Wern, Fir of Febla: 33 Xiven

If Kayin had a choice, he would have opted not to go through a trap door with an open wound. Even with Tae pulling and Dhekk pushing him so that he didn’t strain too much, it was still probably as painful as being jabbed with a halberd in the first place, like the healing skin was being torn apart yet again.

When he crest through the square hole, hoisted himself onto the rubble that surrounded him, Kayin clutched his stomach and got his bearings while his companions finished filtering through. From stale air to smoky air. Not quite the improvement he was hoping for.

“This is a classroom,” he realized as he caught his breath. All around him were splinters of wood that used to be chairs, crushed under the stones of a collapsed wall. A small fire blazed in the adjourning room, threatening to snuff out with lack of fresh wood to feed on. In the corner of this classroom was a large desk cleaved in half from a support beam. Kayin’s heart stopped when he noticed a pair of feet poking out from underneath the desk.

“Teacher Dopi’s classroom,” Tae added when he saw where Kayin looked. “That’s…those are his….” Beaten and crushed shoes; worst of all, in the shadows of stacked stone, it looked as if there were more pairs of feet.

His throat burned. Opting instead to focus on the sharp pain from his wound, Kayin finally glanced down to himself, to the dark stain that covered his shirt. He lifted it, peeling it from the flesh that grew from the health potion.

Kayin was no doctor, sure. But he’d read the healing books enough to know that at no point should the veins around a healing wound look that color purple, with tendrils spreading about like a tree’s roots. Odd enough to look like he had three belly buttons on top of one another, was that two looked diseased despite their healing milestones.

“That’s not normal,” he noted quietly.

“It’s not?” Dhekk’s tone made it hard to tell if it was sarcastic as he climbed up out of the hole. “C’mon, off to my place for better triage, then.”

“Where do you live?” asked Tae in a hollow voice. Kayin watched him scan the room out of the corner of his eyes, the way the man lingered staring at different places. He had no doubt that Tae was seeing more familiar pairs of shoes, faces he could recognize. He knew more of these people than Kayin did, saw them every day up until now. Kayin was lucky enough to have to strain to remember the names of his old classmates.

“I live far away from this doomed battle.”

Kayin groaned, then pushed his shirt back down as he started to gather himself to his feet, bit by bit, inch by inch, despite the sharp, clear throbbing telling him to stop. “Could you have a little bit of sympathy, please?”

Dhekk shrugged. “Don’t know what sympathy does for this lot.”

Kayin braced against an intact chair and looked to the Namuh of the Future. “Tidesa, when does your vision take place?” Maybe it would be tomorrow and he didn’t have to deal with Dhekk anymore. “The one that caused all this?” The woman grimaced.

“Not until you’re fully healed and then some, though I suspect soon enough.” Less satisfying than the non-answer was the clear duration of this companionship. Tidesa lay a gentle hand on Tae’s elbow, drawing his attention. “Do you remember what we spoke about?” When he met her gaze, his nod was slow, almost sad.

“What did you talk about?” asked Kayin. Tae sighed before turning to him.

“Evacuations. Getting the survivors to Kunnu to seek asylum.” As the two old friends looked to one another, the room felt smaller.

“Veccie and Tique are closer,” Kayin said.

“And are allies to Wakino,” was Tidesa’s simple answer. It was enough to stifle the rest of his questions.

Tae straightened up, wiped his hands on his leather armor. “I guess this is goodbye, Kayin. Or—or Prince Kayin? Is it still Prince Kayin?” Before he could look any more panicked and overwhelmed, Kayin shook his head.

“No, that’s done with.” At least he thought so, until the moment that Tae exchanged glances with Tidesa. He’d have to talk with her later about that.

“F-for the record,” Tae started again with a shrug, “I never believed you killed Ruyer.” The insincerity bounced off of Kayin.

“Keep them safe….”

Tidesa placed one of her arms under Kayin’s shoulder, hoisting him to more of a mobile position.

“I’ll meet you halfway to Tique with anyone left behind,” she said to Tae. Dhekk supported Kayin’s other shoulder, effectively lifting most of his weight off of his legs to help propel him toward the door. When the four of them entered the crumbling hallway, Tae went right, and the rest of them went left, toward the main entrance of the castle.

Climbing through the castle’s rubble proved more difficult while attached to two people. Each step took more energy, though came a little easier for Kayin. Rubble still settled, fire still crackled on, but shouts and screams were long gone. Everything was so quiet, compared to before.

