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They are barely out of the trees when a host of Rivermen are on them, and it would be too generous to call it a massacre. Their men are less than fifty overall, most either killed or having abandoned their march to go to Tumbleton. Gwayne knows this secret campaign means something to Criston, so he has not yet pointed out today that Tumbleton is where they will be of most use. When the first arrows begin zipping past his head, he realises that he’s made a grave error.
Someone calls the retreat almost immediately, though he knows that it is not Criston or Ser Edgar. Nor is it him as he is too busy burying his blade into the throat of a Tully soldier, blood spraying back onto his face. Gwayne barely has time to close his eyes, making a face as a stranger’s life’s blood splatters into his mouth.
There is no time to be disgusted though, because whoever sounded the retreat was correct: they cannot hope to fight these men. It’s already the death of three men, their bodies sinking into the mud as Gwayne stumbles back.
He grabs the Tully shield from his dead opponent and uses it to block an axe blow, his bones feeling as if they are shaken out of alignment. This man wears no livery, just leather and cloth but he’s a head taller than Gwayne. His reach gives him the advantage, keeping up a punishing array of hits on his purloined shield.
“Hightower cunt,” the man says, and then Gwayne feels the aching fire in his right shoulder. He doesn’t have to look to know that it’s an arrow, his fingers around his blade going lax almost immediately.
He drops it, focusing his efforts on holding the shield and trying to back away. He knows this is his death fight now, because while he still has his dagger, he cannot hope to be strong enough to actually hurt this man. He’s only too stubborn to let the sod mill him outright, not while his feet are still well-planted.
But then Criston is suddenly there with a mace in hand, bringing it down on the man’s head with two quick blows. The man’s skull all but explodes, and Gwayne can feel bone, blood, and brain splattering on his skin, steaming hot in the cold airon his skin.
Then Criston is pushing against his good arm. “Into the forest,” he says. “You can’t guard the retreat.”
“They’re going to want you dead the most,” he says, even as he’s letting Criston force him into the trees.
“Then I’ll make them work for it,” Criston says. He leans down to pick up Gwayne’s sword, pushing it into his scabbard.
There’s another arrow, hitting the tree closest to them. Splinters rain into Criston’s dark hair, falling into it like snow. “There’s no point. We kill them as we catch up. With archers on the field, even you can’t manage more than a dozen kills before you’re felled.”
He pulls at Criston’s sleeve as he says it. There’s blood staining it, standing out more starkly because Criston’s tunic used to be white. He doesn’t fight Gwayne, though, immediately running beside him. It’s not a clean getaway, and more than once, Criston shoves him ahead so that he can defend them both. Gwayne tries to help, cutting someone’s throat when their back is turned.
They eventually lose the Rivermen, but they’ve lost their men, too. There’s no hope to look for anyone, not as they are. They cut most of the arrow shaft, just so it doesn’t stick out of Gwayne’s arm and make his movement more ungainly. The arrow will have to come out, of course, but they have to be alive to do it.
The forest eventually reveals a stream and they follow that stream until they come across a small farmhouse with the roof half caved in. The yard is utterly still and more than slightly overgrown, marks of fire in the grass and on the house itself. Whoever lived on the farm before looks to have fallen afoul of some skirmish or war, possibly even this one, but it’s a place to hide and deal with the arrow in Gwaune’s shoulder.
Gwayne also notices as they step onto the dry ground of the farm, free of grass and leaf litter, that there’s blood in Criston’s footsteps. Now that he’s looking, he can see that Criston is favouring one leg, trying not to put as much weight on it.
In the sunlight, he can see the cut to Criston’s breeches, where someone clearly meant to cut the inside of his knee and hit too high. The clumsy blow is probably to thank that they didn’t hit the artery inside his thigh. The fabric is only cut into, not flapping about, but there’s so much blood. “You shouldn’t be walking on that,” he says, grabbing the back of Criston’s gambeson to stop him from walking forward.
The cut is not terribly deep, but it’s long, skin angry and red. Dried blood crusts over his fingers as he inspects it, and he should shake Criston for walking on this. He’s been unforgivably blind for not seeing this before, but he’d been too focused on what was behind them rather than in front of them and then on the agony of his arm and shoulder. “Mother, forgive your fool,” he breathes.
She does not answer, but he’s beginning to wonder if the gods see the war at all.
