Wardens of the Wild

There weren't always wyverns in the valley. Wyverns belonged in the peaks of mountains and were supposed to rule the skies. When Abel was young, his elders had told him stories of a world with thousands of these majestic creatures, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. They had existed for eons before humanity discovered magic and emerged from the caves where they once hid.

And then something must have happened. Outside the walls that protected human society, a war that they couldn't see raged between monsters. As the decades passed, fewer and fewer wyverns could be found in the skies. Now there were only a few dozen left at all.

All that remained of their once-proud race now existed in this valley, deep in the untamed wildlands. They hid in scraped-out caves which they barely fit, too afraid to fly again. It was a dull ember of the life they had once known.

Standing at the crest of the vast hills surrounding their home, looking down through wisps of fog and enormous evergreen trees that shielded the wyvern's last remnants from view, Abel felt a rush of desire and purpose to protect them.

He also felt that something was different here than it was the time they had visited. Something felt wrong.

Abel looked up to his companion, worry clear on his face. "Do you feel it too, Hector?"

The legendary mage who had taken him under his wing stood a full foot taller than him. One rugged fist gripped tight to a staff made of dark shimmering rock, and the other scratched his beard thoughtfully. He smiled back. "I'm not the one who's good at this stuff, pal. You tell me. What do you feel?"

"I don't know." Abel muttered, anxious. "It doesn't feel dangerous. But it doesn't feel good either. It's like… a song being sung by swords."

"Oh? Well. That's a hell of an analogy." Hector shifted his weight and looked at the long road down, grimacing a little. "Should we go down and check it out?"

The younger boy hesitated for a moment. If this feeling turned out to be nothing, he didn't want to be the reason they had wasted so much time.

"That settles it then. Let's take a look." The mage clapped Abel's shoulder with a grin, almost making him stumble forward.

"What? Hey, wait! Are you sure?" He had to take three frantic steps to fall back beside him.

"Better safe than sorry, they say." Hector smiled. "And if it's nothing, we get to see the wyverns again, hey?"

Despite himself, Abel grinned too. Of all the magical creatures they saw on their journeys together, the wyverns were his favourite.

Being a Warden of the Wilds—Hector's name for it, not his—their job was to scout the wilderness between cities for dangerous monsters, to give their people time to activate the defences that had let them survive for as long as they had.

But the more he and Hector saw, the more they fell in love with the peaceful, fantastical creatures that existed out here. They felt obligated to protect the monsters, too.

The path down to the valley was never easy. The plants and trees had become especially strange since the wyverns had arrived.

Hector told him that the world itself—the very ground beneath their feet—had felt the creatures' desire to stay hidden. As decades passed, enormous evergreens had sprouted in response. The trees here used to be short and stocky, with heads like fluffy balls of cotton. Now their sun-starved corpses were only prickly barriers in their way; the soft leaves long gone.

"You'd think we could do something to make this path a little easier." The big man said, leaning against a tree as he let Abel catch up with him.

"What do you mean by that?" He panted. "You want to use… some kind of spell?"

"Tempting. But no." Hector smiled. He planted his heavy staff into the ground, his eyes watching the white lights that gleamed from within the dark stone. "You know why we can use magic and other monsters can't."

"I don't believe that. They have souls too." Abel huffed as he swung over an enormous fallen tree.

Hector gripped the staff a bit tighter. "I know you don't. But if you give them one of these, they can't use it."

"I—oof!" Landing on the steep hill, Abel nearly lost his balance on the slope and had to catch himself. "I can't use magic either. I still have a soul…"

"But if you touch this, it'll at least stop what it's doing and listen to you. We're the ones connected to the world's magic, Abel. Not…" Hector trailed off, catching himself before he could raise his voice. He waved a hand in an apologetic gesture, dismissing what he was about to say. "Sorry, I'm getting carried away again. You okay?" His smile was an offer of peace.

Abel's shined right back. He joined Hector's side again, and the two of them continued further into the valley. "Anyways!" His friend stretched. "I'm just saying, if all these trees rose up to protect the wyverns, you'd think our souls would change the land a bit too. Make this path a little more… human friendly."

"Ah. I see, I think" Abel looked down towards the trees below, wondering to himself. "Maybe there's a reason it isn't that way."

"I hope not. We're the only ones who know this place exists. I'd be feeling a little offended if the valley was trying to keep us out." Although his voice was light-hearted, Hector took a half step closer to Abel. "By the way… how's the feeling you sensed earlier? Still there?"

"It is. It's louder now that we're here." They had almost reached the bottom, now. He frowned again, trying to understand what the sensation meant.

