Chapter 95: VHAROS FALLS

RAIGORO’S POV

The lower ward light had gone dark while Holt’s engineers were still below and enemy creatures pushed into the inner court.

Holt needed minutes.

Raigoro used the height Vharos already had instead of asking the exhausted dragon to climb or waste strength on another turn.

Vharos crossed the inner court low enough that infantry ducked beneath his wing.

Fire swept through the creatures pressing the lower access. Ash hounds caught in the center went down, while the heavier bodies broke away from the flame long enough for Arven to see the opening.

"Forward!"

Blackharrow took the court back ten paces.

One pale engineering flare rose from the lower court, followed by a second.

Holt’s prearranged signal:

CENTRAL BRACE SET.

The repair was not complete, but the junction had stopped moving toward immediate failure.

Relief entered Raigoro.

Vharos felt it.

The next wingbeat failed without warning.

Pain tore through Raigoro’s left side through the bond as Vharos rolled beneath him.

"Down."

Vharos tried, but his left wing no longer answered correctly. The ridge tilted until sky became stone.

Raigoro pulled himself tight against the harness as Vharos fought for control.

The old dragon avoided the inner court. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

Even falling, he avoided his own soldiers.

They struck the northern slope instead.

The impact threw Raigoro from the harness.

Snow and broken stone took the rest.

After the impact, sound disappeared beneath the confusion of snow and broken stone. Then the bond returned with pain strong enough to tell Raigoro the first thing he needed to know: Vharos was alive.

Raigoro rolled onto one knee.

His sword was gone and his left shoulder hurt, but neither mattered yet.

Vharos lay farther down the slope with one wing twisted beneath him.

"Vharos."

He reached the dragon.

Vharos’s eye opened.

Recognition crossed the bond.

Then pain.

Raigoro put one hand against black scales.

"Enough."

Vharos’s answer was not language.

Irritation.

Good.

Raigoro almost laughed.

Boots and wings sounded behind him.

The field team reached them first: Dragon Healers with two Dragonkeepers carrying emergency restraint cloth, padding, and a folded windbreak.

Raigoro looked down at Vharos’s left side.

One strap of the light harness had twisted beneath the injured wing during the fall.

He reached for the knife at his belt.

"Do not cut that."

Raigoro turned.

One of the Dragonkeepers was already kneeling beside the wing.

"It is trapped."

"I know."

"Then free it."

"Not until the healer checks how the wing is lying."

Raigoro looked at the strap again.

The Dragonkeeper kept his hands visible and away from Vharos until the dragon registered him.

"If we release it now and the shoulder rolls with the weight, we may turn one injury into another."

Raigoro’s hand remained on the knife.

Every instinct told him to remove the thing caught beneath Vharos.

The man beside him knew more about moving an injured dragon safely.

Raigoro let go of the knife.

"Tell me when."

The Dragonkeeper nodded.

The senior Dragon Healer moved to Vharos’s chest and throat while the second checked his eyes and breathing.

Nobody tried to straighten the wing.

Vharos drew another breath.

Then another.

Both sounded wrong.

Raigoro put one hand against the dragon’s jaw again.

"Is he dying?"

The healer did not look at him.

"I do not know yet."

Raigoro’s fingers pressed harder against Vharos’s scales.

She continued working.

"He is breathing. Give me room to keep him that way."

She had given him the truth rather than comfort, and Raigoro trusted that.

The Dragonkeepers unfolded the windbreak along Vharos’s exposed side. One began supporting the harness while the other prepared padding around the position in which the wing had landed.

"Now?" Raigoro asked.

"Not yet."

He waited.

Vharos’s eye opened again.

Pain moved through the bond.

Then irritation.

Raigoro almost laughed despite everything.

"Yes. I am still here."

The Dragonkeeper at the harness looked toward him.

"Your Grace, when I tell you, lift this section only. Do not pull."

Raigoro took the indicated strap.

"Ready."

The healer braced Vharos’s shoulder position.

"Now."

Raigoro lifted.

The keeper slid the trapped length free and immediately replaced the support with padded restraint positioned around the body rather than the injured wing.

Vharos flinched.

The bond burned.

Then settled slightly.

"Leave it there," the healer said.

Raigoro released the strap.

The moment the strap was free, Raigoro had nothing useful left to do. Every hand still needed around Vharos belonged to someone with a profession Raigoro did not possess.

The junction horn sounded below.

INNER-LINE WARNING.

Raigoro looked toward the station.

Another horn answered.

Vharos was injured at his feet.

Men were still fighting below.

Raigoro wanted to stay beside Vharos badly enough that looking toward the junction felt like a betrayal. The battle horn sounded again anyway.

The senior healer looked up.

"If I need you to keep him alive, I will tell you."

Raigoro looked at her.

Her voice remained practical.

"Right now I need the space."

Vharos’s eye remained open.

Raigoro touched his jaw once.

"Stay."

Irritation answered through the bond.

Alive.

In expert hands.

That was what Raigoro had.

He stood.

The Dragon Healers remained beside Vharos.

The Dragonkeepers were already securing the windbreak and preparing the safest way to keep the injured wing from shifting.

Raigoro turned toward the junction.

Leaving Vharos there felt wrong.

Taking command away from hundreds of people because Raigoro wanted to remain beside him would be wrong too.

Raigoro looked once at the dragon.

Then climbed back toward the station.

A dead soldier’s sword lay near the broken wall.

Raigoro picked it up.

Captain Arven saw him return.

"Vharos?"

"Alive."

"You?"

Raigoro adjusted his grip on the unfamiliar sword.

"Busy."

Arven nodded.

The inner court was still full of corrupted creatures, the lower access still had to remain open, and Holt remained below trying to keep the junction alive.

Raigoro crossed the broken court with another man’s sword in his hand. Vharos was alive behind him, and that was all Raigoro could afford to know until the enemy was out of the station.

Raigoro stepped back into the line.