AYDEN

Each time the wind blew the long grass rustled. Had there been any moonlight, Ayden knew, it would have appeared that a wave was passing across the steep hillside, like water rushing towards the shore. On this stygian night, with no moon in the sky and heavy clouds hiding the stars, anything beyond a few short steps could be known only by sound and so the sight lived only in Ayden’s memories. Memories from before they came. Memories now spoiled.

With each stirring of the wind, Ayden shuffled forwards a few feet, a little at a time. A task made more difficult by the blackened armour and helm he wore, and the sword strapped to his back, muffled though they were with dark cloth. He checked his hooked chain, also threaded through and wrapped in cloth, before settling to stillness again. 

Ascending the southern hills surrounding the keep, Ayden carried no shield as some of the others did. He couldn’t afford the risk of the weight slowing him down at a crucial moment. Ayden was at the front of the Foxes as they moved as a loose cohort to avoid detection. He could sense young Tala moving at his left, Destra with her hard eyes to his right, and Donal, Fantal and Strave close behind. For long hours now the Foxes had been crawling as flat to the ground as they could, knowing that to give away their presence would doom not only themselves, but the others too, the Griffins. This risk made Ayden think of Lota. He hoped she had been able to keep up with her side of the mission.

Early in the planning stages for this night, Ayden and Tala had stumbled upon the tactical necessity of a pincer movement, though they lacked the vocabulary to call it that. Sedrus had objected. He said they should stick together as one large group. Ayden thought he just wanted to feel more like a general; be in charge of more soldiers. Ayden, stubborn for once, had convinced everyone in their ramshackle settlement to split the pitifully few unscathed youngsters who were old enough into two even squads of six. His logic was practical, born of countless hours spent navigating the claustrophobic crawlspaces of the outer walls. Twelve children charging at once wouldn’t be a strike force; they would be a pile of tripping limbs and panicked breath.

The decision to split, however, cracked open a chest of old rivalries. The atmosphere shifted, shedding its hopeful weight of taking back their home and regressing into the familiar, jagged politics of childhood play. Deciding the groups felt uncomfortably like picking teams for a game of keep-away as children jostled to be chosen, sparking bitter debates that spanned from the tactical to the petty. They argued over the perceived “shame” of the girls being picked last—a predictable, narrow-minded habit of the older boys—and bartered over who possessed the stamina to handle the western route versus the southern slope.

Hierarchy eventually settled like dust. Ayden’s determination to form two groups made him  the only choice to lead the front group; he knew the keep’s internal geography better than he knew the lines on his own palm. Sedrus, whose natural authority usually commanded the room, took the lead of the other. In a move that signaled the end of childhood games and the start of a war, Sedrus didn’t pick his best friend or the strongest athlete first. He picked Moro, the outsider. He needed the migrant boy’s terrifying knowledge of their foe if they were to survive. With that first, calculated choice, the rest of the names fell into place. The game became a mission.

They came up with names, a final, fragile tether to the world of play before the journey became real. Sedrus led Moro, Riamhan and Rakam, Jotopher and Lota. His group quickly named themselves The Griffins, a name chosen for noble, soaring predators of myth. Ayden’s group dubbed themselves Foxes, composed of Ayden, Tala, Destra, Strave, Donal, and Fantal. Quiet. Stealthy. Clever.

Pressing on, Ayden took notice of the charred and blackened hills surrounding the keep. Memories from before the flight filled his mind — playing in these same hills as a child, when the trees still lived and offered a den for not just Ayden and his friends, but rabbits and chirping birds too. When another breeze came, the Foxes passed a charcoal stump of another tree. Did I climb this tree as a boy? Ayden asked himself. He wanted his memories to make him angry, better ready for the fight ahead. Instead, they made him melancholy. It was as if this hill of his childhood had been killed by adulthood, not the monstrous foe that awaited them at the peak, occupying his old home.

LOTA

Lota felt restless. She had tried to keep a count of the minutes as she scurried and crouched, but had no confidence in the number she came to, for if true, she had been climbing for less than three hours. She felt as if it had been weeks. Covered in greyish mud that looked like ash, and probably was, she had started to fear that she had died and it was her eternity. The thought of her and five other youths, dead and stuck in a nameless purgatory, sent a chill down her spine.

The Griffins were a mismatched collection of loners, Lota thought. Sedrus, their leader, was not even twenty, but already struggled with a stiffness in his joints beyond his years. On their ascent he had already visibly begun to struggle with hiding his pain. Moro, the foreigner to the group and the only one perhaps older than Sedrus, had seemed indifferent to it all. He was so removed and aloof that nothing ever seemed to affect him. Jotopher, gangly after growing so much in the past year, spent his time mouthing prayers. She wanted to tell him it was pointless. They were all dead anyway, and this was hell. And then there were Riamhan and Rakam—the brothers—who jostled against each other at the front of the pack with the carefree nature that it was all a game.

The temptation to stand, to scream and run from that place, had been all but too much for Lota. Had she been alone, she would have fled, and in doing so signed her death warrant. Only knowing that she would bring death to more than herself pinned her in place. She had wondered then if the presence of the others was simply a trick eternity was playing to hold her here. By the time the sun fell, she was halfway to convinced that she was alone, the others were nothing more than a trick she was playing on her own mind, and that she herself was the eternity that was punishing her.

No words had been spoken during the ascent, for all knew the plan; approach the keep in two groups. The Griffins would take the western route, crawling and scampering silently between scattered boulders and patches of scree, trying to avoid the treacherous fragments. The Foxes would ascend the southern slope—exposed but for the whispering grasses. Each would make their way to the ruined keep, their lost home. 

The keep that had once given a sense of safety, but now threatened instead, looming  like a vulture waiting for a starving child to die. Lota chose not to think about the next step or what they would find inside. She wasn’t sure she could keep moving if she did.

 Before the infiltration, the Foxes and Griffins had each taken just a sip of water, for they had little left. They had checked that they were as well-masked and muffled as possible. Mud, patches of grass, furs here and there to soften their footsteps, but most importantly they dabbed themselves with ash to provide a smell of charring and death. 

Steady Riamhan had checked both Sedrus and his brother, bulky Rakam, who stood still like an ox whilst his brother took care of him, as always. Moro, compact and controlled, had checked himself and his precious bag, carefully packed, whilst Jotopher had given Lota a cursory check before letting Sedrus look him over. Nobody had even glanced at her. She had been the last picked; she was an afterthought.

Lota knew she and the bookish lad Tala were too young to be on the same team, they’d barely been brought along at all, almost left to mind the youngest children and the babes.  and the but Still, she wished she had not been placed with the Griffins. Even the name appalled her. So noble and brave. Futile, she thought. She knew Sedrus expected to survive and be hailed a hero. For as long as she had known him Lota had seen Sedrus as an honourable, but reckless boy. After Moro, with his knowledge of the invaders, Sedrus had chosen the largest and strongest of the survivors for the Griffins. If anyone were to survive and slip inside the keep, Sedrus had hedged his bets that it would be them. 

