A Country Falls (Greatest Thief 3) - Chapter 32: Chapter 32

In the city, the effects of the Co Navy's blockade were far more evident than they had been in the castle or prison. We skirted the marketplace, and it was eerily empty. Even at night, there should have been stands and carts prepared to open in the morning. Instead, the clearing was completely bare. We walked past a tavern with shattered windows which were messily boarded over. A building that looked like an apothecary had been a bit more proactive—the windows and doors were firmly covered with neat planks of wood.
There were people out, even late at night. I tried to avoid them, but the few times we were spotted, the Deorans scurried away or quickly hid. The reason for their fear became perfectly clear when we came across a rowdy group of guards, hollering outside of a house while one of them pounded his fist on the door. Kassia's choice to barricade herself in the throne room with Vali and wait for our army to take the city began to make more sense. Deorun was crumbling. I couldn't help but think of the crumbling building I had woken up in after being shot.
Maybe Deorun had been crumbling for a long time. Maybe the war had been King Idavari's last-ditch effort to gain support from his people, before their capital city fell apart.
I didn't know the way to the city gates, but Deorun was shaped like Zianna, East Draulin and Navire—rings of walls with a main road connecting all three sections of the city. The prison let us out into a corner of the lower city. After passing through the marketplace and shopping district, we found the gates to the main road deserted. I made the men wait in the shadows while I climbed the wall beside the gate to get a better look at the main road.
Normally, the road would be crawling with guards. Some patrolling, and many of them standing in front of the various gates. What I saw was quite different. Instead of guards stationed along the whole road, a full-blown camp had cropped up between the lower city gate and the main city gate. Rows of tents were tightly packed together against the walls of the road, with a narrow path to walk along down the middle. In a few places, campfires flickered and I could make out the silhouettes of men. To make matters worse, the men I could see patrolling looked alert and disciplined.
Whatever remained of Deorun's army had gathered right between us and our destination. The city guards were running rampant, but someone had control over the army, and they had chosen to defend Deorun against our armies.
Beyond the camp, Deorun's huge walls and main gates were all that stood between the small Deorun camp and the huge Ziannan-Navirian camp. A gate stood between these sleeping men, and Tandrin and Queen Navire, who were waiting right outside for our signal.
I considered walking along the wall, going up to the huge chains I could see hanging from both guardhouse towers, and trying to find the crank myself. It was just a dream, though. Realistically, I would never be able to manage the cranks on my own. So it was with reluctance that I climbed back down the wall to report on what I had found.
There was a thoughtful pause after my description. Tannix broke it with a single, impossibly difficult question.
"Do you think we can get through?"
I stared at him as the question circled around my head. Could I get through? Yes, on my own, I could have snuck past the tents and patrolling guards, hardly making a sound. But could they get through? I was far less confident in the results. There were too many of them. They were all bigger than me, wearing armour and carrying weapons. They wouldn't be mistaken for a Deoran at first glance. No, they couldn't get through, not without a fight.
But they were good at fighting. And even though I had spent the whole night trying to come up some other way to accomplish what we had come in for, I couldn't. And we just had to get to the gate. Get to the gate and open it, and then the whole Ziannan-Navirian army would be there. There was no other option.
So I took a deep breath, glanced at each knight quickly, and lied.
"Yes."
The knights tried really hard to be quiet, and they did an impressive job.
When the first pair of patrolling guards proved to be impossible to sneak past, Kor shot one and Evrik threw an axe, so that the bodies fell nearly perfectly in sync. Then the third fire was too close, lighting up the path we needed to dart across between two tents, Acen quietly snuck forward and stabbed the man who would have seen us. When a tent door fluttered right beside us, Mandell grabbed the man who was stepping outside and clamped an arm around his neck until the man went limp.
They handled every obstacle smoothly, until suddenly they didn't.
If anyone was to blame, it was me. A miscalculation. I knew I was safely hidden but for a moment forgot to take the knights into account, and that was all it took. We were seen and an alarm was raised.
The first thing Tannix did was grab my shoulder and shove me towards the wall we had been hugging. "Climb. Get to Tandrin. I love you." The instant the words left his mouth, he was turning to meet a Deoran sword with his own.
