A Country Falls (Greatest Thief 3)

Chapter Thirty-Three

The next thing I noticed, somewhat belatedly, was that Tannix was behind Mandell.

They reached us, and everyone started moving at once. Acen snatched at the reins of a nearby horse, its rider listing limply to one side. He dragged the body off and Mandell draped Jalor across the back of the horse. Evrik and Kor turned to fight off some remaining Deorans. Tannix found his way to stand in front of me and touched my cheek. His hand came away red with blood.

"It's not mine," I managed to say, reassuring myself as much as I was reassuring him.

Then I was being hoisted into the air, and Mandell plopped me onto the horse behind Jalor's body. Acen slapped my thigh and I turned to him. By my knee, the horse's shoulder was already stained red. I dragged my attention away from Jalor's injury in time to hear Acen's last few words.

"—the medic's tent, and stay with him."

I nodded mutely.

Acen dragged the horse's head around so we were facing the gate, and then the horse took off at a gallop. It was all I could do to stay on its back.

Panicked, the horse ran full speed across the sand, back towards the camp. We passed by some of the outlier tents before it finally started to slow, and I felt steady enough to release my grip on the saddle and actually try to steer. I pulled on the reins, futilely at first, but as the horse calmed and slowed, it got easier to control. Still we rode up to the medic's tent so fast that it was only a man jumping forward to catch the reins that stopped us.

Two men rushed to pull Jalor off and carried him into the tent. I jumped from the horse's back without a second thought and ran after them, ignoring the man with the horse when he called for me to wait.

Jalor was placed on a mat and the men got to work removing his armour. I hovered nearby, unsure of how I could help but unwilling to leave. Acen told me to stay, I was going to stay. When a middle-aged Zian woman burst in, arms full of bandages, she shot me a questioning look.

"Who is he?" she asked sharply, as she started laying out the bandages and tools.

I didn't realize she was asking me until she looked at me again, and I fumbled through an answer. "Jalor. Sir Lord Jalor, of the West Draulin Guard."

The medic who had taken care of me in Tannix's tent came in carrying a wooden box. He placed it by the woman and knelt by Jalor's head.

The woman cut away the remains of Jalor's sleeve with a pair of scissors. Jalor's left arm ended below his elbow in a mess of blood, bone and dirt. I wanted to look away but I couldn't.

"We can't salvage this," she said briskly, as she cut off the rest of Jalor's tunic. "We'll have to make a cleaner cut. You." She snapped her fingers at me. "If you're going to be in here, you'll have to be useful. Come hold down his right arm. Hopefully he'll stay unconscious, but if he wakes up, he'll make things worse by thrashing. Terrow." She reached for the saw he had prepared for her.

I rushed around them, and after a moment of debate, straddled Jalor's arm. Terrow leaned on Jalor's left shoulder. The woman put the saw just above Jalor's elbow, and started to saw. I closed my eyes, but I could still hear what she was doing and feel the vibrations through Jalor's body. To stop myself from thinking, I sent prayer after prayer to Anniva.

When the woman started briskly giving directions again, I cautiously opened my eyes. Horrified and fascinated, I watched while she sewed the end of Jalor's arm together. Terrow handed her damp clothes, which she used to wipe some blood away from the wound. Finally, she snugly wrapped the stump in clean bandaging.

She called a few names, and the two men who had carried Jalor in returned. One began to gather the bloody clothes and tools, while the other started to hang curtains to create a makeshift room around us. Terrow opened his box and rummaged through the vials.