Still, Lota stayed quiet, knowing Sedrus would not care that she thought him wrong. What use strength if your foe is stronger? What use speed if your foe is faster? What use bravery in the face of savagery?

Lota assumed they could not be far from the summit. Her mind raced. 

Can I smell the keep? 

Does the wind carry the scent of blood? Is that my imagination? Will that same wind betray us to the foe? 

She thought that when the time came, a scream would escape her and let the world know she was alive. Or more truly, she admitted to herself, to prove that she was not dead. 

Another breeze blew, and she made several yards. Against protocol, she stole a glimpse up at the peak. It was too dark to be sure, but she thought she saw several shapes flying and flitting over the ruined but still monolithic keep, black against black, before darting in through gaping holes in the walls. 

On the bright side, she told herself, if the wyverns kill me, at least I’ll not have to find my way back down this dead hill.

AYDEN

Close to the top of the hill and a stone’s throw from the walls, Ayden found scorched bones amongst the recent leavings of the wyverns. Here and there, under fallen branches and other burned detritus of the wyverns, tumbled masonry rested at awkward angles. Most of the stones were cracked and split, little different from a castle brought low by trebuchet or mining, but amongst them were a few that showed the signs of wyvern-fire. Occasionally he caught the stench from above. Decay. But also something stronger. Something sharp and astringent. He wanted to spit to get rid of the bitter taste the air left in his mouth. Amongst the bones of cattle and half-chewed pelts of sheep, he was sure that some of the bones were human. It was inevitable, after all. So many taken. 

This had been his home. Was he good enough to be here? Was being here enough? He took a breath. Even if the rest could forgive Ayden for his father’s failure to defend the surrounding villages and manors, he knew that Donal and Fantal, two cousins but more like brothers, could not. Born in the keep, they had lost their home too. He could not understand why they had argued to climb the slope with him, not Sedrus.

At last there was no more grass, and Ayden rose to his hands and knees. Still moving hunched over, Destra and Strave kept in close proximity to each other. Strave would be close to Destra, how else to prove himself the better killer? Savage bastard, he thought. Destra carried a bag that matched Moro’s; hers was as well-secured as the foreigners’.

The Foxes made their way separately into the cover of rocks at the base of the towering walls. Ayden had thought they’d seem smaller now than when they left, but they loomed as tall now as they had in his memories. His eye was caught by a small patch of stonecrop flowers growing in a crack in the wall. Even now the flowers that had grown thickly here in his youth fought to survive amongst the ash and blood and poisons. He dabbed a tear dry, rather than wipe it, lest he remove too much of the dirt that covered his face.

Within the stones and boulders, the Foxes mostly gained sight of each other again. Ayden could not read Donal and Fantal’s expressions as they craned their necks back to take in the walls. This is your home too.  Fantal caught Ayden watching them and Ayden quickly averted his eyes. I know well enough what you think of me. Each of  them silently checked their armour and equipment again; shields, weapons and muffled chains. 

Weeks before, Moro had devised the plan. Chains to entangle limbs and wings, and armour shields coated with powders to deflect the noxious fluids. Quiet to get close enough to use them. It had taken weeks to ensure every item they carried was as quiet as possible. “It worked before”, Moro had said, with a haunted look on his face, remembering his own home that had fallen to the wyverns.

Have I come in time? wondered Ayden, echoing Moro’s first words when he’d arrived. Has the queen bred yet?

Ayden suddenly heard flapping above and knew it was surely the enemy they had come to kill. He was glad, for it was a quiet, careless flapping – which meant the queen was not roused, and they were not yet discovered. He knew that when they were, a fury would erupt that would likely leave few to tell the tale. Maybe none.

Looking to his own accomplices, Ayden’s eyes followed Destra who made a gesture up ahead. Ayden looked and saw silhouettes of the Griffins settling amongst a fallen crenellation on the western side. He saw Jotopher interlace his fingers and whispered a silent prayer. I hope it helps, thought Ayden. He worried again about Lota – whether he was right to let her come. She would be safer with the littluns. Sedrus had led them They were almost into position. The usual relief at having someone else strong and competent enough to lead lasted for only a moment, as always, before Ayden felt guilty for not being strong enough himself to lead without doubts. 

Tala arrived from the grasses, clearly tired but moving carefully, and settled in next to Destra. Ayden realised with a moment of surprise how quiet it was. Even in the depths of night, the keep had never been silent. There had always been a few guardsmen patrolling, quiet, but scuffing stones as they walked, or chainmail rattling. Even without them, owls roosted on the southern walls of the castle and when Ayden snuck out of his room to roam the walls at night, could be heard at night hooting or swooping to take bats on the wing.

Ayden blinked his reverie away and returned to watching the Griffins. The brothers Riamhan and Rakam appeared from behind a boulder, bent over as they half-ran, and one of them–-he could not tell which–-slipped, sending a loud clatter of stones slipping away down the slope. 

The brothers froze. For a moment, Ayden dared to think all might be well. Then, without warning, the flutter he had heard above his head became a flurry, then a tempest.

Several dark shapes came crashing down onto the brothers. Ayden was close enough that despite the dark he could see winged shadows and sweeping limbs. At least three of the beasts… then four, then another. Even without their wings, each was double the size of Rakam, the largest of them, but light and swift.

Ayden felt every blow as if they struck him too, felt the buffeting of wings, the creatures hitting and biting, over and over, striking with sinuous, bladed tails or sharp claws. He had once seen a pack of wolves bring down a great stag and was reminded of it, but this was different. The wolves fought with a cautious hunger to preserve themselves. These creatures seemed to delight in drawing out the kill. 

Amidst the leathery tumult of flapping wings, Ayden saw blood spray and heard the frail human grunts and screams of pain from the brothers. Ayden could see neither of their faces as they fought and died, but images from childhood flashed across his thoughts; Each time Rakam had said something stupid, Riamhan’s embarrassment. Each time Rakam cried, the look of concern. Each time Rakam had been bullied, the anger on Riamhan’s face as he fought his tormentor. Each time walking away together, adoration on Rakam’s face. 

Ayden cursed and started running. The groups had agreed once any were exposed, all who could were to race with all haste into the keep. 

Ayden led the way, guiding the Foxes towards the front entrance of the keep. The gate had fallen from its hinges and made an obstacle, and he held out his arms to boost the others over it and inside. Despite the noises and clattering they made, the cacophony from the wyverns was greater, drowning out their slipping in. As Ayden hoisted the last member over the barricade, he looked back. Riamhan and Rakam howled and died for longer than any could have expected. 

Ayden swallowed and knew he would remember their final screams for the rest of his life. Perhaps not long.