"That could be bad. Or good. I don't know." The mage sighed. "But just in case…" He sat down onto his knees, tilting his head forward so his forehead rested on the end of his staff. Hector closed his eyes and began muttering quiet words of power.

His expression shed its nonchalant nature, and the stone in his hands thudded like a heartbeat as the magic awakened. It began to ring softly, like a sword pulled out of its sheath.

In response to its song, the wisps of seeds floating through the sky seemed to slow as they passed, and the trees seemed to bend ever so slightly, as if leaning closer to listen. Hector began to look more like the man from the stories that he truly was.

"Hey." He hadn't opened his eyes, and Abel almost jumped when he spoke. Hector's voice seemed to echo, both quiet and seeming to come from all directions at once. He spoke carefully, like trying not to wake a sleeping dragon. "While I… prepare… I would hate to be caught with my pants down, so to speak. Can you…"

"On it!" Abel leapt to his feet. In less than a moment, he had already scurried away and disappeared behind the trees.

He already knew it was his job to make sure they weren't surprised by any other creatures, but that wasn't why he had left so quickly.

As much as he truly cared for his mentor, magic scared him. Seeing Hector awaken its power made his heart do flips in his chest, like watching something unimaginably huge and powerful turn its attention to him.

He just wanted to see the wyverns.

Even now, he could see signs of their lives, sad and tethered to the ground as they were. There were paths where the earth had been ripped away to reveal the hard stone beneath, dug away by countless footsteps beneath enormous claws.

The trees had disappeared here—the wyvern's homes were still shielded from view from the mountain's edges—but to the east the ground cleared away to reveal a vast, beautiful plain with rolling hills and an empty sky. Tantalizing and too dangerous to ever soar in again.

There were markings of ravaged wood on the trees, that Abel easily recognized as a wyvern leaping into the air and chasing its prey as it fled from tree to tree. It made him smile to imagine what that must have looked like.

It almost made him forget the feeling of dark, uncertain dread that was growing and growing with each step.

Still smiling, Abel rounded the edge of a gigantic boulder that showed markings of being used to sharpen draconic claws.

And he had to clamp his hands over his mouth not to shriek.

A dozen meters away, far closer than he had ever been before, were more than twenty wyverns all packed together. Each one was in a different shade of black and red and gold. They had gathered together in one wide half-circle, but their forms were so huge that Abel still couldn't see what they were looking at, or what was going on behind them.

After surprise came confusion. Wyverns were highly intelligent. Their senses were incredibly sharp. He should never have made it within this distance without them sensing him and disappearing—or at least letting loose with an earth-shaking roar that was his warning to come no closer.

But instead of, well, any of that, here Abel was. He was so close that he could see the individual spokes of sharp bone poking from their wings. He saw the metallic blades that could cut steel at the ends of their long tails. He was close enough that they could lunge out and swipe him in half in the time it took for him to start running.

Abel's hands were still tight over his mouth, trying not to even breathe while his pounding heart demanded for air. Knowing that logically, even the slightest noise or footstep over the stones should be enough to alert them of his presence. He had never had a direct encounter with the Wyverns without Hector at his side, and he was suddenly aware of how small and defenceless he was against the wyvern's immense power.

His mind still raced like a mouse from cover to cover. If they hadn't noticed him now, maybe his luck would hold out. Maybe he could still get out of sight and survive. Although that really wouldn't stop them from catching him because he was deep within their hearing range—and how on earth had he made it this far anyway? They should have heard him long ago and by all accounts he should have been detected more than half a mile away and that's not even accounting for—

Almost lazily, one enormous golden wyvern swung its neck around. Then it froze, and its eyes locked directly on those of Abel's. The boy's frantic thinking stopped.

As if noticing the absence of the first creature's stare, a second equally terrifying beast turned its gaze on Abel, too. And then another. The pounding of the poor boy's heart was so loud that he hadn't realized he'd started making scared squeaks from between his fingers.

But against all odds, and perhaps their very nature of being afraid of outsiders, not a single one made a move to attack him. Nor did they take defensive postures or even growl at him to back off. They simply stared, alert and afraid and cautious.

And strangely, a detail Abel only noticed in the back of his frightened mind, there was no intelligence in their eyes. They looked awake, yet they weren't. Not truly.

Through the deafening thumping in his ears, Abel barely noticed that heavy footsteps had been approaching him from around the corner. Before it was too late to send a warning, he heard Hector's voice as he rounded the boulder himself. "There you are. I was worried you'd gotten yourself—"

His voice fell into stupefied silence. His free hand instinctively grabbed the lower end of his staff. He had just enough time to mutter, "Oh."

