I kept glaring at the horde’s secret passage but no answer presented itself that would allow me to take care of the issue quickly and by myself. Everything would either take too long or I simply didn’t have the materials I needed. However, as I heard the tribe in the distance, fighting and giving orders, a solution did come to mind.

One of the nets they used to block the waterways and haul fish into their killing fields could also block the entrance here until the broken pathway was taken care of. After that the other end of the channel would be blocked off or the defenders could redirect their efforts into securing the path the fish had made. The net wouldn’t hold indefinitely but it could give us the time we needed to recoup and address the situation rather than just reacting.

The only problem with that idea was that it meant going back to Bramble Watch and getting help. I couldn’t just take a net that was already in use and I doubted that I’d be able to carry it on my own. Even folded in on itself the net would be heavy and bulky.

I sent a whisper to Ana to see if there were any nets not in use, half hoping that’d be the case. With how heavy the fighting had been I knew that the tribesfolk had been using everything at their disposal and nets that were brought back for repair were put back into place as soon as possible. The cold season was normally their time to make extra nets to replace those that had broken beyond repair, but there wasn’t any time for that this year and any nets that might have been sitting in storage had long been taken out to give the fighters just a little more reprieve from the constant onslaught.

Naturally, Ana wanted to know what I wanted a net for since we had already decided stringing up one in front of the broken pathway wouldn’t be as effective as it being used elsewhere. Even if it was exhausting work, we could keep up the fish that were able to climb up the new ramp and we could use knife dancers with less risk than they normally faced while not stretching the spear throwers even further.

I told her the shortest version of what I’d discovered and still had to send one of my messages twice since she didn’t receive it the first time. Improving my skill with wind whispering was quickly getting pushed higher on my list of priorities as each failure felt like a toothache I couldn’t soothe.

There wasn’t one net available—there were two, but they had been deemed beyond repair. According to Ana, they could be cobbled together into one working net but no one had the time to put in the work when the result likely wouldn’t last long enough for it to be worth the effort. For my purposes, the net was worth it as long as I could put it together.

I sent another message to Ana letting her know that the knife dancers would need torches or some other light source sent their way as I started to make my way back to Bramble Watch. Better to be prepared than not.

I didn’t follow the horde’s secret channel all the way back. Instead, I went far enough that I knew I past the perimeter posts, so I wouldn’t have to worry about walking into any fights, and then switched to the bramble paths through the trees. It was simple enough to keep from getting lost within the perimeter given the mental map I had made to keep track of the fighting and routes the tribesfolk took.

Seeing all the shadows the false pines cast was another source of irritation. If I could have walked the shadow paths, I would’ve been back in Bramble Watch near instantly and getting the net where it needed to go would be less of a struggle. Nor did it help that going back to the outpost felt like I was backtracking. I had left earlier with the intent of finally seeing what the whisper women were up to at the river mouth with my own eyes, but I hadn’t even gotten past the defensive perimeter before I got side tracked. Granted, I knew leaving the hidden passage and broken walkway unresolved would’ve been a poor choice, but Kaylan’s comments about not understanding what was going on dug at me. I should have been at the river mouth by now.

But I also didn’t want to leave the work for anyone else to do. I could make the excuse that everyone else was busy, and that was true, but in the privacy of my own mind I knew that even if all the tribesfolk had been sitting on their hands I would have wanted to solve the issue of the broken pathway on my own. Preferably without the knife dancers or Kaylan or anyone else. Never mind the fact that I couldn’t be in two places at once or fighting and fixing the net at the same time. My instinct when I came across a problem was that I had to be the one to solve it. Competently and quickly.

No one could take your work from you. Unless you gave it away and when I was…younger the work was all I had.

I had gotten more used to with working others during my time with Mishtaw and Prevna, and being the leader of a group was more tolerable than listening to someone else, but the thought of simply handing off the issue of the broken pathway and the fish sneaking behind the defensive perimeter to the tribesfolk was untenable. A very small part of me was tempted by it, just so I could get on with my original goal, and the rest of my mind called that part an impatient coward who couldn’t finish anything.

Ana had the broken nets laid out in Juniper’s old hideout. The ground level area was out of the way of the rest of the outpost and there was enough space to spread out the nets and work without constantly having to move them out of the way for people passing by as the case would’ve been in I worked on them in the central part of Bramble Watch.

My understanding was that several people normally would have worked on repairing the nets at the same time, to speed up the work, but I hadn’t asked for help. Ana had also hinted she could round up some people who were recovering from injuries and such but that could still work on the nets, but she didn’t force them on me.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

I warred with myself as I dragged the nets this way and that, trying to get them lined up in the best possible way to minimize the risk that the spots where they tore before would break again. I knew stopping the leak was important to get fixed as soon as possible because, sooner or later, the fish weren’t going to keep to the channel and unexpected attacks from behind the defensive line could cause the whole thing to break even with the defender’s height advantage. It was a bit of surprise that there hadn’t been any other attacks in that area, unless the fish wanted to be on the bramble pathways first before spreading out.

