A Country Falls (Greatest Thief 3) - Chapter 2: Chapter 2

After dinner, Tannix and Mayah were given rooms in the castle. Tannix wanted me to stay with him. Acen argued that I had to live in the barracks with the knights. I think I surprised both of them when I agreed with Acen.
A nice room had been set aside for our knights. It wasn't enormous, but there was enough room for eight beds, four on each side and an aisle down the middle. The knights hadn't brought much with them, and they were used to living in close quarters. They helped each other undo armour and stripped off tunics and pants without a care, talking all the while.
It was the first time I had really witnessed this side of their camaraderie. I sat on my bed, my bag of clothes plopped unopened in front of me, and just watched the knights. Or tried not to watch them. In different ways they were all attractive men, but I didn't need to be so blatantly reminded. I finally understood Mayah's distress when she had explained this exact experience to me.
After some time, I turned my attention to my bag and dug through it for my night clothes. The knights were all dressed in loose fitting tunics and pants. Mandell looked like he was already asleep, sprawled out on his back. At the far end of the room, Kor and Ender were bickering about something. Closer to me Jalor and Joen were talking about possibly making friends with some of the Navirian soldiers in the morning. Acen was in the castle with Tannix.
Evrik had the bed next to mine, and he moved over to sit beside me. "He'll be all right."
It took me an embarrassingly long moment to realize that he meant Tannix. "Oh. I know."
I clearly looked uncomfortable, because he took another guess. "You'll be all right."
This time I laughed. "I know."
"So... what's the problem?" Evrik asked.
I waved with my left hand, lazily indicating the whole room. "I'm not used to... all of this."
"Sharing a room? Well, Mandell snores," Evrik said. "Kor has nightmares and wakes up screami—"
"I do not!" Kor called across the room, his argument with Ender evidentially forgotten. Even Mandell sat up to look at him, and in the silence that followed Kor shrugged. "Well, it was just the one time."
"At least twice," Ender said.
Kor threw a pillow at him. "Aye, mate, and if you ever see me get sliced open, I'll make sure to mock you when you have nightmares about it."
"I'm not—"
"Go to sleep," Mandell grumbled, lying down again. "I'm replacing Acen for the midnight watch and if you two keep me awake I'm dragging both of you along with me."
The twins went quiet. Jalor and Joen continued their conversation. I turned to Evrik again.
"I've shared rooms before. We were all in prison together, if that counts. But I also shared a room with the thieves. It's just... are you really going to make me say it?"
The moment Evrik understood, his expression changed. Concern turned to amusement. "Oh." He exhaled the word slowly. "Oh, I see. Well. It's not... We're not..." He held up a hand to stop me from interrupting, and took the moment to collect his thoughts. "If you look at us, you're not betraying Tannix."
I blinked. "That's not what I was—"
"Joen," Evrik said a little louder. "You're the only one here with any experience with this. So, if you looked at another woman, would your wife be angry?"
Joen laughed. "If I looked at another woman, no. If I looked at another woman, yes."
"Well, there you go, my friend." Evrik clapped me on the shoulder triumphantly, like he had actually solved anything. "You can look at us, but you can't look at us," he mimicked the way Joen had stressed the word.
"I'm really not worried about Tannix being upset," I said. "I just don't want to make any of you uncomfortable."
"Oh." Evrik nodded. "Well, that's easier to fix. If we cared, we wouldn't change in front of each other," he pointed out. "Bandage up another man's wounds and bruises often enough and you get pretty used to seeing—"
"Evrik." Mandell sounded half asleep, but just as annoyed as when he had shushed the twins. "Shut up."
Evrik smiled, shrugged, and gave me a friendly punch on the shoulder before shifting back over to his own bed. I quickly changed into my night clothes. Evrik's words didn't really made me feel any better, but the easy way he had accepted my concern did. As did the simple fact that he had tried to help me feel better.
