Dragons Rising ✔️

Ch 59: Secrets

No one said anything as Clarisa retrieved her pack and went back to her tent in silence. Farot and Bylanna started dragging the sedated thunderbeast riders back to their tents so they wouldn't freeze to death. I joined in. It took Kuertis and Tawny a while to get over the shock of learning that Clarisa was a paltor before they started helping as well.

After checking every corpse and retrieving the stolen supplies, then tying up the frazin riders, we learned that one of Farot's men had died and two more were seriously injured. We'd recovered most of the supplies, though Farot seem to have lost something very important. He searched every frazin rider twice before declaring that he would have to go after the ones that had escaped and get back what they'd stolen.

Kuertis and Bylanna volunteered to go with him, but they were both mildly injured.

"Clarisa and Tawny will come with me. You two are injured, and Ella has not slept. It is good she had not, or else we would have had no chance to confront the frazin riders."

Tawny gave me a terrified look.

"It'll be fine," I whispered as Farot went to retrieve Clarisa.

She clutched my sleeve. "El, how do you even know that this mission is real? What if it's all a trap? What if Clarisa just tricked us all to get us here and trade us to the Ferentisians for a reward or something?"

I patted her arm. "Callah herself sent us on this mission. It's real, even if Clarisa is actually a half-blood."

"I'm afraid to go with them alone."

"You'll be fine. They won't hurt you as long as you keep quiet about the whole paltor thing." I hoped it was true. They had no reason to hurt her as long as she was helping with the mission, but still... Clarisa had a temper, and I didn't really know Farot that well.

"I hope you're right," she said as Farot returned with Clarisa.

"We will wait for the dragons to wake. It will happen soon, then we will go," he said.

Farot's prediction came true a few seconds later when the snores of the dragons turned into growls and snarls. They'd undoubtedly awoken before the sedated bipeds due to their larger size.

The other dragons and Farot's katalni had been chained to stakes in the ground, so they merely made inquisitive noises in their rider's direction while Leera came over to inspect me.

[Good aim with the daltek. I saw his face before I came over,] she said.

[Thanks.] I glanced over at the expedition group. Clarisa, Farot, and Tawny were mounting up to go after the escaped frazin riders.

Kuertis, who was leaning on a sword for support because of an injured leg, groaned and swayed enough to worry me.

"You should get that bandaged," Bylanna said as he passed him to go into her tent.

"Some help would be nice," Kuertis muttered. He tried to limp towards his tent and almost fell over.

"I'll help." I hurried to help him stay on his feet.

He leaned on me and his sword as we made our way to his tent. After the fire and the running around, I'd been fairly warm, but the chill began to creep back in. It was a relief to be inside Kuertis's warm tent. I closed the tent flap behind us before crouching by his injured left leg.

"Here." He handed me a roll of bandages from his pack.

I took them and gingerly pulled his pants leg up away from the cut. It didn't look great, and I certainly didn't have Tawny's healing expertise. However, I did know that I should clean out the wound and bind it tightly—but not too tightly—to stop the bleeding.