It was also only a matter of time before someone defending the ramp go too tired and made a mistake. Time was of the essence—and with that in mind I should accept Ana’s offer so that the net repairs would be done as soon as possible. It was just that it didn’t feel like I had done anything on my own since I earned my final boons. Esie had led me around by my nose until I ended up as part of the proxy war, the fight in the delta belonged more to Juniper and the Swirling Waters Tribe, and Ingrasia and her apprentices and I had been forced together by the Hundred Eyes sect head. It wasn’t all unwelcome change, but I did want something I could point to and say that it was my accomplishment, my work, even if it was just a fixed net.

But could I still feel accomplished if someone died because I took too long splicing rope together?

The sound of Juniper’s battle with the leviathan was louder here. No roars, like one might expect from two large beasts, but loud smacks of water, cracks and thumps and splashes. She was doing everything she could to help her people and protect her childhood home.

I glowered at the rope in my hands. Rawley had once said that trust was a different type of strength. Ingrasia and the others wanted me to gain experience leading a small team, which necessitated delegation. I trusted them to do their jobs, but I still wasn’t sure where I fell in scheme of things. As Kaylan had said, the tribe didn’t need a second commander, but I also hadn’t wanted to abandon them to fight on their own like the whisper women seemingly had. I wasn’t here by my choice and I was still trying to figure out what was expected of me.

The person I wanted to protect didn’t want my protection, I had no clear idea on how to stop the horde, and the person who had gotten me involved in the whole situation in the first place had abandoned me as soon as we arrived. Even Ingrasia hadn’t questioned me when my three day deadline for my supposed top priority of stopping the fish came and went. Her and Ana and Ziek kept to their roles I had given them, and that was it. Did they trust that I had everything handled or was this another test to see what I would do?

A test to see how well I worked with others? Because if that was the case then I was failing it.

I sent Ana another whisper and a handful of minutes later three people limped their way into the small area. I set them to working on different areas of the net and immediately I could tell that they had ample experience fixing nets. I had some experience splicing rope back together, so as not to waste it, but it was clear they had plenty of opportunity to practice with all the nets in the delta. I gritted my teeth against the uncomfortable pit that wanted to settle in my stomach and kept working on my section.

I had my own skills. I wasn’t incompetent.

The nets were fitted together in record time, but it was still getting close to dark by the time we finished. Two of my helpers held the folded finished product between them, but they both had leg injuries so I doubted they be able to get it all the way to the entrance of the secret channel, especially with the lack of paths to walk during the last stretch. Still, they insisted on helping and at that point, since they were already there, I figured I might as well use them.

In the end, all four of us ended up trading out carrying the heavy net until we finally reached the point on the paths that was closest to the channel’s entrance. One of the helpers had reopened her leg wound while the others were doing their best to catch their breath from the effort. I wanted to sit and rest with them, but the job had to get done.

We loaded the net up onto my shoulders and tied it in place with an extra length of rope. It felt like I had doubled my weight. I left my pack and spear with them to lessen the extra weight as much as possible even though I didn’t like leaving my main weapon behind. I kept my knife and sling as their weights were negligible and I wasn’t about to go weaponless into a dangerous area even if I couldn’t die.

They helped hoist me onto the first branch and it groaned under me. I surged upwards to get to the next one, pulse racing at thought that it was going to break beneath me, and nearly tipped over into the waters below. I caught myself on the trunk and the branch settled.

Moving, breathing, balance, all of it was difficult with the net weighing me down. Movements I never had a problem with before suddenly threatened to pull me into open air and I had to be more careful with which branches I used as some thinner ones would groan and crack when I stepped on them.

Luckily, the handful of fish that passed beneath me never seemed to notice or care as I climbed past them. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the single minded nature they had taken to in the delta or if they simply never looked up. As it was, I was drenched with sweat and shaking with exhaustion by the time I reached the channel’s entrance. I took a long moment to rest on the thickest branch I could find before I set to getting the net in place.

The top corners had to be tied around thick branches to hold it up while the bottom had both weights and hooks that could be attached to the exposed tree roots in the water. I got the net tied on one side of the channel and then took a hold of the tie for the other side. Then I ran and leapt into the open space between the trees. It wasn’t a large gap, but I still had to twist and catch a hold of a branch before I slammed into the trunk of the other tree or fell. My breath rushed out of me as my chest hit the branch and for moment I thought I might not be able to pull myself up. But I hooked my feet around the branch—and not a moment too soon because in the next instant the weight of the net nearly pulled me off the branch as it settled into place.

I hooked my arm through one of the net’s holes and forced myself to climb until I was even with the corner I had tied on the other side. With the second corner tied into place all I had to do was get the bottom hooked as best as I could to help make sure the fish weren’t able to drag it along with them.

I was about to climb down to get that done when one of the fish broke away from the main group out in the water and started dashing for the channel. I wasn’t sure if it would be better if it slipped through the small gap under the net since I hadn’t gotten it fully in place or if it was better to see how the other fish reacted once the net was in action. Either way I was moments from finding out.