Flantain drooped tiredly, both hands gingerly holding part of her leg under the cloak.

"Thank you for finding me." She looked up at Thax, her voice thin and whispery as she went on. "Slot screen has been malfunctioning. Communications are down as far as I can tell."

Thax knelt next to her, eyeing the darkness behind her. A heavily mottled monster of a thrike was packed against the warped sides of the tunnel, curled up with wings folded, though the crested head perked up to stare back at them. Eyes glinted the reflection from outside, and the thrike let out a soft whiffling sound.

"Right. First thing, power down that slot screen," Thax said in a low voice. "Hannowold territory. We've got ours off, too."

Flantain obeyed. "Got it. We on high alert, sir?"

"Pretty much. But we shouldn't move yet. Gannagen, get eyes on that patrol out there, will you? If they come down into the ravine, inform me."

Challis nodded, and reached out into the rain with her senses. She could tell, now, that there were four distinct members of the patrol, and on foot. Their movements shifted in and out of the jungle's undercurrent of energy, but they were keeping topside of the gorge and seemed to be heading in the opposite direction.

Thax noted Flantain's position with a critical eye, and the way she lay half-bent to one side. Her breathing was pained and shallow, but she wasn't shivering.

"How are you hurt?" he asked. "Can you walk?"

She kept one arm pressed to her side, gesturing weakly with the other. "My whole left side is killing me – something got smashed up. I'm deadweight, boss. Are there more coming?"

"Hell, no. That's a whole other bag of soup," he huffed. "Later. Tell me what happened to you."

Flantain carefully pulled away the cloak, revealing her left knee awkwardly twisted so the inside of her foot rested flat on the ground. "Shoots got his wing sliced up. We dropped into the ravine before he could land the edge, and a flattop caught me. I was still attached to the saddle."

Thax inhaled through his teeth with a grimace. "Ouch."

"I cut the line, but then we both rolled a hundred or so feet down the ledge." Flantain took a shaky breath. "It's my hip. I can't feel anything down past the knee."

"Oh, man. Okay. We're not moving," Thax said resignedly. "Maybe if I go get Groff, or…"

He thought for a long minute, looking down at the damaged leg in the dim light. "No, wait. Wait, wait, wait." He blew out a long, tight breath and looked at Challis. "Gannagen. How much orthopedics training you got?"

She turned. "Me? None."

The emotion that thrummed into the air when she said it was powerful enough to tighten her throat. She heard Flantain make a small noise, quickly covered by a clearing of the throat. The woman was a few years younger than herself and Thax, but tall and leanly built. Doing anything to her seemed at risk of cracking the metaphorical glass vase. The least break could render it completely useless.

"Can I talk to you?" Thax asked Challis quietly. She was about to respond when Flantain interrupted.

"Just talk. No use hiding anything."

Thax hesitated for only a moment. "Alright. A dislocated hip needs to be handled right away. We can't move you, and I don't trust Groff to ­–" He stopped before continuing in a rush. "I think I can help you, but it's going to be rough at best. I've got nothing on me that'll do as an anesthetic, numbing or calming. If Onaya were here, she could probably find a good natural plant-based booster we could use, but she's not. Foot powder from Groff's medico pack won't help either. Gannagen," his voice dropped, "I've seen some wet-biscuit crazy things around you over the last few days. I know you've been working with the Director. What help can you offer?"

"You mean… psychologically?"

His silence was answer enough. Challis breathed in her frustration, her uselessness, and breathed it out again. But nothing changed. She thought of Flantain, sweet and determined and more experienced at her age than Challis would probably ever be. She gave a helpless shrug. "Not much. I'm sorry."

Thax's voice took on a tone that she had never heard from him before. It seemed to block out everything else: the rain, the emotions, the scattered situation of the FHF expedition. It demanded an isolated, rational approach to whatever came out of her mouth next. She had only ever heard it from her father, and she did not like it.

"Are you sure?"

She tried to aim her eyes at his face, and waited a while before responding so it would appear that she was thinking hard. "I can try. For Flantain. And," a thought struck her. "I can try to keep the thrike out of your hair while you do what needs doing."

Thax unhooked his sidearm from his wrist brace and laid it aside. He made eye contact with Flantain.

"You good with this?"

She nodded slowly, each breath coming hard. "Yes, sir. I trust you."

They got her into position. Thax moved to Flantain's other side, to the hip that was twisted out of joint. With Challis' help, Flantain was carefully maneuvered to lie flat on her back, which, in the confines of a large empty tree trunk, meant aligning her parallel to the log with her feet toward the opening. Thax gently felt the area of her hip until he was convinced about its exact positioning. That on its own was enough to make Flantain stiffen and gasp, sweating coldly while her breath came even faster. Challis sat close to her head, her back to the huge thrike, one hand holding Flantain's while the other lifted the woman's left side slightly so Thax could work.