As quietly as possible, I put my bag and knife belt into the chest at the foot of my bed. The bed creaked as I lay down and drew the blankets up under my chin. As far as beds went, it wasn't the most comfortable, but I was pretty good at falling asleep regardless of what I was lying on. So it didn't take long for me to drift off.
When I woke up, the room was empty. The beds were neatly made and the knights were gone. I knew they couldn't be far, so I took my time getting out of bed. I tried to copy the neat way the knights had placed their sheets, and once I was satisfied with how my bed looked, I quickly changed into the same nice clothing Tannix had surprised me with the day before.
I stepped out into a busy yard, while doing up the buckle on my knife belt. Dark clouds covered the sky, and the lack of sun didn't make the air any cooler. The air was so damp it felt heavy, but there was nothing I could do to change that, so I tried to ignore it and focused on the task at hand.
It wasn't hard to spot the knights. Not only did we all wear blue, compared to the Navirian soldiers' brownish orange, but Mandell and Joen were easily a head taller than most other men. I made my way across the yard to join them and the trio of Navirians they were speaking with. Despite the language barrier, they were communicating with hand gestures and simple words. Joen could speak some Deorun and it was close enough to Navirian that he was getting by. The three Navirians was trying out some rough Teltish. Everything seemed to be going well.
"Morning, Finn." Evrik was the first to notice as I joined them. "You looked so peaceful. We didn't want to disturb you."
"Thanks." I glanced at the group quickly. "Jalor's with Tannix? Any news?"
Evrik shrugged. "We probably won't hear much. It's just going to be talks after talks after talks. Our job is to make friends."
"We're making a good impression," Acen clarified, leaning closer to me. "You saw how impressed Queen Navire was with us. We want her soldiers to be just as impressed. Joen, can you introduce Finn to our new friends?" He gave me a nudge towards Joen, who was standing a little closer to the Navirians.
Joen smiled at me as I stepped up beside him. "Finn. This is Karian, Valari and Angelys. They've been assigned to be our guides."
Karian, the only man in the trio, flashed me a friendly smile. He had short curly hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and a long sword strapped to his belt. The two women each wore their hair in a tight bun, similarly to how Acen tied back his long hair. They both had two short swords on their backs, with the hilts poking over each shoulder. They looked me over, but seemed more interested in eyeing the knights. There was nothing hostile about their inspection. I had the feeling they were more interested in the various weapons the knights were wearing, than in the knights themselves.
Karian offered me his hand. It was a distinctly Teltish gesture, but I reached to shake it anyway. "You are Zian fenn," he said brightly.
"No, it's Finn," I corrected.
Karian shook his head and glanced at Joen. "What is Teltish word?"
"Thief," Joen said. "Finn, fenn is the Navirian word for thief."
Karian seemed to think the coincidence was hilarious, and he laughed. "Yes. You are fenn called Finn."
One of the women chimed in then. I thought she was Valari, based solely on the order Joen had said their names. "We have a lot of time. We could fight?" She gestured at the knights. "A friend challenge, yes? I will fight the axeman."
Evrik looked equal parts startled and eager. "A duel? Sounds fun. I could trade my axe for a sword, though, to better suit your fighting style."
Valari titled her head quizzically. "You do not know my style."
Evrik's confidence faltered comically. "Yes, well, I just meant... swords."
Valari reached over her shoulders and drew both swords. Except that they weren't swords. Instead of long, uniformly straight blades, her weapons were curved. Past the bend, the blade widened to nearly double the width of the handle, and curved back together to form a sharp point. "Kukri," she said. "Not sword."
We shifted into more of a circle. Acen whispered something to Evrik, who nodded before stepping forward. He unhooked one of his axes and pulled the shield from his back. Angelys and Valari exchanged a few words before Valari moved into the circle. Evrik and Valari stood still, watching each other carefully. A quick glance around showed me that every one of the knights was watching closely, and some extra Navirians were even joining us on the sidelines.
Valari moved first. Almost too quickly to follow, she stepped forward and slashed the knives at Evrik. Both knives skittered across his shield, and Valari hopped back before Evrik could retaliate.