LOTA

When the wyverns dropped their avalanche of wings and maws onto Riamhan and Rakam, the remaining Griffins had scattered like marbles to escape the predators’ gaze. In the blind panic, Lota stumbled backwards, her boots slipping on loose scree until she wedged herself into a narrow crevice between two jagged boulders. She’d seen the surviving three Griffins hide behind their own rocks before she put her head down.

Lota was still amongst the boulders, listening to the wyverns as they fought each other for the chance to kill the brothers. Peeking from behind her hiding spot, the wyverns were alike to the devils from Gramma Hatch’s stories that she wasn’t supposed to listen to as a little girl–-dark-souled evil with tearing fangs, claws like knives and glowing red eyes. The beasts before her had no glowing eyes, but they certainly had the rest. As they fed on the brothers she noticed a sickly green flame flicking off their tongues–-weak, but enough to ignite the brothers’ clothes and lend an eerie menace to the already awful scene. Tears made their way down her face as she watched their screams turn to wet, dying gurgles. She let them flow, leaving tracks on her face. 

As they died, Lota felt a sick feeling in her gut that she was not as resigned to death as she had thought herself to be. 

We are all too young for this. But we’re all that’s left… 

Beyond the wyverns, Lota saw quick shapes dash towards the wall. Ayden? she thought, a sudden boulder lurching inside her chest. The Foxes had made it to the wall without attracting attention from the feasting foe, and she watched as they slipped over the rubble and inside.

 Lota kept behind her boulder and listened helplessly to her friends’ remains being eaten. She fought not to heave as she smelt burnt flesh and heard sounds of ripping and tearing.

How many are dead? Lota asked herself. Was it only two voices I heard screaming? I thought it was more. Did I black out? Did I miss more dying? Are they all dead already?

No-one would blame you if you went back now, she told herself. One person doesn’t change anything. That’s just a story we tell ourselves so we can sleep at night.

Every time she prepared to shift, to crawl toward the safety of her team, the distant, dry rattle of wyvern scales against stone pinned her back. She remained curled in the shadows, her fingers bleeding from clutching the rock, too terrified to move and even more terrified of being left behind in the dark.

It’s no use. You saw what they did to Rakam and his brother. They’re all dead anyway. There’s no point. There’s no point.

A second thought bubbled up from deeper in her mind.

If there’s no point, then why aren’t you moving? Why aren’t you running away?

Lota couldn’t answer that.

Because running away means stepping back into it. Into the loss of everything that had pulled them back to the keep. All they would have to look forward to was fleeing, hoping for sanctuary from former rivals. Or staying, becoming bitter adults, maimed emotionally by the wyverns and resigned to living in poverty, like livestock for the monsters. Raising sScared toddlers to be afraid to laugh. Youths waiting for the day the wyverns maim them too, or worse, take them for food. 

Ayden has taken the Foxes into the keep, Lota thought. They’re still going. Not fast, not fearless – just committed. They’ve accepted the fear but it doesn’t get to control them. Her legs didn’t want to move, her hands were shaking, and every instinct screamed inside her mind to stay down, stay hidden, and stay alive.

But alive for what?

Clenching her jaw until her teeth ached, she forced her white-knuckled fingers to release their grip on the boulder. She dragged her body across the sharp scree with agonizing slowness, pressing her belly into the dirt to stay beneath the sweeping gaze of the wyverns. 

Don’t run away. Don’t run away. Move. Move!

AYDEN

Inside the keep, Ayden did not recognise the stone passageway that he led the others down. He knew the junctions and turns well enough, he knew which passage this had been long ago, but the cool, airy passages he remembered had become a charnel pit. This was my home, once, Ayden thought. And Donal’s. Fantal’s too, even if he is too young to remember it. 

As soon as they had entered the tunnels, the group lit their torches, for night was no longer their ally – they knew the creatures they must now fight made a friend of the dark. Whereas bones had been scattered haphazardly on the hillside, inside they made a pale carpet over the flagstones, causing the boys to stumble as small bones rolled under their feet.

“I just wanted to come home…” whispered Donal. It was the first voice any of them had heard in many hours. Ayden heard the hoarse anguish and knew it, for he shared it. Donal had not lived in the main keep with Ayden, for he was the blacksmith’s boy, not the lord’s son. If anything this part of the complex was more his than Ayden’s.

They had taken the longer of the two passageways to the main chamber, and Ayden feared for the others who were to take the shorter route. Haste felt increasingly important and he fought against a rising panic. Why did no attack come? Where were the queen’s minions? If there were some outside, why were the corridors deserted? Had they all gone the other way? Was he leaving the other group to a horrible death? Were they cursing his name as they died? 

Moving to a larger passageway, the flickering torchlights revealed a morbid sight—the half-devoured corpses of adults—propped up against the walls, narrowing the way they intended to follow. Slumped against the damp limestone, laid the brittle remains of mentors and warriors of the kingsguard who had stood their ground so that the children and babes could escape many moons ago. Ayden knelt, recognizing a tarnished silver crest pinned to the tattered cloak of a brutalized body. These adults had chosen to stay behind in the smoke and the roar. Seeing them now in decay, Ayden struggled to take in the sight. Old memories gave way to a profound ache. Gratitude? Guilt? This ache was followed by an unnerving, palatable dread. These men had been killed in a different part of the castle during the first strike. Why were they here? 

Dread turned to hysteria as Ayden heard a scream erupt behind him. Looking back, Ayden saw Strave pulled backwards, and up, into a shaft above the corridor. The screaming ended abruptly and half of Strave fell back down the shaft, landing on the floor next to Fantal. Whilst Fantal stared, paralysed, at the remains, another shape unfolded from the wall next to him. Ayden felt as if time was flowing like treacle and sinewy limbs reached forward. A long tail with a serrated tip snapped round and Fantal barely moved quickly enough to avoid losing a leg. Ayden spun and realised another of the creatures, this one twice his size, was emerging in front of him, hemming them in. 

The corpses–-had the wyverns laid a warning? A trap? 

The flames of the torch lit the beast, shadows flickering and wavering but giving Ayden his first close look at a wyvern. The creature was scaled like  a lizard, but more grey than green. The rear legs were powerful and clawed, but it was the forelimbs that marked these creatures out as wyverns; far longer than their powerful hind-limbs – part arm, part wing, like those of a bat but leathery, with a pair of ugly talons that he knew could rend and claw a man to death in seconds. A long but powerful neck tapered to a fierce head, sharklike but more ridged and angular, with powerful jaws slathered in corrosive chemicals that dripped to the floor. 

The beast’s salivating liquid vapourised as it dripped. Its eyes sparkled with malice and intelligence but showed no spark of humanity or mercy. She, the ruling she of this nest, might not be able to fit inside these corridors, thought Ayden, but this one can, and none of it will matter a damn if this thing lands a blow upon me.

