The men had to trade blows and Frederick had to put Erik in a headlock before they started kissing. Irina pocketed Bo’s coin with a satisfied smile.

About twenty minutes later, Waggoner called everyone over. He raised an eyebrow when Erik and Frederick showed up with a bruise apiece, but he made no comment. He’d probably seen this kind of behavior from them before. Gwen wasn’t sure she’d ever understand exactly what kind that was, but if she became Beohur of Wisdom, she’d have millennia to learn about people’s eccentricities. Given the things she’d seen since leaving home, she might need those millennia.

Four wagons stood in a row, each hitched to a pair of horses. A few stablehands were double-checking their harnesses, while others helped merchants load the last chests and trunks into the backs of the wagons. They all stopped when Waggoner climbed onto the frontmost wagon and clapped his hands together.

“All right,” he said to the crowd. “The caravan will be leaving in ten minutes. Thank you for all of your hard work. Load your belongings and double-check everything. I look forward to a safe and smooth journey.”

“Do you know the route?” Erik asked Gwen once activity resumed. “Us guards don’t really need to, but it doesn’t hurt. Plus, you seem the curious sort.”

Gwen nodded.

“All right. There’s a ramp here on the side of the Fifth Root that leads up to the city walls. You saw how deep the walls were when you came in? That’s because they’re also a road. We’ll cross the top of the wall to the Fourth Root, and then there’s a ramp that takes us up to the Grand Lift. We take that up to Nergund, and we trade with someone different in all three cities on that branch. Then we do the same thing backwards until we’re back here. Minus the trading, which we’ll have already done.”

“Whole thing should take about a month,” Frederick said. “Two weeks there and two weeks back, including the trading. We shouldn’t have to worry much while we’re there, either. Nergund’s a pretty peaceful place. Lots of lakes and rivers. They farm most of the things we can’t farm here.”

“And sell them to us for way too much money,” Erik said.

Gwen was still thinking about the length of the trip. A month was a long time to be on the road--at least, for her. The others had probably done longer trips before and seen everything there was to see. They sure talked about something called the Grand Lift like it was a routine thing. Gwen knew she’d show her inexperience even more by asking about it, but they already knew she wasn’t very well-traveled.

“What’s the Grand Lift?”

Irina signed something too quickly for Gwen to understand.

“She forgets you’re a...” Bo translated, then frowned. “...bumpkin?”

“I’m from a small village,” Gwen said, trying to ignore her shame at what probably wasn’t meant as an insult. “This is my first time in the city.”

“The Grand Lift is actually two lifts,” Erik said. “One on the Fourth Root north of us and one on the Second Root between Ein and Tveir. It moves goods and people from the Roots to the Branches and the other way round. It’s a huge stone platform that moves up and down using a bunch of complicated ropes and weights. I don’t know how it works, and I want to vomit my guts out every time I ride it, but it’s also one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen.”

Frederick nodded. “You’ll get it when you see it.”

“They used to think Sara and Celia helped our ancestors build it,” Bo said. “No one knew how it could have been made without magic. But then some scholars and engineers figured out how they moved the materials up the Roots.”

The Beohur still could have helped, Irina signed.

“It’s certainly possible,” Bo said in a tone that said he thought it wasn’t.

“Five minutes!” Waggoner shouted.

Irina held up a finger for the guards to pay attention. Then she pointed at herself and signed back. Bo and Erik got left, and Gwen and Frederick got right.

Gwen tilted her head. “What does that mean?”

“She put you on the right of the wagons so you can look out at the city,” Bo said. Irina nodded and pointed to him.

“And because it’s less dangerous,” Frederick added. “Irina always takes the most risky position on herself. If somebody comes at us from the side, we’ll see them sooner, so we’ll have more time. That and there’s almost no room on the right side of the ramp because that’s the side the wagons will be on. But Irina’s got to be extra careful when she’s keeping up the rear.”

Erik snickered, then said “sorry!” when Irina shot him a glare.

“She also puts one fast person and one strong person on each side if possible,” Bo said. “Just to keep us prepared for anything.”

“Smart,” Gwen said.

