The fading trees had hidden the coppery dragonettes well. 

The mottled brown-green of the trees’ trunks matched the wyverns’ coppery brown scales. The wings, torn and batlike, could be mistaken as another patch of leaves in a pointy bunch. The flecks of red iris could have been overlooked as more fading leaves, or a patch of the red fungus that grew up the sides of the trees in this part of the world like fairy staircases. 

Cara wasn’t entirely sure if those fungi were dangerous, but the wyvern certainly were.

The prime unfurled first, leisurely uncoiling his body from its resting place around the bough of a great oak tree that stretched across the path. 

Like a giant snake, it was, save for the bat-like wings, ripped and torn from flight and fights, and its two massive front claws. 

It lowered itself directly into the middle of the path, its head turned so one great eye stared at the approaching figures like a demon from the Otherlanders’ hell the foreign missionaries loved to preach about. 

The placid mare was the first to react to the menace. 

She reared and backed away, nearly causing the chariot-wagon’s right wheel to roll over Cara’s booted foot. 

Dayton, the ninny, stood, staring at the beast as if he had just witnessed one of the gods come to life in the middle of the path.

The wyvern began to pant, as if trying to catch its breath but never quite achieving capacity. 

Cara’s skin prickled.

“Duck!” she shrieked, and—as Dayton continued to stare at the wyvern, smoke now trickling from its nostrils—tackled her marque to the road just as the wyvern turned its head to spew a great gout of flame where Dayton’s head had once been.

“Gods above and below, it… that…” Dayton’s pale skin was clammy and cold. He tried to speak more, but his teeth began to chatter. 

The mare behind them screamed in panic, tossing in her harness straps. 

The prime wyvern unfurled, dropping from the tree branch to coil before the hapless trio, sleek and deadly. 

Rustles to the left and right told her that the rest of the flock had begun to box in the prey.

Cara’s mind stopped, stuttered, clicked back into life. Thoughts came to her, almost as though she were listening to someone else within her own mind tell her what to do. 

Protect the marque. Take out the prime. Cara’s hand wandered to her weapon belt. No, not the sword. She bypassed the hilt of her sword to rest her fingers on her throwing knives, tucked in the back of her belt. Yes, that. Weak points? 

The wyvern had two—a fleshy patch beneath their two front limbs and the tiny, impossible target of their ruby eyes—and she had two knives. 

The horse neighed and stamped backward, rolling her eyes as the other two wyvern slowly, leisurely released their serpentine hold on the tree trunks. 

But Cara was more worried about Dayton, crouched with her beside the chariot-wagon as the mare continued to shift backward, her tail and skin flinching as if already warding off attacks. 

The wyvern to the left blew a thin trickle of smoke into the face of the mare, and that was the last straw for the stolid horse.

She reared again, bucking. One hoof clipped Dayton’s finger—he was too close to the chariot-wagon, drat! 

He snatched his hand back with a startled cry as the horse desperately tried to turn in her traces back the way they had come.

The wyverns chose that moment to attack.

They sprang from their coils, wings frantically beating to power their lunge toward the man. 

But, their single focus on the pale human made them forget the second who stood still beside him. 

And this woman bore steel fangs.

Cara pushed Dayton to the ground behind her and stepped in front of him and the retreating horse, throwing knives drawn and crossed in front of her. 

Her feet were spread at shoulder-width, knees bent and braced. Wisps of dark brown hair had escaped her braid and blew in front of her face, but she was so focused that she didn’t even bother to tuck them behind her ear. 

She was an immovable statue barring the way to any and all intruders that meant harm—and she had no intentions of falling to the wyverns.

The left wyvern came at her first. Its claws extended, reached, and rebounded off of the steel as Cara moved the knives to deflect the attack. 

The knives’ steel edges scraped against the wyvern’s scales, though they produced nothing but a teeth splinting metallic shriek. 

The monster retreated, tail and wings flicking in frustration as it collected itself for another strike.

Dayton screamed behind her, words incomprehensible over the pounding of her heart. 

Cara could only assume it was meant to be a warning, as his shouts abruptly cut off when she stepped to the right to confront the second wyvern that had moved to take advantage of her momentary distraction with the left one. 

Her knives flicked downward, forcing the wyvern’s talons into the dirt and its torso to grind into the dust. 

A movement triggered her peripheral vision. Cara immediately cocked her arm back and threw her knife straight up as the prime wyvern passed overhead, headed for Dayton.

The knife grazed a patch of scales in the dead center of the wyvern’s chest. 

Her instinctive aim had allowed her a direct hit, but her target should have been further left or right to pierce the tender hide of the beast’s armpit. 

Still, the prime veered away from Dayton and the horse, hiding itself in the undergrowth once more.

Cara didn’t have any time to think about where the prime might be hiding or where her dagger had gone as the other two wyverns flew toward her face.