Chapter 44: Before the Bridge

Once outside Sedol, I climbed high enough to keep the highway in view and flew east.

The land was unfamiliar. I couldn’t let speed make me miss the site.

Rocks thickened on both sides of the road. Beyond an exposed gray slope, the highway entered woods, and a narrow glint of water appeared farther ahead.

(The bridge.)

I banked lower.

A cart leaned sharply before the bridge. One wheel had slipped from the road, sacks and boxes lay scattered, and the harnessed horse thrashed its head.

Gray beasts ran around it.

Small black horns crowned their wolf-like heads—the same magical beasts seen near Rue.

Four were immediately visible, with more shadows near the trees.

Five humans remained by the cart. One armed man held wolves at bay with the cart behind him. The other sat on the ground, and the remaining three were hardly unhurt.

(All five are here.)

I almost descended directly, then stopped. The horse was already terrified. An Adult Dragon landing overhead could make matters worse.

I landed in a treeless patch away from the highway. Dust rose.

The wolves crouched. I folded my wings and charged back to the road. The sound of my four limbs pounding the earth was enough: one wolf fled into the trees, then two more.

An armed man started after them.

“Don’t chase!” another shouted.

I agreed. I hadn’t come to kill wolves. The humans came first.

“Dragon…”

A blade half turned toward me, then lowered.

“Wait. It’s probably the Rue dragon.”

“Val?”

My name had spread.

I nodded.

“…Where are injured?”

The seated man’s right leg was trapped beneath the cart. The body hadn’t crushed him, but the shifted bed pinned him between wood and earth. Another man pressed a bloodied cloth to his arm.

“When the wheel dropped, the load shifted,” a guard said. “We tried lifting it, but someone else was hurt. The horse is panicking too.”

I examined the tilted cart.

I could lift it.

The difficulty was restraint. Human carts weren’t built for dragon strength.

“…Can remove cargo? From high side.”

The three mobile people unloaded sacks and boxes. I watched the woods. Wolves remained among the trees, but strangely didn’t return. They seemed to move while observing the highway rather than stalking the cart.

There was no time to probe their emotions. A human was trapped.

When the high side was as empty as possible, I moved to the low side. My claw made the wood creak, so I stopped, turned, and fitted my shoulder beneath the bed instead.

“…I’ll support. Pull leg.”

They steadied the injured man’s upper body.

I applied strength slowly.

The cart creaked and rose.

“Now!”

The humans pulled.

I held still. The weight was trivial; the danger was shifting and breaking the wooden frame.

“Clear!”

Only after the man was fully away did I lower the cart with a dull thud.

The leg was badly swollen, though not bleeding much.

“…Better not move it.”

“We know. We’ll find a splint.”

The horse screamed when I merely looked toward it. I backed away.

“…I’ll move farther.”

“Sorry. It’s been frightened the whole time.”

That was natural. From the horse’s perspective, a dragon following a wolf attack was another disaster.

I moved to the roadside and studied the location. The bridge was narrow, with little escape beside it. Wolves surrounding a panicked horse could easily cause a wheel to fall.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Three blocked the road beyond the bridge. When we drew weapons, more came from the forest. Six or seven, perhaps.”

The guard said something strange: some had attacked, but others ignored the humans and continued west toward Sedol.

This wasn’t simply an entire pack hunting people.

The soft ground held overlapping pawprints, including tracks crossing the bridge westward. I couldn’t interpret them as Dario might.

Before I could investigate farther, rescuers arrived from Sedol—some mounted, some on foot, several armed.

They split between tending the injured and guarding the bridge. No one tried to leave everything to me.

They decided to take the wounded back first, leave no one with the damaged cart, and return later for what couldn’t be carried.

A horned gray wolf briefly appeared beyond the bridge. It froze when it saw me, then withdrew. I did not chase it, but remembered the direction.

East.

Beyond the bridge.

Something was happening there.

I still had enough strength and magic to fly, but I wouldn’t go without limit.

A Sedol man thanked me for saving the trapped traveler.

“…Not safe yet.”

“That’s why we’re returning him.”

The man agreed they had to learn something of the situation, but not with wounded people present.

“…I’ll look from above. Not far. Only what I can see.”

I was warned not to descend recklessly.

I took off from far enough away not to terrify the horses.

Above the woods, I saw one gray shadow and then another, both moving west roughly along the highway, not returning to the cart.

Why were they flowing this way?

No answer was visible.

That was precisely why I crossed the bridge to investigate.