To my great relief, although not surprise, the evening and night passed without event. His Highness and I had spent the tail of the afternoon playing cards, and in the early evening the publican -- whose name, I learned, was Karl Schifner -- joined us for a few rounds. Of course, both the prince and I were exhausted, and the soporific atmosphere of the public house had not helped, so we had retired to bed shortly after supper.

Thankfully, we had still had the room to ourselves, no further travellers having arrived in the course of the afternoon. I had little fear that anything would go awry in such a small village, but for safety’s sake I’d had the prince sleep in the upper of one of the bunks while I slept below, scabbarded scimitar in hand. If anyone had walked in in the middle of the night I may have drawn some strange looks, but by the same token if anyone walked in in the middle of the night I expected to draw blood in return, so on the whole I considered it a worthy exchange.

I felt a new man when I rose in the morning, better yet when the publican produced a bowl of steaming water and I was able to shave, and truly sublime after a hearty breakfast of rye bread, eggs, sausage, and small beer. The warmth of the chimney had dried our coats overnight, before we had eaten I had returned to the stable and given Munter the full grooming he richly deserved, and I felt fully fortified to face the day.

Of course, the weather remained miserable, as it probably would for the rest of the journey, but after such a vast improvement over our last bed I was hardly inclined to let it dampen my spirits. Saying a polite farewell to the publican, and pressing another pair of kreuzer into his hands for his kindness, we left the hamlet in fine mood.

Our luck, or perhaps our lack of truly awful luck, persisted for the rest of the morning, and we made good time towards Kurnich before breaking at noon for another feast of a lunch, the last of the morning’s loaf and cold cuts of sausage. Further from the heat of the fire the sausage tasted markedly greasier and the bread less enthralling, but both were still better than hard tack and pork so heavily cured it more resembled leather, so I was not complaining.

The prince struggled a little more, but hunger was the best sauce, and I fancied that the taste of adventure also covered many sins. It would wear off, of course, as we travelled the same road through the same country and nothing happened and he realised the adventure to be rather boring, but I would not spoil his enjoyment for now.

Perhaps an hour past noon -- the cloud made it difficult to put a true bearing on the time -- the other shoe dropped. His Highness noticed it first, prompting another of his curious questions:

“Schreiner, what is that bird?” He pointed up at a tiny cross high in the sky, wheeling overhead. I had to squint to see it, my eyesight not being quite so good.

“I’m not sure, your Highness,” I answered honestly. “It’s a raptor for sure, sir, hovering at that height, but I couldn’t say beyond that.”

We went on, passing another fifteen minutes in idle conversation about bird life. The prince had been given a fair education in the natural sciences so far, and we were well into considering the hunting methods of different birds, when he stopped and stared at the sky again, shading his hands.

“It’s got a lot closer, Schreiner. Can you see it properly now? I still don’t know what it is,” He said.

I looked up, not needing to shade my eyes thanks to my hat, and blinked.

“Himmel, Berg und Immer,” I swore. Without slowing I turned Munter aside, ignoring His Highness’s startled cry, and we made for the cover of the trees.

I spoke quickly, freeing my arquebus from its place against the saddle and its canvas wrap as we moved.

“Your Highness, that’s not a bird, sir. That’s a wyvern, sir.” I chuckled nervously. “Yesterday you asked me what I’d do if we encountered a dragon, sir. I suppose we’ll find out now.”

I pushed on deeper into the forest, making for a towering pine that stood out among the still mostly-leafless deciduous trees around us. Our best chance was to get under cover and pray the wyvern didn’t see us, although I feared that would be futile by now. The road offered no cover.

“Is it that dangerous? It didn’t look terribly large,” The prince asked.

“It was very high up, your Highness, sir, the appearance is deceptive. And even an immature wyvern could take Munter like a hawk stoops upon a large rabbit, sir, and one of us all the more.” I left off freeing the arquebus for the moment, watching my feet and trying to pick a good path to lead Munter on. The ground here was as gnarled as it had been where we stopped the night before last, and without the dry day to lead up to it the roots were all slick with rain to boot.

When I wasn’t staring at my feet I was looking up at the sky, trying to catch a glimpse through the branches of whether the wyvern showed any signs of noticing us. It had me at a disadvantage, having not only the vision of a predator but also being looking down, instead of up into the rain and the glare of the hooded sun. I couldn’t see it, and I hoped that meant it had circled off elsewhere and not just that -- that I couldn’t see it.

The deeper cover of the pine tree welcomed us with treacherous footing as we approached, drifts of needles over hardened roots slipping under my boots and concealing potholes for Munter’s hooves, but we made it to the bole. I immediately threw the lead rope around it, fastening it loosely.

“Dismount, your Highness, and stay low. If it’s an adult and it comes in, better it should take the horse than one of us.” I apologetically ran a hand over Munter’s cheek as I said it, pulling my arquebus free and scratching in the saddlebag for my cartridge pouch. After a moment, I also unslung both dragonets and laid them to one side, as secondary options.

“I thought huge predators like draconids were rare here,” His Highness commented once he’d dismounted and ducked to a crouch beside the tree. I nodded in approval at his position; the wyvern couldn’t stoop on him without hitting the tree.

“They should be, your Highness,” I replied after spitting out the torn-off top of a cartridge. “I haven’t heard of a wyvern sighting in years, sir, and the last was in the Freibergen wilds off north of Nachberg.”

