Every time the silence from his shoulder grew too heavy, Khawn would hitch her body upward, a desperate jolt intended to shake the life back into her. Each time before, she had offered a groan or a sharp, raspy word to ground him. But as the forest floor began to slope toward the sound of rushing water, the responses stopped. The only thing Khawn felt now was the terrifying, radiating heat of her skin—a fever so fierce it felt as though the wounds were burning her alive from the inside out.
He stopped fighting the forest and began to break through it. He ignored the thorns that carved red ribbons into his arms and the thickets that clawed at his chest. He became a frantic machine of bone and muscle, bursting through the final treeline until his boots struck the slick, grey stones of the creek bed.
He stumbled onto the rocky bed of the creek, the border to Txoo Village shimmering under the morning sun.
"Chinua," Khawn panted, his voice thick with hope and dread. "We're here. We're at the creek. Chinua?"
He hitched her up on his back. Nothing. He adjusted her again, more violently this time. No groan, no sharp retort, no teasing remark about him being a "kid."
"Chinua!"
He collapsed to his knees, sliding her onto the smooth river stones. Her face was the color of winter ash, her lips tinged with a faint, ghostly blue. Khawn's breath came in panicked sobs as he delivered two sharp slaps to her cheeks. Her head merely lolled to the side.
"Wake up! General! That's an order!" he screamed, shaking her shoulders, but her body was dead weight in his hands.
Desperate, he scrambled to the water's edge, scooped a freezing handful of the creek water, and flung it across her face. The droplets rolled over her closed eyelids and mixed with the dirt on her skin, but she didn't flinch. The fire of the fever was winning.
Khawn stood up, his eyes wild as he looked at the open road rising up from the other side of the creek. He didn't look for cover. He didn't check for blood trails. He didn't care if the entire Central Army was waiting over the next ridge.
He heaved Chinua back onto his shoulders, his muscles screaming in a final, agonizing protest. He waded through the icy water; his gaze fixed on the first signs of smoke from the village chimneys in the distance.
"I'm getting you to a bed," he hissed through gritted teeth, his voice a vow to the heavens. "I don't care who tries to stop me. You are going to ask Qinru for me, do you hear? You gave me your word!"
The morning mist began to thin as the group rounded the jagged curve of the mountain pass. Mönkhbat led the way on foot, his shoulders strained as he pulled the reins of a lone, weary horse. Atop the saddle sat Batsaikhan, his face pale and his body swaying with exhaustion, his life currently tethered to the slow, rhythmic pace of the General's stride.
Following closely behind were Hye, Hibo Azad and Behrouz. The five tigers moved like silent specters through the tall grass, their ears twitching at the wind. Because they lacked enough horses for all nine people, the group had no choice but to march, keeping the prince mounted to preserve what little strength he had left.
As they cleared the final bend where the mountain gave way to the valley floor, a solitary figure appeared on the road ahead.
"Hold," Mönkhbat whispered, raising a steady hand to halt the horse. He turned back to the others, his expression carved from stone. "Don't alert the villagers. We don't know who is watching this road."
The group slowed, their eyes straining through the pale light. In the distance, a figure moved with a heavy, swaying gait. It was a person carrying another on their back—a silhouette of sheer, agonizing labor. At this distance, they were little more than a blur of dark clothes and staggered footsteps, but the desperation in the way the traveler moved was unmistakable.
"Is that...?" Hye started, his voice barely a breath.
Behrouz grunted, his hand tightening on his weapon. "Whoever it is, they are walking on the edge of their own grave."
Suddenly, one of the larger tigers lifted its head. Its nostrils flared as it caught a scent on the morning breeze—the sharp, metallic tang of the Eastern General's blood and the salt of Khawn's sweat. The beast let out a low, vibrating hum in its throat—a signal of grim recognition.
Hibo's eyes widened, her hand dropping from her blade. "It's one of our team members."
Mönkhbat didn't wait for a command. He tightened his grip on the prince's horse and broke his cautious pace, pulling the animal into a hurried trot. The group began to descend the slope, their hearts racing faster than their feet could carry them toward the two figures struggling on the road.
The mist seemed to part before them, revealing the grim reality of the two figures on the road. As they drew closer, the specific silhouette of the armor and the way the head hung lifelessly against the carrier's neck became unmistakable.
Hye's breath hitched, a cold shiver of dread racing down his spine. He didn't need to see her face; he knew that posture, that strength now rendered limp.
"It's Chinua," Hye whispered, his voice cracking before he found his strength. "It's Chinua!" He surged forward, his heart pounding against his ribs like a drum. "Khawn!" His voice echoed through the damp morning air, bouncing off the mountain curves and cutting through the silence of the valley.
Khawn slowed his staggering pace, his boots skidding on the gravel. He turned his body with agonizing slowness, his vision blurred by sweat and the exhaustion of the march. Through the shifting veil of the mist, he saw a line of figures rushing toward him. He couldn't distinguish their faces yet—couldn't see the prince on the horse or Mönkhbat's grim expression—but he knew that voice. It was the voice of the one man who might have the power to pull Chinua back from the brink.
A wave of pure, bone-deep relief washed over him, momentarily masking the fire in his muscles.
"Hye!" he bellowed back, his voice a raw, desperate sob. He forced his leaden legs to move again, not away from the group this time, but toward them. "Hye! Come quickly! Chinua... Chinua...!"
He didn't have the words to explain the fever, the second dagger, or the blood she had left across miles of dirt. He only knew that the "kid" of the family had reached the end of his strength, and he was handing the life of the East's greatest General over to the only hands he trusted to save her.
