What He Saved

Rishi braced on both hands and lifted his head behind Aurinax.

The dragon’s wing lay between him and the smoking hollow where Xanathar had been. Coins still fell from its torn edge. Beyond it, stone broke loose at the breach and struck the hoard with a sound Rishi felt through both palms.

A many-armed creature gripped the broken stone halfway through the opening. It raised its broad torso, turning the small eyes in its flesh toward the Vault.

All of them went dark.

Rishi held still. The creature folded into shadows that had no body to cast them. Near the entrance, the floating creature caught on Renaer’s rapier loosened around the blade, its round body dissolving into smoke and oily light. Another crawling creature vanished beneath Force Grey’s swords.

No one lowered a weapon.

Smoke lifted from Rishi’s burned fur. He turned toward the breach again, waiting for the next movement.

Vajra stood behind the nearest pillar with the Blackstaff braced against the gold. The pale working around her guards faded as she straightened. “Secure the breach. Bring the wounded clear of that wall.”

Her voice was hoarse. It still carried.

The spellguards advanced in pairs. Two warrior-mages followed, probing the raw tunnel. Others moved among the fallen, calling for help where someone breathed and marking the stone above them before attempting to lift anyone.

Renaer lowered his rapier. Gold slid from his coat as he rose beside the pillar.

Maeril was still on the unicorn near the outer wall. The creature’s legs trembled beneath her.

Renaer looked from the smoking hollow to her. “I am beginning to understand why Firemind always looked tired around you.”

Maeril drew breath. A thin laugh escaped instead. “I had a very good staff.”

Vajra regarded the burned splinters scattered through the gold. “Manshoon’s power ended another tyrant.”

Maeril looked down at her empty hand. “He would have hated that.”

“Expensive poetry,” Vajra said.

Maeril’s mouth moved. “Put it on Waterdeep’s bill.”

Aurinax tried to rise.

His front claws pressed through the coins. The wounded foreleg took his weight and failed. His chest struck the hoard, and the sound he made passed through the floor beneath Rishi’s hands.

Rishi crossed to him. He placed each great palm carefully, keeping clear of the people bent over the wounded. A guard stepped aside; Rishi lowered his head in acknowledgment and continued toward the dragon’s claw.

The unicorn followed with Maeril. Its horn hung low, the light passing over the gaps in Aurinax’s scales.

Rishi turned his hands toward her.

“I know,” Maeril said. “Hold still.”

The enormous shoulders drew inward. Fur receded, and the weight that had carried him across the chamber left his limbs. His left shoulder throbbed. He caught himself with his right hand against the floor, waited for his balance, then stood.

Aurinax’s golden eye followed him.

Rishi approached with his hands visible and stopped within reach of one talon. Heat came from the dragon in uneven breaths. Beneath the smell of hot metal and scorched stone was blood.

He lowered himself to one knee. “Let us help you.”

Aurinax watched him for a moment. Then his head descended until Rishi could reach the wounds along his neck.

Deathly blackness spread beneath the scales. Farther down the flank, disintegration had left clean absences where flesh should have been. Rishi laid both palms against an unbroken scale beside the worst of the bleeding.

He could not heal a body this large alone. He began where blood was still escaping.

Warm light passed from his hands. The flow beneath the lifted scale slowed, then thickened. Rishi kept his breath even when pain caught in his shoulder.

Vajra came to the other side. She set his staff within reach and began a broader working with the Blackstaff. Two mages joined her. A cleric knelt beside the failed foreleg and pressed both hands to a gap in the scales.

Footsteps sounded at the entrance. More healers came through with bundles, lamps, and a folded litter.

Hazarak crossed from the pillars to the breach and lowered his head toward the air moving through it. “The lair. Xanathar cut its way here from it.”

Rishi looked toward him, then back at the wound beneath his hands.

Maeril remained mounted near Aurinax’s head. Faint lines of light opened between her fingers as she watched the broken tunnel.

The dragon drew a deeper breath. The next did not shake.

Rishi kept his palms in place until the blackness stopped spreading. When he finally lifted them, his fingers had begun to tremble.