I stared at the part of the sky I could see beneath the pine needles for a moment while I stuffed the ball down the muzzle. No wyvern was in evidence, but I was still not prepared to take that for a good sign. Travellers on the road should be far too easy for it to spot for it to have missed us; if it was hungry, we might be stuck here for some time while it circled to look for us. And that was, of course, assuming it didn’t see us through the tree cover, which it well might.

“What will you do if it does attack us, gefreiter?” The prince asked. He sounded scared, and I was reminded again that he was still a boy, just a very well-spoken one.

“Well, your Highness, I hope it’s small. In any case, I’ll hope to hit it with the arquebus, your Highness, sir, and hit it somewhere it hurts enough to put it off and not just make it angry. If I don’t hit it, I hope the noise and fire scare it off, sir, but same as before I just hope it doesn’t make it cross.

“If it does keep on, I’ll follow up with the dragonets when it gets close, sir, and that’ll be the same as with the arquebus but I have lesser hopes for it, sir. But perhaps if I hit it with all three it’ll decide we’re not worth it, sir.”

I injected my voice with some false cheer. “And, your Highness, if all three fail, I’ll just have to put the beast down with my scimitar, sir. Can’t be too hard, sir, one of the creatures I dropped in Nachberg must have been three hundred kilograms if he was an ounce and I’d wager a wyvern weighs less than that. Just like a rabid dog, sir, but a bit bigger.”

The creature in question had also been peppered with a full volley of ball and I’d had a sergeant behind me warding it away with a half-pike, but His Highness didn’t need to hear that with my encouragement.

The prince in question eyed me dubiously. “If you say so, gefreiter. It seems… optimistic, to me.”

“Not at all, your Highness,” I answered with a grim smile. “We Mourners make a whole career of punching above our weight, sir.”

The conversation trailed off as I double-checked the dragonets, loosened my scimitar, and we kept waiting. I had sunk into a crouch, arquebus clutched tightly and held against my chest, trying desperately to watch every direction at once. It was like being up on the walls all over again. Time seemed to slow, the little things I didn’t want to care about showing up again: the drip of water off the stubborn creases in my hat onto my shoulder, the pricking of sweat from my sudden exertion, the awkward posture I had to hold because of a root under my left foot.

As though to spite my efforts at squinting all around like my head was a carriage clock, I heard the wyvern before I saw it. No stealthy striker in the night, this beast, the wind whistled on its wings as it plummeted. I rose to my feet and turned, just in time to see it touch ground, landing with a heavy thump.

It was titanic, seen up close, standing easily two metres at the shoulder and with head and neck above that. Glistening dark olive scales covered its skin, small and dense over its elongated head and growing larger down its neck. Its legs would almost look comically small compared to what one expected of birds, except that without the puffy feathers concealing their size the corded muscles and vicious hind spur stood out clearly.

All of this, though, was secondary. The reason there was no point to the wyvern being silent was obvious: its wings blotted out the sun. In the instant before it landed and began folding them, I guessed their span must be close on ten metres. Bones ribbed the surface, webbed by thick, unscaled membrane, and that membrane rippled with colours. Blues shifted to reds by way of purple, reds clashed with vibrant streaks of green, and golden veins traced their way through the whole glorious riot.

It was beautiful, in a savage killing machine kind of way, but it was also intimidating, hungry, and advancing towards us with the bobbing gait of a crow about to pick up a tasty morsel. The prince made a choking sound.

Unfreezing, I took a long step away from the tree, standing well clear of His Highness and the horse. Then I crammed my fear into the box where I kept it on the battlefield and raised my voice.

“Here, you brute, look this way!”

I wanted it to see what happened, the fire and smoke as well as the noise. I hauled the arquebus to full cock, presented it, and fired. The sound of the gun shattered the silence of the forest. Even the birds had gone quiet when the wyvern landed, only the drip of rain interrupting the quiet until I added the thunder of guns.

The smoke drifted away in the breeze, and the wyvern fixed me with a baleful glare. Every prey animal instinct I had screamed at me to freeze or to run, but I crammed those into the box with my fear and glared right back.

“How did you like that, sirrah?” I shouted, ears still ringing.

In reply, the wyvern screamed at me, an earsplitting noise like an overwrought parrot, supposing that parrot were fifteen times its ordinary size. Somehow, I stood my ground and mustered some more courage.

Closing my eyes and murmuring a prayer to the heavens, I pulled the first dragonet from its resting place tucked through the strap of my cartridge pouch, cocked it, and fired. It roared, spraying a great gout of flame and smoke at the wyvern, and without hesitating I dropped it, pulled the next out, and fired again.

Then before I could let my mind catch up with what my body was doing, I dropped the second dragonet, drew my scimitar, and charged through the smoke, praying my gamble would pay off.

The wyvern seemed twice as large again when I emerged from the smoke, as though in the absence of evidence my mind had decided I must have been crazy and thinking it was larger than it was, but I somehow found it in me not to flinch and to keep up my crazy run, stumbling occasionally over roots or slipping, but constantly forward.

The wyvern, I saw, had two gashes along its side, presumably the handiwork of the dragonets. It was also growing closer very quickly. It had been fifteen metres off to begin with, now only ten. Five.

Finally, my wager paid off. The creature balked at this insignificant morsel that spat fire like lightning, roared like thunder, and showed no fear. Even a hungry wolf would think twice about troubling a porcupine. I was almost close enough to take a wild swing at it when the wyvern made a powerful leap into the air, far too high and fast for something of its size, and soared away on its mighty wings.

“And don’t come back, do you hear me, sirrah?” I yelled at the retreating lizard.

Then, with a terribly shaking hand, I slid my scimitar back into its sheath and stumbled back towards where I had left the guns in a pile.