“I’m the fast one,” Frederick said with a wink.

Gwen rolled her eyes. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’d say don’t get ahead of me, but we already know that’s impossible.”

“Are you just going to take that?” Erik asked.

“Why not?” Frederick asked. “We both know the score.” He grinned and crossed his arms.

“For now.” Gwen stuck out her tongue. She would beat him soon enough.

Frederick put a hand on her shoulder. “Sure. Just keep reminding yourself of that.”

Gwen opened her mouth to retort, but a loud whistle cut her off. All heads turned in the direction of Maxwell Waggoner, who lowered his fingers and cleared his throat.

“The day is wasting!” he shouted. “Let’s get moving!”

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Everyone swarmed to take up positions. Waggoner drove the first wagon, and three people Gwen didn’t know drove the others. A man with spectacles and ink-stained fingers climbed into the second wagon; Gwen assumed he was the treasurer. Frederick indicated that Gwen should walk alongside the third wagon, while he walked along the first. Bo and Erik took up similar positions on the other side, and Irina walked several feet behind the last wagon.

“Forward!” Waggoner called, flicking the reins. His wagon lurched into motion, followed by the other three one by one. Frederick and Bo started walking, then Gwen and Erik, then finally Irina.

As the caravan trundled out of Waggoner’s gate and onto the road, and as Gwen settled in for a long day of walking beside loud horses and louder wagons, she realized something. For the first time since she’d become a Torchbearer, she felt comfortable. It wasn’t a naive comfort--she knew this journey could become dangerous at any moment, and even if it didn’t, the rest of her quest surely would. But for now, at least, Gwen was walking in the open air surrounded by people who were kind to her. She had finally taken her first true step toward reaching Selador, and she did it with friends.

That realization forced Gwen to blink away tears. She felt how she imagined a snake would after molting: raw, yes, and a little exposed, but also with something she could point to and say See? I’ve grown. Gwendoline Shepard was no longer a helpless sheep herder who dreamed of becoming a pilgrim. Now she was a warrior, a protector, a part of a team. She felt like she’d finally started to live up to her destiny as a Torchbearer.

That larger than life feeling buoyed Gwen for all of an hour. Then they reached the ramp, and she felt small again. The road must have been a hundred feet across, and it sloped upward until it was higher than even the tallest buildings in Fjorir. By the time it reached the wall, it looked like a small dark line against the gigantic Fifth Root.

As Bo and Frederick had said, the caravan started up the right side of the ramp, the side that was closer to the city. Gwen was barely two feet from the railing. She watched as they drew even with, and then rose higher than, each successive story of building. Soon they were above even the highest buildings, and she could see out across the entire city. On entering Fjorir, Gwen had thought the people moved like ants, and that only seemed more true now that they looked the right size. The entire city was just an ant hive with streets instead of tunnels.

Then Fjorir started growing even smaller beneath Gwen. She could still distinguish between individual people, but only because of her Torchbearer senses. She couldn’t tell much about what they were wearing or doing. At this height, it was easier for her to spot columns of smoke drifting out of chimneys or flocks of birds wheeling through the air.

Something else happened as they ascended, something unexpected: it grew harder to breathe. It happened slowly enough that Gwen didn’t notice until they were about a third of the way up the Root, and at first, she blamed it on walking at an incline. But no, her muscles felt fine, and she’d done harder labor than this before breathing hard. Besides, Frederick seemed to be having the same problem in front of her, his shoulders rising and falling with each step, and Gwen had never seen him look tired. There had to be something about the air up here that made breathing more difficult. It was colder, certainly, but temperature alone didn’t have this much of an effect.

Gwen eventually adjusted to the breathing troubles thanks to the ember, and other than that, the first leg of the ramp wasn’t bad. Watching the city grow smaller as she left it behind gave her back some sense of accomplishment: it was such a huge place, especially compared to her village, and she was moving on from it already, setting her sights even higher. She would miss her brother and Theodora and the sheep and Brother Ferdinand, but they would be all right. They had each other. Gwen was on a vital quest now, and she was finally making real progress.

