“Humanity, of course, is the descendant of the first human, created in the image of the Father after many failed attempts that we know now as Woose, Fey, Selkies and the like. Being made in his image, we are both blessed and cursed with the ability to be judged after death, rather than having our souls fade into the aether. Therefore, unlike the Woose and Fey, who have no reason to be moral and therefore act only for themselves, humans have every reason to follow divine law.”

Ciornio of Atratra, A discourse on Humanity and the Divine.

Hans Draiger. 20 Sextilis, 1582 AAA. Carfani Southern Coast.

A dozen dead eyes stared up at him from the stone grey beach, from a dozen dead squid almost a hundred feet long from tentacle-tip to mantle. The tips of their arms, webbed together, bobbed in the waves.

Krakens, Draiger thought with a shiver. He’d seen Woose spearheads barbed with their hooks, and even some that were so rotted they looked like dunes from a distance, but never a whole school of them, more or less intact. He shut his eyes for a moment, sensing their souls . The souls were decayed, the stuff that naturally accrued around thinking beings slowly becoming part of the aether, but it was clear that the Kraken had a higher degree of thought when alive than most of the invertebrates or even fish Draiger had seen.

Perhaps those fisherman’s tale of them making gardens of bones beneath the waves aren’t as mad as I’d thought.

“We should get out of here. Scavengers. Besides, there’s a storm coming” Uln said, pointing to a pair of mangy Wargs loping down the beach, one with a cub poking its head out of her pouch.

Hans glanced out to sea. A great mass of cloud, so grey it was almost black, covered the southern sky. Lightning flashed here and there.

“Shit. You see any cover?” Hans asked.

“Go inland, and hug those hills. There’ll be caves or overhangs there”. She nodded at a series of forested hills, rising up above the snowy dunes and below the mountains on the horizon.

Out here, there was no sign of human civilization. Not even squatters and sealers had pushed this far west, into the heartland of the West Point clan. There was still people though, Woose and Wyverns, and signs of it were everywhere if you knew where to look. Mounds that turned out to be piles of fishbone and shells. Fallen trees with burnt rings precisely every three years. Caves with rooves covered in ochre handprints, and discarded flint flakes littered across the floors.

The Wargs ignored him. They had food aplenty; why risk a fight with dangerous, unpredictable humans over a near infinite resource? In his years of hunting, Draiger had found animals always acted logically. More logically than humans and Woose and Wyverns and god knows what else rational beings, anyway. It was often crude, brutal logic, but everything animals did had some link to survival or reproduction.

But what about Krakens beaching?

His thoughts were interrupted by a harsh scream.

He looked up just in time to see a blue-bellied dragon crash into a harpy, the two dragons tumbling through the sky in a blur of scales. The bluebelly flared its wings, pulling out of its dive before impact. The harpy caught in its talons struggled and screamed, flapping furiously before the dragon bit down on its head. The other harpies scattered, flitting overhead. They were like wyverns, but smaller, with short, broad faced snouts good for ripping meat and fruit alike. Flying monkeys, he’d heard them called, though he had no clue what a monkey was beyond being some sort of climbing animal halfway between a human and a squirrel.

The bluebelly wheeled back towards them, dragging its limp harpy.

“Get Down!” Uln yelled, grounding her pike against a diving attack. Hans ran to her side, digging his own weapon in.

The dragon swept overhead. As its name suggested, it’s belly was sky blue, with a long thin tail and talons that put a sicklehawk’s to shame. Its wingbeats kicked up a fine mist of snow. As it flew overhead, it rolled slightly, revealing the brown of her back.

She only has to conceal herself from her prey. Nothing can attack her from above, or see her. Males fly lower.

“She’s beautiful!” Hans laughed, watching the predator sweep past. Blood hammered in his ears, and his hands gripped his pike shaft like they were hanging on for dear life. Years of hunting had made his body react to animals moving towards him like they were trying to attack him, even if his mind thought it the most magnificent thing he’d seen in years.

