Wolf Season II

It was discipline that saved him that day on the ruined pond. He'd done some stupid things to get into that mess. He should have backed away when he realized how large a mana vent he was dealing with. A big mana source meant monsters. He could have run away when he first encountered the smaller wyverns instead of fighting them or shaped the ice around himself and tunneled down, hidden inside the mountain until they left. He hadn't learned any concealment magic yet, which was ridiculously stupid in retrospect. But he had done something right. He trained to use his magic when exhausted and near total depletion. Terror could not rob him of his best weapons.

While his enemy menaced him at her leisure, assured of an easy meal, Taylor used Dragon Shot, which left a shockwave behind it that blew snow and frost in all directions and parked an anti-tank round inside the massive wyvern's brain. She halted like he'd surprised her and she was still deciding what to think about that. He used it a second time, just to be sure, and she thrashed her head around, trying to dislodge the conjured substance from her ravaged brain. Her death cries shook the last surviving sheets of ice from the waterfall. Somewhere, one or two mountains over, there was an avalanche of snow set free by her screams. She fell to her side, crushing several trees, and moaned a while before she died.

There was a minute, or maybe several, where Taylor was on his knees, in the shattered ice, unwilling to move. Ted was gone. He was tired and cold. If he returned home, he couldn't show his face without people turning their backs or shooing him away. And those were the people closest to him. A pack of strangers would attack him. It wasn't worth the effort to stand up. For what? Who did he have to fight for? A father who couldn't be bothered to write back to him? A town that would as soon kill him as look at him? Friends who turned on him? He knew it was shock, cold, and depletion talking, but he didn't care. He could lay down and fall asleep, and it would all be over.

It was hunger that made him move. His body needed food and wouldn't shut up about it. His stomach made angry, pitiful, annoying noises. So he had to get on his feet, retrieve whatever bloodied remains of his saddle bags he could find, and eat something. Hopefully, his tablet wasn't a wreck.

Deputy-X: Do these mountains normally have wyverns?

There was no telling how long it would be until Jane saw the message. Taylor didn't have enough mana left to tunnel a shelter into the mountain, and his tent was shredded, so he built a little a-frame shelter from the fallen branches all around him. He covered the shelter with what was left of his tent, held it down with more branches, and lit a fire.

A fire would have been a feat for most people, but it didn't take much mana to dry out twigs and small branches enough to burn well. There were fish and crawdads frozen in the pond, and he added them to water, bullion cubes, dried vegetables, and grain. It was a bit of a mess, but it warmed him up and got him thinking again.

Curator-J: If you see wyverns, come home. I'll call for the governor's help.

Deputy-X: Too late. I killed three of them. They ate Ted. They had it coming.

Curator-J: How big?

Deputy-X: Two small ones and a big one. The daddy was a hundred feet, maybe? Including the tail.

Curator-J: BTG! Are you all right?

Deputy-X: Shaken. Pissed off. Cold. But not seriously hurt.

Deputy-X: I'm tracking a large mana source in the mountains. It could be a vent. The big wyvern used cold magic, so I think it's been nesting there.

Curator-J: Protect your kills from scavengers if you can. They're very valuable.

Deputy-X: Meat, or skin?

Curator-J: Everything. Drain the blood if you can, but don't do anything else. Let experts do the harvesting. I can arrange collection.

Deputy-X: What about the mana signature?

Curator-J: Tomorrow. Rest tonight. And BE CAREFUL. Turn back if you find more wyverns or anything else that's difficult. Do not die.

Taylor decided not to drain the wyverns' blood because it would all flow down to the pond, and probably kill everything in spring. Instead, he carved a ring of preservation wards into the surrounding trees and powered them enough to last a week. Technically, preservation was necromancy, but people didn't like to think about death magic in their food. He made an outer ring of wards to repel visitors.

From Ted's half-eaten body, he cut a fistful of long tail hairs and carefully stowed them away. He needed them for a memento.

He stocked up on firewood and added subtle wards to his shelter to improve heat and airflow without filling his living space with smoke. He was as safe and warm as possible under the circumstances. He collapsed into his bedroll and tried to sleep.

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Morning found him bruised and sore, but he felt adequately fine after a hot breakfast. When he checked the area he found the wyverns were frozen solid, and nothing had crossed the wards in the night. He had no new messages on his channel with Jane but dropped a note saying he was awake and doing well.

Taylor spent most of the day climbing, sliding downhill on snowfields, and then climbing again. He found the mana source halfway up Mount Bakarik, where the wyvern had carved its aerie deep into the mountainside. Its entrance stood dark and round against the snow, drooling dirt and bones down the mountain's side. Mana seeped from the cave, so dense that even non-magicians should be able to feel it as a pressing dread.