As Mönkhbat stepped forward and lifted Chinua from Khawn's back, the shift in weight was more than Khawn's body could handle. His knees buckled, and he dropped to the gravel with a heavy thud, his chest heaving as the adrenaline finally evaporated, leaving only a hollow, bone-deep exhaustion.
Nask stepped beside him, placing a steadying hand on his trembling shoulder. There was a rare, genuine softness in the veteran soldier's voice. "You did good, kid," Nask said quietly. "You did good."
Nearby, Hye had already laid Chinua on a flat patch of grass, his fingers moving with clinical urgency. As he cut away the blood-stiffened fabric around the new wound on her shoulder blade, his breath hitched. The sight was sickening; because of the heat of her fever and the dampness of the forest, the area around the embedded knife was already infested with fly eggs.
"We need to treat her wound now," Hye said, his voice tight. "The infection is moving faster than she is."
"Tell us what you need," Azad demanded, standing over them like a protective wall.
"Fire, boiled water, and medicine," Hye replied, his heart sinking as he looked at his empty hands. "Medicine which I don't have."
Behrouz stepped forward, a dark smirk crossing his weathered face as he pulled two small ceramic jars from his belt sash. "The life of a bandit requires a stocked pantry," he grunted, handing them over. "One for the rot, the other for the pain."
Azad snatched the jars, popping the wax seal of the red one. He tilted a single, brownish pill into his palm. "This is for the pain."
"Don't give it to her yet," Hye commanded, his eyes focused on the blade still buried in her flesh. "If she wakes up while I'm digging that steel out, she'll thrash. I need her under for the cleaning."
Hibo returned from the creek's edge, moving with the silent, efficient grace of a hunter. She held a large, waxy leaf folded into a makeshift cup, brimming with clear mountain water. "This will help with her fever," she said, her voice steady as she knelt beside Hye.
She reached deep into the folds of her Umusan armor and pulled out a small, weather-worn leather pouch. With careful precision, she pinched a small amount of fine, ground black powder and dropped it into the water. It swirled into the liquid, turning it a murky, herbal gray.
"What are you feeding her?" Batsaikhan asked from atop the horse. His voice was thin and brittle, his eyes fixed on his sister's ashen face with a terror he couldn't hide.
"Your Highness, this is to break the fire in her blood," Hibo explained without looking up. "This medicine was given to me by Femi, the chief physician of the Umusa military."
"Help me open her mouth, General," Hye directed, his eyes locked on Chinua's pale lips.
Mönkhbat shifted his weight, cradling Chinua's head with a tenderness that contradicted his massive, scarred hands. He gently forced her jaw open. Hye began to pour the mixture, drop by drop, making sure she swallowed so she wouldn't choke. Every small gulp felt like a hard-won victory against the encroaching shadow of death.
"The medicine will take time to take effect," Hibo said.
Behrouz scanned the surrounding treeline, his instincts as a bandit leader screaming that they were too exposed. The morning sun was rising higher, stripping away the protection of the mist.
"Chinua can't move much further," Behrouz grunted, his hand resting on the hilt of his heavy blade. "We won't make it to the original rendezvous. Every jolt of that horse or a man's stride is shaking the life out of her. We need to find a place nearby—now—to treat these wounds properly."
He pointed toward the thin trail of smoke Khawn had spotted earlier. "That hut. It's our only choice. If we stay on the road, the Imperial scouts will find us before the medicine even takes effect."
Khawn, still on his knees, pointed a shaky finger toward a thin wisp of gray smoke curling into the sky beyond the creek. "There... I was taking her there hoping someone would be able to help her."
"Then that is where we are heading," Mönkhbat declared, shifting Chinua's limp weight in his powerful arms. He looked at two of his younger soldiers, Dolgoon and Buqa. "The two of you—your faces aren't known to the Northern Army or the Imperial Guard. You stay behind. Watch the road for the rest of our people."
"Yes, General," the two men replied in unison, watching the group of people fading away into the distance.
Long after the main group had vanished into the treeline, Dolgoon and Buqa remained at the edge of the water. They knew that standing guard in military stances would be a death sentence if a scout happened to glance down from the ridge. To survive, they had to disappear into the mundane.
They cast their boots aside on the damp stones and waded into the biting chill of the creek. Bending low, they began to sift through the silt and overturn slick river rocks, perfectly mimicking the desperate movements of villagers hunting for crabs and small fish.
The tension on the creek bed was thick enough to taste, hanging in the air like the morning mist. To any passing eyes, they were just two hungry peasants looking for a meager breakfast. But beneath the surface of the water, their toes were numb, and their ears were strained—not for the scuttle of crustaceans, but for the rhythmic thud of Imperial hooves.
For what felt like an eternity, the only sounds were the bubbling of the current and the occasional splash of a stone. Then, the heavy, rhythmic creak of a rolling wagon and the steady clop-clop of a horse broke the silence of the valley.
Both men stiffened, but they didn't look up. Dolgoon gripped a jagged rock a little tighter, his knuckles whitening, while Buqa kept his eyes fixed on the water, his heart hammering against his ribs. They maintained the charade, their breaths held tight, until a familiar, breathless voice cut through the air.
"Dolgoon! Buqa!"
The two prison guards dropped their rocks simultaneously, the splashes echoing loudly against the bank as they whipped their heads toward the road. Standing beside a travel-worn wagon was Yize. His face was etched with the strain of the night, but as his eyes landed on them, a look of profound, tearful relief washed over his features. He flashed a smile so bright it seemed to momentarily break through the oppressive gloom of the morning.
"Yize!" Dolgoon exhaled, the word coming out as a ragged gasp of air he didn't know he was holding.