And then the wyverns saw him, and the ground itself shook with three deafening, furious roars. The leader of the clutch of dragons, the golden one, whirled around and unleashed a gout of white flame so bright that Abel felt he was staring at the sun.

A wyvern's roar wasn't just physically loud. It made men's bones feel like jelly and their legs forget how to run. Abel had fallen to the ground, curled on his knees and covering his ears from the sheer terrifying noise.

But Hector slammed his staff into the ground and yelled a word of power at the top of his lungs. From the magic in the air itself, dozens of transparent, glimmering hexagons formed a barrier between himself and the mighty wyverns. The river of fire slammed into it, then curled around them. Even as the onslaught continued, the man reached down and grabbed Abel from beneath his arm. "Come on. Let's go!"

With a grunt of effort, Hector slammed his staff against an invisible wall, and a mighty rush of power shoved back against the flames. It sent the dragon's fire back in their direction and turned their heads to the side, squinting against the wind, and their flames washed harmlessly over their scales. But it had bought them the time they needed. Hector half dragged, half carried Abel behind him.

After the first step, the boy began to regain his senses. He was vaguely aware of the ground passing by beneath him, and the protective grip latched to his arm like an iron manacle.

As his mind caught back up to him, everything he had been too afraid to notice came roaring back. He looked up to Hector and cried out, "Wait! We need to go back! Something is horribly wrong!"

"Are you crazy? They're way too riled up!" Hector yelled back. He didn't slow down.

"But they could be in trouble! This isn't normal at all!"

"Talk later! More running!" The big man looked back over his shoulder, expecting any moment to see a mountain of scales and bone and muscle descending upon them. His staff sang in its high-pitched shriek of battle, awake and ready to be called to action.

But the wyverns just stared as they ran, alert and cautious of their presence.

And still without the light of life, like they weren't truly awake.

Hector didn't stop until they had reached the open sky to the east. They fell to their knees into soft grass, almost swallowed by the seemingly endless sea of rolling hills that stretched out before them.

As he let go of Abel, he let out a relieved gasp, taking another instinctive glance over his shoulder. "They didn't even chase us. Not that I'm complaining…" Hector looked over to Abel. "You okay? What the hell was going on?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you!" Abel was just as out of breath, but he could barely stand still on his feet. "Wyverns… they aren't supposed to group in packs like that! They're solitary creatures! And for some reason they just didn't even notice me! They should have heard me coming and they didn't! Or maybe they did but they didn't care, I don't know! But—"

"Yeah. You're right. You're right." Even as Hector said it, the boy noticed the gentle tone in his voice was meant to calm him down. It only made him angry, and more anxious. "What did you see, Abel? And was that feeling there? The singing swords?"

Shakily, the boy nodded. "It was. It was stronger, too. I've never felt something like that before." He paused, trying to find the right words. "Nothing was binding them, but it's like they were trapped. Oh, Hector, I really really need to go back."

"No. No running back. It's too dangerous." There was suddenly iron in his voice. "They will kill you."

"They could have if they wanted to, but they didn't!" He protested. "They only got scared because they saw you!"

"They would have killed both of us." The man added darkly. "I know you have a gift, Abel, but they didn't care about you getting caught in their fire. This is too dangerous to rely on that."

"I know! I know…" Abel lowered his voice. He knew Hector was trying to protect him. He shouldn't be yelling at him like he was trying to stop him from helping.

He just couldn't stop seeing the way the wyvern's eyes had been so dead and dull.

Somehow, he just knew that none of this was their fault.

All the while, Hector was telling him, "We have time to make a plan. We'll go help them when it's safe, okay? We just need to wait for them to calm down. Then we'll try and take a look at what's going on."

Abel was only half listening, though. His eyes were on Hector's staff. It was still awake, or however the soul stone worked. With each thrum of power, it rang out softly like a sword being drawn from its sheath. The grass around them leaned closer as if to listen to its song, forming an unnatural circle that ignored the swaying of the wind.

There was something about it that made his mind itch, like a memory that was just out of reach. He looked away from Hector, out into the Wildlands. He wished he was strong enough to do more to help.

And then the ground began to shake beneath his feet. Hector's eyes shot wide open, searching around for signs of danger. A short while later, the sound hit them both. An endless rumbling like thunder crashed over them, making Abel squint his eyes with the sheer magnitude of its wake. He wondered what could have ever created such a noise.

The horrible sound didn't stop. It was one long, protracted roar of violence that didn't end. It only grew louder and louder.

