Chapter Three Hundred and Twenty-Six - Introductions are in Order

The carriage rattled and shook as we rode up towards the edge of the city. Not one of the sections that hung off the side of the mountain, or even towards one of the many ports surrounding Goldenalden. No, we were heading up, towards the taller parts of the city where it more or less disappeared into the mountain.

Even after just twenty minutes of riding along steep switch-back roads, I could tell that the air had grown just a little bit thinner. It was certainly colder. Awen was stuck between Amaryllis and I with a heap of blankets on top of herself, and she was still shivering a little.

I shifted around and wrapped an arm over her shoulder. “There, that’ll warm you up a little,” I said.

“Thank you,” Awen said.

“You know, it’s only going to get colder once we’re in the air,” Amaryllis noted. “And the air will only grow thinner.”

“I’m used to it onboard a ship,” Awen said. “But being stationary makes it different somehow. Also, I don’t think we usually flew all that high with the Beaver.”

I grinned. “I’m kind of excited about this. Last time, when we flew with Rhawrexdee, I could barely tell what was happening. I spent the entire flight focusing on not falling off his back.”

Amaryllis gave me a look. “You’re so reckless,” she said.

“I’m sure the sylph have a bunch of safety precautions. They seem like very safety-minded people,” I said.

“Yes, probably because they had a few people like you in their ranks before they slipped out of the population,” Amaryllis said.

I harrumphed at her. “You know, what you’re doing now isn’t legal here.”

“What?” Amaryllis asked, her grin shifting away in place of confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Being so smug isn’t allowed here.”

“I doubt they made a law about it,” Amaryllis said, rather smugly at that.

“It’s called smuggling, and it’s not allowed.”

Amaryllis stared at me, then she looked to Awen. “Can we switch seats? I need to smack Broccoli around a bit.”

We tussled a bit, filling the carriage with laughter and Awen’s squeaky giggles. Eventually though, the carriage rolled to a stop and we all paused to look out and see what was going on. We were at a gatehouse that blocked the roadway. It was manned by a single young sylph dressed in an ill-fitting guard’s outfit. He spoke to the carriage driver, and we were let through.

Our carriage circled around a driveway next to a tower that stuck out from the mountainside. It reminded me of the old palace where the summit had taken place. This had to be a place built with magic. There was careful stonework on the outside, but the rearmost wall seemed to almost melt into the mountain itself.

“I suppose this is it,” Amaryllis said. She pushed the door open, peeked outside, then jumped out.

Awen shed her blankets and did the same, with me following right behind her.

“I guess we go to the tower,” I said with a gesture to the building in question. There were a few other places nearby, newer looking barracks and a warehouse with a tin roof, but there didn’t seem to be too much going on up here.

“I’ll be heading back down, as ordered,” the carriage driver said. “Do you need any help with your things?”

I shook my head, jumped up onto the back of the carriage, and then tossed our stuff down to Awen and Amaryllis who caught all of our gear. We didn’t have all that much. A few tools, some weapons, and packs that Caprica had found for us with survival meals and tents and such.

After saying goodbye to the carriage driver, we started towards the tower only for the front doors to glide open, letting a few sylph to spill out. One of them was immediately recognizable.

“Bastion!” I cheered.

The paladin smiled. “Hello, Broccoli. Awen, Amaryllis,” he greeted with a nod to my friends. He planted his feet in place so that my hug wouldn’t bowl him over, patting my back with a chuckle. “It hasn’t been that long, I don’t know if I deserve such treatment.”

“Of course you do,” I said as I backed out of the hug. “You’re a friend and I haven’t seen you in over three hours, that’s enough reason for a proper hugging. It’s been days. So much happened!”

Bastion conceded the point with a nod. “I suppose we have all been rather busy,” he said. He half-turned to gesture to the two sylph that had come out with him. “Let me introduce my companions here. This is Menos Salvonote, and Winnow Underwing.”

Menos was a very young sylph knight with a breastplate that looked a tiny bit too big for his chest. He was otherwise wearing a leather uniform, with fur ruff at the neck and sleeves and I think around the holes for his wings. He nodded, which made the leather and plate cap on his head (with big goggles) bounce a bit. “Pleasure,” he said.

“Hello,” Winnow replied. She was older and just a pinch shorter than Bastion, with a serious set to her brow but bright eyes that seemed curious and happy. She had the same sort of gear on as Menos, though she lacked the breastplate and cap.

“These are ladies Awen Bristlecone and Amaryllis Albatross, and this is Captain Broccoli Bunch,” Bastion introduced us. Amaryllis nodded curtly and Awen gave them a little wave. “Captain Willow and knight Menos here will be the ones escorting you to the Trenten Flats.”

“Oh?” I asked. “You’re both... what do we call people who fly on wyverns here?”

“Wyvern knights,” Menos said. It was clear he was pretty proud of his job. “The few and the brave. The kings of the open skies.”