The caravan slowed to a stop once it arrived at the wall. “We can ride the wagons while we cross,” Frederick said. “No one tries anything with the city guard here.”

Gwen peered through the gap between the second and third wagons. Guards did indeed line the wall, standing along the parapet and looking westward over the countryside. Most of them held longbows, but every fourth stood behind a ballista, ready to rain gigantic bolts down on an enemy.

“They’re mostly lookouts,” Frederick explained, “but those ballistae have real power. They’re bigger and stronger than the ones at the forts. They have to be, seeing how high up we are.”

“Hey!” Waggoner called. “Are you riding or walking?”

“Walking!” Gwen called back. She wanted to see the sights and keep working her body.

“Suit yourself,” Frederick said, climbing into the wagon next to him. “Enjoy the view!”

Gwen slipped in front of the third wagon, eyeing the horses warily. They did the same to her, but then they also sniffed her and blew clouds of hot, smelly air right into her face. It only reinforced her choice to stay away from the animals.

Then she was through to the other side of the caravan, which had neither Bo nor Erik on it. They had apparently chosen to ride as well.

Waggoner gave a command, and the wagons started forward again. Gwen did her best to keep up and look at the world beyond the wall at the same time. She mostly managed, though her split focus resulted in more than one near-collision with travelers going the opposite direction.

Still, the view was magical. Gwen could just make out the mines and farmland, interrupted by scattered villages like hers and eventually what she presumed was Lieutenant Harlow’s fort, standing right before the shimmery Wirt River. Despite its width down below, from up here it looked like a single strand of sparkling blue yarn.

Then, as Gwen watched, she noticed something strange. Something concerning. Out past where the Roots dipped underground, three separate plumes of smoke curled into the sky. One of them was north of the Fourth Root, and one was south of the Fifth, but the last was between the two, in the same region as Fjorir. Panic stole the little air left in Gwen’s chest as she looked for landmarks: forests, lakes, other villages, anything to tell her it wasn’t her and Steffan’s home.

It wasn’t. The fire was southwest of the grove, which meant it was on the other side of the trees from Gwen’s village. In fact, whatever was burning had to only be a few miles from the Wirt...

Wait.

The fort was burning.

Shouts of “Smoke!” and “Fire!” rang out from the guards at the parapet. Some of the travelers hurried over to look. No one seemed to have figured out where it was, so Gwen patted the nearest guard on the shoulder.

“It’s the fort,” she said. “That’s what’s on fire.”

The guard frowned. “Can’t be. The fort hasn’t been attacked in over a decade.” Still, he leaned forward, peering out across the land.

After a moment, the color fled his face. “The fort! The fort is on fire!”

“The fort?” another guard asked.

“The fort is burning!”

And then they were all shouting and other travelers were asking anxious questions and everything was chaos. Gwen backed out of the quickly forming crowd and found the caravan, which was stopped a couple hundred feet farther along the wall. The other guards stood between it and any passers-by, though they hadn’t drawn their weapons.

“What’s that all about?” Frederick asked once Gwen had jogged over. “They’re saying something about the fort burning?”

Gwen took a few moments to catch her breath--Wymond’s sake, it was hard to breathe up here--and then nodded. “There are a few fires out near the Wirt. The fort’s the closest one to Fjorir.”

Is it trolls? Irina asked.

“Good point,” Erik said. “Ten years ago, it was trolls.”

“I’m not sure,” Gwen said. She hadn’t heard of the fort being attacked ten years ago, but that was the year the bandits had killed her parents, so she would have been too young for anyone to tell her anyway. Maybe Steffan had overheard something about it.

“Does it matter?” Bo asked. “I feel for the soldiers and their families, but no matter the cause, we have a job to do. We can’t exactly march out and help, can we?”

No, Irina said. No, we can’t. Back to the wagons. She turned and walked over to Waggoner, presumably to tell him what was happening.

“Things happen near the Wirt all the time,” Frederick said. “I don’t think it’s anything for us to worry about. That’s what the fort is for, right? They fight so the rest of the Roots stay safe. I’m sure that’s what they’re doing right now.” He put a large palm against Gwen’s upper back. “Trust me, your village is going to be just fine.”