Echo Wyvern

Written by Yerran

Historic beasts of The Crimson Canyons, these large dragon-like creatures are at the top of the food chain and have been enshrined as the greatest, and most deadly of prey for The Red Ushad to hunt.

Anatomy

The creatures are seemingly biologically immortal, never dying of old age, or at least not in any recorded aspect. They hatch from the eggs of an elder Echo Wyvern and are on their own from day one. They continue to grow their whole life, generally reaching lengths of 5-15 metres long, though legends say older ones reached as long as 30 metres.

They have long dragon-like bodies, though much thinner, resembling massive snakes with two legs and wings. Their teeth are razor-sharp and their tails are often hooked, with spines that detach and spray with deadly accuracy. The main difference between these Wyverns and those that reside in other places on Lenwir is that these are completely blind, having no eyes of any sort. They also do not breathe fire or any element of a kind, though their throat is specially adapted for a more nefarious purpose. They are able to mimic any sound they heard with complete accuracy, as well as compress sound waves to shatter or crush things directly in front of them and they often use that ability to devastating effect.

Habitat

Echo wyverns are blind so care little for vantage points usually nesting near the ground or in ravines, that being said they will take caves high in the stacks if they are deep enough. That is usually what echo wyverns look for in a nest, deep caves with maze-like tunnels. They find that the echoing sounds and darkness of such places offer more protection, for the darkness doesn't hamper them, but does confuse its prey.

The Echo Wyverns usually live in dry, arid environments with large perches, deep ravines and labyrinth-like walls and mountains that help sound echo. They are native to The Crimson Canyons though some have been known to appear in other similar environments across Lenwir] like The Wild Peaks to the north and The Trigrave Mountains far to the east.

Hunting

Echo Wyverns are deadly hunters, not just because of their size and their devastating sonic barrage, but mostly for their cunning. The creatures usually hunt at night, though not exclusively, finding it gives them an advantage. They like to sit high on canyon walls where their scales blend in with the reddish hues of the stacks and use their echoing call to attract prey, then they either swoop down on it, pierce it with a rain of spikes from their tail or use the hooked end of their tail to impale and drag it off. It is rare an Echo Wyvern use its sonic breath as a hunting tool, unless desperate, this is kept as a defensive weapon in case of a life or death situation.

The echoing calls of the Wyvern have lured more than one clansman or member of The Red Ushad to their death by mimicking the calls of an ally, partner or baby in distress. The Echo Wyvern can usually mimic any sound it has heard, and uses that to great advantage. They say that once an echo wyvern locks onto you, you cannot escape it. Through its calls it can track people, not dissimilar to a bat, using the sounds it makes to paint a picture of the land around it. The older a wyvern grows the more acute this sense grows, and some even say that the eldest can likely hear your heartbeat in your chest.

Communication

Many have held that between echo wyverns there is generally no communication, as they do not raise their young in any capacity and are extremely territorial. Though some have proven that they do communicate during mating season and for that purpose only. One budding draconologist claims to have witnesses such a display and recounted it to others in the academies of the The Red Refuge. He stated that one Wyvern will mimic a sound it heard, which is likely the last sound it heard (rock falling, crack of thunder, someone screaming, etc), then another will reply by mimicking the sound back exactly. This will demonstrate to the other echo wyvern that it is not a natural sound but another imitating the call. For while mortals and most creatures cannot differentiate between a genuine sound of a rockfall and and echo wyvern's mimicry of the sound, they seem to be able to differentiate between the two. These echo wyverns will then echo the sounds back and forth to each other, pinpointing their locations and then meet, deciding if courtship or combat is what they desire.

This is the only recorded example of communication between echo wyverns beyond territorial displays of aggression when they simply bark a series of consecutive sounds to scare off other wyverns and mark their territory.

Ailkhan Battle Signs 

A primary reason for the development of this silent language was to avoid the predations of Echo Wyverns, who led many a clansmen to their deaths before its development. The creation of this language helped them avoid and better combat them, as well as recognise the traps of their calls. The creatures caused so much death amongst the early clansmen that shrines and statues were placed on paths through their territory and symbols of them have persisted into the current emblem of The Red Ushad.