Free Wyvern by Wen Spencer Page B

something that could swallow her whole wasn’t Kate’s idea of smart hunting.
    "You said that they nest on ley lines. That means they’re attracted to magic?"
    "They will nest where it runs strongest."
    "They say magic is measurable. Can you tell, from here, which of those mountaintops has the most?"
    The elf girl shot her a hard look and then, reluctantly, nodded. "Yes, of course I can."
    Stormsong cleared a flat rock of twigs and dust. From her waist pack, she produced a small, loosely bound, hand printed book, bundled in a layer of suede. She flipped through the pages of complex designs until she found what she wanted. Laying the book flat, Stormsong copied the page out onto the rock with what looked like a grease pencil, only the black lines glittered in the sunlight, like it contained flecks of ground metal.
    Kate frowned at the design as Stormsong carefully rewrapped the book and tucked it away. So far it wasn’t any more impressive than Earth ‘magic,’ although a hell of lot more orderly.
    "Stay back." Stormsong whispered, blocking Kate’s closer inspection with an outstretched arm. "Do not get metal near it, or make any loud noises."
    That annoyed Kate, although she wasn’t sure why. Normally natives using magic didn’t piss her off, even when it was blatantly nonsense. What Stormsong had copied out looked oddly similar to computer circuit board design.
    Taking a deep breath, Stormsong chanted out a series of deep, guttural vowels. As if the mantra had thrown a switch, the black lines suddenly gleamed gold. A glowing sphere appeared over the spell, and slowly a model of the local mountain range took form. From the distinctive stone outcrop, Kate recognized that the center-most mountain was the one they stood on. Watery lines appeared in model, of varying width and brightness, bisecting the mountains.
    Stormsong peered at the model and then looked up, scanning the horizon. "There." She whispered as she pointed at a far peak. On the model, the line crossing over it was the brightest and widest. "That’s the strongest ley line in spell range."
    The elf extinguished the spell, and smudged out the lines on the rock with her foot.
    Kate examined the distant mountain with her binoculars; it looked like the rest of the Allegheny range, an oversized rounded hill. One section of it seemed slightly bald. She unpacked her digital camera and its tripod. She had reluctantly packed these, but it seemed that they were going to come in handy. Training the telescopic lens onto the treeless area, she set the automatic capture on it, took her hands off the camera and let it capture a perfectly still image. Once the timer hit zero, she gave it another second, and then started to enhance the image.
    The bald area enlarged to a wasteland of rock, strewn with broken timber.
    "Well, what do you think?" Kate asked the elf girl.
    Stormsong eyed the picture and then glanced out at the mountain, featureless to the naked eye. "Yes," she said flatly. "That’s a nesting site."
    Well, let’s not jump up and down with joy . Kate packed away the camera. "What exactly are the wyvern’s weak spots?"
    Stormsong picked up a stone and scratched out a rough drawing on the rock. "The joints in the wingtips, here, here, and here. If you can cut this membrane," she indicated the taunt skin of the wings. "You can ground it, which will keep it from striking and flying off. Its mouth and eyes are weaknesses. Death magic works, as does light magic."
    Yeah, right . "Poison? Or does it avoid poisoned bait?"
    "It’s an indiscriminate eater, but it takes massive amounts of poison to affect it, which we don’t have."
    "How big is this?"
    "They are not as large as a dragon, but they are considerable in size."
    Considerable my ass , Kate thought, it has to be huge . But kept her verbal opinion to a snort. "How do your people kill these things? Or do you just pick up the scales after they die?"
    Stormsong lifted up her bow in answer.
    Well, that explained