Yari shushed her using the hand-talk of Ishba people. They perched above the enemy, invisible, though a keen-eared barbarian might catch whispered words under Yari’s song-cloak. Shadow warriors nocked arrows, aimed spears, and drew their swords.

Bal, Awa, and the other Sprites hid in fragrant laurel bushes. Awa calmed her mind to map every detail of this encounter and tell a full story. At least she could do a griot’s task.

Quiet voices argued in the staccato merchant tongue. Awa made out thirty Kahartans: burly, honey-colored men, with clipped beards and ropes of brown hair pulled tight in crown knots. Exhausted and dispirited, they shivered and cursed the sliver of moon that offered meagre light. They’d left horses behind somewhere with fallen comrades.

Defying the tales of Green Elder defenses, the troop had started as fifty warriors, surely enough to subdue griots, clowns, and vesons. They intended to steal grain, goats, and tree oil. Rock fields and steep climbs had broken Kahartan legs and too many necks. The captain called a halt in a dry streambed until sunrise. Dawn was less than an hour away.

By morning Isra and the enclave would be camped throughout the wooded hills on the other side of the gorge, a difficult site to ambush heading east from the Golden Gulf. A few archers in the trees could pick off anybody trying to scale the gorge. The Kahartans were already defeated. Awa rejoiced.

An owl screeched a love call and shadow warriors hooted in response. Jed or Jod—a scruffy, snub-nosed Sprite Awa barely knew—laughed at barbarians who didn’t realize they were about to die. The berry potion made Jod’s hazel eyes shine in the dark like a lion’s.

“Our victory is almost too easy,” he mumbled under Yari’s owl masquerade. Awa and Bal smirked with him. How such stupid people had gained control of the Golden Gulf and all the land south and west of Holy City was a mystery.

Yari gripped Awa and shook the smirk from her face. Bal stopped grinning also. Even Jod pulled a mask over disdain.

Yari spoke with vie’s hands. Long fingers danced in Awa’s face. “If I cannot talk sense the Kahartans will hear, you must guide our scouts back through the gorge to Isra. Nobody else knows the song-maps.”

“Oh.” Awa was Yari’s backup. She wanted to ask why talk sense to stupid barbarians who chopped down forests, dug up mountains, and fished rivers till they were dead waters, but she just nodded.

“We’re not better than anyone.” Yari read her sullen silence. Vie gestured to all the Sprites. “We fall like leaves and fail like crops. Our blood dries up and our shadows scatter. We eat lies and think them sweet.” Vie must fear death could be near and took care with last words. “Don’t lose yourselves in petty pride. I almost died doing that.”