Sonya left quickly after she delivered us to the mountainside. We ended up in a divot that had a couple of trees and bushes protecting one side while the higher ground rose on the other. The band members we’d be escorting didn’t fill up the small space nearly as much as they would have days before. Only Kuma, Jika, and the younger injured man remained from our original escort group. There was also the sick boy that they seemed to have taken under their wing, but his presence only added to reminder of those that hadn’t made it.

It seemed that the others’ bodies had been abandoned where they lay to become shamble men. The whisper women wouldn’t waste their resources and put themselves at risk to recover bodies that wouldn’t even be properly taken care of in funeral pyres after the surprise attack. Pickers not getting to mourn was less important than the horde of death bringers Jin was insisting had infested the Cut and surrounding mountains.

However, the clear disregard for the Pickers’ priorities was displayed by nothing more than the fact that Prevna’s and my traveling packs and a spear were sitting in the small clearing. While no one would return for the bodies, they had gone back through the healer’s cave to gather our things. We had brought some emergency supplies with us from the Seedling Palace because we hadn’t been sure if our packs would be recovered after the fight. There certainly hadn’t been time to grab them during it. Prevna and I shared a look before we quietly began consolidating our things.

Mirabeth and Desai were nowhere to be seen. Jika told Prevna that Mishtaw and Eliss had forced them to heal everyone as best they could one last time before they were taken elsewhere. She had no idea if they were being interrogated further or punished.

I put them out of my mind. We had no way to get involved with whatever they were going through and, even we could, they had enabled a death bringer to kill countless people. I held no sympathy for them. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if they were labeled as death bringers themselves with the rampage Jin was on.

Prevna and I were trying to make the other take the spear when Nine Claws arrived with her firestarter. We both caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of our eyes before we whipped around and saw her step smoothly out of the shadow of a nearby pine, grasping the hand of her firestarter.

Nine Claws was short. That was the first thing I noticed—that she was maybe an inch or two taller than me at most, but her arms and legs were thick with toned muscle. The second thing was her red hair. It wasn’t Dera’s sunset red, but more of a darker shade similar to the red sands surrounding First Shore Lake that complemented her olive skin well. Her bless mark curved around the outside corner of both her eyes in small crescents that had little thorns poking off them.

Her firestarter was a woman of more average height and a leaner build. Her straight black hair was bound up in a bun and somehow held in place with a singular carved stick. The firestarter carried a large pack on her back while Nine Claws only her belt full of pouches around her waist and secondary wide belt over one shoulder full of sewn pockets. They both moved with purpose and barely made a sound as they strode into the middle of the clearing.

Nine Claws flicked her gaze over everyone, rapidly taking in details about all of us, while her firestarter started introductions. “I’m Malady. This is Helena, though most know her as Nine Claws. We will be escorting you through the inner valleys at Mishtaw’s request. Listen to our directions quickly and fully and we should have little difficulty. Your names?”

Prevna introduced herself first before dragging me up to go next and all the Pickers followed suit. That was when I learned the last two names of group that I had neglected before. The younger man from the Red Hand band was named Gard while the boy went by Colt.

Malady asked, “Where do you need to go?”

Jika seemed like she was trying to swallow her fear and exhaustion but more than a little still showed on her face. “There’s a band in the inner valleys. Near the northwest, I think. They might not take all of us in but we can’t stay here and we likely can’t get back to our band without being killed with the way things are.”

“If they don’t, we won’t be escorting you further.”

Jika clenched her fists. “That’s fine. We’ll make it work.”

Malady nodded and that must have been some sort of signal because then…Helena took charge of the conversation for the first time. “What do you know of the inner valleys?”

Jika glanced at the other Pickers but they all kept quiet so she would keep being their spokesperson. She shrugged, a bit defeated. “Not much. There’s the fog that’ll make you lose your wits and fall asleep. We provide the secret tribe with the seeds they need to live in the fog but I don’t actually know what they do to get the seeds to fully work. That’s something only our leader knows.”

The whisper woman held up a large pouch. “Mishtaw provided me with seeds the Peacekeepers acquired after telling me their secret. They must be roasted with grounder grass before mixed with water. We’ll drink the result.”

She handed the bag over to Malady who set to work right away making a small fire with dried dung she pulled out of a pouch and a handful of fallen twigs. By the time Malady was pulling out a small pot, Helena had come over to Prevna and me.

Prevna pressed her shoulder against mine but I noticed she didn’t stand. If she had, she would have been taller than our escort. Still, she didn’t hesitate to ask, “Do you prefer to be called Helena or Nine Claws?”

