The Only Option by Megan Derr

Author:Megan Derr [Derr, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-03-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Whatever Rochus had expected upon reaching Rothenberg Kill, it had entailed something. Not a whole lot of nothing.

The first few abandoned farmhouses had been unusual but not particularly strange, but when he'd reached a village and found it empty—that was strange. When he reached the town that was supposed to be just a couple of hour's south of Rothenberg Castle and found it empty as well…

That wasn't strange, but straight up ominous.

Worse, it looked like everyone had left on purpose. He supposed that was better than a surprise attack that sent everyone fleeing in a panic, or the whole town being dragged off. But it still struck him as worse that an entire territory had packed up and left.

And yet somehow, word never reached the royal castle that something was wrong in Rothenberg Kill. Then again, if the Queen's Hands were involved, even just a few of them, nothing would reach Irmhild if they didn't want it to.

Irmhild was going to burst into flame. Rochus almost wished he'd be there to witness it. Nothing was more hilarious than Irmhild on the warpath—when he wasn't the target, anyway.

He paused at a town board to see if there were any notices posted about what had happened, but the most recent looking posting was about some pigs available for sale, followed by a yearly feast hosted by Tilo's family that would be taking place two months ago. Forget Irmhild, Rochus was going to start murdering people himself, and if they thought an angry queen was bad, it was only because they'd never seen an angry necro—

A deafening roar made him startle so badly he nearly knocked himself out of the saddle. Fury trembled beneath him, and Song cawed irritably from where she and Silence had perched on top of the board. “That had better not be what I think it is,” Rochus said. Because if it was, he was going to well and truly lose his temper and he wouldn't be very sorry about it later.

“Let's go,” he said, wheeling Fury around, soothing his trembling with a gentle touch. “Drop me off and you can find somewhere better to be, beautiful.”

Fury relaxed under his touch and pressed on, Song and Silence coming to rest on Rochus's shoulders. Memory dropped down to prowl ahead, growling softly as she crept through the high grass.

“There's no way you can kill it yourself—bone wyverns aren't toys!” Rochus shouted after her.

Memory replied with a derisive meow and kept going.

Rochus lifted his eyes to the sky, but he sobered as they crested the hill and looked down in the valley below, where he immediately saw two things:

The sound had indeed been a bone wyvern, which was currently fighting Tilo.

And Tilo was losing. His beautiful sunset orange scales were smeared with blood; his left wing drooped and his right wing dragged.

A bone wyvern: the animated corpse of a giant wyvern. It would take not one but tens, even hundreds, of spirits to bring back a dead giant wyvern if its own spirit was not immediately captured at death.

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