A Country Falls (Greatest Thief 3) - Chapter 25: Chapter 25

Without Kovin, we wouldn't have made it very far.
The Ady River was swift, wide, and flowing in the wrong direction. Kovin fought against the current, keeping us as close to Deorun's wall as possible. The city's wall ran just along the river, leaving no room for us to climb out and try to walk. In a few places, the stones were crumbled enough that we could hold on and take a bit of a break. Many times, I debated dragging myself out of the water and climbing the wall, but realistically I knew I was too exhausted for that.
Castin shifted constantly between a glassy-eyed panic where he clung to Kovin so tightly he almost stopped Kovin from swimming, to a more controllable fear where he managed to help kick or hold cervices in the wall or the slick plants that grew in the water. Kovin, through all of it, kept trying to move us upriver. We just had to reach the end of the city wall. Then we could pull ourselves from the water and walk around to meet the Ziannan and Navirian armies camped on Deorun's other side. We were so close.
I forced aside my own dislike for the water and tried to both encourage Kovin and keep Castin somewhat distracted. Our progress was so slow that at points it felt like we might have been moving backwards. While I said encouraging things to Castin and Kovin, in my head, prayers to Tolle and Roe repeated in a loop.
And then, finally, we reached the end of the wall.
I grabbed at the roots of a tree and pulled myself out of the water onto the sandy soil that made up the riverbank. Kovin helped push Castin up, then slowly crawled out of the water and immediately rolled over to lie on his back. He closed his eyes and hugged his wounded arm to his chest. Castin shuffled away from the water, wrapped his arms around his knees, and buried his face against them.
We needed to keep moving, but I understood that they both needed a break. I forced myself to my feet and tried to wipe the damp sand off of my legs. "I'm going to look around. Stay here. Cast?"
He grunted some sort of reply. Before I could say Kovin's name, Kovin waved with his good arm.
Cautiously, I walked away. The riverbank was lush compared to the desert, and little houses gathered along it. There was a whole village beside the city. It didn't take me long to realize it was deserted, and not too long ago. Hopefully the people had found refuge inside the city.
I explored the homes closest to the river, but found very little of use. Most of them seemed ransacked—locked doors were broken open, chests were smashed, furniture was askew. In the fifth house I was beginning to lose hope when I felt an odd divot under my foot.
I kicked aside a rug to reveal a trapdoor, locked with a little latch. A rusty fork with bent tines worked well enough as a lockpick, and soon I heard the satisfying click. I lifted the trapdoor and hopped down into a shallow cellar. It was a small space, lined with shelves, covered with little pots and vases. I opened the nearest pot and grinned.
Kovin was asleep when I walked up to them. Castin hadn't moved either, but he lifted his head slowly once I was closer. "Find anything?"
"Someone's looking out for us. Finiss, maybe." I tossed him a small bag of dried fruit. "Eat, there's lots more." While he opened the bag, I sat beside Kovin and gently touched his left hand. "Kovin? Wake up."
Kovin's forearm looked terrible. Dirt and sand had dried to his raw flesh. Patches of the wound already looked burned by the sun. A few flies were buzzing around, trying to dart in and land on it. The elation from my discovery of the cellar dropped away, and thoughts of us trying to drag an unconscious Kovin to the army camp flashed through my mind.
Then he opened his eyes a crack. "Aye?"
I held up the clean washcloth I had found in the cellar. "Can I wrap your arm?"
He nodded and closed his eyes again.
As gently as I could, I lifted Kovin's arm. As his tunic had dried in the sun, seeping blood had stuck it to his arm. I peeled those spots off carefully, all the while wishing I had some sort of salve to slather over his arm. The cloth would protect it from further harm, but it couldn't fix what had already happened.
Once I had the cloth wrapped snugly and secured in place, I called Castin over and together we pulled Kovin to his feet. Castin bore most of his weight as we walked through the deserted village until we reached the house with the cellar.
Inside the house, we tried to slowly lower him onto a sleeping mat. That was the moment he went completely limp and fell through our hands.
"Tufa," Castin swore. "Is he alright?"
I dopped to my knees. "Help me roll him over." We worked together to get him onto his back, and I draped his left arm across his chest again. His breathing was slow but seemed steady. I pressed my hand to his forehead to find that his skin was hot to the touch.
"He's sick. We need to get him to the camp." Castin shot me a look and I nodded. "I know we can't carry him. But we can't leave him, not after—"
"I wasn't going to say we should leave him." Castin was pacing. When his back was towards me, I saw the blood-stained tears in the back of his tunic and remembered Kalvahi's barbed whip. He'd been so strong that I forgot how injured he was. "You need to go," Castin continued, before I could comment on his back. "You need to send someone back to find us. But..." he paused and ran a hand through his hair, only to frown when it came away coated in sand. "You need to rest, too. Right? When was the last time you slept?"
