Chapter 15

Glaring up at Bern in disbelief, Roan shook his head. “If I knew, I’d avoid it!” Looking back at the wyvern, he stared in awe. “That’s gotta be bigger than the record!”

The wyvern leaned forward until it placed the claws of the front joints of its thick, leathery wings on the ground. Its sickly green scales reflected a sheen that gave it a slimy appearance. Along the length of its serpentine neck and bony back protruded a pincushion of spikes, drops of poison gleaming at their tips. Thick, craggy lips peeled away from needle-like teeth that stuck out at every angle from shiny, blackened gums. Drops of its saliva dripped to the ground, sizzling through the leaves. The maw made up most of the head, with intelligent yellow eyes that locked on Roan.

Narrowing his eyes in return, Roan noticed Draen clinging to the wyvern’s back, snarling with murderous rage, and pursed his lips. “I’m going to assume this is Ssolaar?”

A low, deep, rumbling hiss filled the air with an inhuman voice neither Roan nor Bern had ever heard. “Ssseeeekerrr.”

Their eyes widened, looking at each other.

“It can talk?!”

Turning back to it, Roan’s silver eye was nearly blinded by the force of its mana. Draen was a mere pip of blue, drowned by the fierce, overwhelming power that thrummed from the wyvern’s body in shimmering waves, powerful enough to prevent most creatures from getting near it. While Ssolaar did glance at Roan’s eye, his own will and magic was greater than the hold of the artifact.

“It must be ancient.” A wild grin stretched to Roan’s ears. “Let’s catch it!”

Bern’s head snapped back to him. “Dammit, Roan! This is how you’re gettin’ into these kinds of messes!”

Roan shook his head with a bemused expression. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Not waiting for a response, he placed his hand to the ground and spoke the phrase of his root trap spell. Looking down, the wyvern growled and the roots stopped at the surface, returning to their places in the soil.

Both Seekers stared in surprise. Recovering, Bern’s eyes glowed from within. “Let me try.”

Speaking a few words in a language that sounded like a rolling mountain, Bern lifted his upper hands while making signs with his lower. The ground under the wyvern shuddered and began to rise like the bars of a cage.

The wyvern’s eyes narrowed in a bored expression before letting out a snort. The bars crumbled back to dirt before they touched at the top. It shook its head to remove some of the dust.

Even more shocked, Bern shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t think this is happening.”

Roan was even more excited. “Oh, yeah. This is happening!”

With a grunt, Ssolaar flicked his head up and metal bars shot straight up in an instant, creating a thick cage around the giant.

Mouth agape, Bern looked at Roan. “It can control metal? _I_ can’t even control metal!” He pointed to himself with all four hands.

Pursing his lips in thought, Roan murmured a spell. Electricity crackled around him, quickly gathering to a pinpoint at his extended fingertip. With a final word, a blinding bolt of lightning sizzled across the divide.

Opening his mouth, Ssolaar allowed the bolt to strike him directly in his gaping maw. The lightning danced along his teeth as his tongue flicked about, moving his jaw as if chewing the spell. Making a gurgling kind of sound, the wyvern rolled the electricity into a ball and spat it back at the Seekers.

Caught off-guard, Roan had but a second to roll out of the way. Crackling past him, the ball’s many arrant bolts touched the metal cage Bern was trapped in and latched on, dancing jaggedly between the bars.

Bern glared at his partner. “Really, Roan?”

Roan shrugged, palms up. “What? You’re not conductive.”

“That’s not the point!” Bern exclaimed, throwing up his top pair of arms while bending the charged bars with the lower pair.

Waving his hand dismissively, Roan focused on the wyvern. “A proper pet requires a leash.” Murmuring the spell for his magical string, he whipped it across the divide to wrap around Ssolaar’s snout.

Growling, the wyvern lifted his head. With a wild yell, Roan held on as he was wrenched into the air. If he had tried to approach, the magic of the wyvern would have repelled him, but drawn willingly into the beast’s shield got him close enough to realize ... Bern had a point.

He got only a second to look up at the intimidating reptile before the breath was knocked from his body with a merciless weight that crushed all chances of getting it back. Locked under the wing of the wyvern, his bones ached. The ground had been loosened by his root spell earlier, giving way to save him from shattering, but he was reaching the end of the ground’s blessing.

A magical missile shot through the air with a piercing sound. It exploded against Ssolaar’s body in a sparkle of energy, knocking him off balance so that he had to move off Roan. Glaring towards the road, the wyvern bared his teeth at the figures making their way closer. A wizard with a beard as grey as his robes embroidered with the emblem of the Seekers rode on the back of a muscular centaur who was strapped head to hoof in weapons.