Yari had doubts, but finally agreed on one condition: vie would lead the expedition instead of Isra, the enclave’s best scout. To sweeten the deal, Yari promised Isra a new song.

Isra scowled. “An exiled master roams the Gulf hunting you on a pirate ship.”

“Your spies are well-informed.” Yari kissed Isra.

“He sends missives in Lahesh that you don’t share.” Isra tried to be angry. “Did he steal your heart and stomp it? Like the high priest of Holy City?”

“He’s not like Hezram. More like the Sprites we have now. I worry about him.”

“Were you lovers?”

Yari smiled. “He thinks I waste my time teaching Sprites.”

“You seek news of pirates and old lovers from Kahartan warriors. Rascal—”

Yari drowned out Isra’s protests, singing a favorite:

Stolen love tears you apart, but—

We can give love away

Make a bridge of the heart

Isra laughed as Yari promised a new verse on return. Thrilled, Bal gathered bow, arrows, sword, spear, drum, and calabash rattles. Awa had no instruments or weapons to take along and felt useless. She helped Isra and Yari load grain stores onto hardy goats, then packed up bedding, tent, Isra’s loom, and the few books they carried with them.

Who needed to lug heavy tomes and delicate scrolls when Yari knew more stories than vie had time to tell? Before the enclave crossed the Bog River Gorge, Awa had hoped to visit the Kahartan library with Yari, the greatest library outside the floating cities, but Isra’s spies said library and librarians were soot. Pirates had raided and stolen the best books. Awa sighed and pulled on climbing boots. Why bring a smoke-walker on a dangerous expedition when what you needed were warriors?

Isra and the enclave disappeared into the gorge, silent and slippery as fog. No barbarians would be able to track them as they scattered into the hills. Yari and the big-headed wild dog led the scouts and five pack goats the opposite direction through loose gravel and scrub brush. Keeping up with Yari’s jaunty pace left Awa breathless.

The dog stalked a foolish party of Kahartans who, given poison weapons and midnight stealth, intended to ambush the Green Elders. Uneven terrain around the gorge was treacherous. Flash floods carved new canyons every afternoon. The barbarians slowed to a crawl. Yari sang, in many voices, a local song that laid out the best routes along solid rock ledges and sounded like birds, bugs, and wind in the bushes. Awa sang along, guiding the Sprites creeping behind her.

“I’m a map,” she whispered in Bal’s ear. “I know all the songs from around here.” Kahartan thief-lords regularly plundered villages near their city, but had never learned the People’s songs. “I’ve drawn this entire region many times.”