“Good,” Sarah said. “Cork that and grab the yellow bag.”
Next to the stand of bottles were several small bags, each a different color. Kindred retrieved a cloth bag smudged a dirty yellow.
“Take one of the heads out,” Sarah said, her eyes on the captain’s wound, her hands steady and constant in their movement, cutting and applying pressure, at times stopping to pour foul-smelling liquids onto parts or all of the captain’s chest.
Kindred loosened the drawstring holding the bag closed and opened it to find the severed heads of several coneflower plants bundling against one another. Petals of light purple surrounded a central disk of dark red spikes, and in the darkness of the bag, each head was a study in contrast and beauty.
“Coneflowers?” Kindred asked, reaching in and scooping one out, the head of the flower fitting snugly in her palm.
“Narrow-leaf. Stunted in their growth,” Sarah said, her eyes still down, her focus still on the wound, “but easier to use than Sea-harvested. Take off three of the petals and hand them to me.”
Kindred did, though it took longer than it might have if she could have used both her hands. One by one, she handed them to Ragged Sarah, and one by one, Ragged Sarah stuffed them in her mouth, chewing them into a thick, bulging wad in her cheek, working at the clump.
Captain Caraway shifted, her face creasing in pain, her breath shifting from a shallow stirring to a hissed intake.
“Hold her,” Sarah said out of the corner of her mouth, her jaw still grinding the coneflower petals in her mouth.
Kindred, her own breath held high and tight in her chest, placed her unburned hand on the captain’s shoulder and leaned one knee onto the captain’s leg, using her own body weight as much as possible.
But it wasn’t enough.
Captain Caraway began thrashing about, her body contorting beneath Kindred’s weight, displacing her and making it impossible to stay atop the captain.
“Fuck! Hold her!” Sarah held her hands poised above the wound, batting away the captain’s arms as they clawed toward her chest.
“I’m trying!” Kindred wrestled with the writhing captain, keenly aware of her own pain, the numbness in her burned hand. Captain Caraway’s eyes remained closed, but her mouth was a rictus of pain and effort. Sweat stood out on her face, dimpling her temples. She thrashed nearer the bottles standing nearby.
“Keep her still!” Sarah all but shouted, spittle tinged with purple flecking from her mouth. She moved to sit astride Captain Caraway, abandoning her work on the wound in favor of holding her down. Between the two of them, Kindred and Sarah managed to hold the captain down if not still.
“Black thread,” Sarah said, gesturing to the bottles. Kindred found the bottle—a grey, viscous liquid sliding around in the belly of a squared fistful of glasswork—and gave it to Sarah.
In a fluid motion, Ragged Sarah leaned forward over the captain, faces mirrored. The wad of coneflower distended against her cheek for a breath, and then Sarah spat the pulped mass into the captain’s mouth, saliva and juices splattering the captain’s lips. The grey liquid was next, straight down her throat, even as Sarah scraped the bits of pulped coneflower around the captain’s lips into her mouth.
“Clean cloth,” Sarah said, holding out a hand. Whatever other benefits of the coneflower, it had the immediate effect of calming the captain’s unconscious writhing, and Kindred was able to stand and grab one of a few recently washed cloths from the bundle of supplies.
“Will she live?” Kindred asked, feeling numb all over now.
Sarah felt for the captain’s pulse, spent a long moment listening to her breath and counting quietly to herself. She checked the wound, even leaning in to sniff around the edges, before washing her hands with more alcohol. She picked up a new knife, this one smaller, with a dull metal handle.
“I don’t know. The coneflower paired with the sleeping drought will keep her still and restful while I work. I need to debride the wound and clean it as best I can. If she can make it through the night, I think she might last long enough to get real help. And she’s going to make it through the night.”
Sarah said this last with such conviction that it took Kindred a moment to realize what she was saying: the green dive. Little Wing’s promise. Sarah fought for their lives just as much as she fought to save the captain’s.
“What do you mean, ‘real help?’ Can’t you heal her?”
Sarah shook her head.
“I can buy us two span, maybe longer. But I don’t have the abilities to heal a wound like this, and without any real idea how to treat a hearthfire burn, anything else I might try is just as likely to kill her as save her. We need real help. Real treatment.”
Kindred looked down at her hand, hidden away, and almost laughed as a thought struck her.
“The Once-City! What about their way of healing? Could they help the captain, too?”
Too, she thought, because of course she would get her hand healed.
Sarah nodded, though something troubled her eyes.
“Yes. They might be the only ones who can. Mainland healers have nothing to heal such a wound. But Kindred, the healing back at home—at the Once-City—if they can save the captain, and if we can reach them soon enough . . .”
She shook her head.
“Their healing changes the patient. Forever. The captain would never be the same.”
“Would she be alive?”
Sarah offered a reluctant nod of her head.
“Then that’s enough. We go to the Once-City, claim sanctuary, and they heal the captain.” And me. “I’ll get Little Wing,” Kindred said. This would work. It had to.
As she left, Kindred looked once over her shoulder.
Ragged Sarah bent against the captain’s still form, diligent and gentle as she worked, keeping the embodiment of their hope alive.
* * *
“She needs more help than Ragged Sarah can give her on the ship,” Kindred said in response to Little Wing’s questioning eyes.
Kindred felt the prairie wind catch at her face, her hair. The shadows cast over the deck by the lanterns hid some of the wreckage left by the wyrm’s attack, but not enough.
The Errant’s starboard side was a wreck: the deck, depressed now from the wyrm’s imprint, sloped gently toward the Sea. No gunwale rose to separate deck from grass; for most of the starboard side of the ship, it was simply gone.
Rigging had been torn away or left hanging untethered. Blood stained the deck, the masts, the sails in a red so dark, it appeared black in the lantern light.
It was a mess. Even the wheel had suffered damage in the attack; it no longer described a perfect spoked circle but was chipped and broken, spokes torn away or splintered.