Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

through the worst of the rough air, fighting not to be tipped over into a roll. She groaned as she curved her back and snapped her wings out. Gravity slammed us down against the saddle, gradually letting up as the dragon leveled into a shallower, slower dive. I shrugged it off, but Suri wasn’t doing so well. She wasn’t big on wide open spaces, and her Strength and Stamina didn’t do anything against the power of g-forces. I saw her slump dizzily, her hands loosening.

“Suri!” I pushed up and ran, balancing on the heaving surface of Karalti's back, and threw myself down to snatch her wrist before she went flying over Karalti’s shoulder. “Stay awake!”

“Urrrgh.” Suri was fighting it, struggling to stay conscious. I held on for dear life as Karalti lurched to one side - the side weighed down by Cutthroat.

“I'm not sure I can land properly!” Karalti said shakily. “Hector, I'm down to seven percent stamina-!”

“You can do it!” I snarled, bracing myself on the pitching platform, and hauled back with all my strength. Suri’s Stamina was coming into play now: she shook her head, snorting like a bull, and clawed toward me. When she was on, I flopped down over her back, dug hands and feet under any straps I could find, and hung on.

Steam billowed from Karalti's boiling-hot scales as she swung her heavy lower body forward, threw her wings back and beat them hard. Not only did she have to land while exhausted, she had to touch down on one foot so as not to crush Cutthroat against the paving stones. For a second, it seemed like she'd be able to pull it off - but then a gust of wind slapped her from the side as her claws made contact, knocking her foot out from under her and tripping her. The dragon bellowed. With her second heart pumping, she was still only half a ton, but in her effort not to crush us all, she twisted awkwardly onto her keel. The ground shook, and I felt something in her chest snap with a dull wet crack of bone separating from cartilage as she slid to a stop on her belly, heaving for breath.

“Fuck! Karalti!” I forgot everyone and everything else in that moment. I pushed up off Suri, vaulted down, and ran to Karalti's head. She was still breathing, and her pulse was strong. I felt along her neck as she groaned, down to her wingshoulder. She was too large and I was too gentle to find anything wrong at first - but when I shoved, she snarled and reared her head.

“Urrrghhh... I hurt.” Karalti's mental voice was groggy. “Is everyone okay?”

I looked back. Cutthroat was running for us, calling for Suri. Suri was sitting up on Karalti’s back, having a discreet panic attack. “Yeah. Everyone made it except you. What's hurting? Can you move your wing?”

Karalti got her clawed hands under her chest with some effort, and pushed herself up - or tried to. The left arm wobbled and nearly went out from under her. Whimpering, she lowered herself back to the wet stone.

“It's okay, girl. You're gonna be okay. I think you just cracked a couple of ribs.” I stuffed my panic down, stomped on it for good measure, and tried to think calmly. My own chest was aching, and I hadn't even hit anything. “Shit shit shit. We can brew you potions to fix your chest up, okay?”

“Sure. Don't worry - I'm alright. Take care of Suri.” The dragon rolled toward her right side, huffing with discomfort.

While Karalti caught her breath, I checked my notifications:

[Karalti is Injured! HP reduced, Maximum Stamina has been reduced to 25. Karalti cannot Fly. HP: 1001/1440]

Shitballs. I didn't have any ranks in Field Medicine (Dragons) yet, so no HUD prompts appeared to help me diagnose her injuries. All I had to go off was my relatively basic understanding of her anatomy. I carefully began to push around her ribs, searching for a break - and quickly realized that with a creature of this size, 'carefully' wasn't going to cut it. I had to put my whole bodyweight into imaging her, stopping only when I felt her flesh dimple and she huffed with pain. Even then, it didn't feel like human ribs.

[You have gained a new skill: Field Medicine (Dragon/Solonkratsu)]

[This is an Advanced Crafting Skill. You can only learn up to Rank 4 without a racial tutor (Solonkratsu).]

“Owww!” Karalti huffed out loud, snapping her jaws.

“Sorry, Tidbit.” Even though I now had the skill, I didn't have enough ranks to gain special insights. “Yeah, I'm sure you snapped some ribs off your sternum there. Don't worry, okay? We'll brew you a ton of Bonefuse, and you'll be okay.”

“Fuckin' hell, that was rough. Is she alright?” Suri made her way over to join me. She was still wobbly on her feet: rumpled, dirty, exhausted, and windblown.

“She will be. But I have to brew an ass-ton of potion, and we have to be at the parliament house in an hour.” I unequipped my helmet and yanked at my braidhawk in frustration.

“No way. We didn’t take that long, did we? I thought we had six hours left on the clock?”

“Look at the time. I forgot that this game had fucking timezones.”

Karalti whimpered. “I'm sorry!”

“No, Tidbit, it's my fault. You handled it as well as you could. I'm an idiot and didn't think ahead.” I rubbed Karalti's arm, frowning. “We have an hour to find clothes… Karalti can’t fly…”

“We'll figure something out, alright? Come on - let's go get Masha and see if she can help Special-K here. We can't leave her like this.”

But fortunately, some clever NPC was ahead of us on that particular curve, because we'd barely started to push our way through the crowd of onlookers before the sea of people parted to admit the Masterhealer of Vulkan Keep. Masha was a tiger trapped in an old woman’s body. She was roughly four feet tall and three days older