The wyvern facing him was angled downwards, head at the floor, so that its tail menaced above him. Small bone spurs protruded along its neck, with more growths showing where others would emerge as it aged. It approached like a cat towards a cornered mouse and Ayden waved his torch as if to fend it off. Shadows swung and danced wildly behind it with a nightmarish quality. It sliced its tail spike viciously towards his face—interrupted by a last-moment deflection.

Tala had intervened with his sword, and battered away the scything tail. Snapping into action, Ayden capitalized on his father’s training and swiped his blade down to sever the head of the monster. His blade cut only halfway through the neck but the creature fell dead, inadvertently turning its death into another attack, forcing him to dodge backwards and avoid being pinned beneath it. Saliva from its savage maw splashed onto his armour, where it sizzled. The volatile liquid turned to vapour and Ayden coughed as he breathed in the noxious cloud. 

“Are you all right?” Tala asked.

Ayden nodded, grateful for the alchemic secrets Moro had brought from afar to make the armour somewhat resistant to the foul, volatile chemicals the wyverns spat and breathed. 

“You were lucky,” Tala spoke.

Ayden agreed. The wyvern appeared too young to ignite the mixture and engulf him in green flame.

A loud shriek filled the chamber, and the two boys turned to see Fantal and Destra fending off another wyvern that had sprung into the chamber. Destra’s left arm was hanging limply by her side and much of her armour was stained and eaten away by the viscous liquid, exposing her injured arm. Even in the flickering light of their torches, Ayden could see that it would never be saved. 

With a bellowing scream, Destra drove her weapon into the wyvern’s eye, puncturing something soft and critical within, and the creature went slack at the strike. Ayden watched as its brainless weight collapsed. Approaching the victor, Tala lifted his torch to see Destra’s withered arm, burned by the saliva. She sagged, but still held her blade in her uninjured hand. Her bag was still secured on her uninjured side. She gave a low groan, but turned it into a growl and steadied herself. 

“One,” she croaked at Ayden, then gave a fierce smile.

As they recovered their wits, they heard low hisses behind them and saw more forms uncurling from the walls. Fantal picked up Destra’s large shield and Ayden led them quickly onwards, wondering if they were escaping danger, or simply being herded towards their own slaughter. 

LOTA

Outside the keep the monsters were still distracted by the last few remains and continued fighting each other for scraps. Lota had successfully dragged herself to the rest of the Griffins, and was now seated next to Moro who watched Sedrus and Jotopher whisper at each other.

“No, Sedrus, let’s just make a run for it. We can get inside whilst they’re distracted.”

“They’re too close, they’ll not miss us this close, even as they feed.” 

“I’ll… I’ll distract them while you get inside,” whispered Jotopher but his nerves betrayed him. His voice became tearful as he spoke and his head jerked nervously on his long neck. 

Hurry, thought Lota, panic rising in her chest too, they won’t be feeding much longer.

The open ground between their huddle and the keep’s side gate was an open killing field. To move was to be seen, and to stay was to wait for the wyverns to finish their grisly work and turn their undivided attention to scouring the grounds.

Sedrus started nodding. He was the only one among them who handled a blade with anything resembling true grace. He looked at the terrified faces of Lota and Jotopher, and made his choice.

“I’m better with a sword than any of you,” said Sedrus. “Get moving, I’ll catch up.” 

Moro grunted quietly and motioned to Jotopher and Lota. “They’re going to spot us the moment we break cover,” Moro hissed, his back pressed hard against the stone. 

Sedrus looked at the gate, then at the group. He tightened his grip on his hilt, his face set with a grim, practiced calm. “Not if they’re looking at me.”

“Sedrus, no,” Jotopher hissed, reaching for his sleeve. “There’s too many!”

“I can lead them into the narrows, break their line of sight, and circle back through the larder vents,” Sedrus said, his voice steady enough to sound believable. He offered a sharp, confident nod that brooked no argument. “When I draw them off, you run. Don’t look back, and don’t stop until you’re behind the iron. Understood?”

Jotopher looked at him with desperate belief in his eyes. To him, Sedrus wasn’t just a boy with a sword, he had always been a paragon to idolise.

“Go,” Sedrus commanded.

Without a second’s hesitation, he leaped from the shadows. The ring of his blade clearing the scabbard was like a bell in the silence. He sprinted towards the feasting beasts, his sword a silver-bright target in the open light. Flying over the stones.

You don’t understand, Lota tried to scream, you’re going to die.

Sedrus closed the distance in a blur of motion, swinging his sword with two-handed force into the spined back of the closest of the feasting beasts. The creature arced in sudden agony and fell to the ground, thrashing. The other wyverns recoiled, confused. In a flash of blood-blind confusion, the largest of the pack lunged–-not at Sedrus, but at the wounded broodmate. Its jaws clamped down with a sickening crunch of bone and the fallen wyvern went still. For a heartbeat, there was only the sound of heavy reptilian breathing, and then the monsters turned as one, their slit-pupiled eyes locking onto Sedrus with a singular hunger.

Seizing the distraction, the surviving Griffins raced towards the keep as the wyverns began to hobble towards Sedrus. The Foxes had manoeuvred over the rubble and inside adjacent to the main gatehouse, but Lota and the others would have to slide through a narrow postern gate. Looking back, Lota watched as the wyverns screeched and barked, their massive, leathery backs turning to the wall. 

“Over here!” Sedrus roared, his voice echoing off the masonry as he baited the sky.

Shock at the sight spurred Lota to grab Jotopher’s arm and pull on him. He shrugged her off. Really? she thought, even now you dismiss me? His lanky frame outpaced her up the slope, despite how many times he slipped and stumbled. Before she reached the top, Lota looked once more over her shoulder. 

The tactical retreat Sedrus had promised became a fantasy the moment the pack turned. He barely had time to pivot before a massive, leathery wing swept through the air like a falling sail, the force of the gust slamming him into the dirt. He scrambled to find his footing, but the sky had already collapsed upon him. The first strike was a blur of hooked talons that raked across his chest, pinning his weight to the earth and forcing the breath from his lungs in a ragged, desperate heave.

From her vantage point, Lota watched as something spiralled outwards in an arc from his chest. Blood, she realised. As he looked up at the keep, despite the dark, she was sure she saw surprise on his face. Confusion.

Do you understand now? Heroes die. 

A wickedly saw-toothed tail swept around and tore the head from his shoulders. It happened so fast she couldn’t even tell which of the creatures had killed him. Lota turned before his head even hit the ground and fled into the gaping wound in the castle wall.

AYDEN

Far inside the keep’s winding halls, Ayden helped Destra along until she stumbled down onto one knee, coughing and steadying herself, her one good hand on the crosspiece of her sword. Where her skin had been marred by the wyvern’s saliva, it was rapidly becoming red and angry. Her eyes were bloodshot. Even through the mud on her face, Ayden could tell she was pale and failing. Exchanging a concerned look, Destra simply shook her head and passed Ayden her bag. She had been formidable, Ayden thought. Invincible. 