Then something stepped into the ocean of rolling hills.

No. That should have been impossible. Where the plains met the cliffs of the valley in Abel's field of view was miles away at least. And yet, an enormous thing that defied any form the boy could understand as alive appeared, silhouetted against the light of the sky.

"Hector?" His voice sounded small and weak even to him.

"I see it too, buddy." His mentor breathed.

It had no legs, and yet it walked. A dozen impossibly huge rings spun and twisted against the ground, raking deep lacerations into the grasslands as it carried itself further. It had no face or arms or eyes, but in the centre of the whirling metal or bone or whatever it was that formed this thing, a bright white orb of something alive pulsed, and watched.

At the centre of the space between the grasslands and the valley, it finally ceased its movement, and the horrible noise stopped.

Though even as it did so, its rings continued to swivel around it in slow circles, until one by one they slid into place like a mechanism. Swirling circles became a flat wall spiralling outwards, facing in the direction of the wyvern's valley.

Then the eye in the centre of it all began to glow brighter, and a narrow beam of light swung across the mountains, swung back, and finally locked on to a space not high above Abel and Hector's heads. It was pointed at the clearing in the forest behind them.

At the creatures who had unnaturally come together for reasons unknown. Who were too asleep to sense threats that should have been obvious to them. Abel realized this was all connected.

The eye continued to grow brighter and brighter, and a horrible feeling of danger and dread began to fill the very air. The wyverns were in the perfect position to be finally wiped out into extinction, in one singular strike.

Abel's heart filled with fear, knowing he was powerless to stop what was coming.

But at his side, Hector slammed his staff into the ground. It stayed upright on its own as he let it go, and he clenched his fists and shouted words in a language Abel didn't understand. His weapon rang louder and louder with each word.

From his fist came an explosion of light, and then a dense ball of destruction magic screamed out across the sky, towards the circular construct and straight at its eye.

But just before impact, a white barrier spun to life and Hector's spell exploded into a cloud of black smoke and lightning. As the chaos cleared, the spiral appeared to be completely undamaged, and its shield held strong. "Blast it." He heard Hector gasp.

Then the monstrous construct fired back.

A long white beam of pure energy ignited where the point of light had been aiming. It reached the valley in the time it took Abel to blink—and it crashed into an invisible wall that Hector had barely erected in time, a few meters above his head.

The sound was horrible, like metal shrieking, and as the endless seconds passed it refused to relent. Hector grit his teeth, resting one hand on his leg as effort overwhelmed him. The other arm stayed defiantly outstretched and his staff glowed brighter and brighter, until it was the colour of molten metal. But he refused to allow his shield to break and let the wyverns die.

Finally, mercifully, the onslaught of power ended. The shrieking faded into a slowly-fading hum as the power dissipated. Hector fell to his knees, panting hard. "Father Earth and Hells below." He cursed. "What was that thing?"

Abel couldn't answer. Of course he didn't know.

But in the silence between them, something else was happening from where the eye still stood. It was a wide beam of light that brushed across the mountains, as if searching for something.

Then once again, a bright pinpoint of light pointed in the direction of the wyverns. Abel realized it had been checking for survivors.

"Hector… I can't just stay here." The boy looked up at his companion, desperation in his eyes. He would rather die than to just stand here and watch this happen.

There was a terrible, conflicted pause. And then… "Go." His friend hissed. But his voice was full of fear and worry. Not for himself, but for Abel's life. But even he knew there was no longer any other choice. "I don't know if I can stop another one of this thing's attacks, Abel. Go!"

He ran as fast as he could.

It was one thing to think about running toward monsters that could swallow him whole. He quickly learned it was entirely different to actually do it. His mind quickly began screaming at him, ringing confused alarm bells. It told him how easy it would be to simply change directions and let this happen. He'd be able to live another day. Wyverns were just one species, weren't they? The sun would rise without them.

What a horrible thought. The idea made him feel sick. Abel pressed on, and he tried to run even faster.

He'd hoped the monsters had sensed the attack that would have killed them all if Hector hadn't stopped it. All they had to do was fly away and they would be nigh impossible to find again. But when he returned to the clearing in the forest, they were all maddeningly still there. Half-asleep, yet clearly afraid of something.

It took every ounce of willpower to slow down, but Abel didn't want to alarm them even further by barrelling towards them. Even at a brisk jog, he felt agonizingly slow. He could still feel the construct gathering its power behind him.

Death behind him, and death in front of him. The wyverns had noticed his presence now, and Abel was terribly aware of how easily they could eat him if they decided to. But he didn't stop.

