Shang-Li shook his head. “It would take days to find the edges, and we’d lose too many in the forests. Finding Grayling is going to be difficult.”
“Yet it must be found,” his father said, tugging on his beard. “You cannot fail in this.”
“I know.”
“If we do not take back the journals of Liou” “Father, I know,” Shang-Li said. He stood, irritated and exhausted. What did he have to do to get his father to see he was doing what he could? The weight of the missing books lay heavy on his thoughts. The others were staring at him.
“I’m going to sleep,” he said, and abruptly left the air pocket, still seething.
Shang-Li sat up on the floor of the cargo hold, his heart pounding and his mind jumbled with thoughts.
Around him, the ship creaked and rolled with the constant movement of the ocean. Several small fish had invaded the ship and pestered sleeping sailors. Every now and again a startled yelp would wake everyone as a sailor discovered a crab had wandered into his clothing. Thankfully the guards posted at the cargo hold entries had turned away most of the tentacled things that tried to creep in as well.
“They keep getting in.” Shang-li turned to see Amree sitting on a crate, watching him.
“You should sleep” she said. You’re going to need your rest.”
“And you don’t?”
Amree sighed and folded her arms. “I’ve got a ship to watch over, and she’s currently in unsafe waters.”
Shang-Li glanced at the canvas-covered air bubble in the corner. “Does that spell strain you?”
Amree shook her head and her red tresses floated on the water. “No. It’s set. Maintaining it isn’t necessary. It’s self-sufficient for the moment.” She paused. “What is going to be difficult is expanding that air bubble to bring the ship to the surface.” She gazed around the hold. “Even if we manage to get enough canvas to hold the air necessary to lift the ship, we’re not going to lift quickly. Nor will we be able to steer Swallow. She’ll go where she has need to, mostly up, but there will be some drift with the currents and the tide. More than likely we’ll still be far out to see and away from any help. We may even drift into the territory of the sahuagin. Or the aboleths.” She pulled at the bandage on her hand.
“Let me see your hand,” Shang-Li said.
“My hand is fine.”
“Has anyone tended to it?”
“No one’s had the time.”
“Not even my father?” Shang-Li found that hard to believe.
“Your father,” Amree said, “has been busy feeding everyone. He’s still up there now taking care of that. He’s the one you should be worried about.”
The sharp ache of guilt twisted in Shang-Li’s stomach. He hadn’t given a second thought to his father’s chosen task.
“Where is the ship’s cook?” Shang-Li asked.
“Lost. Somewhere in the sea. A few of them were, you know.”
Shang-Li did know. He also knew more had been lost to the predators in the strange forest.
“May I please see your hand?” he asked.
“Now you’re a cleric?”
“I’m a monk,” Shang-Li replied. “One of the first things we’re trained to do is care for the body. Our own or someone else’s.”
Gently, noting how tense the young woman was, Shang-Li took her hand and guided her to a sitting position in front of him. He carefully unwrapped the cloth from her hand. The fact that the cloth didn’t feel saturated still amazed him, especially when he considered how wet it would be when she entered the air bubble.
“How did you injure your hand?” Shang-Li asked.
“A broken timber slipped,” she said as she watched him. “I tried to grab it.”
“Not a good idea.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
Beneath the bandages, the palm of her hand was red and swollen with infection around a four-inch gash that ran crossways across her flesh. The tear wasn’t very deep, though the flesh was thin enough there that the muscles and tendons were revealed. Fresh blood rose from the wound and faded into the water.
A fish swam over to her and hovered over her palm. Shang-Li brushed the fish aside and it swam away.
“I don’t know how you did anything with this hand,” Shang-Li said.
“I tried not to.”
“You should have told someone.” “Everyone was busy trying to stay alive.” “Who cleaned the wound?” “I did.”
“You didn’t do a very good job of it.”
“Is criticism one of the services you throw in with your care?” she asked sharply.
“Yes,” Shang-Li said, “but thankfully it’s just as free as everything else I’m doing.”
Amree tried to withdraw her hand.
Shang-Li held onto her fingers. “There are splinters in there that have to come out. And I’m going to have to suture your palm back together.”
Involuntarily, Amree closed her hand and didn’t look happy.
“What’s wrong?” Shang-Li asked.
She grimaced and looked embarrassed. “I don’t much care for needles.”
Shang-Li retreated long enough to get a small knife and tweezers from a cleric kit. He added a curved needle and fine gut. Then he sat cross-legged in front of Amree once more.
“This is only going to make me dislike you more,” she threatened.
“That’s a risk I’ll have to take.” Shang-Li took her hand and held it gently but firmly. “This is going to hurt.”
She turned her head away and didn’t move while he removed eight good-sized splinter fragments. Once he was satisfied the wound was clean, he threaded the needle.
“You were lucky,” Shang-Li said in a soft voice. “None of the muscles, nerves, or tendons were damaged. Except for the tear in your flesh, your hand is fine. Once I close the flesh up, it will heal fine.”
“If it doesn’t it’s going to be expensive to have a cleric bless it back to normal.”
Shang-Li looked into her eyes. “If we leave it untended, you could lose your hand. Maybe sicken and die before we get out of this place. At the very least you’ll bleed and attract predators. And if you’re going to create enough air to raise this ship to the surface and keep us protected while you do that, you’re going to have to be healthy.”
“You don’t look the part of a seamstress.”
“Are you ready?”
She took a deep breath, held it a moment, then let it out. “I am.”
Shang-Li pushed the needle through her flesh, felt her tense, then slowly relax a little. He pushed the needle through the other side of the slash, then pulled the ravaged flesh together and tied the first stitch.
“I’m going to put a lot of small ones in,” he said. “Spacing them out might discourage scar growth. This should leave little in the way of damage.”
“All right.”
“Just keep breathing.” Shang-Li threaded the needle once more and began again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Shang-Li swam with a heavy spear clutched in one hand. Given their present circumstances, the spear seemed a better choice than his fighting sticks. Thava and the sailors who followed him also kept their weapons out, ready for the Blue Lady’s creatures to attack.
Iados swam and scouted a head of them. The tiefling’s tail twitched like a cat’s as he surveyed the sea floor. They’d already learned many creatures liked to conceal themselves in the loose silt and the brush. And all of them appeared ravenous.
The forest continued on as far as Shang-Li could see. He’d never seen anything like the environment he watched around him. As a ranger, he’d been trained to feel at home in the forest. But though he’d tried to find some familiar bits of this one, there was no closeness, no safe harbor. The forest just felt wrong. It didn’t feel dead, but it felt something close to that.
Ahead, Iados waved and indicated that he’d found the first shipwreck of the day. Dodging through trees and brush, Shang-Li swam forward and Thava picked up her pace. The rest of the salvage crew trailed after them.
Holding the spear in both hands, Shang-Li dropped toward the sea floor near the ship wreckage. The vessel hadn’t fared as well as Swallow. She lay broken almost in half, her masts broken and splintered, and her deck largely gone. Cracked timbers and shattered planks lay beside the ship.