"There is more to it than that," said the wyvern.

"Not for us. Prey or predator, all part of the one or the other, and part of the same."

The wyvern was a hunter herself, and understood the wolfish Angelo and his kin better than most. "But which one is the boy? Hunter or the hunted?"

Angelo laughed humorlessly. "We will just have to see, won't we? And she considers all of us prey. Him more so than us."

The old wyvern sighed. "True." She bowed her head. "Strike cleanly."

Angelo drew his blade. It was an old, old knife, handed down from generation to generation. The flakes of razor-edged chert were still sharp. The magic would not allow metals to be used for this deed, the start to the renewing of the compact. It came from a time of stone, tooth and claw. "When have I ever done otherwise, old friend?" he said grimly. "It is the least I can do."

Afterwards he gathered the blood, and cradled his burden, cut from the creature's belly. The wyvern was one of the old ones, a creature woven of magics, not designed by nature. There was no other way to get her egg out. The wyvern had to die so that the new ones could be born. And the young wyverns were needed, if the old oath was to be renewed.

Blood must flow. It was all in the blood.

The wolves howled as he walked the trail back towards the tents. Angelo howled in reply. By morning they must all be gone. They were not welcome here any more. The local residents did not approve of the gypsies. Angelo found that funny. They were not the recent incomers, traveling people from the south, barely in these lands for a few centuries. They had roved this land for always and always. But the "gypsies" were a good cover. The old ones had adopted some of their ways, just as real gypsies had taken on some of the ways of the pack.

Well, it should be a year before they came back to this part of their land, in the normal course of events. Of course this year might be different. Angelo stalked out of the woods and slipped past a neat farmstead as silently as he'd come. Somehow, the dogs chained there still barked. It was, he supposed, inevitable that they would know he was near. Dogs did. It was an old kinship, even if they were estranged now.