“Kill more of them for me,” she croaked.

“All of them,” he whispered, but her eyes were already closed. As she slumped against the cold masonry of the passage, joining the silent ranks of those who had already fallen, Ayden didn’t pull away immediately. He remained there, his hands still shaped to hold her shoulders, feeling the warmth begin to bleed out of her skin and into the stones. In the suffocating passage, he looked down at his own hands, then at hers. His wrists were narrow, compared to hers. She was a monolith to them, and now she was gone.

“Ayden?” Donal asked.

Ayden didn’t look up right away. He felt the weight of her bag, and the weight of her ghost. 

“She’s gone,” he said, his voice barely a breath. He forced himself to stand. “Let’s go.”

Cautiously moving down the hall, the four remaining youths passed a room, little more than a cupboard, that had been a weapons store. By now, they could hear sounds from all around them, and it was obvious they were surrounded in the passageways above and catacombs below. By some fortune, Ayden supposed, the pair of juvenile wyverns they had fought must have stumbled upon them by accident, rather than setting a clever trap. Otherwise, surely they all would have been devoured by now. Despite his attempts to assure himself, Ayden couldn’t shake the feeling they were being herded or toyed with. Did these creatures have such intelligence? Such cruelty?

Donal surprised Ayden by whispering to him. “The weapons in there were all forged by my father, or my grandfather.” 

Ayden felt another stab of shame. “I’m sorr-” he began.

“No, you don’t understand. You never do. We’re home, Ayden. You brought us here. It is hard to remember how it was, seeing it like this, but… we’re home.”

“Which way?” asked Tala, looking back and forth. “I think we might be surrounded.” Sound echoed, seemingly from both directions along the corridor. 

Ayden nodded in response. “We need to find their main nest. I’m sure it will be in the Great Hall. The side entrance is to the left. But we’ll need to wait. We can’t attack until we see the others,” whispered Ayden. 

Ayden did not speak of the queen. The plan had been to find the queen in her lair and attack from more than one direction, another reason for them to form two groups. If they could misdirect the creatures, they could sow confusion, use chains to limit her mobility.  Everything relied on the element of surprise—but the plan was falling apart. Ayden recounted the strategy again, but realised he was speaking in order to encourage himself, not just the others. The plan no longer seemed as plausible as it had in daylight.

Hope fled entirely as they passed another side chamber. Without warning, a juvenile wyvern lunged out of the adjacent room while clinging to the top of the arched door.. There was no roar, only the wet sound of scales as it flowed into the hallway while clung to the ceiling.. 

Ayden lunged back as the wyvern’s bulk quickly separated him from the rest of the Foxes. He raised his sword to block the creature’s winged upper limb as it struck out at him. The vibration numbed his arms to the elbows, but he didn’t have time to feel the pain.  Through the chaotic mess of thrashing wings, he could hear the muffled, frantic shouts of the Foxes on the opposite side of the leathery beast. They were screaming his name, but they might as well have been miles away. 

The wyvern shifted, its weight grinding against the stone. Ayden saw its bladed tail coil and snap.

“Protect Ayden!” Fantal shouted, courage in his throat. “Protect the prin–”

Fantal didn’t see the move until it was too late. The boy had moved into the narrow space beneath the beast’s flank, his blade raised in a desperate attempt to find a gap in the scales. But the wyvern didn’t even turn to look at him. It simply dropped its tail like a falling axe.

The sound was a sickening, heavy thwack of a butcher’s blade hitting a carcass. There was a sudden, violent spray of wet heat—a hot, metallic mist that painted the floor and splashed against Ayden’s boots. Fantal didn’t even have time to scream before the force of a second strike sent him sprawling into the shadows. With voracious speed, the wyvern seemed satisfied with its strike and pivoted on the ceiling, its golden eyes locking back onto Ayden, divided from his allies.

Donal hooked his arms under his cousin Fantal’s shoulders and dragged him backwards as a second wyvern head snaked out of the chamber’s dark archway. The two beasts, one on the ceiling and the other on the floor, took up the full height of the passageway.

“Ayden!” Tala’s voice was a jagged shard of panic, as a third creature emerged from the gloom of the chamber, forcing the Foxes into a desperate retreat.

Ayden was cut off. He backed away, his sword trembling as the growing brood of wyverns took stock of which morsels to pursue. Each time he tried to pivot toward the others, the creature’s tails maws would snap forward, not to kill, but to block, steering him further down the passage. 

The beasts shifted in unison, their massive frames swallowing the air in the narrow hallway. Ayden took a staggering step back, the lead hunter mirrored him, crawling forward along the ceiling.

Behind him, shadows danced at the far end of the corridor. In the flickering glow of sickly-green pulses of juvenile wyvern-flame, he saw more silhouettes approaching.

“Hold on!” Ayden screamed, hoping the Foxes could hear. “I’ll find a way around!” 

He prayed they could hear him over the chaos, but as he backstepped, the rhythm of the blockade became recognizable. Each time he reached a cross-hall that might have led back to the Foxes, another wyvern would materialize from a side chamber, baring its teeth and hissing him deeper into the keep.

They weren’t hunting him like a pack of starving wolves. They were steering him like cattle.

He was being herded.

The wyvern in front of him suddenly relented, its onslaught shifting into a still, expectant crouch against the ceiling. Ayden stopped, his heels catching on a heavy stone threshold. He looked up and felt the blood drain from his face. He was standing before the massive, iron-bound double doors of the Great Hall.

As a child, Ayden had rarely passed through these doors. They were a boundary of statecraft, so more often his mother or a nursemaid had brought him in from the side. More often when he had come this way, he had been brought by his father at great celebrations or receptions. Occasions of significance when he was there as his father’s heir, not as just another child of the household.

Now, standing there alone, he felt he was the interloper, not the rightful lord. 

The moment felt significant. Ayden steeled himself. In either direction down the corridor, wyverns held back still and watchful, like an audience waiting for a climax.

Do you know who I am? The thought shocked Ayden. These were unthinking monsters. Did you separate me from the others deliberately? 

The wyverns drifted into a predatory semi-circle, flanking every inch of the hallway. He could feel their heat radiating off their scales, yet they remained perfectly still, waiting for him to fulfill some purpose they had carved out for him.

Ayden reached back, not daring to turn his eyes from the brood. Keeping his sword leveled at the lead hunter’s eyes as his fingers found the cold, wrought-iron handle, he pushed the door open.

And slipped inside. 

AYDEN

Ayden stepped over the threshold of the Great Hall, and the air immediately grew thick with the scent of old, cold ash and the chemical sting of venom. He had been born here, a prince of a lineage that stretched back generations, but the grandeur had been hollowed out.