He lit the cave before he entered, filling it with a nimbus of light. There were no more young inside, but there were bones aplenty, covering the cold stone floor. Contrary to the stories, there was no treasure chest inside the monster's lair, no sword of ancient magic to take home and hang over the mantle as a family heirloom. There was just a deep crack in the back of the cave, spewing toxic quantities of mana.

There was soil around the crack, deep soil, with worms longer than his arm wriggling inside of it. Roots sprouted from the walls and tried to grab him when he approached. His sword made quick work of the worst offenders.

Crystals had formed where mana vented into the cave. Some kind of silica, he guessed, holding compressed magic between the organized latticework of atoms. They were milky white but reflected light in bands of tiny rainbows. The vent was choked with crystals, some of them several inches long.

His tablet didn't work inside the cave. He had to go outside and climb away from the thick mana to explain what he'd found.

Curator-J: Sounds like early dungeon formation. Dig out all the crystals. Close the vent, as deep as your magic can go. Burn everything around it until there's nothing weird left.

Curator-J: And don't die.

It took him days to get back to town. First, he had to seal the mana vent and clean up the monstrified things around it. Second, he had to cut the head off of the big wyvern and do his best to repair the holes in its head. He didn't know why, but Jane seemed to want it for a trophy.

Then he had to wait a day for the "specialist" to transport the wyverns. He kept a signal fire burning most of the day, trailing smoke into the sky. Taylor improved it by using wards to change the smoke color to violet and lift it in a high column of gently spinning air.

The specialist sailed down on a winged horse and landed neatly in the center of the ice crater. She was bundled up in magic winter wear that looked comfortable but didn't leave much to see. Her beast was impressive, like a draft horse with a thirty-food wingspan. The bundled woman verified the three wyverns, one wyvern head, and weighed the sack of gleaming mana crystals. She made out a receipt, which Taylor signed for, and then everything disappeared. She was a high-ranked Porter and spent her days traveling around the empire, storing and disgorging things from her massive extra-dimensional storage. She cost a small fortune to hire, but in this case, the payload was worth it.

She lifted off as easily as she had landed, leaving Taylor to find his way home on foot. It wasn't that far with enhancement magic, but it was very lonely without Ted. He'd decided to leave the pony's body where it was, as food for the wilderness in spring. He already had his keepsake.

It was late in the day, three days later, when he reached Mourne on foot, entering the town at a light run, mask on, and careful not to get too close to the few people he encountered on the streets. For some bizarre reason, a few chose to wave at him. One even bid him a good evening, to which Taylor responded in kind while hiding his surprise.

He jogged up to the Curator's office and let himself inside, grateful for the warmth. He passed down the hall unseen and entered her office with only a brief knock.

"There you are!" Jane was in warm tweeds, slacks, and a long coat with a man's embroidered vest underneath. She came away from her desk, quill in one hand, and put her free hand on his shoulder. She touched him, made him turn round and round as if he might not be the genuine article.

"You really are in one piece. Well done." She flung her quill across the room without looking, where it landed point-first in the inkpot. "I'm buying you a drink. You may not decline." She steered him firmly to the nearby tavern.

It was packed. There was nothing much to do in Mourne, especially in winter, so when a giant wyvern head gets mounted at the nearby tavern, it turns into the event of the season. The necromancy kept it so fresh, it looked like it could come alive and eat the people celebrating beneath it. A bard was reciting a lay about some past dragon slayer, which wasn't the same thing at all, but wyverns were as close as Mourne was ever likely to get. The noise was unfamiliar to his Bilius brain, the crowd's voice rushing around him like whitewater rapids.

Jane steered him to the bar and called loudly. "Barleywine for the wyvern slayer, a short one. Whiskey for me, a tall one."

Taylor feared they'd become the center of attention, and he'd be forced to say something or shake hands with people. A few townspeople came up to congratulate him, and one shook his hand, but it wasn't nearly as bad as he feared. Most of the customers were already sauced and too busy singing along with the bard's choruses to pay him much attention.

Some teenage boy Taylor didn't know asked, "How'd you kill it?"

"Magic."

"That's it? Magic?"

"Well, I wasn't about to get close enough to use my sword. I would have died. I assure you, it was far scarier when it was alive than it is now, hanging on a wall. Its aura froze my whole body in place. I could barely breathe. I had to hit it twice. It was pretty big."

Several voices near him laughed. "Had to hit it twice, he says!"

"Tell it properly!" someone shouted.

But there wasn't time. He was getting envious looks from the watchmen and resentful scowls from regulars who suddenly decided they liked their winter nights a lot more boring. He only had a minute or two before his curse created an altercation.

Jane took him by the shoulder again and steered him outside, loudly declaring they had business together. They went out a side door into a swiftly descending darkness. The sky was overcast, which meant the night stayed relatively warm, barely below freezing. She checked her pocket watch.

"Less than ten minutes in a crowded room. Still, Mourne knows what you do for them, and that's what matters. Now go home, Master Bilius, and get some rest. You could even take a day off if you want to."

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