An expression flickered across the whisper woman’s face so fast I couldn’t even guess what it had been. “Nine Claws.”

I held in a sigh of relief. Nine Claws seemed to suit the tough looking whisper woman much more than her birth name.

Prevna cocked her head to the side. “Why?”

This time the whisper woman did smile. “I earned it.” Nine Claws focused on Prevna. “What’s your blessing?”

Prevna wiggled her fingers and explained how her blessing worked and what poisons she had access to. After that Nine Claws turned her attention to me. She didn’t ask me what my blessing was; I could tell that she already knew it.

“Mishtaw said you’d be bold enough to dive in unknown territory even without a whisper woman to escort you. Why take the risk?”

I didn’t like being questioned by someone I didn’t even know. She might have come at Mishtaw’s request, and I knew Mishtaw was mostly a good judge of character, but I wasn’t about to let Nine Claws pry into all my thoughts and motivations. So I gave her the most surface level answer I could.

“I keep my promises.”

“Good.”

Nine Claws left us to go check back in with Malady about how the seeds were coming along. The Pickers had all huddled together and were speaking in low voices while they occasionally glanced at the two new arrivals, but they did seem to be in better spirits than before. Apparently, the presence of a whisper woman and firestarter were more inspiring than Prevna and me despite the way they had been forced to abandon their dead by the Peacekeepers.

Prevna whispered, “What do you think?”

Grudgingly, I answered, “They’ll get us to where we need to go. Mishtaw wouldn’t send someone unreliable…and they look like they know what they’re doing.”

Prevna murmured her agreement.

Neither one one looked remotely ill at ease despite the unnatural fog we going to enter nor did they seem think escorting our group with only two people would be difficult. If anyone was boldly diving into unknown territory, it was them.

Malady got the seeds roasted with grounder grass that she had pulled out of another large pouch before she ground down the mixture and doused it with water. That was when the pot began to be passed around.

“Drink two large mouthfuls, three if you’re on the larger side. That will protect you from the fog for a day.”

I wasn’t keen on drinking from something a handful of people had already drank from, but there were worse things and I wasn’t about to pass up the one thing I needed to gain access to the inner valleys.

Everyone gathered their things after we all drank our portion. Prevna ended up the spear after I purposefully ignored it right up until we were leaving. She needed the extra protection more than me.

Nine Claws led the group while Malady took up the rear position and Prevna and I ended up on either side of the Pickers since we were supposed to be part of the escort team. We weren’t far from the lip of the mountain range but our progress was slow. No one had fully recovered from their injuries, except for Prevna, and the Pickers had received less healing than Prevna and me. I was still contending with the puncture wound to my shoulder and the cut across my back, though the later was nearly fully healed.

Kuma was also moving easier and seemed to be on the way to full recovery while Gard was no longer fevered from his gut wound. However, I didn’t have much hope that his wound wouldn’t get infected again with all the traveling we’d be doing without a healer. It would put stress on his wound and I doubted he’d change his bandages. Jika had largely escaped injury despite all the fights we’d been in, so she was doing fine but there was one person who was the main cause for our slow pace. The boy, Colt. He moved with none of the energy of his namesake and, while he wasn’t so weak he had to be spoon fed like he had been in the healer’s cave, he still got tired easily and couldn’t keep up with everyone else’s longer stride.

I wasn’t tall or strong enough to easily carry him had I even wanted to and we no longer had a travois to drag him in. Perhaps we could have made one if we took the time to find large enough fallen branches and someone gave up a blanket to line the middle, but instead Prevna, Jika, Kuma, and Gard took turns carrying him on their backs for as long as they could. Not all of the Pickers had traveling packs either, so they would switch out who was carrying those as well. It was an extra burden but the Pickers refused to abandon him and Nine Claws shot any suggestion that she help carry him with a look and declaration that she needed her hands free in case we got attacked.

Going into the fog was unsettling simply because my memories from the battle on the shore but I also hated the idea of losing control of myself without even realizing it was influencing me. Still, this fog wasn’t as thick as that had been. I could make out Prevna on the other side of our group as well as Nine Claws and Malady in the front and back.

I waited for the loopiness we had seen in Mishtaw and Creed to creep in but as far as I could tell everyone continued on as normal. So much so that it made me start to doubt that the fog had truly been responsible for their behavior. No one spoke even once we reached the top of the mountain and began to descend into the inner valleys. Though all the Pickers did seem to pause or miss a step as we started downwards and I had to wonder if there was some reason that they neglected to mention for why they had insisted on being escorted to their destination.