Odette turned on her heels. “Nadia?”
Nadia—Odette’s other second-in-command—bowed to Odette and Angelique. “Aye.”
Odette rested her hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Nadia will give you the best information. She has followed the wyvern as a swan since the morning it left our camp. She, myself, and two others faced it when Rothbart first set itloose.”
Angelique smiled. “Wonderful. Please tell me everything—what are its flight patterns? Where has it struck? What common attacks does ituse?”
Odette nodded to her comrade, then slippedaway.
“When we first faced it, it was very awkward with its wings and limbs,” Nadia said. “It was slow to fly, and it didn’t have much control. Unfortunately, it has grown more skilled the longer it has beenreleased.”
“It’s adept at flyingnow?”
“It’s adequate. By the time you are able to catch up with it, I imagine it might be adept,” Nadia admitted. “It will be hard to keep pace withit.”
“I’m not too concerned about that part.” Angelique smiled faintly as she thought of Pegasus. Keeping up with a wyvern, even a flying one, would be a breeze for the constellation. “However, I don’t care for the part where it could attack me while flying,” she mused. “I have good enough aim, and something as big as a wyvern will be hard to miss, but I still don’t like it. But I must beg your pardon, for I interrupted you. Please,continue.”
Nadia frowned thoughtfully and folded her arms across her chest as she considered Angelique’s other questions. “I can point out on a map where it has hit, but it’s mostly flown in a circle around Swan Lake. Sometimes it gets quite far, but it always veersback.”
“Perhaps it cannot go too far away fromRothbart?”
“It’s possible,” Nadia said. “But I wouldn’t be so sure of it. As for attacks, the most dangerous is its spit. It’s highly acidic and can eat through cloth and other substances. In the air, its tail is mostly used for steering, but when landed, it’s more of a hammer, and the wyvern smashes things with it. Like a bird of prey, it uses its hind legs to grasp. When landed, it’s smart enough to use its wings to corral and scoop or to deflectblows.”
This seems like it’s going to be much more difficult of a battle than the basilisk. And that one threw me on my rear for days.Angelique’s gaze stole to Odette’s gleaming daggers before she realized what she was doing and forced her eyes back on toNadia.
“You’ll want to mind its talons,” Nadia continued. “I saw it claw through a wooden cart once when attacking a village. Odette believes it has a keen sense of smell, so I stayed downwind from it. It’s not a delightful location given how the thing reeks, but I think it’s better to be safe in thiscase.”
“What are its weaknesses?” Angeliqueasked.
“We wounded it when we fought it some nights ago,” Nadia said. “We made some punctures to its wings and opened a nasty belly wound. Some of the soldiers it faced off against made the wound a little worse, but it doesn’t seem to bother it overlymuch.”
Nadia tipped her head back in thought. “It doesn’t like its head getting hit, and we think its greatest weakness are its eyes, but no one has been able to get a good enough shot to take advantage of it.” She frowned a little, then gestured at Odette. “Odette, though, hurt it when she flung a wet towel at it. The wyvern spat its acidic spit at the towel, which got plastered on the beast’s face. That’s mostly healed up, now, though. There’s just some discolorationleft.”
“So I’m about to face a beast capable of flight strikes and land battles with acidic drool it can spit from a distance. Additionally, it is, based on observation, able to function even when severely injured.” Angelique ticked off the wyvern’s unusual abilities on her fingers, then stared expectantly at thesmuggler.
Nadia nodded. “Yes.”
Angelique resisted the urge to rub her eyes.Yep.This is a lot worse than thebasilisk.
Nadia added, “I don’t know if it’s an encouragement, but it has to land pretty frequently—the holes in its wings mean flight takes greateffort.”
Angelique heaved a deep breath and forced a pleasant smile to her cheeks. “That is something,” she admitted. “Next, do you mind going over the ways it attacked the demolished villages—and thesoldiers?”
“Of course, LadyEnchantress.”
* * *
After another half-hourof conversing with Nadia, Angelique thought it was time todepart.
As she had first considered, she decided to pursue the wyvern before returning to spy on Rothbart. She couldn’t stomach the thought of leaving the creature to decimate the countryside, particularly as it stabilized its abilities, which is why she and Pegasus tore through the forest like a pair ofmaniacs.
But they didn’t find thewyvern.
Dawn had long come and gone, and theystillhadn’t found thewyvern.
Angelique’s stomach growled and, due to a general lack of sleep, the bright sunlight was a stabbing sensation at hertemples.
“How can a giant wyvern be so hard to locate?” Angelique fitted her spyglass to her eye and grumbled as she searched the sky for the monster. She slowly turned in a circle so she facedsouth.