I had made him a promise. As much as it killed me to put distance between us, I grabbed at the wall. I pulled myself up until I was out of range from most weapons. There, I paused to flash a glance over my shoulder. Tannix and the knights were still together, and still on their feet. I continued up the wall, caution giving way to haste. I felt rough stone skin my palms. I caught my knee on a jagged piece of brick. I didn't treat my right wrist with the care it deserved, and put more weight on it than I should have. But finally, I hauled myself onto the top of the wall. For a moment I couldn't force myself to look down, dreading what I might see.
Then I did, and with relief I saw that they were all still together, and they had moved slightly closer to the main gates. I stood, carefully keeping pace with them as they carved their way through the sleepy Deorans.
They really were incredible when they fought. They stood in a semi-circle against the wall, guarding each other's backs. To ease some of my fear I tried to focus on the little details Acen had trained me to see. Tannix was at the forward end of the group, taking down soldier after soldier and slowly moving the circle towards the gates. Acen was fighting with a dagger in his left hand—his tactic for when he didn't want to be predictable. Evrik, on the opposite end of the circle, was mostly holding soldiers at bay with his shield while Mandell swung over him with his mace. Jalor had taken up position along the middle of the curve, where he had a bit more room to swing his long, two-handed sword. Kor had stepped back into the relative protection of the semi-circle, and as I watched he pulled an arrow from his quiver and dragged it against his boot. The end of the arrow burst into flame, a tiny pinprick of light. Then Kor aimed up and the arrow flew past me, high into the sky.
A signal. Because the army was on the other side of the gate. They were right there.
My eyes tracked the flaming arrow as it flew through the grey sky. Behind me, the sun was peeking up over the desert. It was morning. We'd made it through the night. We were so close.
I glanced down again, just to confirm that Tannix and the men were still together, still standing, still fighting. Then movement caught my eye as an arrow streaked into the fight. I followed it to a line of four narrow slits in the gatehouse. As I watched, another arrow flew from one of the slits. That was a threat I could help with. I broke into a run, sending Zianesa a quick prayer that I wouldn't lose my balance.
When my wall met the left gatehouse tower, I jumped to grab at a windowsill with my fingertips. There wasn't time to run ideas through my head and pick whatever seemed safest, I just went for it, pulling myself up and hopping to my feet on the other side. I found myself in a plain, round room. A guard stood in a doorway, eyes frozen in momentary surprise.
I reacted without thinking, pulled a knife from my belt and threw it. The guard crumpled backwards, with the clatter of metal armour against the stone stairway. I had to step over his body to get into the staircase, and I trained my eyes up as I did, so I wouldn't have to look at the blood pooling on the steps. On the next floor I darted through a doorway and threw another knife before giving myself a chance to waver.
It clanged loudly against armour, and the archer turned to me.
If he had been half as quick as Kor or Ender, I would have died right there. But he was confused, and in that moment I managed to throw a second knife, with much better aim. He collapsed, and the other three archers turned, bows drawn.
My thoughts froze, but my body reacted to the threat and I threw myself back behind the corner just as three arrows bounced and shattered off of the wall in front of me. I dropped my left hand to my belt and my fingers flittered over two handles. Only two.
The archers were talking quietly, and I could hear boots scuffling against the stone as one of them tried to sneak up on me. The noises from outside faded as my mind raced, trying to come up with some way to handle three men with only two knives, and to avoid getting killed in the progress. The idea came to me just as the Deoran stepped around the corner, sword drawn.
I dove under his swing and rolled to my feet behind him, one of the snapped arrows gripped tightly in my right hand. I stabbed backwards as I stood, catching him in the back of the knee. With a yelp he went down, stumbling over a handful of steps. At the same time, I threw a knife with my left hand and saw another archer fall before ducking behind the wall again. To my right, slightly higher on the staircase, a window opened towards the fighting. There was still fighting, and I took that as a good sign.
The one on the stairs wasn't dead. He yanked the arrow from his leg and struggled to get up. I pulled out my last knife, hoping I could ward him back without having to use it. There was still one archer out of sight in the other room.
