Dire situation

"Is he still alive?" Cleo asked in a panicked voice.

"Yeah, it looks like he is just unconscious."

"We don't know what that herb does. It might still kill him. We need to take him to a healer as soon as possible."

"Yeah, but how do we do that. It's almost 4 hours to the city! How are we going to take him there?"

"I will carry him. We can make it to the city in 3 or even 2.5 hours if we take a shorter path through the forest. Hopefully we can get him to the city in time."

"What about the water? We used it all up just now. We will have to go all the way without a drop of water!"

Cleo thought for a moment before finally saying "Give me the pouches…"

I handed her the pouches as I asked "What do you want to do with…"

Before I could finish, Cleo started running downhill towards the river. What is she doing? Is she going to run to the river and back to get water? But that's crazy! It would also add time to go back and forth. We could have gone down and together right?

To my surprise, Cleo returned in just 5 minutes. She was out of breath after running up the mountain. She handed me the full water pouches and sat down. "I had seen a small stream on the way up. I just filled it up there."

After taking a break for a minute or so she got up and said "Let's get going."

She grabbed Turek's arm and hauled him up. She grabbed his legs and picked him up on her right shoulder. Then to my surprise she also picked up the bag of Kura herbs and supplies on her left shoulder.

She looked back at me and said, "We can take the shorter path through the forest but it might be more dangerous. Stick close to me and I will protect you."

She will protect me in this condition? She has a bag on her left shoulder and man on her right. How is she going to be doing anything?

"I can carry that bag. It will be…"

"I can carry even more if I had to. If I get too tired and need you to carry the bag, I will let you know. Don't worry, I am not pushing myself too hard."

After saying this, she started walking down the mountain but followed a different path down. This path did not lead to the river. It was still only around 1pm and there was a lot of sunlight. We should be able to see any dangers from far away.