to be silent.
I can detect the sound of the wyvern wings, but they’re moving away. I exhale, rocking back against Dain, opening my mouth to say—
Sunniva screams, and I bolt out from the rocks so fast I bash my head. I reel, and Dain catches my arm to pull me back, but I wrench free and run.
Sunniva is twenty feet away, rearing onto her hind legs as the female wyvern snaps at her. Shouting, I bear down and pull my sword, Malric at my heels. An arrow hits the wyvern in the flank, but the beast barely seems to notice. The wyvern snaps again at the filly, catching her behind the neck.