As Delia finished spreading her final armful of reeds around the edge of the ruin, Alberdina turned away from the fire and surveyed her work.

By this time she was fairly sweaty, her back hurt from all the stooping over, and she was tired. “Take a break,” Alberdina told her, then went to a pack on the very top of the rack and took what looked like a round, fist-sized loaf of bread out of it, and took a leather bottle off the side of the rack. She handed both to Delia, who eyed the bread dubiously. She was starving, and this didn’t look like much.

“It’s travel-bread,” Alberdina told her. “It’s a lot more filling than it looks.”

And when she bit into it, she discovered it was very dense, and packed with dried fruit and seeds. It was, indeed, a lot more filling than she’d thought possible.

Meanwhile Alberdina had gone outside the shelter and given a shrill whistle, then shouted, “When you’re at a place you can stop, come eat!”

Delia had eaten the bread very quickly, and now was thirsty. “Is the lake water safe to drink?” she asked Alberdina.

“Yes,” the Healer said shortly, taking an armful of the solid little bread loaves out of the pack. “Drink what’s in the bottle, take it with you, and fill it at the cleanest spot you see.” She left the shelter again and came back empty-handed. “Floor this entire thing with reeds, then come to me for what you can do next.”

With a sigh, Delia did as she was told. This was going to be a very long day.

—

By nightfall, the following had happened.

Delia had floored the shelter with reeds. The mages had two sets of pillars erected. She had absolutely not expected them to be any sort of practical builders, but they were. They’d even brought cement with them, or someone had brought it in previously, and the mages had used it to cement rocks from the ruins into foundations into which the four curved pillars had been set, in pairs, looking very like the horns of the Foothold Gate back in the cellar. That was in the late afternoon; once finished, they spread their bedrolls on the reeds, heads facing the wall, toes facing the center, about two circles deep.

Alberdina had established a proper latrine, well away from the shore, with a screening of woven willow withies for privacy.