There is precious little furniture in the house, a small table that takes Gwayne’s weight and a single chair that he pushes Criston to sit in. “You shouldn’t be up on that leg,” he says, because someone must. The Seven know Criston is too damned stubborn to admit his own weakness.
“And you cannot haul water with one arm,” Criston retorts before he’s up on his fucking leg again. He starts on the ties of Gwayne’s gambeson without pausing, and he wishes that they both weren’t so badly in pain that he could actually relish this or at least remember it fondly. As it is, he’s aware that he’s going to have to be cut out of the sleeve.
“If you can build a fire, I can draw up some water to boil,” Criston says, sliding his hand into Gwayne’s sleeve to try and palpate around the wound. “We’re going to have to burn that hole, I think. If I can even get the arrow out.”
Gwayne winces. He’s no stranger to seeing the sort of medicine practiced on the march, but he’d thus far been lucky to avoid the worst of it. He doubts that a maester would have been able to do better, but it still disturbs him.
“We clean and wrap your wound first,” he says, even as he watches Criston frown at Gwayne’s shoulder and the arrow again. There’s blood streaming down his arm, and absently, Gwayne wonders which of them will suffer more from blood loss. “Neither of us can see it closed today, so it might be the best we can do.”
Criston heaves himself up onto his feet. “You might lose that arm to infection if we leave the arrow in too long,” he says, stubborn as always.
“And you could lose your leg. I just doubt that I’ll be able to help you once you’ve put hot metal against my skin, ser.” Gwayne nudges his foot against Criston’s good one, already looking around the house for what they might be able to burn.
“You’re probably right,” Criston says with a sigh. “And we still have to find our way... somewhere, at this point. I don’t believe this tiny house will suffice for true shelter for long.”
They get the fire started and find a small pot for water. The cut to Criston’s leg worse now that he’s able to touch it, Criston strapped to his braises as Gwayne smoothes some of their last healing salve over it. “I don’t know if you can walk on this tonight,” he says honestly. “If I had both hands, I would say it needs to be stitched.”
“It will be a worse scar should I live long enough,” Criston says, barely wincing as Gwayne inspects the skin near his knee. It’s the worst there, probably because it’s where the leg bends over and over. “But if you have your hands back tonight, I’ll let you see what you might do.”
Criston has to help Gwayne wrap the wound, his right hand all but useless. It still means that he ends up on his knees before Criston, his hand occasionally touching his skin, and Gwayne wishes again that he could feel anything about this beyond exhaustion and the background agony of the arrow. Such scenes have been in his dreams for months, and now he cannot even enjoy it because he’s worried over Criston’s leg and his arm.
When he looks up to Criston, he’s almost glad that he’s lost so much blood that he cannot blush. It doesn’t help that before this started, Criston has helped him out of his gambeson and shirt, so Gwayne is only in his breeches. It’s practically undressed for all the time that they have spent in their armor since the campaign began.
And Criston is staring down at him with intense dark eyes, expression unreadable.
“Is that tight enough?” he asks after clearing his throat.
Criston takes a few steps around the hovel before he declares, “It will serve for the night.”
Then Gwayne ends up on the table by the fire, his dagger already in the flames as Criston boils the blade of his own. “I do wish we had a maester for this,” Criston says as he carefully touches around where the arrowhead has sunk deep into Gwayne’s skin. “I’m worried this has sunk into bone.”
He hands the scabbard for his dagger to Gwayne. “You should put this between your teeth, in case this goes poorly.”
Gwayne turns it over in his hands. It’s clearly given to all the Kingsguard, a black dragon stitched into the leather with a white crown. “If it looks too deep, we can delay it until we reach Tumbleton,” he says, even though they both know the chances of them reaching Tumbleton at all are slim, worse if Gwayne has a literal arrowhead in his shoulder.
Criston puts his hand against the side of Gwayne’s face, so he’s forced to meet his eyes again. There’s something in his gaze that Gwayne is almost afraid of, because if he’s right, he might never look away again. “I will not lose you to infection,” he says, voice fierce.
He takes the scabbard back and presses it to Gwayne’s mouth. “Bite,” he commands.
What else might Gwayne do but obey? And then be thankful for it, because Criston then takes his dagger and begins to cut around the arrow. He talks as he does it, as Gwayne’s blood spills over his hands. He tries to listen and to focus on what Criston is saying, but almost immediately, the pain roars back and takes his focus.
