Chapter 90: THE REAL TARGET

RAIGORO’S POV

The alarm horn was still sounding when Raigoro entered the junction.

The lesser junction had no name anyone sang about, and Raigoro preferred it that way. Important infrastructure tended to survive longer when people considered it boring.

The junction sat in a narrow mountain fold between West Rime and North Spur. A low ward station occupied the surface, surrounded by a modest stone wall and squat watchtowers.

Beneath the station, the defensive lines from West Rime and North Spur met. If the junction failed, neither ward would disappear immediately, but both would lose the ability to distribute pressure safely through the shared network.

With both already under attack, that was sufficient.

Senior Engineer Bastan Holt met the junction’s senior ward specialist beside the lower access.

Holt understood the structure. The senior ward specialist understood the magical pressure moving through it. Raigoro needed both.

"The inspection signal?"

Holt answered.

"Local crew opened one recent repair housing."

"And?"

"One visible support is thinner than the specification."

"Why?"

"We don’t know."

"Can they carry the current load?"

The ward specialist said, "At the moment."

Holt added, "I would rather not discover their limit while people are standing over them."

Raigoro looked toward the central service court.

"Who is below?"

The senior ward specialist answered.

"Inspection crew, engineers, two stores runners, record clerk."

"Who needs to be below?"

Holt answered this time.

"Engineers and ward specialists. One runner."

"Then everyone else moves north."

Raigoro pointed toward the wagons standing near the central works.

"Those too. Anything not required for the inspection stays off the service court."

The ward specialist looked toward the approaching valley.

"You think the structure is going to fail?"

"I think an active battle station does not need spare wagons, clerks, and supply crates occupying the same ground my engineers may need."

Holt nodded.

"Medical?"

"Northern shelter. Keep the lower access clear."

Runners began moving people and equipment before the first creature reached the walls.

Raigoro still did not know whether the undersized support represented a serious structural danger.

He knew clutter would become danger if people started dying around it.

Movement came from the southern wall.

A scout climbed down from the nearest tower.

"Enemy entering the lower approach."

Raigoro looked beyond the station.

Ash hounds moved first with stonebacks behind them. Farther back, something broad displaced the low winter trees as it advanced, still too distant to identify.

Raigoro looked toward Captain Veyr.

"What do we have here?"

"Meris and two other pairs."

"West Rime?"

"One."

"North Spur?"

"One committed there."

"Nearest uncommitted reinforcement?"

Veyr named a farther northern sector.

"Too far to matter tonight unless we strip its patrol completely."

Raigoro shook his head.

"No."

Veyr nodded.

The Dragon Host had more dragons than the five pairs fighting across this campaign.

Most of them were protecting other stretches of Blackharrow.

After weeks of forged orders and manufactured weakness, Raigoro had no intention of solving one threatened ward by quietly creating another.

Captain Arven’s mobile infantry had not all reached the junction at once.

Lieutenant Kian Marr brought the first line detachment through the northern gate while the rest followed behind.

Raigoro pointed toward the service wall.

"You hold that approach."

Kian looked toward the lower access behind it.

"And keep them away from Holt’s engineers."

"Exactly."

"Understood."

The southern attack began.

Ash hounds rushed first. The archers waited until they crossed the first marked stones before firing, dropping the front animals while more came around them.

Stonebacks moved behind the hounds, but not toward the main gate.

They divided, one group turning toward the western tower and another toward the eastern service wall.

"Not the gate," Captain Veyr said.

"No."

The station gate was the strongest visible point.

The creatures avoided it.

Raigoro looked toward the conduit approaches.

"West and east walls."

The first stoneback struck the western barrier hard enough to shake the wall, and another followed behind it.

The ward line above the station flashed pale blue.

Holt turned toward the lower access.

"I need to get below."

"Go."

"You understand that if I take the engineers down, they are not available for wall repair."

"Yes."

"And if the outer wall fails..."

"I have soldiers."

Holt stared at him.

"Engineers below."

The man left.

Infantry could hold a wall.

They could not repair a ward junction by courage.

The second impact broke part of the western parapet.

An ash hound came over the rubble before the infantry below could close.

Raigoro met it on the stair.

His sword entered behind the front shoulder and caught against bone.

The creature twisted.

Raigoro released the blade rather than let it pull him over the edge, drew the shorter knife at his belt, and drove it into the exposed corruption beneath the throat.

Kian’s soldiers reached him as the animal collapsed.

One of them recovered Raigoro’s sword from the body.

Raigoro took it.

"Thank you."

The soldier blinked.

Then the wall shook again.

"West side!" Kian shouted.

Raigoro was already moving.

Captain Veyr looked upward.

"Now?"

Raigoro watched the larger corrupted shape enter the valley.

It was a ridge brute, rarer than the ordinary stonebacks and built on a different scale.

Corruption had thickened overlapping plates across its chest and shoulders until the hide looked quarried rather than grown. A glancing burst of dragonfire could scorch those plates without reaching the organs beneath. Infantry could kill one by opening the joints, but doing that while the creature was moving usually cost men.

"Now."

Veyr ran.

Meris launched.

Two other Dragon Host pairs followed.

They did not attack the hounds.

They went for the brute.

Meris struck first from the side and drove the brute off balance. The bronze dragon came down behind her, and fire crossed the creature’s shoulder until the outer plates blackened and one seam split. The third pair attacked that opening, sending dragonfire beneath the cracked armor. The brute lurched forward, made two more steps, and collapsed before it reached the wall.

Veyr did not immediately send the dragons after the scattered hounds. Killing the largest creature had taken three coordinated strikes. Spending them on scattered hounds would only leave the sky open somewhere more important.

The attack did not stop.

Stonebacks continued striking the side walls.

Ash hounds tested every opening the infantry failed to close quickly enough.

Raigoro heard another section of masonry break somewhere east.

He was halfway toward it when Holt came back up the lower stair.

The engineer carried the support removed from the opened housing in his hand.

Raigoro stopped.

"What?"

Holt held the bracket beside the specification sample the local crew had brought from stores.

The installed piece was visibly thinner.

Raigoro looked at him.

"Can you tell me why?"

"Not from one bracket."

Holt looked toward the lower access.

"I need the other housings opened."