Hundreds of birds poured out of the northern forest while the alarm bell sounded above Duskwatch.
Callum reached the northeastern tower before the first families left their houses. He ordered the civilians into the reinforced shelters, then sent runners toward the communal halls, treatment house and lower field. Brinna took charge of the children at the cellar entrance, while Mara checked each household against Desmond’s register as they arrived. Ossa closed the irrigation branches nearest the eastern wall so the reservoir would remain available for fire control.
The settlement moved quickly, though the fear was impossible to hide. Children cried when the chickens began throwing themselves against their enclosure. The milk goat pulled at its tether until the stake shifted through the soil. Several of the newer residents stopped in the courtyard and stared north until Callum’s militia pushed them toward shelter.
Garen remained on the unfinished Skybreaker platform with one palm pressed against the stone.
The heavy movement beyond the ridge had stopped.
“It landed,” he said. “Then left the ground again.”
Callum examined the weapon.
The Skybreaker looked complete from the courtyard below. Its long steel launch rail pointed toward the northern sky from a circular tower base. A thick mana-pressure chamber sat behind the firing track, connected to the emergency water system through channels Elara had built during the night.
Up close, the defects remained obvious.
The rotation stopped several degrees before the weapon reached the full northern angle. Water seeped from the rear cooling sleeve. The crew shield consisted of stone slabs waiting beside the stairs, and the chamber had never been charged beyond one quarter strength.
Only one armour-piercing bolt had been completed.
Captain Thale climbed onto the platform and looked toward the forest. “If it has already taken flight, you may not have enough time for a full test.”
“Then we keep everyone below until we do,” Callum said.
“You cannot hide the fields and canal underground.”
“No. We can avoid firing an untested weapon above our own houses.”
Thale did not challenge him again. He had spent the previous day trying to establish authority through rank. A mature wyvern beyond the ridge had made practical decisions more important than ceremony.
Callum sent Nella to organise the spotters. Three towers received signal flags, and two hunters climbed the mill roof for a clearer view of the eastern sky. Desmond opened the military storehouse and began issuing tendon, steel and water barrels according to Weston’s requests.
Weston knelt beside the Skybreaker’s rotating base.
The weight of the long rail pressed unevenly against the inner bearing. He had left too little clearance between the moving ring and the reinforced outer housing. Under the full load, the steel expanded just enough to lock one side.
He touched the base and altered the bearing channel by less than the width of a fingernail. The weight shifted onto a ring of hardened rollers instead of dragging across one continuous surface.
Callum and three crewmen pushed the rear handles.
The launcher turned north, passed the point where it had previously stopped and continued toward the eastern field.
The motion remained heavy but usable.
Elara held the cooling water away from the leaking rear joint while Weston opened the metal housing. The connection contained a narrow seam where two separate channels met. He removed the joint entirely and formed one curved passage around the mana chamber.
When Elara released the water, it flowed through the sleeve and returned toward the reservoir without spilling across the tower floor.
Thale walked around the weapon, studying the open loading position.
“The crew is exposed from above.”
Callum followed his gaze. The unfinished side shields protected the operators from arrows fired from the ground, but anyone fitting the long bolts into the rail would be visible during a dive.
“Wyverns attack movement,” Thale said. “The loaders will draw its eye if they remain uncovered.”
Garen placed both hands on the tower floor. Stone rose behind the loading area and formed two angled supports with a broad slab overhead. He left the sides open so the crew could carry bolts without squeezing through a narrow entrance.
Weston strengthened the joins and reduced the unnecessary weight in the centre of the slab. It would not withstand the full body of a landing wyvern, but it could deflect claws, falling debris or a shallow fire pass long enough for the crew to escape.
Callum sent everyone away from the eastern quarry before authorising the first firing test.
The blunt testing bolts had been prepared during the night from ordinary iron and scrap steel. They lacked the narrow layered points of the combat projectile, but their weight matched closely enough to reveal problems with recoil and accuracy.
Nella fixed a white cloth against the quarry face almost four hundred yards away. Garen checked the earth beyond the target and confirmed that no large animals or travellers moved along the far slope.