"She's testing him." Acen appeared between me and Joen. Joen was, by far, the least experienced of the guard. He wasn't even technically a knight. It made sense that Acen would want to talk him through the display. "See, she's going to poke and prod him until he slips up. He's fairly stationary when he uses his shield."
"Why doesn't he use his second axe, instead?" Joen asked.
"He might," Acen said.
Valari skipped forward again. This time Evrik moved to meet her. When she swung the knives, he sidestepped, and before she could completely recover, he knocked her arms with the shield. She deflected his axe swing and backed up again.
Over and over again, Valari did the same thing. She darted forward, tested some new trick, and backed up again. Evrik was stationary with his shield, but he was clearly hard to get through. While he never landed a blow, he seemed to block Valari's attacks with relative ease.
"Evrik," Kor called, after Valari's tenth or eleventh attack. "Drop the shield, mate."
Beside me, Acen nodded, but he didn't say anything.
We watched another brief exchange. Valari tried a chopping motion that Evrik blocked with his axe. He shoved her back with his shield and she nearly lost her balance before backing out of reach again.
"Can he drop the shield quickly enough?" I asked.
Acen bobbed his head back and forth in a sort of shrug. "He's capable of it. But he's trying to be chivalrous. Evrik, end it."
Evrik darted a glance in our direction. Valari lunged. She crossed her arms, swiping her knives at Evrik from both directions at once. Instead of stepping up to meet her, he stepped back. In one fluid motion, he dropped the shield and unhooked his second axe. Valari's knives harmlessly sliced through the air.
Valari was used to watching the axe in his right hand. The one in his left caught her entirely off guard. He swung with them both at once. She blocked his right axe, but wasn't fast enough to adjust and block his left axe. Twisting the axe sideways so the blade wouldn't hurt her, he smacked her thigh.
Valari drew back, watching him warily. I understood suddenly how much Evrik's second axe changed things. All of her tests were now useless, and she had no idea how he was going to move. He didn't give her a chance to figure it out, either. Evrik stepped forward, forcing her to dance back another step. He had a longer reach with his axes, and he swung them back and forth, keeping her at a distance.
But his longer reach wasn't always an advantage. The next time Valari moved, she ducked under a swing and was suddenly too close for him to properly defend himself. She elbowed his right arm out of the way and hit his left wrist with the flat of her blade. Evrik tried to step back but she followed, knocking aside his arms so he couldn't bring the axes close enough to attack.
Then Evrik stepped on the edge of his shield, and the other edge teetered into the air. Without looking down, Evrik kicked it. The shield caught Valari in the ankle and she went down. There was a brief scuffle, then they both froze. It took me a second to make sense of what had happened. Valari was lying on her back, with Evrik's axe hovering above her neck. I thought that meant Evrik had won, until I noticed the cut on Evrik's left arm.
The knights started discussing the results of the duel. Evrik offered Valari his hand and helped her to her feet. They exchanged a few words and she punched him in the chest, but they were both laughing.
"So, who won?" I asked Acen.
"Depends on the rules. Evrik had the first hit, Valari drew the first blood. Evrik!"
Evrik hooked his axes back on his belt, and stooped to pick up his shield as he walked over to us. He slung the shield over his back and grinned. "Acen. I think I'm in love."
"You're on duty," Acen said.
"I've never been beaten by a woman," Evrik said dreamily, as if he hadn't even heard Acen.
"You're on duty," Acen repeated. "Go up to the castle."
"Yes, sir." Evrik walked off, and I was about to make a joke when movement across the circle caught my attention.
One of the Navirians who had joined to watch the duel stepped forward. He had a quiver of arrows at his hip, and his bow was shorter and curvier than the ones the twins used. Without saying a thing, he pointed at the twins, then himself, then a row of targets across the yard. The twins smiled and grabbed their bows.
I had a feeling the challenges were only just beginning. At least watching them would be more interesting than sitting through the endless meetings Tannix, Mayah and the Queen had scheduled.