"Look what we found, Cat!" Cloud Eye enthused, running up the stairs with a cloth-wrapped parcel in his hands. "These are great," he put the parcel down and untied the cloth to reveal four black cat-face masks. "Here, try one on," he handed a mask to Cat Rider.

"In public?" Cat squeaked. He was wary of showing the wreckage of his burnt face.

"This isn't public, Cat," Wren walked into the dining room with Owl on her heels. "And all of us have seen your face before."

That wasn't entirely true because Cloud Eye had never seen Cat without a mask.

"Will you tie the laces for me, Wren?"

"Of course," she gave him an encouraging smile. Cat had problems with tying laces because of his partially-paralyzed left hand. Owl was the one who usually helped Cat with his shoes and mask every morning. Soon all four were wearing the masks. They looked good in the new cat masks, but I might be biased.

Magrat updated us on the status of the Nordwegians. The interrogations revealed a fourth agent of Queen Griselda. He joined his colleagues in the guardhouse jail. Both the Duke and the Prince volunteered to take the truth potion to prove their innocence and ignorance of the Bishop's actions. The goblins took the Prince and Duke up on the offer. Their interrogations cleared them of all suspicion.

Queen Margo decided that the Prince, Duke, and innocent soldiers were free to go wyvern hunting. The fate of the five incriminated Nordwegians was still a matter of debate when we left two days later.

The goblins lent us a sturdy coach designed to survive bad roads. They also supplied four horses to pull the coach plus four saddled horses for the two-footeds to use. They loaded two barrels of water and one barrel of oats for the horses on the luggage rack on the back of the coach. Our food and water supplies were strapped to the luggage rack on the roof. The two-footeds got something called pemmican rations to supplement whatever we could hunt. I got a document saying I could hunt anywhere at any time.

Both Cat and Wren wanted to leave as soon as we were packed. The goblins made a good case to wait for the humans. If we traveled together, then the goblins could provide trip security using the escort assembled and already waiting at the wall. If we traveled separately, the goblins would need to find another army company to escort the second party.

We left before dawn with Cloud Eye driving. I wasn't too surprised to find that he could handle the reining for four horses. I'm still waiting to find something that the boy can't do. Wren and Owl decided to ride. Cat didn't feel up to sitting on a saddle that early in the morning so he and I had moved into the coach and went back to sleep on the cushioned seats. The two unused riding horses were tied to the back of the coach.

Neither of us woke until someone knocked on the coach door. I jumped off the seat and opened the door latch with a paw. The door swung open to reveal a young human soldier with a basket of cougar-paw-sized packages of food wrapped neatly in waxed paper.

"Aaaaaaaa!" he screamed when he saw me. It startled me since that hasn't happened to me for a long time.

"There's...there's…. there's…" He backed away slowly.

"What's wrong, Bert?" someone called out.

"Fuzzy, are you scaring the humans again?" Cloud Eye accused me from the driver's box.

"He won't eat me, will he?" Bert the soldier asked, looking up at Cloud Eye.

"He's a she, and she won't eat you," Cloud Eye replied. I heard his feet hit the ground after he jumped down from the driver's box. "Is that lunch?"

"Y...yes," Bert nodded, not taking his eyes off me. "They're sandwiches. I have ham, goose, and shaved beef."

"I've heard of sandwiches but I've never had one," Cloud Eye's curiosity was aroused.

"Made with butter, white-egg sauce, or olive oil?" a sleepy Cat asked from behind me.

"Butter, sir. We couldn't find any white-egg sauce for sale in the city but I know we picked up eggs, vinegar, and oil yesterday, so I believe there will be white-egg sauce soon."

"What kind of bread?" Cat braced himself against the door frame and looked out over my head. "Also, is there any cheese or lettuce or anything else on the sandwiches?"

"It's all sourdough rolls. Prince Willam likes sourdough so we eat a lot of it when we're in the field. There are a couple of slices of some kind of mild white cheese and there is shredded lettuce."

"I would like a ham sandwich, please."

I later learned that sandwiches for breakfast or lunch were something Prince Willam like to serve his troops. Already-made sandwiches were not only tasty and easy to eat, but they also saved a lot of time while traveling because no time was lost preparing food while on the road.

Now that Cat had woken up and eaten, he and I spent the afternoon reading Achflakalstrebr's Compendium. The things it said about wyverns stood our former knowledge about them on its head. For example, red wyverns, like the ones that were attacking the Blazroggle District, like to live near riparian forests because of the abundance of herbivores like deer visiting water sources. It was easy hunting for them.

Wyverns usually ate around 12 stone a day, which is about the weight of an average cougar. They like to eat all the animals that cougars prefer: deer, elk, antelope, chamois, bighorn sheep, and mountain goats. Unlike cougars, they don't bother with the small stuff like rabbits or voles. Wyverns hunt in the day. This might be due to eyesight. All wyverns are farsighted and have poor night vision. They can spot prey that is moving but not prey that can stay still.

Red and blue wyverns did not eat people like elves, humans, or goblins. According to the Compendium, these two wyvern types would leave bipedal life alone unless attacked; however, after an attack, a wyvern would snatch people up, gain altitude, and then drop them. This suggested they were smart enough to pursue revenge. In comparison, white and green wyverns would carry off people and then eat them instead.

We didn’t finish reading about wyverns before we stopped for the evening.