He trailed off. “We’d better go back and have a look.”
Aphenglow didn’t need to be told what he was thinking. If Arling was in the airship wreckage, she had probably been crushed to death on impact.
They took a direct line back to Wend-A-Way, leaving Aphen outside to wait as Cymrian began searching through the inside of the hull. He was gone a long time before reappearing. “Nothing,” he said.
They stood together once more, looking everywhere but at each other. “I’ll have to use the Elfstones,” Aphenglow said finally. “It’s risky, but I can’t afford to worry about that. Arling could be dying out there.”
To his credit, Cymrian didn’t argue. He simply nodded.
She pulled out the Stones and dumped them from the pouch into her hand. Closing her fingers about them, she stretched out her arm and formed a picture of her sister’s face, holding it firmly in her mind as she summoned the magic.
The blue light blazed to life and then spun away to their left. She wheeled quickly to square herself up to its beam, fixing the direction as it traveled only a short distance to a jumble of branches that had been torn away in the crash. Beyond was a tangle of grasses in which a body lay prone, nearly invisible against the muddied earth. The light held fast for a moment to mark the spot, then flared and was gone.
Cymrian was already moving. She hurried after him, jamming the Elfstones back in her pocket. It took them only minutes to make their way back through the trees and the brush. Arling lay just a short distance from where they had turned back from their earlier search. Aphen gritted her teeth in fury. They had been only steps away.
She rushed over to her sister and knelt. Arling was covered in mud and bleeding from her nose and mouth. She was breathing, but just barely, and her pulse was weak and unsteady. Quickly, Aphen checked for other injuries without finding any. But since Arling was unconscious it was difficult to be certain.
“She’s in a bad way,” she told Cymrian. “I’m afraid to move her.”
“Can you tell if anything is broken?”
“Doesn’t seem to be.” She felt up and down her sister’s arms and legs without finding any sign of broken bones. She explored Arling’s body, as well. Nothing. “Can you lift her? By her shoulders, but don’t let her head move when you do.”
Cymrian did as she asked, and she felt underneath her sister’s back. She had almost finished her exam when her fingers found metal splinters. Her breath caught in her throat. That last barrage from the Federation fire launchers must have done this. There were at least two, and perhaps more, of those splinters embedded in Arling’s back. It was impossible to tell how deeply they had penetrated, but it seemed likely they were the source of the problem. The splinters, and the impact of Arling’s fall from the ship, would explain a lot.
She took off her cloak and spread it on the ground beside her sister. “Can you roll her over on her stomach?” she asked Cymrian, indicating the cloak.
The Elven Hunter did so—carefully, tenderly, keeping everything as protected as he could manage. Aphen helped by turning Arling at her hips and legs as Cymrian turned her at her shoulders. It took only a moment to lay the injured girl on her stomach. Now both her sister and their protector could see the splinters and the blood that seeped from the wounds they had made. The splinters protruded from halfway up her back, close to where her heart was.
“I’ll have to take them out,” she said, looking at him. “But I don’t know what that will do to her.”