Aurinax lowered his muzzle. Rishi saw his own reflection, small and soot-darkened, in the gold of one eye.

“You stood between,” the dragon said.

Loose coins shifted around Rishi’s knees.

“You made room for us.”

Aurinax moved one talon through the hoard and brought it to rest beside him. “If your road grows too heavy, call.”

Rishi bowed his head. “I will remember.”

“I know.”

The great muzzle rose again. Rishi remained where he was until the dragon had settled his weight.

“Magnificent,” Maeril said under her breath.

The unicorn turned one ear toward her.

“You are also magnificent,” Maeril added.

The ear turned away.

Rishi reached for his staff. He needed it to stand.

Vajra completed her working and stepped back. Aurinax’s breathing had steadied, though the cleric remained beside his foreleg and blood still darkened the torn wing.

“When Xanathar stopped me, you restored my hand,” she said to Rishi.

He looked at the Blackstaff. “I could reach you. I could not have held what came afterward.”

“Neither could my guards. They are alive because you gave me the chance.”

Rishi glanced toward the people gathering the wounded beneath the pillars. One guard held a lamp while another bound a companion’s arm. He inclined his head to Vajra.

Maeril brought the unicorn a little nearer. “You may accept that, Rishi. No one is asking you to make a speech.”

The floor trembled.

Dust sifted from the ceiling. Rishi moved his staff clear of the dragon’s talon and looked up, following a crack toward the breach.

Hazarak listened with one palm against the stone. “Settling. I hear nothing digging.”

Vajra turned to her people. “Brace the opening. Mark every passage that cannot bear weight. No one removes the Stone, the crystal, or one coin without my order.”

Two spellguards brought separate warded cases. Maeril took the wrapped Stone from her satchel and placed it in one. Rishi drew the blue crystal from beneath his coat and laid it in the other. Vajra sealed both with the Blackstaff.

Aurinax watched each seal close. When the second held, he inclined his head.

Renaer stood beside the cases, his rapier lowered. “And the gold?”

“Guarded until we can account for it,” Vajra said. “First we make the chamber safe enough for the people doing the counting.”

Maeril slid down on the unicorn’s uninjured side. Her bad leg folded when her boots entered the coins. Rishi offered his arm; she used it until she had found firmer footing.

When the cleric drew clear, Aurinax gathered his limbs beneath him, leaving the torn wing loose along his flank. His sound wing settled over the coins beside his chest. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Rishi watched his breathing stay even and let him rest.

Maeril’s fingers tightened on his sleeve. She murmured a spell and lifted her free hand before her face, looking from the scorched hollow to the dragon.

“The staff. I can still feel it.”

A brief pull beneath Rishi’s breastbone caught his breath. He stayed still until it passed. “I felt something leave me.”

Vajra came back from the warded cases and raised the Blackstaff. Pale light gathered at its tip while she studied the space before the dragon.

“It’s residual magic. After that blast, I would expect it.” She lowered the staff and looked at Rishi. “You have just helped keep a dragon alive. Give yourself a moment.”

He waited for his breath to settle.

One of the Spires’ healers approached with water and clean linen.

Maeril laid a hand on the unicorn’s neck. “Its flank opened again in the blast. The foreleg has scarcely held it since the street.”

The healer set down her bundle and offered her palm beneath the creature’s muzzle. It breathed over her fingers, then allowed her to come beside the wound.

Maeril bent her forehead into the scorched mane. Rishi kept his arm steady beneath her hand.

“Stay with them,” she murmured. “Let someone else do the walking.”

The unicorn touched her sleeve with its nose. She straightened slowly and moved aside for the healer.

“We need to reach Firemind,” Rishi told Vajra. “And recover anything that can tell us where Elisa and Chime went.”

“Hazarak can take you. The guards will keep this passage open.”

Renaer stepped closer. “Send word as soon as you know what he needs.”

Rishi nodded. Across the chamber, a healer began washing the blood from the unicorn’s flank. He waited until Maeril had seen her settle to the work.

Then they followed Hazarak into the breach.