Arwin’s squad became all focused efficiency as soon as they pulled us through the shadow paths. We were placed off to the side and told to follow but keep out of the way while the whisper women fell into a practiced formation with the axe blessing whisper woman in the middle and Ima at the back. Ima had pulled out two long spikes of tapered bone while the rest kept their hands free for the moment. Just like she was the only one who hadn’t pulled on hoods that covered everything but the eyes and gloves. Even the axe blessing whisper woman put those on, though she didn’t move to cover her arms or legs.

Wren chanced a whispered question as we stood behind Ima. “Why don’t you wear the protective gear too?”

Ima glanced back at her with a quick smile. “You’ll see.”

The squad member at the front of the formation spoke without prompting. “The nesting grounds are just within my range. There’s eight up in the big tree, another five scattered around it. Another pair is returning from the north. Kane wait for another thirty heartbeats and they’ll be in range for your barrier. Camp size.”

Kane, a fair haired twig of a woman, made a noise of acknowledgment. “I’ll need eyes on the area to place it correctly.”

The group moved forward as quickly and stealthily as they were able. The hunter squad ate through the distance like it was nothing without a single person stepping on an errant twig or brushing up against a noisy bush.

I quickly fell to the back of the seedling group. We had to pick more between stealth and speed than the experienced hunter squad. Fern ended up being a bit of a way point between the two groups. More experienced than us, but not so skilled as to easily keep up with the whisper women. Besides, we had all come up to quiet agreement to do what we could to not draw attention and keep out of the whisper women’s way. Wren might have already forgotten that agreement with her question, but Fern didn’t want to risk distracting the hunter squad by catching all the way up and accidentally getting in their way.

As it was, I still needed my impromptu walking stick to get anywhere further than five feet without straining myself so badly that I’d injure myself further and the festerling leg was starting to smell. Despite the cold compresses bringing down the swelling my injuries still didn’t appreciate the increased activity. Which meant I was stuck limping along and no matter how quietly I placed the festerling leg for my next step I wasn’t exactly being stealthy.

On some level I think everyone knew that I should have been kept back with the men, but Arwin had proposed watching the fight to me first, so I was allowed to stump my way along. I was still making my way down the first hill that lay between the old bush hideout and the nesting ground when Kane’s barrier sprung up from the top of the second.

A wall of ghostly stone burst from the ground, sliding upwards until it was higher than the trees without harming a single pine needle. It rose in sections rather than Idra’s instantaneous invisible shield. They fanned out from the original see-through block as each rose and locked in with the rest to enclose the area the festerlings had infested.

A hand with only three fingers grabbed my arm as Breck appeared by my side. “Get on my back.”

I stared at her. “What?”

She was already turning around and pulling my arm over her shoulder. “Get on my back.”

“No!” I tried to pull away, but neither of us were surprised to realize that she was stronger than me. “I can get there myself.”

“And miss what the high huntress wanted to show.” Her expression grew more serious. “To not learn is to die.” Breck shoved her finger against my bruised hip and my knees nearly buckled from the pain. “To fight wounded when there is another option is stupidity.”

“I’m not—”

“Get on my back or I will carry you over my shoulder.”

I didn’t doubt that she could do it. Or that she would. The normally bored girl had a very intent look in her eyes. Which meant that my only real option was to pick which indignity I preferred over the other. Having a shoulder dig into my gut with every step didn’t sound very appealing, so I went with her original offer.

Clinging to her back I felt like a incompetent child whose only contribution was keeping the festerling leg out of Breck’s way. Now that the fighting had started she stopped being stealthy and simply sprinted her way down the hill and back up the next one.

During the minute or so it took her to cross the distance I didn’t ask what I really wanted to know, but I said the closest thing I could to it.

“I wasn’t going to fight wounded.”

Breck snorted. “You always fight wounded.”

My mouth clamped shut.

That was an unwelcome bit of insight from someone wholly unexpected. I wanted to ask why she had returned for me, why she thought it was so important for me to see the fight, what she meant by that last statement. But none of it made it past my lips.

Maybe it would have if she had been Prevna or Rawley.

But no. Those were the dangerous kind of things to ask or answer and I certainly wasn’t going to risk them when pride and incompetence were burning the back of my throat like acid.

The others were already at the barrier when we reached it. Fern and Nii looked judgmental as Breck let me down from her back while Wren was more concerned and surprised—until the fight drew everyone’s attention back down the other side of the hill.

Kane was on the other side of the ghostly stone wall, half submerged in it as she watched what we could see of the fight through the trees. The rest of the whisper women were spread out in a wide clump, not quite to the main part of the festerlings’ nesting ground, while festerlings tried to swarm them. All of them but Ima held blue, immaterial axes like motes of light had gathered to give the illusion of weapons. However, they seemingly worked as well as, or better than, weapons of bone and wood.