The Great Hall no longer felt like something built by man. Walls had tumbled, cracks had opened up gaping fissures. Debris on the floors made the passages feel like round tunnels of burrowing creatures. Ayden felt like he had entered a hive, something piled up on the ground by insects, rather than a thing carved and constructed. This place though had been created by destruction, not the craft and labour of dutiful men or beasts. Even scurrying rodents shunned a place such as this.

In the center of the hall, the wreckage had been piled into a grotesque mound—a vortex of splintered wood and shredded silk, with rusted pikes and axes jutting out like the spines of a graveyard. Like the spines of the wyverns backs, he thought. It was a pyre built for a kingdom. 

Then, the pile moved.

Atop the mound sat the Hag. The Wyvern Queen.

She was a nightmare of biological excess, three times the size of her brood. Her scales were the color of turned meat, and green, corrosive flame flickered in the corners of her maw. Ayden froze as he saw what lay at her feet. The throne had been dragged into the filth, charred and twisted. He could still hear the echoes of his father’s screams from the night the keep fell. It was a sound that had been silenced only when the Hag had made a meal of the Crown—flesh, armour, boots, and all.

The Queen’s long, sinuous neck rippled, her spines clattering like dry bone as she turned her gaze toward him. She didn’t strike. Instead, she let out a low, guttural hiss that vibrated in Ayden’s teeth—a sound that felt eerily like laughter.

“This is my home,” Ayden whispered, his voice cracking.

The Hag inhaled, scrutinising Ayden all the while. Her eyes narrowed and her dagger-like head tilted to one side as she took his measure. Curious rather than malicious. Eyes still on Ayden, she reached out with the claws of a winged arm and took a token from the floor. 

My father’s crown! Ayden realised. She tossed it contemptuously in Ayden’s direction. It fell at his feet. She knows who I am. Why has she let me come this far?

He lowered Destra’s bag to the floor and drew his sword, the ring of the steel pathetic against the vast silence of the hall. I’m glad the others aren’t here, he thought. I hope they are running down the hill right now. Perhaps they’ll all make it somewhere safe. He approached slowly, and expected to be swatted aside, but to his horror, the Hag simply watched him come. When he swung, his blade bit into the meat of her leg. Blood, hot and foul-smelling, sprayed across his face. She didn’t even flinch. She leaned down, her golden, slit-pupiled eyes inches from his, and let out that mocking hiss again.

She’s letting me hit her, Ayden realized, his stomach churning. I’m not a threat. I’m tonight’s entertainment. Anger welled up from his gut. This is a game to you.

Desperate, insane resolve seized Ayden. He would give her his life rather than let her take it, but he would not fear her. He struck again and again, carving shallow white lines into her hide. He wept and screamed his impotent rage. The Hag waited until he was breathless, until his lungs burned and his hope was a guttering candle. 

Then, with a speed that defied her size, she moved.

A single, leathery wing swept out, slamming into Ayden’s chest with the force of a battering ram. He was launched backward, crashing into a pile of debris at the side of the hall,  beneath the raised gallery. His ribs snapped, the sound loud as a branch cracking in the empty hall, which fell silent again. Before he could draw breath, the Hag was over him. Green fire gathered in her throat, a glowing emerald light that promised a slow, agonizing end. Caustic fumes wafted towards him, as if her cruelty had become a physical thing. Ayden closed his eyes, the image of his father’s burning throne the last thing on his mind.

“FOXES! GRIFFINS!! Now!” Lota’s voice reverberated around the hall.

The command shattered the silence and the hall was suddenly alive with motion. From the shadows of a nearby passageway, Donal charged, closely followed by Fantal, wounded and staggering, their faces masks of fury. The Hag turned, clicking its teeth, and bellowed. Unseen to the Hag, Tala emerged on the gallery above and swung a chain from above, looping it under the wyvern Queen’s  throat. The momentum didn’t stop, and it swung back up to lodge between spines on the back of her neck.

The Hag shrieked, her head whipping back as the green fire discharged harmlessly into the ceiling. The chain pulled with a jerk, and Tala’s end of the chain was torn from his hands before clattering down below the beast like a leash. The Hag’s tail whipped like a barbed flail towards the gallery and Tala, trapped and weaponless, hid behind a pillar as the wyvern splintered the wooden balustrade railing inches from his feet. Ayden recoiled as debris crashed around him, the Hag thrashing in sudden rage. 

“Get up, Ayden!” Lota screamed, arriving by his side with hands grabbing to drag him to safety. Donal and Fantal took up defensive positions between the pair and the Hag, pikes from the neighbouring armory leveled against the giant wyvern.

“How?…” Ayden asked, not even quite sure what question to ask

“We all stumbled into each other just outside the armoury” Lota responded.

The Hag hissed, attention now fixed on the group of children who had dared to interrupt her sport. 

The game was over. The fight had finally, truly begun.

A series of sharp, rhythmic cracks echoed through the hall. Moro emerged from the opposite gallery, arms blurring as he whipped handmade clay pots from his bag and hurled them to impact on the Hag’s armoured flanks. As they hit, the homemade explosives detonated, erupting in flashes of white light and acrid smoke that momentarily blinded the beast, even if her scaled hide protected her from injury. Next to him, Jotopher whirled another chain, looking for an opportunity to snare the Hag again. He took his chance and his throw secured itself around her neck. Jotopher began speaking his prayers as fast as he was able, and leaned back to keep the chain taut.

“الموت للوحش!” Moro roared, unintelligible to his adopted family.

With the element of surprise, it looked for a heartbeat like victory. Donal and Fantal charged from opposite flanks, working like a pair of trained hounds, darting in to strike at the softened joints of the Hag’s legs before retreating. Ayden scrambled to his feet, his sword finding purchase in the Hag’s leathery wing. They were landing strikes—real, bleeding wounds that painted the wreckage in foul, black ichor. Jotopher ran under the gallery, letting his chain out behind him as he rounded a pillar and hooked the end over itself, securing the Hag to the structure itself.

But then the Hag stopped cold. She ceased her thrashing and let out a low, guttural hiss. Laughter again, Ayden thought.

With devastating speed, the Hag swung her tail in a lethal arc, the spiked tip catching Fantal mid-lunge, flinging him back and cutting him open across his midriff. Innards spilled out like grain from a sliced-open sack. Before Donal could cry out, the Hag’s head lunged forward, her jaws unhinging to engulf the shaft of his pike, snapping the seasoned wood like a dry twig before her shoulder slammed into him with the force of a battering ram. 

Launched sideways, Donal skipped like a stone over the floorboards before sliding to a halt next to Fantal. He tried to sit up, but looked quizzically at his left arm as it failed to support him. Even half-prone, he swayed as if drunk. He reached across himself with his left arm to lift his right then let it drop. It flopped like a bag of loose gravel, every bone from shoulder to fingertips pulverised. He blinked a few times before his strength failed completely, then slipped into oblivion beside his cousin.