The first bolt entered the Skybreaker’s rail.
Four crewmen tightened the Duskmaw tendon arms. Weston charged the rear chamber to half strength, feeling the structure vibrate beneath his palm as mana pressure built behind the projectile.
Elara opened the cooling flow.
Callum waited until the spotters raised white flags and each crew position reported ready.
He gave the firing order.
The tendon arms snapped forward. A fraction of a second later, the pressure chamber released.
The sound rolled across Duskwatch like thunder.
The bolt struck the quarry several yards below the white cloth and buried itself so deeply that only part of the rear shaft remained visible. Cracks spread through the stone around it.
The Skybreaker recoiled hard enough to shift one rear anchor. The right launch arm also returned more slowly, leaving the firing rail slightly twisted.
Tobin climbed onto the platform before the dust settled. He examined both tendon housings and found the difference quickly.
“The right bundle is pulling harder.”
Weston tested the strands. Both sides used Duskmaw tendon, but the right bundle contained material from a thicker section of the beast. The lengths matched. The elasticity did not.
He separated and redistributed the strands, then built a simple pressure indicator into each housing so the crew could compare tension before firing.
Garen raised additional stone beneath the shifted rear anchor. Weston joined the new mass into the tower foundation and widened the path carrying recoil away from the platform.
The second test used three-quarter charge.
The bolt struck the white cloth and split the quarry face along an old fault line. A section of stone broke free and slid several feet before settling at the base.
Captain Thale inspected the impact from the ground.
When he returned, he no longer referred to the Skybreaker as an enlarged ballista.
“A hit beneath the wing could break the joint,” he said. “The strongest breast scales may turn it unless the angle is close to perfect.”
Nella spread the sketch she had made from the wyvern’s earlier flight.
“When it banks, the inner wing opens here. The membrane is thin, but the joint is the better target.”
Callum studied the northern approaches. “First shot takes the wing. Once it lands, Garen keeps it down.”
Garen looked beyond the wall. “In the air, I can inconvenience it. On the ground, it belongs to me.”
The second combat bolt still had to be made.
The original armour-piercing projectile from Part 6 remained secured beneath the crew canopy. Weston created one additional bolt from prepared steel billets, giving both a hardened central core and layered outer support so they would resist bending on impact.
He began forming material for a third.
Elara caught his wrist when his fingers started trembling around the unfinished point.
“You have two.”
“One may miss.”
“Then Callum will decide whether another can be made before it returns.”
Weston looked toward the tower commander.
Callum had already heard them. “Two shots. Stop.”
The unfinished third bolt remained a simple steel shaft.
Pellor watched the exchange from below. He had spent the inspection questioning whether Weston required Crown supervision. Now he saw the Warden stop when his healer and military commander told him to stop, without turning the disagreement into a challenge to his authority.
The scribe opened a fresh ledger.
He no longer demanded the Skybreaker plans aloud. Instead, he recorded the weapon’s visible dimensions, the materials carried onto the platform and every part of the test that he could observe. Whatever caution the wyvern had created in him, it had not removed his intention to recommend Crown control later.
Desmond noticed the new ledger and instructed one of his assistants to begin an independent construction record.
The Duskwatch copy listed the source of every material, the names of the builders, the hours of labour and the exact wording of the inspection writ. If Pellor later claimed the weapon had been developed under Crown direction, Desmond intended to make the argument difficult.
The defenders needed the wyvern to enter a clear firing lane.
Spoiled mirehorn meat and blood were moved onto a low earth platform beyond the northeastern wall. Garen placed it in open ground where the Skybreaker could turn without striking the tower supports. The smell travelled toward the northern cliffs as the wind shifted.
Callum also moved the livestock pens closer to the inner eastern wall. The animals would be taken underground once the creature appeared, but their movement and scent might help draw it away from the houses.
Desmond watched the milk goat being led toward the pen.
“If that animal dies, Ossa will hold the entire command structure responsible.”
Callum checked the covered path leading from the pen to the shelter. “It will be moved before the wyvern reaches the field.”