I doubted Kovin could last long enough for me to take a nap. "I'm fine," I lied. My feet ached as I stood up once again. "I just need some food and then I can go."
Castin didn't believe me, but some part of him understood that there wasn't another option. With a stifled groan, he lowered himself into a wooden chair. "And some water..." he mumbled.
"I'm fine," I lied again, before hopping into the cellar. I opened a few pots and bags, chose some, and climbed up the short step-stool. "Here." I placed a pot of dried strips of meat on his lap. "Eat, and if Kovin wakes up, try to make him eat." Then I went to kneel beside Kovin again and I opened the second pot. It was half-full of honey. Using the little wooden spoon in the pot, I slipped some honey into Kovin's mouth. Not enough to choke him, but I hoped that he might manage to swallow at least some of it.
For myself I found a small bag of dried peas. I grabbed a couple strips of meat from Castin's pot and slipped them into my pocket as I walked across to the door. Then I paused, and turned around. Castin was already gnawing on a piece of meat.
"Cast."
His gaze flickered up. "Please don't talk about it. We just... we'll just know. Please?"
Maybe if I was Baisan or Stria, he would be willing to talk. We just weren't good at it. So instead of trying to force him, I nodded slowly. "We'll know," I agreed, and I turned to push open the door.
The already small village became sparser the further I walked from the river. The sun beat down on me. I ate the meat and dried peas, and wished I had found some water before heading out. I could see the army camp far ahead of me, but it shimmered and looked like it was floating on a thin layer of water. My feet hurt and my head hurt and the sun was so hot. I had grown up in a desert city, but the heat had never felt like this.
When I stumbled over nothing and fell face-first into the sand, I decided I had to take a proper break. Nearby, there was the ruins of an old house, half filled with sand that almost looked like a wave crashing through what was once the roof. I crawled over to it, and pressed myself against the wall where there was a thin sliver of shade. My eyes started to drift closed.
But Kovin wouldn't last long enough for me to sleep. Some part of me knew he might already be dead. I didn't need to sleep. I just needed a short break. Then I could...
I was about to lose the struggle against sleep when I heard the dull thuds of hoofbeats. They jolted me awake—awake enough that my brain realized that I needed to try to hide. But not awake enough for me to make my body actually move. Which meant that when the group of soldiers stopped nearby and the sandy dust they had kicked up cleared, I was in the exact same position.
The knights were wearing a mixture of metal armour and billowing fabric. One of them jumped down from the horse in the lead and walked across the sand towards me. I thought again, belatedly, about how I needed to hide.
The knight crouched in front of me, and I was surprised to hear a woman's voice ask something in what sounded like Deoran. Then she paused and unwound the cloth that all of the knights were wearing around their heads. As soon as I could make out her face, my jaw dropped.
"Valari?"
She titled her head quizzically. "Lord Jandor's fenn, yes?"
I think I nodded. I tried to, at least.
She reached into a pocket and pulled out a flask, which she opened and pressed into my hands. "Drink. It is..." It looked like she was trying to come up with the word, but with an annoyed shake of her head she stood up. "Karian—" she spoke in Navirian. One of the other knights jumped down and walked across the sand to join us.
The flask could have been filled with poison; I didn't care. I lifted it to my lips and drank all of it.
Then Karian passed me a second flask and dropped to one knee in front of me. "Teltish?"
"Yes." I managed to say, while trying to open his flask. My hands felt weak and shaky. "Um... Lord Jandor's fenn, yes. I'm Finn."
Karian took the flask from me, opened it, and passed it back. He looked up at Valari and they spoke back and forth for a moment. He turned back to me as I finished off his water. "We are doing a... a ride around, to look for Deorans. Hiding." He tapped his own chest. "I take you to Lord Jandor. Valari and them keep going."
The water did me wonders. I perked up. "I was with two friends. Can you find them? A Zian soldier and a Crelan sailor. We were captured together. I left them in a house because they're hurt and Kovin, the Crelan, I think he's dying, and—"
Karian waved at me to stop. He and Valari said a few more things to each other.
Valari nodded. "Where?" she asked.
"Near the river. His name is Castin. The Zian. He's my brother."
"Castin," Valari repeated. "I will find."