Moro reached for another of his explosives, but the Hag was already upon him. Her golden eyes narrowed, and a gout of green, corrosive flame erupted from her gullet—a roaring torrent of chemical fire. Moro was engulfed instantly; his scream swallowed by the roar of the furnace as his own volatile satchel responded to the heat and its contents erupted—all at once.

The violent, magnesium white blast reverberated through the hall, scattering jagged clay and liquid fire in every direction. Chunks of masonry fell from the vaulted ceiling, and the gaping wound in the roof that the wyverns had made when taking the castle. 

The spray of the messy, unstable eruption caught Jotopher as he turned to flee; the clinging, unquenchable flames jumping from Moro’s silhouette to his own.  In white-hot agony, Jotopher became his own funeral pyre. As his skin sloughed away in heavy ribbons, sliding off his bones like melting wax, he collapsed with a final prayer on his lips. Whether flames pulled him below or rising smoke lifted him above, no-one in the hall would ever know.

Licked by the blast, the mound upon which the Hag had made her throne was smouldering, threatening to ignite. She reared up over the smoke, her wings spreading until they blotted out the crumbling breach in the roof—a final, towering show of dominance that cast the entire chamber into a suffocating, blood-red gloom. 

Ayden looked at his broken line. Fantal dead, Donal unconscious or worse. Only Lota remained by his side.

As the twin pyres of Moro and Jotopher guttered slowly down to nothing, the Hag hissed in triumph. She padded towards Ayden and Lota, the softness of her steps belying the threat she offered. She’ll take her time, savour this, thought Ayden.

But before she could reach the pair, a shadow fell from above. Tala plummeted, his small frame lit from below by the dying flames, before landing on the Hag’s neck. The sudden assault caught the Hag unawares Tala grasped the chain he had hurled earlier, pulling hard and lodging it deeper in the creature’s dorsal spines. 

Lota dove to help as the Hag snapped back at its unwelcome passenger. Seizing the distraction, Lota grabbed the flailing loose end of the chain and anchored it to the pillar opposite the one Jotopher had secured. The Hag reared back as she attempted to shake the iron from her spine, but realized too late that the chains were a tight anchor. As she surged upward, the twin links snapped taut with a bone-shaking crack, the other end of the iron leash now firmly tied to the ancient, heavy masonry of the Great Hall.

The links held, but the sudden, violent tension of the Hag’s lashing acted like a slingshot. Tala, still clinging to the iron, was flung backward, his small frame hurtling through smoke before colliding with a jagged piece of fallen rubble. Tala slumped against the stone, body pouring backwards with hips and legs bent beneath him at an unthinkable angle. Ayden watched as his eyes remained open, stretching wide with a look of silent, insensible shock.

The Hag, angry at last, raged against the chains that held her. She strained against the chains, seeking to break them or their grapnels. The metal bit deep into her neck, almost choking her, scales fracturing as the pressure grew. Jotopher’s column began to fail first, cracks in it long known by the true inhabitants of the castle making it weak and prone to failure. The bottom of the column shifted sideways but a little, then, with time seeming to slow to a crawl, the top began to lean, threatening to bring the vaulted span above down on the Hag like an oversized club or stone-era guillotine. 

Ayden and Lota looked up with hope. 

Crush her. Fall! Crush her. The voice in Lota’s mind screamed.

And then it stopped. 

The wyvern shrieked and flailed, doing all it could do to loosen the chain without pulling more on the column. Lota’s eyes snagged on a heavy canvas strap slung across Ayden’s chest—one he hadn’t been carrying when they entered the keep. Destra’s? Moro’s second bag. 

Sensing her gaze, the two of them locked eyes and Ayden looked down at the bag. They still had a spark left to throw. 

Ayden flung the top open and Lota reached inside. She wrenched several clay pots from the internal pockets, her movements blurred by a desperate surge of desperation. Up on her feet in a heartbeat, Lota used the mounds of smashed furniture as a jagged barricade, darting towards the askew pillar. 

The Hag-Queen lunged, her jaws snapping close enough for Lota to feel the rank heat of her breath, but the creature flinched as the chain bit into its mangled neck. She began to shake a pot, eager to start a combustion, and threw her handful at the column with all her strength. 

In a flash of light, the blast shattered the last tipping point of the column.

Ayden watched through the flash of light as the massive granite pillar tilted, its base pulverized by. It came down like the arm of a god, catching the Hag who tried to scramble away as the chain loosened. There was a bone-deep crunch of stone meeting scale as the pillar slammed her neck into the floorboards, pulverizing her into the ground and pinning into the ancestral foundations of the keep.

Loosed by the collapse of the pillar, massive blocks of dressed stone and heavy timber beams that had held for centuries rained down around Lota. A three-ton section of the vaulted archway dropped an armspan away, burying the wyvern’s lower half in a mound of jagged masonry. The air vanished, replaced by a thick, suffocating wall of pulverized lime and ancient dust. 

Ayden heard nothing but the muffled, grinding roar of his home collapsing onto the monster, as the ceiling and shell wall crashed down upon it. 

Blinking away the swirling smoke, he blundered forward.

Beneath all the rubble, one wing had been crushed and the limb now hung uselessly. The Hag slump, broken, but malice still gleamed in its eyes. She was a ruin. The pillar lay across her like a world-ending weight, and the surrounding rubble had turned her golden throne room into a stone sarcophagus. Her long, serpentine neck was forced flat against the floorboards, her head pressed so hard into the grit that her jaws were physically locked shut. 

The pose triggered in Ayden a vision of Destra, down on one knee as she swore him to further vengeance. A different image of Destra flashed across his mind – her blade in the eye of the first wyvern she killed. 

Ayden lifted his blade to the Hag’s eye, watching its reflection glinting. For a time, neither moved. 

“This is my home.” Ayden whispered, his voice steady. “My family built these walls. Our ghosts haunt them.”

The Hag’s throat rattled, a low, vibrating growl humming through the stone floor like a mocking chuckle.

Nearby, as the dust settled Lota watched as the brood of wyverns began to enter the Great Hall with deafening screeches, their wings buffeting the air into a cyclone of ash as they looked for their mother. Knowing Ayden had but a heartbeat, she raced over to him and held onto his wrists. 

“Ayden,” she pleaded. 

He stepped closer, the steel of his blade hovering inches from the monster’s gold-filmed eye.

“But it is also our home,” he commanded, the authority of a king returning to his seat. “And you… you are nothing but a squatter.”

Together, the pair drove Ayden’s blade point-first through the eye and into the brain beyond. They felt the sickening give of bone as the blade bit deep into her soft, vital grey matter, The Hag’s mocking hiss finally collapsed into a wet, bubbling rattle. Her one golden eye flared with a desperate, final lucidity and with a violent convulsion of her chest, she gathered every remaining drop of venom and spark of malice for one last act of spite.

