“Here, give it to me. In my mouth.”

She tentatively walked over to the prisoner and offered him the pick. The Simian opened his mouth wide, wider than Morrígan imagined her own could. She placed the pick inside, and with a flick of his tongue, the pick vanished. The Simian smiled.

“Now,” he said, his speech still surprisingly articulate, despite his mouth being full. “There is an instrument in the bag: gold, with a wooden handle. I need you to take it and hide it. If these fellas find out I’ve got it, they’ll behead me on the spot.”

Morrígan reached inside and placed her hand on the instrument. Picking it up, she found the object to be much heavier than it looked. About as half as long as her forearm, it curved at the end, as if designed to fit neatly in one’s hand. A silver inlay adorned a golden sprout, wrapped around the handle like a string of thorns.

“What is it?” asked Morrígan, holding it up to her eyes.

“It’s dangerous. That’s all you need to know. Take it and leave. I’ll escape myself when the time is right.”

Morrígan thanked the Simian and carefully put the bag back where she’d found it. Leaving the inn, she found the fires outside almost fully extinguished. Those who had stood to watch had already returned to their homes.

As she crossed the Square, she held the device tight in her hand. Remembering what the colonel had said before about the intercepted Simian cache, Morrígan reckoned it must be something like that: a weapon.

Yarlaith needs to see this. She wondered if the power of the Simian engineers was indeed stronger than their magic.

She suddenly realised how strange it was that she had thanked the prisoner, even after threatening him with fire moments earlier.

Perhaps he was a spy? Maybe he manipulated me into freeing him?

Unable to find an answer to these questions herself, Morrígan carried on home. She jogged back to the caverns with the Simian weapon held tightly against her chest, and her uncle’s satchel forgotten in her pocket.

Chapter 12:

The Flowers of the Glenn

Farris licked dirt from his lips when he woke. He tasted blood. His face was pressed against the ground, and it took him a full second to notice the dull ache that plagued every inch of his body.

I drank too much again. He opened his eyes to nothing but darkness.

Voices came from all around him, screaming, crying, calling for help. He tried to move, but barely managed to shuffle his body inside the tiny, confined space. Finding some room, he attempted to move his arms, but they were stuck, wedged awkwardly under his own weight. He attempted to shift his legs but felt little sensation below his hips.

With a sudden pang of terror, Farris realised that he was trapped under the wreck of The Glory of Penance.

His heart began to pound as he wriggled his head, curling his lips to the side to catch a breath, but he could only manage a muffled cry of “Help!” A great weight pressed down against his chest; his lungs clogged as if filled with mud. Again, he called for help, but he quickly realised that he wasn’t the only one in trouble.

The ship… the crew… they’re all trapped too.

Farris’s body convulsed as he began gasping erratically.

I’m trapped. I’m trapped, and I’ll suffocate and starve. I’m trapped and there’s nothing I can do until I suffocate or starve.

The thoughts repeated in his head as the anxiety tore through his body. There’s nobody left to find me. I’ll die in this coffin because there’s nobody left to find me.

He screamed again, even though he had no idea how many others had survived the crash. Still… he heard the voices. He tried to twist his neck again, barely moving it an inch, and in the corner of his eye he saw a speck of daylight through a gap of twisted lengths of wood and steel.

“Help me!” he called. To his relief, the light flickered.

There’s someone there!

He took a deep breath, ignoring the grains of soil that rolled into his mouth, and roared again.

“In here! I’m in here!”

Another voice spoke, louder than before, but still Farris couldn’t make out the words. A soft sound quivered overhead, and a tiny stream of debris trickled down onto the nape of his neck.

It’s caving in. It’s collapsing now, and it’ll cave me in.

Then followed a slow, dull movement in the wreckage, and the weight on Farris’s back lessened, ever so slightly.

“You, down there. Can you move?”

It was a woman’s voice, gentle as a hymn and warm with hope.

Farris’s heart raced. “I… I can’t move, but… please… get me out of here!”

There were tears in his eyes for the first time in years.

What if she walks away? What if she leaves me?

He coughed as more dust danced in his lungs.

My life… my life and everything I have ever done, everything I have ever known, lies in the hands of this stranger.

He knew what it was like to hold that kind of power over someone, but he usually held it against the edge of a blade.

Another rumble came, and more light spilled through the gap. Less trapped now, he shifted himself onto his back. There, he saw the sky once again. Trees of green stood high overhead, with branches like interlocking fingers blocking out the sunlight and throwing a mesh-like shadow over his body. His legs were still confined, but a fresh breeze met his face.

Two figures stood over him, cloaked in red and white. One of them, a man, spoke.

“Can you move your legs?” The man crouched, peering down through the steel remains of the ship. Farris looked down at his waist for the first time, and his heart jerked when he saw blood seeping through his white vest.

“Barely... ” he muttered, clenching his teeth as he tried to bend his knees. The red mage seemed calm, but Farris saw pure terror in his wild, blue eyes. The white mage remained silent, her hair mottled with mud and dirt. She whispered something into the Pyromancer’s ear.

That’s it. They’ll leave me. I can’t walk, and I’ll only slow them down. They’ll surely leave me.

It was a surprise, then, when the mages began to drag him from the debris. As they pulled his limp legs across the ground, Farris saw the extent of the wreckage. The main bulk of the ship hung in the canopy overheard, entangled in the branches as several fires still blazed within. It looked as if the ship’s bow had broken off during the crash; the front part of the gondola lay in a thousand pieces along the forest floor. Other survivors picked through the rubble, climbing over piles of steel and charred wood to gather what they could. Some were visibly injured, and others lay on their backs, motionless, with their faces covered.

The mages dragged Farris under a large tree and propped him up against its trunk. The woman in white put a skin of water to Farris’s lips, and strength returned to him with a single gulp. She placed a gentle hand on his waist.

“Do you feel anything here?” she said. Farris nodded. She carefully rolled up his blood-soaked vest, revealing a scratched and grazed stomach, brown and red under thick hair. The abrasions stung with a low, grating consistency, but when the woman touched them, the pain vanished instantly. Farris stared with wide eyes as the wounds began to heal, as if an invisible hand were painting the skin with a fresh coat where it had been torn.

“Wounds of the flesh,” she said, eyes focused on her work. “They’re deep, but you haven’t lost much blood. I wouldn’t worry too much about those.” With another hand, she pressed her fingers hard against Farris’s left knee. He grimaced in pain. “This, I’m more concerned about.”

After some more poking and prodding, she turned to the red mage. “I think I can help him. Go back and help Sir Bearach with the others.”