Ossa stood nearby with a rope wrapped around one hand. “It will be moved now if anyone begins improvising.”
The northern forest remained unnaturally quiet through midday.
Merrow placed the Crown clerks in the reinforced observation room beneath the Skybreaker tower. Narrow slits allowed them to see the eastern field without standing on the wall. Pellor objected until Callum asked whether his report required a clear view or a burial place.
Captain Thale chose to remain beside Callum on the upper rampart. He assigned the Crown guards to the inner paths and shelter entrances, where they could protect civilians if fire or falling stone forced anyone to move.
Desmond established his own command station inside the administrative room. Ammunition runners, medical assistants and household leaders reported through him. He also kept the settlement register and recognition documents packed in fire-resistant chests.
The first warning came from the western lookout rather than the north.
A black flag rose above the tower.
The wind had shifted, carrying the scent of the livestock and mirehorn remains toward the western side of the ridge. The wyvern followed it around the settlement instead of approaching directly from the cliffs.
Nella shouted the change from the wall.
Callum ordered the Skybreaker rotated west.
The heavy platform turned, then slowed near the edge of its tested arc. The weapon could reach the new angle, but the rear handles came dangerously close to the unfinished tower shield.
“Remove the left shield panel,” Callum ordered.
Two crewmen pulled the retaining pins and lowered the section onto the platform. The firing team gained enough room to track the western sky.
The livestock reacted before the creature appeared.
The chickens screamed and pressed into one corner of their enclosure. The milk goat dragged Ossa several steps before Garen raised a low stone barrier behind its legs.
Callum ordered the animals moved underground.
Their sudden movement drew the wyvern.
A dark shape crossed above the western rampart and turned sharply toward the inner field, ignoring the spoiled meat outside the wall. It saw frightened animals running through the covered passage and followed them on instinct.
The defenders had prepared the northeastern field as the cleanest killing ground. The wyvern came toward the western edge instead.
Callum abandoned the first firing plan without hesitation.
“Nella, mark the turn. Elara, western roofs. Garen, keep the open ground clear until it descends.”
The Skybreaker crew continued rotating.
Weston kept one hand against the base and felt the outer bearing begin rubbing where they had not yet polished the western limit. He removed the obstruction while the weapon moved, then spread the recoil support through the connected stone beneath the tower.
The wyvern passed over the livestock enclosure after the last animal disappeared underground.
It banked above the communal halls, searching for the movement it had lost.
Orange light gathered in its throat.
Elara opened both emergency wall outlets. Water rose from the channels in broad streams and spread into a dense mist above the western roofs.
The wyvern released fire.
The flame struck the mist and burst outward in a violent cloud of steam. Heat washed across the settlement, scorching shutters and igniting part of the western walkway, but the concentrated stream broke apart before reaching the communal halls.
Residents assigned to fire duty smothered the burning section with water and wet hides.
The wyvern climbed after the pass.
It had found no livestock and no fleeing people. The smell of mirehorn blood beyond the northeastern wall drew it back across the settlement.
Callum waited while the Skybreaker followed.
Nella watched the rhythm of its wings.
The creature descended toward the bait, then changed direction when one of the archers moved beneath a firing cover. It struck at the movement with its tail, smashing the top of an empty wooden shelter outside the main wall.
The wyvern did not plan an attack on the defences. It followed whatever movement, scent or pain held its attention at that moment.
Nella raised her red flag.
“The left wing opens during the climb.”
Callum tracked the angle and ordered the chamber charged.
The original armour-piercing bolt rested in the firing rail. Elara forced water through the cooling sleeve while the mana pressure rose toward full strength for the first time.
The housing vibrated harder than it had during testing.
Weston felt one rear support begin carrying too much of the load. He widened the internal structure beneath it, shifting the pressure deeper into Garen’s tower foundation.
The wyvern seized part of the mirehorn carcass and beat its wings to lift away.
Its left side dipped under the uneven weight.
The inner wing joint opened.
Callum gave the order.
The Skybreaker fired.