Valari led the rest of her soldiers forward, while Karian lifted me onto the back of his horse. He stood for a moment, looking up at me like he was deep in thought, then pulled himself up to sit behind me. One of the other soldiers had used the water in their flask to dampen a cloth, and Karian draped it over my head.
I tried to sit up straight, but I was exhausted and my head was still pounding and it wasn't long before I leaned back against Karian. When I realized what I was doing I tried to sit up with a start and nearly lost my balance.
Karian steadied me. "If you sleep, it is all right," he said. "You are... it is the sun, yes?"
I nodded weakly. "I think so."
"Maybe also no food and water?" Karian guessed. "If you sleep, I will not let you fall. When we find Lord Jandor he will get a healer for you, and you will rest."
Despite his words, I tried my best to stay awake. Unfortunately, it wasn't a battle I could win. At some point during our ride, I dozed off entirely, and didn't open my eyes until Karian spoke to someone at the edge of the camp.
I still felt off, but I managed to keep myself awake by inspecting the camp around us. From a distance it probably looked like a confusing mess of tightly packed tents, but I could see some sort of order. The tents stood in groupings around firepits. Trunks and crates were piled up as neatly as possible. In a few places, larger sections of the camp had been fenced off for the horses, who huddled together in the shade under cobbled together shelters.
The further into the camp we rode, the bigger and more elaborate the tents became. Flags hung limply in the still air, indicating which important leader the tent belonged to. Some tents even had coloured sides, and my eyes darted around, looking for West Draulin's blue.
Then we rode into a large open space, serving as a sort of courtyard between a handful of the largest tents. Directly ahead of us, guards stood around a long, white tent. On either side of the tent stood Tandrin and Queen Navire's tents, easily recognizable by the flags hanging flat against the side of the canvas. Beside Tandrin's tent...
Blue. Everything Tannix owned was blue, his tent was no exception. The colour was faded by the sun or coated in sand, or both, so it was dull and grey. But it was blue.
I slid from the horse's back before Karian could stop me, and nearly collapsed as my feet hit the sand. I grabbed Karian's boot to steady myself.
Karian hopped down beside me and caught my forearms. "Slow," he said. "You are sun sick."
I blinked, struggling to make sense of his words. I wasn't sick, I was tired. And I wanted to see Tannix. I tried to pull away from him. "No, I'm—"
"Come." Karian led me towards Tannix's tent, without letting go of me. It only took a couple steps for me to understand that without his support, I'd be on the ground. Staring at the sand seemed to help, so I let myself focus on it and didn't realize how much space we had crossed until Karian stopped beside me.
I looked up, into the startled face of a twin I couldn't quite recognize. Grimy clothes, darkly tanned skin and a short beard changed his appearance enough that it took my mind a moment to see the subconscious details that I used to tell them apart. "Kor?"
"Great Roe..." He stepped forward and wrapped me in a hug. I sank into his arms, letting him support me. I barely heard the conversation between Kor and Karian that passed back and forth over my head.
I heard Ender a moment later, and smiled against Kor's chest. The way Kor looked had thrown me off, but I could still tell their voices apart.
"I'll go get him," Ender's voice said. Then Karian and Kor were talking again, about the sun or Valari or Castin. The conversation came in and out of focus. I was so tired.
A hand on my shoulder pulled me from Kor's arms, and I turned listlessly to see that Acen had joined us. Most of his hair was up in a knot on top of his head, but there were multiple loose strands hanging around his shoulders and stuck to the sweat on his neck. He was wearing a dirty tunic, with a torn piece of blue cloth tied around his upper arm. In place of his cape, I wondered, and I reached to touch it.
Acen caught my hand. "What's wrong with him?" I heard his voice say, but his mouth didn't move properly.
"I'm fine," I mumbled. "My head hurts. Where's Tannix?"
"Sun sick."
Karian was still here? I looked over my shoulder. "I'm fine now, Karian, thank—" Panic flooded through me suddenly. "We need to find Castin and Ko—"
"Atricen!" A new voice came from the direction of the big white tent. I whirled and peeked around Acen.
The tent entrance fluttered behind Tannix as he stepped out into the bright sunlight. "Do you really think you can sneak out of a meeting without me wanting to know what in the Goddess' name is going..." The words trailed off when his eyes met mine.
The need to touch him, to be wrapped in his arms, to press my head to his chest and hear his heartbeat, erased whatever I had just been saying. The pain in my head, the dizziness, my dry throat—all of it cleared for a second, replaced with one thought. Of ducking around Acen, running across the sand and throwing myself into Tannix's arms.
I shook off Acen's hands and stepped around him. Tannix was coming closer. I reached for him.
And collapsed into the sand.