Despite the settling dust and the support from Tidesa and Dhekk, Kayin struggled to breathe. Amongst the char and dirt was an awful, sour stench—and an added heaviness in the air Kayin hadn’t smelled since he was a child in the village. Death, decay. Unclean, rotting things; charred flesh he used to associate with only edia. But they were far from the kitchens and dining area as the three of them climbed through the broken glass in the very back of the castle, into the training yard. And those steaming heaps of black, flaky lumps were far too large to belong to any rodent.

It was hard to tell if it was better or worse to not be able to recognize everyone because their skin was melted.

Dhekk and Tidesa rested Kayin on a stone bench that still leaned against an intact part of the castle wall. The air stung his eyes and throat; he hadn’t even noticed that he was groaning in pain until the two set him down and he felt his throat soften.

“D’you know your directions?” Dhekk asked him after a moment. Kayin nodded, but didn’t look up. “Great. We’re going to cross the river and go south. Maybe the river will clean that thing out….”

“Be sure to cross on the eastern side, not the western side,” Tidesa added. Kayin nodded again.

“’Don’t cross where you squat’,” he quoted from long ago. Dhekk offered a small chuckle at this.

“I’ll be finding a wagon….” But as Tidesa started to fill Dhekk in on her plans, Kayin tuned her out, leaned his head against the stone, and shut his eyes.

“You got space for one more? He’s heavier than he looks.” Well that was kind of rude, Kayin thought. Somehow, though he didn’t open his eyes, he knew Dhekk was talking about him. “Just on the back, here. I can scout ahead and clear the way.” Now grasping hands pulled at Kayin’s arms and legs, dragging him into some sort of wooden slab.

His eyes fluttered open to the dirt of the forest floor, then when someone rolled him onto his back, the trees and mushroom tops glowing in the smog.

“Now you’re awake?” Dhekk groaned.

Now that he lay on his back and had a moment, Kayin tried to gather himself. He lay on the back of an open cart, his arm and leg held by bloodied hands of skinny villagers he hardly recognized, most of which were covered in blood and open wounds like himself.

“I’m okay,” he mumbled to the wide-eyed teenagers that held him. There must have been almost a dozen other people packed to the brim in this cart, huddled together and crying.

“Remind me to give you antidote when we get to my hut,” Dhekk said as he pat Kayin’s leg. Then, without addressing anyone else, stalked along the side and to the front.

“Antidote,” Kayin echoed.

“Wakino poisons their weapons,” said the young boy closest to his head. “Kunnu is supposed to have lots of antidote. They’re rich there.” Kayin hesitated when looking at his familiar face; his clothes were baggy, but fit more this time compared to when Kayin last saw him listening to a story Aunt Aayin told maybe five years ago.

Poison would certainly explain why, despite his stomach’s skin knitting together to form yet another set of scars for Kayin to bear for the rest of his life, he felt so terrible. Why the bump of the wagon wheels against the uneven forest road made him nauseous, and why it was so hard to keep his eyes open.

Clutching onto the sides of the wagon, and to the boys that helped him on, as they crossed the shallow river took far more effort than it should have for any normal person. It wasn’t that big of a river; Tidesa, driving the wagon with a couple surviving, though partially lame horses, chose the smoothest path, but it still wasn’t enough.

After several long hours, Kayin managed to drag himself to the wall against the closest wheel well on the back of the wagon. His legs still dangled off the end, but he was able to lean onto the splintered wood and clutch the groves just above where the wheel turned. He took up less space, allowed the other injured in the wagon to stretch their legs.

Kayin’s consciousness ebbed and flowed on a whim. Each time he awoke, the air was easier to breathe—crisper, with the sun Rinesa shining brighter through the treetops and mushrooms. Further from Yatora.

And then she set, leaving the forest dark and cold, with hardly any light from the moons.

Kayin craned his neck to look at the others in this wagon.

Most were asleep, or resting, leaning on one another. At least one that Kayin could see from his spot had a shoulder that looked—well, even worse than his, and he was technically missing a chunk of his muscle from the peka attack when he was a child. This young woman’s arm hung limply off the side of the cart, disjointed.

The two boys that shared the very back with Kayin curled into little balls, hugging their scraped knees and cut calves in an attempt to be as warm and small as possible on this bumpy ride.

Keeping upright, leaning into the sharp pangs of his stomach, was all Kayin could do to keep awake. But he still drifted, distantly remembering Dania’s tears over losing her own father to the poison from Wakino’s weapons.

He didn’t even wake up when he fell limply onto the forest floor.