The long black bolt struck beneath the left wing and drove through the narrow joint. Bone shattered around the layered steel core.
The wyvern released the carcass and fell.
It struck the outer field, rolled through the mirehorn platform and tore a long trench through the ground. One wing folded beneath its body at an unnatural angle.
Garen drove both fists into the earth.
The field rose around the creature before it recovered.
Stone closed over one rear leg. The soil beneath the intact wing collapsed, preventing it from pushing the limb fully downward. The broken wing remained trapped beneath the wyvern’s own weight.
Once it had fallen, the advantage changed completely. Garen could feel every movement through the soil and answer before the beast found stable footing.
The wyvern roared and tore at the stone restraint.
Garen tightened one hand.
A second layer closed around the trapped leg, but the creature’s strength broke the outer section almost immediately. The recoil travelled back through the ground and pulled against Garen’s healing side.
Blood began darkening the bandage beneath his coat.
He remained in place.
The wyvern released fire across the field.
Garen raised a sloped stone barrier. Flame struck it and split around both sides, blackening the outer layer and setting the dry grass behind him alight.
Elara redirected water from the reservoir overflow. A wide stream crossed the field, extinguishing the fire and filling the trench around the wyvern’s lower body.
The cooling sleeve around the Skybreaker hissed as the crew prepared the second shot.
The first full discharge had stretched the right tendon bundle. The rear pressure chamber also showed a thin crack near one of the reinforced seams.
Weston placed his hand against the housing.
He could strengthen the crack long enough for another firing, but the chamber would need complete rebuilding afterward. He fused the damaged layers and redistributed the pressure through the outer shell.
Elara climbed the tower stairs and checked the returning water.
“The reservoir is dropping quickly.”
The mist curtain, wall channels and field suppression had already used almost one third of the emergency reserve.
“We need one more shot,” Weston said.
“You have one.”
The second combat bolt entered the rail.
The wyvern dragged its rear leg free and twisted toward the wall. Its broken wing scraped through the mud while the intact one beat against the ground, throwing water and stone into the air.
Garen opened both hands.
Two massive pillars rose on either side of the creature and struck its ribs. The blows forced its body back toward the Skybreaker’s firing line, though one pillar shattered when the wyvern bit through the upper section.
The effort widened the wound beneath Garen’s bandage.
Callum saw the blood.
“Hold it for one shot.”
Garen pressed his fists down harder.
“That was the plan.”
Nella and the archers targeted the creature’s eyes and mouth. Most arrows broke against scales, but one entered the soft flesh beneath the right eye.
The wyvern jerked its head sideways and opened its jaws.
Elara pulled mist directly around its face.
Cold water entered the forming fire and turned the breath into a burst of flame and steam. The wyvern coughed, exposing the thinner line beneath the jaw.
Nella raised the red flag again.
“Throat!”
The Skybreaker turned several degrees.
Weston’s right hand had lost feeling along two fingers, but the weapon remained stable beneath his left palm. He felt the repaired chamber seam beginning to separate again.
The crew had time for one discharge.
Callum waited until the wyvern lifted its head to tear free from Garen’s stone.
“Fire.”
The second bolt entered beneath the jaw.
It passed through the throat and continued downward into the chest. The layered shaft remained intact long enough to pierce the heart and the mana organ behind it.
The wyvern collapsed into the flooded trench.
Its tail struck the ground once, then dragged through the mud without strength.
Callum kept everyone in position.
Garen maintained the earth restraints while Nella watched the eyes and Elara continued pouring water over the burning grass.
No movement returned.
The attack had lasted only a few minutes.
One archer suffered a shallow burn where steam entered beneath her glove. A Skybreaker crewman bruised his shoulder against the rear housing during recoil. Garen’s wound had reopened, and Elara’s mana reserve was low enough that her hands shook when she finally released the field water.
Weston could no longer perform precise transformations with his right hand.
The Skybreaker had also paid for the victory. The rear chamber cracked after the second shot, one tendon arm stretched beyond safe use and the western bearing ring warped under the rushed rotation. The tower support held, though the outer platform developed a fracture wide enough for Tobin to see from the stairs.
