“I’ve got none. We can’t even run out of here.” Cara grimaced. “Not sure I can even walk out of here, honestly.”

“I thought you said you weren’t hurt!”

“I said I was alright, not that I wasn’t hurt. I’ll live, assuming we can get out of here alive.” She took a deep breath, and then another. “Okay. So, can you use a weapon? A sling? I packed mine away in one of these bags somewhere. If you found it, maybe—” 

She broke off as Dayton shook his head. “Alright, then, no sling. A spear, maybe? If you angled it just right, you could catch the wyvern in his chest while he’s eating the horse.”

Dayton leaned over to dry heave in a bush.

“Okay, that won’t work. We’ll have to get away, then.”

“How?” Dayton croaked. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, coughed, and said, “All we have is a chariot-wagon with no workable wheels and no horse and your leg’s no good to anyone right now.”

“Sure,” Cara agreed calmly, “but we’ve got a whole chariot-wagon body. That’s useful, right? And the bags should be whole, and you’re safe, yes? That’s better than nothing.”

“I need a drink.” Without waiting for her to reply, he turned around and headed to what Cara could only assume was the river. She heard muffled splashing. 

All of a sudden, Dayton was rushing back to her side, flushed with excitement. “I’ve got an idea.”

Cara eyed him suspiciously, gripping her broken sword hilt. “Oh? Care to share?”

“In a moment. Stay still, would you?” He dashed off, collecting up bags and throwing them haphazardly near Cara. She winced as he clipped her cut leg with a bad toss. 

In a minute, he had found all of the bags and boxes he could in the immediate area and had returned.

“I need your sword.” 

“Wait, what?” Cara clutched the hilt even tighter. Her fingers slipped from the sweat and blood. “Why?”

Dayton huffed and tugged it free from her grasp with embarrassingly little effort. “I have to chop down a tree.”

“But wyverns aren’t scared of fire!” she protested weakly. She felt hideously exposed without the remnants of her weapon. It wasn’t much, but it was something, at least. “It’ll just attract attention!”

“I don’t want a fire.” He measured a young sapling with his fingers, rejected it. “I want a pole.”

“The chariot-wagon’s wouldn’t work?”

“No.” He walked around behind her, presumably still looking for a tree that could be a pole for whatever he planned to do. He must’ve found one, because Cara began to hear a muffled chopping come from the direction of the river. 

She winced and glanced up toward the road, but the prime was still distracted by his impromptu feast.

The tree fell with surprisingly little sound, buoyed gently to the ground by the whippy branches of surrounding aspen and birch and pine. 

Dayton hauled it, branches and all, back to where Cara sat. He balanced the middle of the tree over a rock and pried the top third underneath the overturned chariot-wagon, grinning at Cara with a boyish grin. 

“It’s a lever, see? And the rock’s the fulcrum. I’ll just push down on this one end and—”

The chariot-wagon began to shift in the leaf litter, straining upward. Cara quickly scooched around, cursing under her breath at impetuous marques who were being irritatingly mysterious.

The chariot-wagon rocked back and forth. Dayton threw his entire weight on the makeshift level, and the chariot-wagon crashed back on broken wheels, erect once more (though a bit worse for wear).

He didn’t stop to enjoy his success, grabbing the nearest two bags and throwing them in the cart. “Can you stand?”

Cara grit her teeth. “I think so. Are we going somewhere in the chariot with no wheels?”

“Yes.” Dayton’s grin widened, though he was solicitous enough to help her to a semi-standing position. He pointed at the chariot, then motioned toward the river. “We’re going to take a little boat trip.”