The green light surged, glowing so intensely through the thin skin of her neck that her internal structures were briefly visible as jagged shadows. Ayden and Lota stumbled back. Her jaws unhinged to their breaking point, and a roaring pillar of emerald fire erupted into the center of the hall. It wasn’t a focused stream, but a frantic, unguided blast that scorched the rafters and turned the falling ash into a storm of glowing green sparks. The heat was immense, forcing Ayden to shield his eyes as the chemical flame licked the stones and melted the very iron of the chain that had tethered her. Then, just as quickly as it had ignited, the light died. The flame sputtered into a thin, foul-smelling trail of smoke, and the Hag’s heavy head slumped into the dust with a final, echoing thud.

Lota turned to the circling brood that watched their mother expire. She felt a violent gust of wind as the smaller beasts swarmed, expecting the final, killing strike—but it never came. With terror, the children of the monster screeched and began to lift into the rafters. Without the Hag’s iron will to command them, the brood had shattered. One by one, the last of the wyverns took flight, escaping through the ruined roof into the cold, morning air.

Lota stood, her chest heaving. For the first time since they had begun the climb, the frantic, internal dialogue that had screamed at her to turn back, to hide, and to survive at all costs had finally gone silent. 

She saw Donal shake his head as he regained consciousness. She dashed to Tala, who remained motionless, eyes fixed on the rafters. She turned back to Ayden, expecting to see the fire of triumph in his eyes, but she found only a hollowed-out prince.

Ayden didn’t move. He sat on the floor, his sword still embedded in the creature’s corpse. He stared at the grotesque nest of wreckage where his father’s throne had once stood, now nothing more than a blackened skeleton of wood and twisted gold. He looked at the scorched walls, the shredded banners, and the corpses of the children who had bled to reclaim a tomb. The air was freezing, the Great Hall was open to the elements, much of the roof collapsed, and their families were gone, but the occupation was over.

They were home again.

HOME

Dawn was breaking. The wyverns were gone. Those that hadn’t been put to the blade had fled into the mountain mists, driven out by a pack of children who had grown up overnight. 

Ayden lowered something to the ground behind a cracked pillar and walked to the center of the Great Hall, his boots crunching on shattered stained glass. Golden autumn sunshine shone in through the empty windows, picking up a few specks of colour from the remaining shards of glass. He picked up a wooden horse from the debris, a toy he had once hidden under his bed before the wyvern’s occupation began. He turned it over in his hands, waiting for the surge of nostalgia or the warmth of “home” to hit him. It felt like nothing. Just a piece of dead timber. Without his father’s laugh or his mother’s humming, the things of his childhood were nothing but ghosts. He let the toy fall back into the dust.

“It’s drafty,” Lota said, her voice echoing off the scorched rafters. 

She was standing by the remains of the hearth, sweeping a pile of bones and filth away with a broken broom. Her face was smudged with soot, and her hands were raw, but her eyes had lost the frantic, darting terror of the rocks. 

“We’ll need to clear the place before rot sets in. Weatherproof it, somehow,” she shrugged and looked up at the open sky through the gaping hole above. “And the east curtain wall…we’ll have to haul stone to plug the gap before the heavy winds hit.”

“You’re already building,” Ayden noted.

“Humans make homes,” Lota replied, leaning on her broom. 

“Do we,” he mused.

“We can’t go back to the way it was,  but we can make it better. Or at least, we can make it ours again.”

Beside her, tucked into a nest of salvaged furs, sat Tala. He didn’t speak. His gaze was fixed on a patch of light on the floor, his body occasionally twitching with a lingering, phantom paralysis from the wyverns’ assault. When Lota reached out to adjust the furs, Tala leaned into the touch, looking up with a vacant stare.

“He’ll need help,” Lota whispered. “He’s gentle, Ayden. But… we can do something for him. He won’t walk again, but… I think his mind is returning. We’ll winterize the solar first. It stays the warmest.”

Donal drifted over from where Fantal lay in his final rest under another fur. He seemed lost, dazed. Lota had strapped his ruined arm and padded his chest as best she could. She went to him, but it was Ayden he looked at. “I can’t believe we did it. I can’t believe we won.” 

“So many died…” Ayden looked over at Fantal’s body.

Ayden saw a sudden fire burn in Donal’s eyes, his daze gone. “They died for you. For this place.” Donal’s passion cooled. He looked earnestly at Ayden. “Don’t… you can’t take it on yourself. Do you know what Fantal said, just before he… before he…”

Ayden could not find a reply. 

“He tried to say protect the prince. But you’re more than that now. You’re our king.”

Ayden looked away, hearing the words but not accepting them.

Ayden looked at his companions, now less than a handful of survivors. They were safe. They had the keep. But then he looked at the ruined pyre where Moro had died. He had spoken with Moro many times, but only once had they really talked. About Moro’s home. Then its destruction. The wyverns. They were nomads, in a way. Parasites in another. Invaders. Usurpers. Takers. But never makers. Preying on more than just individuals – on whole communities. They couldn’t build, so they stole, and they would have to repeat the pattern. Ayden realised how Moro must have felt. A suffocating sense of responsibility. To whoever and wherever they had driven the beasts. He couldn’t save Fantal or Destra, nor the rest, but he could save others. Repay the debt owed to Moro, in some way. 

“What is it?” Donal asked, “Why are you looking so serious?”

“Lota,” Ayden said. She stopped her sweeping. “You will be okay. Truly. You’ll be in charge. You’ll be a good leader.” 

“Me? What are you talking about, Ayden?” She was looking at him properly now, taking in the winter clothes he had donned and the blade he had strapped to his waist. “You’re the king.”

“I can’t stay here, Lota,” said Ayden. “You know that.” 

Lota tried to object but Ayden cut her off. 

“I have to follow the wyverns. Warn others. Prepare them. Do what Moro did for us, if it comes to it.” 

“But Moro died, Ayden. It was all for nothing. The wyverns destroyed everything again, despite him.” 

“It wasn’t for nothing. Last time, Moro was the only survivor. Here, you survived. Donal, Tala. Other children must have escaped. Survived.” Ayden looked around as if making a plan. “Burn a beacon. Seek them out. Lead them back here. Give them a home. Build something new.” Ayden laid his hands on her broom and smiled. “You’ve started already.” 

“But…” Lota looked around, seeking support. Donal took a deep breath and let it out again without a word. Tala stared blankly past them. 

“Donal will help you.” Ayden looked at Donal finally. “Call it my first and last command.” Donal held Ayden’s look. He trembled but nodded his head sharply, acknowledging the order. Ayden thought perhaps he saw the hint of a tear forming. “Tala will help too, once he wakes. He’s smart. Smarter than any of us.” 

Ayden turned and walked to the pillar to pick up the pitifully small travelling pack he had stowed there. He looked back over his shoulder. “Maybe one day I’ll come back…” . He didn’t sound convincing, even to himself, as he left.

And if not, he thought, I’ll always know that home is here, somewhere, behind me.