We ended up spending two days at the impromptu campsite. I was surprised that the hidden band made a whisper woman wait for so long, but Nine Claws didn’t seem in a hurry despite the way we had been marching through the valleys. Perhaps she had felt the lack of supplies more than I realized.
She and Malady kept going out on their hunting and gathering trips while the rest of us were ordered to recover and rest. I couldn’t deny that a lot had happened since we first stepped foot on the mountain and that the rest was good for my recovering wounds, especially after I had abused my shoulder more between the rat fight and climbing a cliff. But I hated just sitting there. Relegated to the sidelines with nothing to do but train, think, and watch the others.
Prevna and I had been doing everything we could to improve ever since we became seedlings but now we weren’t even trusted to help gather supplies on our own. I knew in the whisper women’s eyes we were just Sprouts, not even part of a sect yet, and had years to go before we had the experience of true whisper women but the inaction grated on me. Even when I had been a healer’s daughter I had been trusted to do more than just train. Even if it had been a trial she likely expected me to fail the Commander had set me that task to kill the crawler harassing their outposts and when we were at the Rookery it might have all been training but I could clearly see the progress I was making with the exciting, new skill.
Practicing with the spear, knife, and sling wasn't nearly as interesting. Shadow walking and thinking through strategies and scenarios were more so, but I was limited by what I could come up with without Mishtaw to give me instructions on what to try or think over. Of course, that wasn’t any different from what I was used to but after years of trying to come up with new ideas it felt like the situations I hadn’t thought over yet were running dry.
As for shadow walking…well, I didn’t want to admit I was reluctant to find out if there really was a ghost haunting my shadow paths but I could only use the excuse that it wasn’t a good time or place to practice, especially when we had been at the Seedling Palace. Prevna hadn’t pressed me on it—but I knew she had gotten the same lecture I had about leaving people in the shadows paths after the stunt I pulled.
I would have let the group to search out my patron’s elusive friend but Esie had made it clear that she expected her to be in the inner valleys and I wasn’t about to go climb back down the cliff into the barren valley to start my search. To start, there was no way I wouldn’t be noticed and climbing up that cliff had been terrible enough the first time. I knew there had to be a way into the valley where the hidden had settled but they had kept their path hidden from us and our camp had moved from the cliffside to right outside the fog to save our supply of seeds. So even if I ignored my lack of familiarity with the landscape, the likelihood of being caught, and how little I wanted to use the route I did know, I’d likely succumb to the fog before I found anything.
It was a boring two days before a group of nine men showed up at our camp bright and early before Nine Claws and Malady could leave on another supply run.
Their leader, the same unflappable guard Nine Claws had spoken to before, said, “Our leaders wish to speak to your group. You may accompany us while we bring Gard and Colt to settle into their new home.” He held out strips of cloth. “However, we ask that you block your gaze so that its location remains a secret. That secrecy is our greatest protection.”
Nine Claws stared the man down. Her bless mark and black lips on full display. “ You would demand this of me?” She gestured to Prevna and me. “Of them?”
To his credit he didn’t immediately lose his resolve even if that might have been the smarter response. He dipped his head and, voice still even, replied, “We ask. We honor the goddess as well and don’t wish to incur Her wrath through you.”
My eyes narrowed. Something about what he said didn’t sound quite right. Honoring the goddess was all well and good, even if most people would have said “worship” or “fear” instead, so I didn’t think that was what had caught my attention. I mulled over the sentence as they kept the conversation going. It didn’t last long.
Nine Claws accepted wearing the blindfolds just this once though I wouldn’t have been surprised if she ended up having her cats follow us and learn the way regardless. There were enough men to pair up with each of us and one to finally relieve Tike from his post. They handed us the blindfolds as well as a drinking pouch to pass around.
The leader explained, “It’s a more potent mixture of what you been using to keep the fog’s protection at bay. One mouthful will protect you for a week instead of a day.” He took a sip to show it was fine to drink before passing it to Nine Claws. “Please accept our goodwill.”
I wasn’t keen on drinking some unknown mixture from an unknown source but Nine Claws drank down a mouthful so we all had to follow suit. Part of me was tempted to insist that we make our own mixture and drink it as well just in case what they gave us didn’t really protect us from the fog, but making our own would hardly be subtle and with the way our makeshift camp was getting packed up it seemed there wouldn’t be time.
I also didn’t want to touch my guide the entire time it took to get wherever we were going but it didn’t seem like we had a choice in that either. As soon as my blindfold was on he clapped a hand on my shoulder and I recoiled. After an awkward pause I felt him place his hand tentatively hack on my shoulder and I barely restrained the urge to kick him in the shin and run away. I could still do that if he ran me into a tree.
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We moved forward as a group and I felt the moment we reentered the fog. It made the air heavy and what light I could see through the blindfold went hazy but it didn’t seem any different from normal fog. We kept shuffling forward and it felt like they were leading us in a winding curve on a steep slope. I noticed that the heat kept increasing to my left until it felt like we were facing its source.
