The acolyte trailing Yari was bumps, bones, and unruly hair. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen. He threw up in the fragrant tonic-bushes that grew along the creek. Awa and the other Sprites jerked away.

Yari held him up. “Hezram drugs his warrior acolytes.”

Isra groaned. “We were lucky. This squad didn’t know your tricks.” Isra gripped the boy. “I presume Yari persuaded you to join us.” The acolyte nodded. “Welcome, but you’ll be the last to join.”

They headed into hot, wet forests. Anawanama territory, where Hezram’s acolytes wouldn’t follow. Warm rain poured through the leaf canopy, drenching everybody. Slippery roots battered exhausted feet. Isra paused inside the fragrant trunk of a cathedral tree that rose above the clouds. A swarm of demon-flies lit up the dark with pale blue light. The Elders shouted and laughed with one another in savage tongues. Sprites huddled together and whispered. The former acolyte sat alone like Awa. He shook his head and coughed.

Awa rubbed sore toes and listened to the other Sprites complain. What good would that do? She drew a map in the dirt, noting the twists and turns they’d made on their march. There were gaps when she’d been asleep. She drew what she could imagine. Yari ambled close and offered her a gourd of fruity liquid. Awa gulped this down. Her mouth tingled and, after a few moments, everything looked clearer, brighter.

“What was that?” Awa stared into the gourd and clutched Yari’s hand.

“Juice from midnight berries helps night vision.”

“Does it hurt to pull fire?” She had a thousand thousand questions. Yari took the empty gourd and almost stepped on her map. “Watch out!” she yelled.

Balanced on one foot, Yari peered at her work. “Anawanama always know where they are. Blindfold them, spin them around in a maze, then bury them in a hole. They’ll point and say that is west to the water and there is east to the mountains and sweet desert.” Yari stuck corn stalks in Awa’s dirt map. “There is your father’s farm, right? Behind us is south to Holy City and the Golden Gulf.” Vie drew the Salty Sea and Mama Zamba mountains. “March a little north along the sea and you reach Arkhys City. After that, free lands beyond the Empire’s grip.” Vie drew a clump of trees. “We head east through Anawanama territory.”

Awa studied Yari’s additions to her dirt drawing. “I’ve never been all the way to savage woods.”

“Savage?” Yari frowned, then smiled. Demon-flies glowed behind swirls of vie’s hair. “The Anawanama remember your mother. Does she remember them?”

Awa shrugged. “Anawanama have map-sense and storm-sense too.” She said what Kenu told her. “They read the wind, feel thunder in the dirt, but have no words for left and right.”

“I can teach you Anawanama. They see more colors than Lahesh do.”