One festerling leapt at Arwin from above as she took the leg of another with one great sweep of her axe. Using her momentum, she swung the axe up so it cleaved off both arms on one side of the leaping festerling. Its head opened in a screech that I couldn’t feel from here as it landed off balance. Arwin twisted back to the first festerling while Ima darted in and plunged her bone spike down the creature’s throat, uncaring about sharp teeth or the gobs of disorientating spittle that coated her hand and forearm.

The festerling died and Ima was away to stab deep into a festerling whose joints had been cut or crushed by another whisper women. That one died too. I waited for her to slow, to grow confused from the creatures’ spit, but she kept moving as quick and light as ever.

I pressed up against the barrier. It felt like solid, smooth rock. “Their spit doesn’t affect Ima?”

Kane didn’t turn to look at me, but her tone was proud. “Substances can’t cloud her mind.”

The fight didn’t take long to finish after that. The whisper women hacked and stabbed their way through the creatures. With the festerlings unwilling to go for lethal attacks, their main offensive weapon blocked between the whisper women’s clothes and Ima’s blessing, and failed ambush tactics they didn’t stand much of a chance. A few tried to run near the end of the fight, and those took longer for the whisper women to catch, but they could only go so far thanks to Kane’s barrier. The whisper woman who could sense them made it easier for the hunter squad to spot them and finish off the errant creatures as they tried to blend in.

As soon as it was confirmed that no more festerlings could be sensed within the barrier Kane dropped it and everyone gathered at the big tree by the stream that the creatures had used as a base. What had taken us multiple fights and unwelcome injuries, they had finished in under a half an hour with only a couple whisper women woozy from the creatures’ spit.

Juniper, Ulo, Colm, a girl who could have been two or three, and two adults lay under the large tree as if they were sleeping on the comfiest bedroll. Each one was drenched in a coating of spittle.

Breck, Nii, and Wren were put in charge of rinsing off the former captives in the river. I was supposed to be helping on that front too, but even I wasn’t stubborn enough to try and lift a person, carry them a dozen or more feet down the stream’s bank, keep them from drowning while the spit washed away, and carry them back up with my bruised hip and still tender ankle.

Instead, Breck and Nii lifted and carried them to and from while Wren kept their heads above water in the stream. I sat next to the rinsed people and waited for them to wake up.

Fern traveled through the shadows with one of the whisper women to retrieve the men from the hollow. Kane set up a smaller barrier around the tree to protect against any festerlings that might try to return to the nesting ground and the remaining members of the hunter squad set out to finish off any errant festerlings that might be left.

When the healers and boy arrived they immediately took over the area around the unconscious. The boy sat holding his younger sister’s hand as if he’d never let it go. Sid and Morgan got to work preparing treatments to help them come around quicker and take care of any injuries they found.

Because I couldn’t stand to be the only one sitting around doing wholly nothing, I gathered up what supplies I could and moved around the tree so that I would have more space to take stock. I didn’t delve into anyone’s pack, though the temptation was there. Instead, I kept my focus on the general supplies everyone carried.

We were down to four spears with three broken or missing. Knives fared better as we were only missing two after the pair Breck and Fern had recovered. As far as I knew, we still had all of our slings and odder weapons as no one had tried to use them to fight the festerlings. Wren had stitched the broken strap on her pack back together, but Nii’s pack, bedroll, and tent were all missing. By some stroke of luck or good craftsmanship, everyone else’s packs were intact with their bedrolls tied to them despite a good portion being mishandled as they were drug through the trees by the festerlings. The same was true of the rolled tents the others had been carrying.

We were also missing a bag of preserved food that couldn’t be accounted for by what we had already ate. That wasn’t as big a loss as it could have been given the amount of food we were able to hunt and gather as we traveled. All in all, we could have a lost a lot more than we did to the ambushes, but the lost weapons hurt.

It took time and skill to make more. I wouldn’t be surprised if Breck knew how to make a spear, even a crude one, but there also wasn’t a guarantee that we’d find a fallen branch big enough to make one.

Nii’s lost supplies and tent would also make for more…difficult situations after she had slipped away with Ulo. I knew I wasn’t inclined to share any more of my things with her and I doubted the others would either, except for maybe Ulo. I also wasn’t looking forward to the more cramped quarters in the tents now that an extra person would need to fit in the two we had left that didn’t belong to Sid, and Fern and Colm. Perhaps I’d take to sleeping outside.

Arwin and the rest of her squad returned to our new camp before the evening meal with the news that they searched the surrounding area and killed four more festerlings. The squad leader also announced that because they didn’t have any other pressing situations to resolve that they would stay the night with us before scouting the area one last time to make sure the festerlings were truly taken care of.