Once he was up, he moved so suddenly I didn't even manage to throw the knife. It clattered from my hand as the archer lunged across the doorway and grabbed me. I kicked at his injured leg and connected, only to end up on my back as he collapsed on top of me. His hands found their way to my neck and squeezed.
I struggled beneath him as my lungs ached. I kicked and squirmed but he bore down with all of his significant weight. I tried to grab his wrists and pull them away from my neck, tried to poke at his eyes as my own started to darken.
At least he wasn't shooting at Tannix and the knights.
The strength in my arms started to give out, and they fell to the ground on either side of me. Then there was flash of cognizance as I realized my left hand had landed on something sharp, and it hurt, and it was my knife. My fingers, already going numb again, found the handle and I slashed.
The archer looked startled as blood poured from his throat and over my face. As his whole body went limp, he crumpled on top of me. I struggled to draw in a few breathes. His weight made it difficult, but I felt my body responding again. He flopped heavily to the side when I pushed him off, and weakly sat up.
The fourth and final archer was standing in the doorway, bow drawn. I threw the knife I was still holding and missed wildly, but his flinch caused his arrow to thud into the body beside me instead of my chest. He was pulling another arrow from his quiver as I rolled to my feet. A quick glance around only revealed one option. I jumped up two steps and threw myself at the window. An arrow flew harmlessly over my head.
I caught the sill with my left hand and my right scrabbled for some sort of hand-hold. It found the huge chain that ran from the crank below into the wall above me, where it would lift the portcullis. I swung onto the chain just as the final archer leaned out of the window and started to take aim.
Shockingly, two arrows slammed into his chest. He staggered backwards out of sight. I held my breath without meaning to, my whole body tense as I hung on the chain and waited for him to reappear. I was finally sucking in a painful breath when he did, arrows still embedded in his chest plate.
Before he could draw back on his bow, a third arrow burrowed itself right under his chin. He toppled forward, and despite wanting to look away I watched his body fall. It slammed into the cobblestones of the road far below, narrowly missing Kor, who spared a moment to throw his arms wide in a gesture that obviously meant 'what in Roe's name are you doing up there?' I imagined the question in his voice and almost, inexplicably, felt like laughing.
The chain provided an easy way to climb down. I scrambled down as quickly as I could, while favouring my aching right wrist. Every breath felt rough against my throat, and I tried to breath shallowly. Once I was close enough to the ground to safely drop, I did, but I faltered in the landing and would have fallen over if Kor hadn't caught my arm.
"What in Roe's—"
"Archers." Even my voice sounded rough, and speaking hurt. So I bypassed a handful of words by waving up at the guard house. "Shooting." Then I blinked and really took in what was happening around me. Evrik and Acen were holding back the Deorans. Kor and I were standing next to the crank. I swallowed, winced and rasped out, "Tannix?"
"Other crank with Mandell and Ja—" He perked up as he heard something I didn't, and grabbed the crank. I watched him turn it, my thoughts sluggish until I finally realized that I should help. Even if I couldn't do much. I grabbed the spokes and helped him turn the crank.
Beside us, the portcullis slowly started to lift. Behind it, the wooden doors were vibrating as something hit them from the outside.
Slowly, the portcullis was drawn up into the guardhouse. Acen and Evrik kept a little circle of clear space around us so we could work. Turn after turn, pulling down the chain I had climbed, pulling the portcullis higher and higher.
Evrik was missing his shield. He held an axe in each hand. Acen's hair had come loose and it swept over his shoulders. Kor was bleeding from a cut across his forehead.
Higher and higher, slowly.
Then the wooden door shattered. And the portcullis was high enough for a man on horseback to burst through.
It was Tandrin, on his huge black and white horse, armour shining in the early morning light. And Queen Navire, in her dark leather armour. And Eppson, and Tandrin's other knights. General Valerios and Navirians on horseback, foot soldiers wearing Navirian and Teltish armour. They poured through the gate like a flooded river breaking a dam.
We were safely out of the way, watching the troops rush past, when I noticed Mandell forcing his way towards us. Something about him looked odd.
Three things occurred to me in quick succession.
There was a body draped over Mandell's left shoulder. Mandell's entire left side was soaked with blood. The body was Jalor.
And then a fourth thing.
Jalor's arm was gone.