Normally, such surgery would be done by a maester with Gwayne already on milk of the poppy or at least a strong ale. But normally, they would not both be in an abandoned home and separated from almost everyone they’d marched with.
It feels as if Criston’s dagger is scraping against bone, and it’s only exhaustion that keeps him upright at all. The sound of Criston taking the arrowhead from his skin, a wet pop that Gwayne thinks he can feel in his toes, is enough to turn his stomach. He sees Criston bending down to get the dagger from the fire from the corner of his eye.
Gwayne turns away, staring over his other shoulder as hot metal reaches his skin. He screams again around clenched teeth, pain shooting through his arm and into his fingers. It sounds like his blood is all but sizzling, his flesh smoking, and even when he feels Criston pull away, the agony remains.
“I’m sorry,” Criston says, as he fusses with ointment and bandages. He sounds legitimately aggrieved, as if it has hurt him as much as it has hurt Gwayne.
Gwayne shakes his head, spitting out the scabbard. “You have done nothing wrong. It had to be done.”
Criston ties off the bandage, and Gwayne can barely feel the pressure. His arm is just throbbing, the only thing he can concentrate on. “I’ll help in a minute,” he murmurs.
Except that he doesn’t, because Criston stops him anytime he goes to slide off the table. He sets up both of their bedrolls on the floor together and kicks dust on the fire until it’s down to a smoldering embers. He blocks the door with the chair, even though it won’t stop anyone from coming in. It will wake them, though.
Only then does Criston help him get down from the table and sit onto the bedrolls. “Dusk is our best chance. If we follow the creek, eventually we should find a town and from there, we can get directions to Tumbleton. No doubt Lord Hightower and Prince Daeron will be worried if they get word of the routing.”
He sits, too, careful with his bad leg. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to sleep. It didn’t occur to me to keep milk of the poppy in my pack.”
Gwayne nods. He lays down carefully on his left side, very aware of the pain in his right shoulder. “Me either,” he murmurs, but even as the pain remains, his body feels heavy. The day is trying to catch up with him. “I apologize for your dagger sheath. I doubt the marks from my teeth with fade.”
Criston lays on his right so that he’s facing Gwayne, and the house is dim now, making it harder to see his face. “It was a necessary sacrifice,” he murmurs. “So long as you manage to keep from infection until we reach Tumbleton.”
“This is not how I wanted you to go there,” he whispers, his eyes sliding closed. The shadows lend an openness to Criston’s face that Gayne does not feel he’s earned. “I had hoped that eventually you’d want to go on your own, even if it means playing games with nobles again.”
“If the battle had been on open ground and you had not pulled at me, I would have stayed and made them remember why I am the realm’s greatest warrior before the end,” Criston admits, his voice low and gentle. “But I am not sure that I could watch you die, especially when you could not fight your way free.”
He reaches over and touches Gwayne’s arm, well below his wound. Gwayne licks his lips. “We both know the costs of war. Either of us may die at any time.”
Criston sits up and pulls out an old and fraying blanket from his pack, tossing it over Gwayne’s hip. “There is dying in battle and then there is being slaughtered, ser.” He settles it so that it does not touch his bad arm, his fingers lingering at Gwayne’s side for a moment longer than just friendship could explain.
On his side, Gwayne cannot reach out for Criston with his good hand, so instead he shifts closer on their bedrolls. There have been many nights like this, when they fell asleep talking or strategising about what they might do the next day. It feels different when they are alone, when the hovel they find themselves in only has the sounds of their breathing rather than the low voices of the men or the general hum of a forest.
“I do not want to see you die, either,” he murmurs, his eyes flicking down to Criston’s lips for only a moment. If Criston means nothing by all of this affection, he won’t notice. Gwayne isn’t sure what he wants more: for this to be delusions informed by the ache in his shoulder and arm or if Criston has held the same thoughts all this time.
Either way, neither of them are in a position to do much more but look at each other. Alone or not, they are too injured and too exhausted, filthy from running through the forest.
Criston leans forward, pressing his lips to Gwayne’s forehead. “Sleep, Ser Gwayne. I will watch the door for now.” His hand curls over Gwayne’s hip.
He laughs, mumbling, “So that’s my answer,” before he finally succumbs to exhaustion.