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.”
The young man turned and darted back to the wreckage.
The woman offered Farris more water, but he declined. He reached into his own pocket and produced a tiny brass vial of thainol. With a quick swig, the liquid rolled down his throat, warm and soothing. It did much more to take the pain away than the water did. The healer laughed.
“Never been a better time, I suppose.” Her voice was weary, and her eyes heavy with exhaustion.
How long have we been out here?
“What’s your name?” she asked, placing a hand on his forehead.
“Chester,” he answered without hesitation. It would take a lot more than an airship falling from the sky for Farris Silvertongue to forget that the future of the Simian race rested on his shoulders. “I’m one of the ship’s navigators, but today I travelled as a passenger.”
She smiled. “I’m sure you were hoping for a better day off than this.”
“Aye, but I could do with the overtime.”
She laughed and placed a hand on his knee again.
“Now Chester, there’s some damage done to your bones, and the underflesh that binds them together has been torn. I can fix the bones easily, but the underflesh will require a fully trained healer, and a lot more supplies than we have out here. I’ll give you a temporary patching up now, though, so at least you’ll be able to walk.”
She cupped both hands around his injured knee, and he felt soft, pulsating warmth against his flesh.
And before Farris had a chance to remember how much he detested the Church and its servants, his pain disappeared.
“It worked!” he said, barely able to contain his surprise. “How… I mean… I thought you said you weren’t a proper healer?”
“Not yet,” she replied, rubbing her hands together. “I used to be a Geomancer, but I changed schools shortly after I earned my Earthcloak. I’ve got one year of study left in the Academy chapter of Penance, and then you’ll be able to call me Sláine the White.”
“Sounds far more majestic than Sláine the Green.”
Farris tried to bend his knee. It was difficult, as if someone kept pushing in the other direction. But with some effort, he rotated his lower leg slowly in circles. He looked up at the trees, noticing that many were still full and green despite it being well into the autumn months.
“Where are we?” he said.
Sláine smiled. “That reminds me, you better not eat anything you see lying around. We’re in the—”
A sudden, sharp scream rang out from the wreckage. They turned to see the red mage sprinting back towards them.
“Run!” he said, panting and waving his arms. Just behind him, four strange black shapes scuttled through the clearing. Each moved with deadly speed and precision, darting over the ship’s debris and falling upon those who were too injured to run.