None of that was visible from the protected observation room.
Merrow and Pellor had watched Duskwatch endure two fire passes, break the wyvern’s wing and kill it before royal reinforcements could even begin assembling in Highmere. No defender had died. No house had burned.
From where they stood, the victory looked easy.
Captain Thale remained beside Callum, staring at the enormous body beyond the wall.
“A monster company would have brought forty soldiers and at least three battle mages.”
“And arrived in three weeks,” Callum said.
Thale looked toward the damaged Skybreaker. “The weapon alone did not do this.”
Callum said nothing. He had no need to explain what Thale had just witnessed.
The shelters remained closed until Garen approached the wyvern and pressed one palm against the flooded ground beside its chest. He felt no heartbeat or movement through the soil.
Only then did Callum end the alarm.
Residents emerged carefully. Some climbed onto carts and barrels for a better view until Brinna ordered them down. Ossa inspected the irrigation gates before looking at the corpse. Her first concern was whether wyvern blood had entered the reservoir channels.
It had not.
Elara treated Garen beneath the tower while Weston sat nearby with his hand resting in cold water. She reopened the bandage around Garen’s ribs, found that the old wound had torn but not split completely and ordered him to remain still.
“I could have released it,” he said.
“And let the wyvern stand?”
“No.”
“Then stop pretending you made a medical decision.”
Garen accepted the rebuke with unusual silence.
When Elara finished binding him, she moved to Weston. Feeling had begun returning to his first finger, though the others remained numb.
She placed both hands around his wrist and sent the last of her safe healing mana through the strained pathways.
“You will not touch the carcass today,” she said.
“I need to examine the scales.”
“You can look.”
“I need to test—”
“Tomorrow.”
Weston saw the exhaustion around her eyes and did not argue.
Pellor emerged from the observation room carrying his ledger against his chest.
He looked first at the wyvern, then at the cracked Skybreaker chamber and the blood on Garen’s coat. The battle had not been effortless, though the settlement’s discipline had prevented the costs from becoming a disaster.
“How many launchers can Duskwatch build?” he asked.
Weston flexed his numb hand. “Not until we rebuild this one and understand what failed.”
“The Crown will require a full account.”
“You will receive an account of the battle and the weapon’s current condition.”
Pellor did not demand the internal plans again. He had become careful about where and how he challenged Weston.
Later that evening, Desmond learned that the scribe had added a sealed recommendation to his private report. Pellor still believed the Crown should compel registration and licensing of military devices created within Crown wards. He had simply stopped trying to enforce that opinion with eight guards standing inside Weston’s territory.
Captain Thale joined the inspection of the field.
He helped Callum identify the best places for additional aerial firing positions and recommended signal flags designed specifically for flying threats. Callum accepted several of the suggestions and rejected one tower location because it interfered with the irrigation spillway.
The two men still disagreed often. Thale now listened before assuming the local commander lacked a reason.
The wyvern carcass required immediate control.
Garen raised a stone working platform around the body and opened drainage channels leading away from the fields. Elara and Mara checked the blood and organs for magical corruption. Callum posted guards to keep scavengers and curious residents away.
Weston examined the creature only with his eyes that day.
The outer scales had resisted heat, blades and impact better than any natural material he had seen. The bones supporting the wings remained surprisingly light. Tendons near the shoulders could provide far greater launch force than Duskmaw material, while the fire organ inside the chest continued radiating heat after death.
The mana core was removed under Elara’s supervision and sealed inside thick stone.
Desmond established ownership before the Crown officials could create a dispute.
The wyvern had been killed inside Duskwatch’s surveyed boundary by Duskwatch residents using materials from Duskwatch stores. Under frontier salvage law, the carcass belonged to the ward.
Merrow confirmed the statute.
Pellor recorded an objection concerning military materials of exceptional value, then left the core where it was.
The formal recognition charter had travelled east inside Merrow’s document chest.
It was a standard Crown instrument with blank spaces for the ward name, confirmed boundary, population count and administrative conditions. Merrow had possessed the authority to complete it from the beginning if Duskwatch passed inspection.
