The wyvern’s first swooping attack was so smoothly carried out, that no one in the procession even noticed the cavalryman in the rear being clawed out of his saddle, and hurled to his death. The rumble of distant thunder, and the chink and jangle of the horses plodding along on the heavy earth, masked what sound the steady thrum of the rain on their steel plated armor didn’t drown out. The wyvern’s second attack wasn’t so successful – though it might have been, had its first victim’s horse not whinnied out in fright and confusion.
The noise brought Jarrek’s head around. A dark flash of movement caught his eye, just as the wyvern’s claw clamped down on his shoulder plate. He couldn’t do more than avoid the beast’s other claw, but the fact that he was looking in the right place at that moment saved him from having his face ripped off. Such was the force of the wyvern’s momentum, that Jarrek was unhorsed. He fell from the creature’s grasp, and landed heavily in the sloppy mud. Captain Proct, of the King’s Honor Guard, snatched up the reins of Jarrek’s horse, and began calling out orders.
“Hargh and you!” he pointed at the remaining cavalrymen. “Get the wizard into the forest! Now!” He paused, seeing his King struggling to get to his feet in the slippery mud. “Markeen, help me cover the King!”
The edge of the tree line was just a good hard gallop away. The red armored King’s Guard, Hargh, had already snatched the reins out of Targon’s hands, while the terrified bridge guard spurred his horse ahead of them towards the trees. The fact that he separated himself from the others so quickly cost him.
The wyvern came thumping down on heavy wings, directly in front of the man’s horse. The horse rose up, and lashed out with its hooves, but the toothy maw of the black-scaled terror shot past them like a striking viper. The horse and rider fell, the animal thrashing in its death throes as it did so. Half of its neck and throat was already being chugged down the wyvern’s long snaky gullet. The man screamed again, as the horse’s body crushed his leg, but the sound was drowned out by the thundering storm.
Hargh led the wizard swiftly towards the forest, in a route than arced around the feeding creature. Captain Proct took a chance, and deftly strung up the bow he’d taken from an abandoned shop at High Crossing. He knew the gut string wouldn’t hold its tension long in the rain, but he hoped to get at least two or three arrows loosed before it stretched and was wasted.
In a move that surprised everyone, the wyvern left the screaming bridge guard pinned under his horse, and darted across the muddy ground towards Hargh and Targon. Its hind claws sent up great splashes of dirty water as it threw back its wings, and dove in for a headlong attack.
Hargh slapped Targon’s horse in the rump with the flat of his blade, and then came around with his sword held high. The wizard was carried out of harm’s way. Hargh’s steel met black scales, while razor sharp claws came ripping upward. The man’s sword bit deeply, nearly severing one of the wyvern’s fore-claws, but its other claw, caught Hargh under the chin. Hargh’s jaw was nearly torn from his face and his helmet went spinning through the air, slinging strands of water at odd angles through the downpour.
Black acid-blood spurted from the wyvern’s wound across red armor and horseflesh. Then, the wyvern took two steps back, shrunk in on itself like a compressed coil, and leapt into flight directly at Hargh. As it passed over him, it used its hind claws to rake him out of his saddle. A corrosive hiss, and a small trail of smoke trailed up through the rain, from his writhing body, as it crashed back into the earth.
Captain Proct loosed an arrow at the beast. Then, as quickly as a man in full armor could manage, he sent another. The second struck the wyvern near where one of its wings joined its body. The creature roared out in pain, and the long, snaky thing veered clearly to one side in its flight. The wyvern roared again, as it tried to alter its new course with its injured wing. It did no good. The creature came crashing into the wet earth in a tumbling flailing splash.
Hargh’s wild-eyed horse went screaming and bucking towards the trees. The cool rain was no comfort to its burning, dissolving hide. Already, a large swathe of its flesh was corroding away where the wyvern’s blood had splashed it. It didn’t look like the animal would suffer much longer.
King Jarrek, and the other red-armored guardsman, Markeen, went charging towards the struggling wyvern with their swords held high, hoping to kill it before it regained its senses.
Captain Proct checked the tension on the bow string. He almost regretted that it was still holding true. He put an arrow to his string and rode swiftly over to the writhing, growling body of his longtime friend. Hargh’s face was a misshapen, acid-eaten ruin, and Proct mercifully put an arrow through the man’s breastplate into his heart.
Just as King Jarrek and Markeen gained the wyvern, it rose up onto its hind legs. One of its wings was folded in naturally, but the other was half open, and twisted skyward. It scrambled forward at the approaching men, snapping its teeth and hissing. The wyvern’s one good fore claw was raised to defend itself. The other dangled uselessly from a small thickness of bloody sinew.