He was muttering to himself about tissue damage, and Challis listened to him argue and backtalk himself. Finally, he went still. Doubt lingered around him.

She reached over to place a hand on his arm. The sleeve was still wet. She spoke softly, her voice taking on the tone of her brother whenever he eased away the fear and anger of their last six years together.

"You can do this."

Thax looked up at her, his breathing loud too. Challis gave him a smile.

"So can you," he said, almost too brightly. "Come over on my left. We need to get her on her side."

She rose and stepped around to his other side. Then, with as smooth a motion as they could manage, they rolled Flantain halfway over on a count of three. Challis supported her until Thax could grab the woman's backpack and push it up to her chest, where she could wrap her arms around it and keep upright more easily.

"Okay. Help lift and turn her knee out when I tell you to," Thax said. "And get that brain going."

Challis took a breath and tried to ease into Flantain's mind like she had with Rasalas, and Drunnel. Nothing happened. Only a vague anxiety effluxed from the woman, and beyond that a wall that she couldn't push through.

The thrike was another story. Shoots was reacting to Flantain's impatience with snorts and scuffles that didn't abate much even when Challis turned her attention on the animal's consciousness to keep it still. It started shuffling forward with loud grunts that grew more frantic. Challis sent Flantain a silent apology and pushed all her focus into the consciousness of the pterosaur. Even so, when Thax wrapped his arm around Flantain's thigh, his other hand bracing her hip, the bent wings flapped in the confined space and buffeted his ducked head despite Challis' efforts. The thrike didn't stab with its beak or prevent Thax's progress, however, even when Flantain screamed.

Challis held on tight as the young woman shook, and writhed, and the six seconds that Thax took to manhandle the bone back into its socket seemed to last for six minutes.

When he finished, he leaped up beside her head and grabbed her hand, soothing with his voice.

"Sienna, you'll be okay," he said, over and over again. "I know it hurts, and I'm sorry. You'll be okay."

She couldn't relax, but when her grip on his hand finally loosened, he helped her to lie flat again. Flantain closed her eyes and went completely silent as the shaking adrenaline eased slowly out of her. Challis pulled her cloak back over her. Thax replaced his sidearm and went to stand in the trunk's opening. His hands gripped the lip of the wood above his head while he looked out at the rain.

Challis laid Flantain's head in her lap until the young woman dropped into sleep, rest that had been impossible until now. Behind her, Shoots had squirmed closer until his huge body was pressed against Challis' back. His beak prodded her neck once or twice, but now he was quiet. Challis was just glad he had calmed as quickly as Flantain did.

As carefully as she could, she extracted herself and joined Thax. He sighed once, then again.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I'm always okay," came the automatic response. "How is she?"

Thunder rumbled from close above, and a cold mist seeped into the gorge. Challis folded her arms, shivering. "Fine now. She'll need to rest." She listened to the rain for another minute before saying, "You did good."

His response was barely audible.

"Finally did something useful."

Challis heard the acid in his tone and went quiet. They shared a hard moment of silence in joint animosity toward the same man who had put them both where they were now. He was waiting for them back the way they had come, but so was Groffoco, and any chance of getting the expedition back underway. Getting Flantain back would be a haul, but at least they had the thrike. Three men, two women, two thrikes, one horse – that was all they had left of the high-spirited FHF group that had left Oedolon days ago.

Drunnel wouldn't be happy with her for running off.

"Well, I understand that," she said.

"Do you?"

"Ye-es," she drew it out, unsure about his tone of voice. "It's a bit of specialty of ours – or, mine – being useful."

In the silence, she wondered if his thoughts were mirroring her own. The Gannagens being useful was the only reason Forge had kept them around to tend to the thrike stables. And even if Thax had befriended Rasalas during the pretraining program when they were eighteen, Challis still felt that for most of the eight years they had known him, Thax kept them at a distance under the label of 'useful.' After all, they kept his saddle in good condition and the thrikes in good feeding.

Now, without Rasalas, and away from Polescos, Challis had no idea how to talk to him. He was a friend, sort of. He was a thrike captain, sort of, and therefore her superior, sort of, even though she was acting as a horser on the expedition and he a thriker. And for now, he would be better company than the sleeping Flantain. But he was not Rasalas.

A low-pitched trill sounded off to the right, followed by the chack-chack of feather macaws under the trees.

Challis cleared her throat. "I need a moment outside," she said finally. "Patrol's gone."

Thax peered up at the sides of the gorge.

"They better be," he said, his voice back to its usual perky tone. "If I get mugged again for no reason, someone's going to get a popper to the gut."

"You got mugged?" "Yes. Very traumatic. Won't happen again."

When Challis returned, resoaked and starting to shiver, all of them took advantage of the thrike's bulk as they pressed up close to its warmth. There was no chance of fire, very little chance of food, and high chance that they would be drowned like rats in the depths of the Reach.