Winnow chuckled. “We’re hardly the kings of the sky. We are knights though, which ought to suggest a certain pattern of behaviour.” The last was very pointedly aimed right at Menos, who straightened.

I nodded along. “That sounds really cool. Will we be flying together? Two to a wyvern?”

“That was the plan, yes,” Bastion said. “It’s safer that way, and having someone inexperienced leading a wyvern, especially so far from the usual training airspace, is unwise.”

“So, you’ll be adventuring with us again,” Amaryllis said to Bastion.

The paladin nodded. “One more time, at least,” he said. “Though we are merely bringing you to your destination. It isn’t much of an adventure at all.”

“Oh, don’t worry, there’s always plenty of things that can go wrong, monsters that can show up, and bad guys to fight,” I said.

Amaryllis whapped me behind the head with her feathers. “Don’t go begging for trouble, Broccoli, the World is liable to give you more than you can handle.”

I pouted at her back, but she was probably right.

“Do you want to meet the wyverns?” Winnow asked. And just like that, she had all of my attention.

We walked into the tower, which turned out to look more like an office building on the inside, with the first couple of floors obviously dedicated to all the paperwork and bureaucracy needed to take care of a group of wyvern knights.

“This is the Goldenalden tower,” Winnow said. “We have one of these towers next to most important cities, and there are a few more dotted here and there across the mountains, some in secret locations, others out in the open.”

“How many wyverns are there?” I asked.

“You mean those bred in captivity? Fewer than a thousand. Half of those aren’t ever going to be used for any sort of fighting. We do have couriers and other jobs for those wyverns who don’t pass the training to become aerial combat wyverns,” Winnow explained.

“What about in the wild?” Awen asked.

“Far fewer,” Winnow said. “Unfortunately, wyverns are a threat to lone sylph and even smaller airships. They’ll avoid cities unless something has disturbed them, but they’re still a threat. The only wild flights are far to the north and east where settlements are sparse and there’s no real air-traffic.”

That was a little sad, but probably understandable. We continued to climb up the stairs while Winnow told us more about the wyverns. They were apparently gluttonous eaters if you let them. They were also lizards, so they were cold blooded and really enjoyed a bit of warmth. It was one of the rewards they gave to a well-behaved wyvern, so we didn’t need to panic if we saw a knight spraying one with some magical fire.

We reached the top of the tower. One half of the room was a ramp leading up onto the flat roof, where I imagined wyverns could take off. The rest of the tower pushed into the mountain and was filled with big pens with metal bars between them.

Wyverns slept within those, and I started to feel nervous about our flight for the first time. They were so big! Each wyvern had a pen big enough that we could have parked the Beaver within it if we were willing to squish it in a little.

A wyvern raised its head up from the bed of straw it was resting on and watched us walk past. Its head was taller than I was, ears and all. It could have chomped me in half if it wanted to, I think.

“We’ll be taking Bloodfang, Greencrest, and Little Doug today,” Winnow said.

I blinked. “Those are the names of the wyverns?” I asked.

She nodded. “They are. They should be saddled up for us already, but we’ll go and meet them first. It’s good form to get them used to your smell and what you look like before a flight. Especially since none of you are sylph. You’ll look and smell different from what they’re used to.”

We stopped by Little Doug’s cage first, and Menos stepped up and opened a slim door in the cage and stepped in without hesitation.

Little Doug had a chest bigger around than the carriage we used to get to the tower, and was as long as the Beaver Cleaver was wide. “Hey there, little guy,” Melos said as he patted the wyvern’s snout.

“Why is he called Little Doug?” I asked.

“Oh, he was the runt,” Winnow said. “Almost failed every test. By all rights he shouldn’t have been trained any further, but we discovered that he’s one of the most soft and docile wyverns we’ve raised. Not optimal for an aerial combattant, but he doesn’t mind new knights flying on him. So he’s the training mount for a lot of newer knights and when we need to escort VIPs around, Little Doug’s the wyvern to go to.”

“Oh,” I said. So he was just a friendly little guy. I liked him already!

“He seems nice,” Awen said.

“Good, then you can ride on him with Knight Melos. Go on in, he’ll show you how to greet Doug, and then we’ll have some of the stablehands load your gear up,” Winnow said.

A wide-eyed Awen was ushered into the wyvern’s cage. She stood back for a bit, but Awen was quite brave when she wanted to be (and the situation wasn’t a social one) so she walked over to the wyvern and gave it her hand to sniff as if it was a big dog.

“A Wyvern’s sense of smell isn’t great,” Winnow said. “But their eyesight is second to none. Their hearing is awful, but enough that they can hear orders.”

“How long have you been working with them?” I asked as we continued on.

“Oh, nearly a decade now. Which is a long time for a wyvern knight. It’s very much a young person’s career.”

“How long do wyverns... work for?” I asked.

“Three, maybe four decades,” Winnow said. “Depending on injuries and how gracefully they age. We train them to be used to multiple knights, but they do have favourites. Come, this is Greencrest, Sir Bastion will be flying her.”

***