‘Relax,’ said Fishbone, spotting the terror on everyone’s face. ‘No danger. At least not from the wyvern.’

Wondering what he meant, Liska took a turn at peering around the boulder and what she saw made her duck back and hide.

There was a creature there. A lizard-like thing. Except it was at least fifty metres long. She had a brief glimpse of horns, snout, spines and tail. Thick scaly skin patterned with spots of blue and an overpowering reptilian stink. Hot and bitter; a smell that stuck in the back of your throat.

‘It’s . . . it’s . . . a monster,’ she managed to say. It made the cockatrices and manticores she had grown up around look like hamsters.

‘Will it eat us?’ Lug whispered. He looked like he was thinking of running back up the slide to take his chances with Thresher and her gloop hounds.

Fishbone shook his head. ‘Look closer. The danger is not being from the fire lizard. That one is a dead thing.’

Liska peeked around the boulder again, this time taking a longer look.

Fishbone was right. The gigantic wyvern was lying flat on the ground, eyes closed. Its leathery wings were folded and she could now see they were bound with coils of thick rope. Shafts of spears and harpoons jutted out from its blue spotted hide, and there were people standing around it. Men and women dressed in scraps of metal and leather, with hair coloured in screaming shades of purple, red and pink. At first, she thought their skin was blue, but then she realised it was because they were almost totally covered in tattoos.

‘Poxpunks,’ she said. ‘We learnt about them in battle training. They live in the Blasted Waste, trapping wyverns.’

‘We call them “lizard-hunting painted humies”,’ said Fishbone. ‘Sometimes they climb up the mountain and shoot kittimews, too. They makes garments from our fur. Things they is wearing under their breeches.’

‘Underpants?’ Lug said. ‘They make you into underpants?’

‘Yes.’ Fishbone made a hissing noise and spat on the ground. ‘Big Mew curse the lot of them.’

‘Big Mew? Who under the Tree is that?’ Lug asked.

‘Kittimew god,’ Fishbone replied. ‘He built the world from leftover mouse guts. Thunder happens every time he purrs. Lightning when he sharpens claws. Rain when he—’

‘Alright, we get the picture! Now, what are they doing to the poor wyvern?’ Elowen asked. ‘And how can it scream so when it is dead?’

Liska took another look and saw that the Poxpunks were winding the wyvern’s body on to an iron trailer with a mechanical winch. The contraption was being pulled by a ship-like wagon. It had six or more towering spiked wheels, a cabin with cannons and harpoon guns poking out from firing ports, and a deck with mast and sails. There were also tall pipes jutting from the top, puffing out clouds of oily smoke.