Chapter 94: THE DRAGON WARLORD

RAIGORO’S POV

Vharos was coming.

Raigoro had no time to decide whether he was furious.

The southern trees began breaking before the creature came fully into view. One pine went down, then another, and an enormous corrupted shape forced its way into the valley.

It moved on six plated limbs, larger than the ridge brute Meris had helped kill earlier.

Plates of corrupted hide covered its front body, but the iron driven through its shoulders was different. Those pieces had been placed there deliberately. Chains dragged beneath its chest, attached to fittings buried deep enough that corrupted flesh had grown around them.

The nearest ward marker flickered when the creature crossed it.

Raigoro saw the change.

The creature struck the outer barrier.

Pale ward light dimmed again.

The impact alone did not explain that.

Someone had altered this creature for war.

Raigoro did not yet know how the iron, corruption, and ward reaction connected. He knew what the enemy expected the creature to do: break the wall and damage the system beneath it.

Stonebacks packed tightly behind the six-limbed creature, ready to enter whatever opening it created.

The archers fired as the giant crossed the first marker, but the arrows struck its plated front without slowing it.

Veyr looked at Meris.

Raigoro shook his head.

"Not yet."

"If it reaches the wall..."

"I know."

The last remaining airborne pair burned one carrion drake out of the air.

Three more dropped from above before the dragon could turn toward the ground fight. One went for the Dragon Host officer while the others attacked the wing root from opposite sides.

The larger dragon climbed to keep them from surrounding its vulnerable wing.

The pair remained alive and fighting, but the drakes had succeeded in keeping it away from the ground line.

The giant crossed the second marker.

Stonebacks compressed behind it.

The giant was meant to break the opening so the smaller creatures could flood through before Blackharrow could close it again.

Holt could not afford that directly above the lower works.

"Oil trench."

Arven looked at him.

"Now?"

"Now."

Fire crossed the southern approach.

The front ash hounds broke sideways.

The stonebacks slowed.

The giant did not.

It walked through the burning line.

"Archers. Eyes and joints."

The next volley struck higher.

One arrow disappeared beneath an armored plate.

The creature roared and kept coming.

"Veyr."

Meris launched.

Meris had already spent hours scouting, fighting, and shifting between threatened positions that night. Veyr had one serious attack left before using her again became gambling with the dragon rather than commanding her.

Veyr took Meris across the creature’s left side for a single pass. Her fire opened corruption beneath one shoulder and made the giant stagger, but it stayed upright.

Meris climbed away, and her next wingbeat came late.

Veyr did not turn her back for another attack.

Good.

Raigoro would have ordered him down if he had.

Veyr took Meris back toward the junction landing and grounded her. Her breathing had gone too hard for another combat pass.

The giant struck the southern wall hard enough to throw Raigoro onto one knee. Stone burst inward, someone screamed behind him, and half the barrier disappeared beneath dust.

Ash hounds came through before the air cleared. Raigoro rose with his sword already moving and cut down the first while Arven took the next creature from the opposite side.

Blackharrow’s command guard entered the breach.

Holt’s engineers were directly beneath them now.

If the line moved another twenty paces, the lower access was lost.

The bond reached Raigoro first with pain, fury, and an old certainty he had not felt this strongly in years.

Then a shadow crossed the broken wall.

Every dragon in the valley reacted.

Meris lifted her head.

The carrion drakes scattered upward.

Soldiers looked north.

Vharos crossed the ridge.

He was thinner than the dragon Blackharrow remembered from the old campaigns.

His wingbeats were slower.

He wore only a light field harness, not his old battle rig.

Whatever had happened at the Citadel, nobody had equipped him for war.

He was still Vharos.

A roar struck the valley.

Men who had been backing toward the lower court stopped.

Raigoro felt the pain under every wingbeat.

"You should not be here."

Vharos landed hard enough to crack ice from the stone.

The dragon turned his head.

Raigoro knew that look after nineteen years of living with it.

Apparently illness had not made Vharos more obedient.

The giant corrupted creature was forcing itself through the broken wall.

Vharos lowered one shoulder.

Raigoro stared at him.

Raigoro had not commanded him here. Vharos had already made that choice himself.

Raigoro sheathed his sword.

"Veyr."

The captain looked at him.

"Meris stays down. Keep the remaining airborne pair on my right when they can disengage. Do not let them match Vharos’s pace."

"Understood."

Raigoro looked toward Arven.

"You have the inner line while I’m airborne."

Arven nodded.

"Understood."

Raigoro took the harness.

For the first time in years, the Dragon Warlord mounted his dragon for war.

Vharos launched.

The bond changed everything.

From the ground, Raigoro had been reading whatever part of the formation stood directly in front of him. From Vharos’s back, the whole structure became visible at once: the giant at the front, stonebacks compressed behind it, carrion drakes forcing the remaining Dragon Host pair away from the valley center, and ash hounds flooding the broken wall.

The formation expected Vharos to attack the largest creature.

Raigoro saw a better answer.

He leaned left.

Vharos already knew.

They passed the giant.

Vharos’s fire struck the stonebacks behind it.

The packed rear line opened.

"Now!"

Arven heard the signal below.

Blackharrow infantry drove into the gap between the giant and its support.

The formation separated.

The giant tried to turn after them, but its size made the response slow. Vharos came around above it, and pain entered the bond during the turn.

Raigoro felt it immediately. He did not ask for another climb and brought Vharos lower instead.

The chains along the creature’s chest flashed beneath them. One iron fitting had already torn corruption away from the armor, exposing a damaged seam.

"There."

Vharos banked toward it before Raigoro needed to repeat himself.

Fire struck the exposed seam. When the creature recoiled, Raigoro drew his sword.

Vharos passed close enough for Raigoro to cut the strained restraint line where it crossed the loosened plate. Iron snapped away, the plate tore sideways, and the damaged front joint beneath it lost support.

The giant collapsed against its own front limbs.

The formation around the giant broke, but the battle continued.

Stonebacks continued coming through the southern approach.

Ash hounds had already reached the inner court.

The junction still shook beneath the combined ward pressure.

Holt still needed time.

Raigoro felt Vharos’s exhaustion through the bond.

Vharos had already spent too much strength. Raigoro judged that he might have one useful movement left, perhaps two, and knew he should have landed him.

Below, the lower ward light went dark.

Holt had run out of time.

Raigoro looked toward the broken line.

Vharos felt it too.

The ancient dragon turned before Raigoro asked.

They descended together.