The scribes spent the next day entering the boundary markers, canal route, settlement ground and northern road. Captain Thale attached his military assessment, while Pellor added separate recommendations concerning the mana lights, transformed fortifications and Skybreaker.
Merrow gathered Weston’s inner circle in the administrative room once the documents were ready.
He listed the weaknesses without softening them.
Duskwatch remained dependent on trade and hunting. The first harvest might fail. The population could not replace heavy losses, the militia lacked armour and officers, and several new machines required constant maintenance. The Skybreaker could not fire again until its chamber, bearing and tendon arms were rebuilt.
Weston’s Calling would attract further royal investigation. Pellor’s sealed report recommended direct registration of advanced military applications.
The settlement still met the requirements of an active Crown ward.
Merrow filled the final lines of the charter and pressed the royal seal into the wax.
Duskwatch received authority over registered residents, local founding levies, immediate frontier disputes and monster salvage within its confirmed boundary. Its militia remained under local command unless a direct royal order or properly declared emergency transferred authority.
The charter did not transfer Weston’s designs to the Crown.
Desmond read every section before Weston signed.
Captain Thale presented Callum with the completed military assessment. The report described the militia as under-equipped and inexperienced, though disciplined under real attack. It recommended formal recognition of Callum as Marshal once Duskwatch maintained fifty trained soldiers.
“You need another aerial platform west of the mill,” Thale said.
“It blocks the canal watch line,” Callum replied.
“Then raise it farther south.”
Callum studied the map and marked a new location.
That was as close to agreement as either man required.
Pellor approached Weston after the meeting.
“My recommendation will reach the capital with Merrow’s report.”
“I assumed it would.”
“The Crown will not ignore a weapon capable of killing a wyvern.”
“Then the Crown can send a formal request.”
Pellor studied Weston for a moment.
“Consider the wording of your answer when it arrives.”
“I will consider the terms first.”
The scribe did not press further.
The royal party left the following morning.
Their guards no longer ordered settlers out of the road. Captain Thale saluted Callum from horseback. Merrow warned Weston that recognition would bring merchants, nobles and royal offices that had never cared about Fangmire while it remained worthless.
Pellor carried several ledgers west. One described the settlement. Another detailed the mana lights and transformed walls. A third contained his recommendation for Crown oversight.
Merrow carried a sealed report for the king.
The report would explain that Weston remained publicly loyal, that Duskwatch functioned without royal supply and that its residents obeyed their local command under wyvern fire. It would also explain that attempts to seize Weston’s inventions through an inspection writ had already failed.
News travelled faster than the carriage.
Hunters carried pieces of broken wyvern scale to Hollowmark. Merchants repeated that Duskwatch had killed the creature in minutes without losing a single defender. By the end of the week, travellers had begun calling Weston the Wyvern Warden.
Weston disliked the name.
Desmond recorded it under common titles because merchants were using it on trade letters.
The wyvern materials opened new possibilities as soon as Weston’s hand recovered.
Damaged scales were fitted above the Skybreaker crew position. The lightweight wing bones became supports for a heavy hauling frame. Tobin began replacing the stretched Duskmaw tendon with prepared wyvern strands, while Elara studied the fire organ and mana core from behind reinforced stone.
Garen raised the foundation for a second aerial tower, though Elara limited him to short casting periods until his side healed again.
Callum expanded the militia schedule and established permanent aerial watches. Nella began mapping every cave and ridge north of the settlement. Desmond offered only small quantities of wyvern material for trade, setting prices high enough to keep most curious merchants away.
Several days later, a copy of Merrow’s report reached a fortified court west of Fangmire.
A woman wearing a dark commander’s coat read the account beside an open training yard. She paused over the recorded battle time, turned back to Captain Thale’s assessment and compared it with Pellor’s description of the Skybreaker.
The report stated that Duskwatch had killed a mature wyvern before it completed a third attack.
She read that sentence twice.
Then she called for her adjutant and ordered a small travelling escort prepared.