They’d been picking their way along the long, narrow coastal strip, with mountains to the north-the same range that led into the Hendiot in Genia proper-and the ocean to the south. He relished being out in the wilds, away from civilization, with nothing their clothes, supplies, weapons and each other to rely on. Despite his concerns that it would take weeks to reach West Point, especially with the snow and stormy waters, they’d made good time, travelling to the nearest port in a tiny schooner bringing supplies out and seals back in.

The port was a tiny sealing station, fortified with a palisade. The whole place had stunk of seal, even worse than the ship had. They had armed sentries on the walls, bearded men and a few women in hides and sealskins with muskets and longbows over their shoulders, glowering at Uln. Woose scalps hung from under the gates. Hans was willing to bet more than a few of those scalps were taken in massacres, not in combat. They’d left as fast as possible.

They kept moving, angling inland, for the main nesting ground and trading post at West Point. They’d marched 10 miles already today, leaving the sealing station behind, and had 20 miles to West Point to go. He guessed they’d reach it by sundown tomorrow, even with delays.

*

It was a short but slow march to the meeting ground-a central cleared area, suitable for landing glider-travois. They trudged through snow turned into slurry by the rain, passing the stone huts that served as the local shelter for the few wintering wyverns, and Woose and human traders staying there.

There were relatively few wyverns here; most had gone north for the winter. What Hans did see as he crested the final hill, though, wasn’t the gaggle of Woose traders and wyvern stay-behinds he expected. Instead a pair of heavily armoured commonwealth airships were anchored at the center of the field, alongside a few empty glider-travois. The craft were true colossuses, a canvas outer envelope over a balsa frame with steering fins mounted near the back. Gondolas hung underneath, attached by struts and cables, mounting the ship’s rocket projectors, guns, and propellers. He read the names painted on their envelopes: Spear-shaker and Shield-Splinterer.

“Bloody commonwealth got here first” Uln muttered.

They continued trudging down the slope. There were a few wyverns and Woose milling around, but no one payed them much attention. They probably thought they were just another group of trappers.

“We should find Rye and Scar, they’ll know who to talk to” Draiger said. Both of them were traders who hauled glider-travois; he’d worked with them before, and they stayed south in winter, buying up food, ammo and tools out east and hauling it to Woose clans and trapping stations.

He heard wingbeats and the crunch of a man-sized flyer hitting gravel behind him.

“Are you Hans and Uln?”

Hans turned around and saw a trio of wyverns standing behind him.

“Yeah. And you?” Uln responded.

The lead wyvern answered “You people can call me Captain. These two”-she bobbed her head at the other two-“Are Glaive, my wingwoman, and Wheat, my Memorialist”

He’d met Glaive and Wheat before. Glaive was probably the most famous wyvern on the peninsular amongst humans; she’d delivered the news of the victory at Halidon’s Hill to Kasilisk.

The wyverns here were a skeleton crew, staying back while the rest of the clan migrated to settlements in the north. They were merchants, running supplies to isolated human squatters and Woose clans, in return for promises of trade goods in the future, or warriors protecting the settlements, nesting grounds and ritual sites that were scattered across the valley.

Hans bowed his head politely at Glaive. “I heard about your feats in the last war. Seven kills in one battle?”.

As he remembered the story, she’d fought in Captains war-skein, ripping up a Teresian dragooner squadron, and burning a first-rate air destroyer. He’d heard the story when Rye and Scar had ended up trapped in Foothold by a thunderstorm, and Hans had amused himself by trading hunting and war stories.

“One wyvern, One Dragooner, and I helped burn an airship and helped Hillside kill a stone hill warrior who nearly killed Captain” Glaive said.

She paused when she mentioned Hillside, her reptilian face unreadable.

“In any case” said Captain, “I was hoping you’d know who killed them. Pine. Pollaxe. Hillside.”

Hans blinked. This was personal for Captain, he realized, not just an abstract matter of justice and honour.

“I have a few guesses, but nothing solid.”

Captain bobbed her head in what Hans suspected was a nod.

“You’re most likely tired, yes? We’ll discuss this tomorrow” Captain said.