He sat back on his heels.
"This is not an animal that charges blindly," he said. "It's a strategist. It scouts first, sometimes for a long time. Circles. Feints. Tests defenses. It watches how you respond."
His gaze swept the group.
"But it also repeats itself. It hunts in cycles. And after something big changes in its territory—like a large predator vanishing or a new threat appearing—it always comes back to see who or what took its place."
Ilyas, who had been listening with one eyebrow raised, let out a low whistle.
"A Silver Bridger…" he said, eyes flicking back to the device. "That could get us to a city. Or at least to other people with more food and fewer teeth."
He gave a nervous half-grin.
"Worth the risk, I'd say. Even if the odds are ugly."
Lena, quieter but always watching closely, spoke without taking her gaze off Noctis.
"You watched us for weeks," she said. "You learned how we move. You stepped in only when you had to."
She frowned, thinking.
"You're not just desperate. You're careful. If this monster is as bad as you say, you wouldn't tell us about it unless you believed we could help."
Yara listened to each voice in turn.
She took a long breath, shoulders rising and falling. Her eyes lingered on the Silver Bridger, on Noctis's maps, on the weary faces around the fire.
"It's a risk," she said. "For you and us."
Her voice gained strength.
"But staying here, waiting for the next monster, is its own kind of death. I've seen men take worse bargains for less hope than this."
She straightened.
"We accept," she said. "On one condition. If we fail, the Bridger is still yours—we won't try to take it. If we succeed, we take it with us. Even if it costs us blood."
Noctis nodded once.
"Agreed," he said.
No one cheered. They were too experienced for that. But there was a subtle shift—spines straightening, eyes focusing. Their future suddenly had a shape, however dangerous.
Over the next hours, the fire became the center of a war room.
They leaned over maps drawn on bark and stone. They argued, corrected, and adjusted. For the first time, Noctis shared his knowledge not as scattered hints, but as a full structure.
Surviving this wyvern would require precision. It would also require honesty about what each person could and could not do.
They broke the plan into steps.
Step 1: Scouting and Pattern Mapping
Noctis spread out his sketches of the valley: ridgelines, cliffs, the river's curve, the places where mist clung even at noon.
"These are its roost points," he said, pointing to three marks on the map. "Here, here, and here. It doesn't sleep much, but it rests between hunts."
He showed where he had seen it feed, circling herds, tearing apart other monsters.
"Lena, Ilyas," Yara said. "You two have the best eyes and instincts for reading the sky. You'll handle high vantage scouting."
They discussed timing: how long between each flyover; how the wyvern reacted to fires, loud noises, sudden movements. Noctis filled in gaps with things he had seen from his own watching spots higher up the mountain.
Lena offered details from other encounters with sky predators. Ilyas pointed out less obvious routes between vantage points—paths that would keep them hidden while still giving clear sightlines.
Step 2: Creating Diversions
Toma leaned in when the talk turned to misdirection.
"What if we make it think something bigger has moved into its territory?" he asked. "Use monster hides, armor scraps. Build shapes that look like prey camps or rival nests. That might force it to attack on the ground."
They liked the idea.
Together, they planned to split into two roles: a diversion team and a main attack team.
The diversion team would place decoys and false trails—discarded armor arranged to resemble people from the sky, old clothes hanging in ways that suggested movement, strips of monster hide stretched to carry scent where they wanted it.
Reflective minerals—collected over days from certain caves—would be positioned to bounce light back into the wyvern's eyes and twist its read on depth and distance.
Step 3: Trap Assembly
Noctis explained how to use his obsidian oracles.
"These shards respond to wind," he said, holding one up. "Heat, sound, pressure. If we place them correctly, they'll twist the air around them, creating blind spots or false gusts. The wyvern will think the wind is one way when it's another."
They planned spike pits in soft, moss-covered ground—carefully disguised with thin layers of soil and vegetation. Tripwires made from monster sinew would stretch low across likely landing paths. Fire-based tricks would provide brief bursts of light and heat to draw its focus or force it to move certain ways.
Yara assigned tasks with her old captain's efficiency.
"Lena, you and the younger ones prepare caltrops and smoke bombs," she said. "We'll need both to punish it if it lands where we want, and to cover our retreat if it doesn't."
Step 4: The Attack Plan
Lena surprised even herself with a suggestion.
"What if we use the Silver Bridger as bait?" she asked.
Everyone turned to look at her.
"Not at full strength," she added quickly. "Just enough to send out a pulse. If this wyvern senses energy like other monsters do, it might treat it as a rival presence. We could set the Bridger near the edge of its range, where our traps are strongest."
Noctis considered this.
"It's risky," he said, "but good. A weak signal should call the wyvern's attention without waking anything else nearby."
They refined the attack plan.
Noctis mapped out arcs of fire and movement.
"First priority," he said, tapping the sketch of the wyvern's head, "is the reversal scale. Venom-tipped arrows aimed here."
He indicated his stores of toxin taken from other beasts.
"Second," he continued, "is the tail joint. Fast teams on the ground to harass, draw strikes, then hit and move."
He pointed to broad zones where smoke bombs and reflective minerals would be placed.
"Third is forcing it down," he said. "Ground combat is still deadly, but better than facing it at full control of the air. Smoke, mirrors, pits. We take its wings out of the equation as much as we can."
Step 5: Safety and Escape Routes
Ilyas insisted on this part.
"Nothing ever goes exactly to plan," he said. "We need escapes. More than one."
He drew three lines on the map.
"One path back toward this cave," he said, "for when things go badly but we're still together. Another up the ridge, steep but defensible. The last into that thicket you showed us—the one that catches fire too easily."
He met Noctis's eyes.
"If we light that up, we'll have smoke. Lots of it. The wyvern might hate it as much as we do."
Noctis agreed.
They spent the days that followed putting every piece in place.
They trained together, running through the sequence of motions: signal, move, fire, retreat, regroup. They tested how long they could hold their breath in smoke. They practiced hitting moving targets from difficult angles.
Trust did not bloom overnight.
There were arguments—about who would risk the most, about whether the Bridger was worth it, about whether Noctis's knowledge was as complete as he claimed. Voices rose and cooled again. But alongside the tensions, there were small victories: a trap laid well, a shared laugh when someone slipped in mud, a moment when two people moved in perfect sync without needing to shout.
Lena kept asking Noctis pointed questions.
"Where did you learn to track wind so well?" she asked once.
Noctis gave a half-answer.
"Long practice," he said. "Lots of mistakes. Fewer, lately."
She frowned, sensing what he wasn't saying, but she did not push. She had learned to respect silence as much as speech.
Toma found a kind of understanding with Noctis while repairing weapons.
"You've reforged blades before," he observed.
"Yes."
"Lost many?"
"Too many."
They said little else, but the respect there was real.
Yara watched everything.
She watched morale, stepping in when someone's nerves frayed too visibly. She watched Noctis, noting how he slept lightly, how he always positioned himself to see both cave entrance and people. She did not fully trust him. But she trusted his competence.
For his part, Noctis offered them more training in a week than most small militias got in months.
He taught them to feel shifts in the wind on their skin and use that to guess when the wyvern might change course. He showed them how to read broken branches and disturbed leaves in the canopy. He drilled them on timing: when to move, when not to, when to hold their ground even if everything inside them screamed to run.