Then we stopped and my guide told me to wait before leaving me standing there. I relaxed at having my personal space back and heard Prevna reply to her guide somewhere close by. Something large dragged and then there was the ominous sound of something hitting water. Though it didn’t quite sound like water either.
Surely it couldn’t be…
A few more things were moved around. I heard more than one grunt and hiss that sounded like it came from a crocodile. I doubted all the noise could have been from Klus. My hand inched up to my waist to hover over my eating knife. Our guides hadn’t mentioned anything about more crocodiles or explained what all the dragging was for.
Then my guide was back and placing his unwelcome hand on my shoulder. “Take ten steps forward and then a big step up.”
The heat steadily increased as I moved forward until it felt like I was about to step directly into a large bonfire. I refused to take that last step up. “What is this?”
“The quickest, safest way to the village.”
Somehow I doubted that.
The guide moved around my side. “Here. I’ll go up first.”
His hand left my shoulder after he had me move slightly to the side. Then I felt him step forward. There was a shuffling noise but no one was screaming nor was there the sound of sizzling flesh like there would have been if he had actually stepped into a fire.
He reached back out to me and caught my hand. I had to restrain my urge again to fling him away and instead let him pull me up and forward. The ground I stepped on dipped before settling. He guided me forward again and it shifted with my every step, not so much that I was afraid of losing my balance, but enough that I knew there was no way we were still on steady ground. Then he had me brace my hands on a railing, warned me not to lean forward over it, and went off to help the others.
The railing felt suspiciously like the haft of a spear. Like wood. But who in their right mind used wood for anything but fuel or spears? Why waste it? And if it was wood, how was it not burning when I still felt like I should have been in the middle of a fire from the sheer amount of heat clogging the air around me and drying out my mouth and skin.
Someone else pressed up next to me but I knew almost instantly that it was Prevna.
I whispered, “What is this?”
“Let’s find out,” she whispered back and a moment later I felt my blindfold being shifted slightly up so I could see past it with one eye. Prevna met my gaze with her own freed eye and we shared small grins. Looking past her I noticed that no one was paying attention to us as they were all trying to get Malady and Colt to join us. Each was being stubborn for different reasons: Malady wanted a clear explanation and Colt was crying out of fear.
That was also when I noticed where we were standing.
Molten rock swirled past our feet with only the railing of black wood keeping us from falling in. The black wood boxed us in on all sides and under our feet and, inexplicably it wasn’t burning. I couldn’t even smell it smoldering.
There were also crocodiles in the lava swimming around as if it was simply water. Four large ones were hooked up to the front of the box with harnesses that looked like black leather but those also weren’t burning.
Did nothing in these valleys adhere to what I knew was normal? Why would you ever try to float on top of molten rock? Who had been idiotic enough to be the first one to try?
The leader of our guides noticed that we were looking around, shocked, and he sighed from where he stood on the other side of the weird black craft. He called out, “Let them look. We’re already past the part they could do on their own if they did try to retrace our path.”
He clearly thought we wouldn’t have a way to traverse the river of molten rock on our own to get to his village and that going by land would be impossible for us to do. I neglected to mention that we had access to storm birds that could fly wherever they wanted.
Maladay ripped her blindfold off and then stepped up onto the craft through the opening on the other side with a look that clearly said they shouldn’t have been the ones to make that so difficult. Colt cried more when he saw that he’d need to go on the river of deadly, molten rock. In the end, Gard had to pick him and carry him onto the box while the boy buried his face in the man’s neck. Nine Claws ran an appraising hand over the black wood and asked a few sharp questions to the closest guide who happened to be Tike. He startled and tripped over his tongue as he tried to answer as fast as he could.
I learned that the wood was from something called a black barrier tree and that its sap was used to protect the crocodiles’ harnesses from the lava as well. Apparently, the trees never burned and could last for years exposed to the lava before they would start to bleach gray and then crumbled to dust. They also apparently had never been punished by the goddess even when they dared to cut down the first tree. Tike insisted that they kept the number they cut low and would tend to the trees and plant new ones to show their appreciation, but that hardly mattered. The goddess had punished a whole region for one pine tree being burned. If She cared about what they were doing all the rest of it likely didn’t matter—they would have been dead as soon as that first tree fell.
Unless, of course, Her mood turned and She suddenly did decide to care if they stopped “taking care” of the trees like they were. The whole thing was incomprehensible. This area might have been technically made by the goddess’s sister but who would have dared to cut down that first tree?
Perhaps the same person who decided traveling on lava rivers was a good idea.
The thought made my head hurt.
Once everyone had stepped up into the black box the guides shut the opening and tied it closed. With twenty of us it was tight quarters but not as bad it could have been. Tike was busily explaining to Nine Claws that they normally used this craft to transfer their supplies to and from their trades with the outsider band. He said that quite a few people had smaller boxes that would harness directly onto their crocodile’s back for individual travel on the molten rock rivers and lake. That insight made my head hurt more so I stared out at the tangle of black trees with wide leaves and rocks making up the molten river’s edge and tried not to wonder if those in the hidden band had been kept out of the other bands because they lacked some bit of common sense when it came to safety.