"W-what are you all doing?!" He cried at them, hearing how thready and afraid his own voice was. "Why are you just standing there? That thing's trying to kill you! You're all going to die! Go away!"

His voice made the wyverns react, at least. Some drew their heads back and others drew their teeth. One or two lowered themselves to the floor so they could look at him more closely, growling a soft rumble that still shook his bones.

But they didn't move.

They didn't attack him, either.

With his heart trying to pound its way out of his chest, Abel took another shaky step closer, and then another. He was close enough to see the wicked fangs between their jaws, and the sight of their talons had become like a physical force that pushed him to run away.

He stepped further, passing within arm's reach of a black wyvern whose glowing red eyes followed him as he went. He could feel its breath on his skin, so hot that it hurt. He could have reached out and touched it if he tried, and even the thought of doing so made him shake with fright.

But as he passed through the circle of enormous beasts, miraculously unharmed, something else grabbed his attention. He gasped out loud and stopped where he was, the wyverns completely forgotten.

In the centre of the clutch of monsters, an enormous soul stone shimmered in the earth. It was a sphere; bright white and awake with power, exactly in the way that Hector's staff responded to his will. Even drunk with fear and with death all around him…

He knew that this could have only been brought here by other humans. Humans who wanted to bring the wyverns to extinction.

But this didn't feel anything like the magic he was used to. This felt subversive and corrupting and sticky and wrong. He started to find that the more he looked at the humming stone, the harder he found it to look away. The more he listened, the more the stone's song sounded like a soothing melody.

Abel's body wanted to sit down and relax. He felt like he was a child again, waiting in his bed for his mother to come and tell him a story so he could sleep. For that… he could wait as long as he needed for her to appear. It felt nice for the fear to melt away.

Then the sky itself erupted behind him. Abel whirled around, and saw the claws of extinction itself reaching hungrily for the wyverns around him.

But something stopped it. Exhausted as he was, He knew Hector was standing against the forces of destruction, fighting its horrible power beyond his limits.

He knew that he couldn't hold out for much longer.

"Please! Listen to me!" Abel's vision blurred with tears of sheer frustration. "You need to GO! Ugh!" Abandoning all reason, he shoved against one of the wyverns watching him, and only succeeded in skidding his boots across the loose dirt. Its scales were harder than iron. It just kept watching him, still half asleep.

"Please… We're all about to die." With tears in his eyes, Abel begged the beautiful creature to listen to him. "I just want to save you."

It met his gaze, and held it. The monster's eyes could have hid the depths of an ocean inside them. Its exhale was a gentle rumble that thudded against Abel's ribs.

Then a flicker of something appeared in those golden eyes. Sleepily, it lowered its head and nudged Abel towards the soul stone in the centre of the clearing.

"W-what?" He asked as he tried not to stumble. "What do you want me to do?"

It didn't answer. Of course it couldn't. It simply continued to stare at him expectantly.

"I can't! I can't help you with this!" He yelled. Helplessness threatened to mix with everything else and overwhelm him. "I can't use magic! I can't just touch it!"

Then, like being struck by a bolt of lightning, Hector's words from before rang out like they were coming from the wyvern itself.

"But if you touch it, it'll at least stop what it's doing and listen to you. We're the ones connected to the world's magic."

Was that from you? Abel wanted to ask, but he was about to die. There was nothing else he could do to help. So with a shaking hand, the young boy reached out to touch the soul stone.

For one horrible moment, the weight of something conscious pressed into him. He felt a mind that was hateful and afraid, powerful and with anger like ancient burning coal. He felt the sensation of smug satisfaction at a job well done.

Then the feeling passed, and the air was filled with roars of fear and surprise. A brief tornado shook the earth and nearly threw Abel off his feet, and suddenly he was the only one standing there.

At the moment of Abel's touch, the wyverns had snapped back to sudden consciousness and sensed the danger, quickly flying away to safety.

All except for the one who had looked him in the eyes. It was wide awake now, and glimmering with intelligence beyond anything Abel had ever seen. It lowered its snout to the earth, so close that Abel had to step back not to be too close.

As if annoyed he had done so, It snorted impatiently. It pressed itself towards Abel again, with its eyes fixed to the soul stone's shining light.

"I… I think I understand what you want." The boy whimpered. With one hand, he placed his palm on the wyvern's snout. With the other, he placed it on the stone. Then at once, like before, he felt the weight of a consciousness far deeper and older than he had ever imagined. He realized it was the will of the wyvern's mind, briefly passing through his own, and into the soul stone next to him.

And then the wyvern used magic.