His hands found the rough rock of the cliff, fingers groping against the prickly beachgrass jutting out.
Don’t look up.
He reached one hand up and clenched an overhead rock in his fist. The stone grazed against his knuckles, and his wounds stung with salt, but he tore his attention away from his pain. With a muffled roar he pulled himself upwards and reached up with another hand.
Don’t give up.
Soil and loose sand trickled over his head, and Farris shut his eyes. His leg throbbed, but he pulled himself upwards again, dangling both feet over the ground.
I’m their last hope. Only I can warn them.
He reached upwards, struggling to find another grappling point. Instead of solid rock, his fingers grasped a handful of beachgrass in the cracks of the cliff. He held them tightly by the roots.
If I stop now, everyone’s death will be for nothing.
First there was Chester, the Simian navigator Farris had impersonated to board the ship. Chester’s death was a necessity to make up for the Crown’s lack of preparation for the mission. The king had just as much a hand in killing him as Farris did.
The beachgrass took Farris’s weight well. A strong breeze caressed the fur on his shoulders as he reached up again. His arms ached with fatigue, but he turned his thoughts back to his mission.
If I fall now, Penance will follow.
He was the one who caused the fight aboard The Glory of Penance. He was the one who caused the ship to crash into the Glenn. He was just as guilty as the beadhbhs that picked off the survivors.
But it’ll only be justified if I make it home....
His fingers found solid stone again, but their grip failed for a fraction of a second. He slipped, barely catching himself with his other hand. The muscles in his shoulders cried out in protest, and his mind almost submitted to their pleas.
Fionn the Red. Sir Bearrach. Slaíne the White. The crewmen, the labourers in the field, all dead to save the Simians of Penance.
The scene of the troll’s killing field resurfaced again in his mind. The death didn’t bother him; he had seen plenty of that since he first left Penance… but one memory from that morning stuck harder than the rest.
The girl.
He pulled himself upwards again, almost losing his grip.
Chester may understand. Reasonable people like Sir Bearrach and Sláine the White would surely accept that sacrifices must be made in times of war. Their lives could secure the well-being of thousands of Simians in Penance, or hundreds of thousands of Humans across Alabach. They’d understand….
But how could that reasoning apply to a child who watched her mother die?
His grip failed, and Farris felt weightless for the instant his hands fell away from the Cliffside.
Just a child.
Farris braced himself for a long plummet to the ground, but he fell no further. Something strong wrapped itself around his wrist. For the first time since he set his hands against the stone, he looked up.
A large Human leaned over the edge of the cliff, his mouth open in shock.
“Yarlaith!” he cried. “There’s another one here. Alive! And a Simian!”
***
Farris woke up drunk, not quite sure where he was. At least he felt drunk. His memory was hazy, his thoughts seemed slower than usual, and he certainly didn’t know where he was.
He raised his head. He was on a bed in a small room, with one window opening out to the east. The Teeth of the Glenn were barely visible through the dusty glass.
Farris sat bolt upright, suddenly aware that the pain in his leg was gone. His muscles no longer ached, and even the grazing across his knuckles had vanished. Apart from a slight sense of light-headedness, he felt perfectly healthy.
A wooden shelf bolted into the adjacent wall gave him a hint to where he was, with glassware and alchemical solutions racked neatly on its surface. Translucent screens separated his bed from the rest of the room, but a moving shadow on the other side told him that he was not alone.
Farris was about to call out, but a sharp scream cut him off.
The cry went on until the voice went hoarse. It was a man, a young man, by the sound of it. After a short breath he called out again, more agony in every note than before.
Then he went silent.
Farris tentatively removed himself from the bed, spotting his few belongings folded neatly by his feet. He pulled a plain vest over his head – what had once been an attempt to dress as Chester. After he put the rest of his clothes on, he checked his leather shoulder-pack. Its contents were still inside, undisturbed.
“Ah, you’re awake. I’m sorry about that racket.”
Farris turned to face a man in white robes speckled with blood. He was short, even for a Human, with wiry strands of dark, grey hair in tufts across a balding head.
“What did he do to deserve that?” asked Farris, nodding towards the other bed.
“Ah,” said the man, rubbing his hands together and casting his gaze to the floor. “Another patient, a mage, from the field. He… lost an arm.”
“Fionn…” whispered Farris. “How is he doing?”
The man shook his head. “Not well. Not well at all. Did you travel with him and the others?”
