“Alive, who will they be?” Bal always asked good questions, but why take Jod’s side? “Barbarians will think the gorge is theirs to plunder, pollute, and kill.”

“You talk as if the gorge is alive.” Jod sneered.

“Why not?” Bal snapped at him. “When the world is dead, so are we.”

Jod choked off laughter. “You actually believe Elder jumba jabba?”

“Some of it.” Bal and Jod faced off as if to fight.

Awa stood between them. “You can’t believe everything Elders say, but—”

“Grow up!” Jod shoved Bal to the edge of a ravine. “Barbarians would kill us without thinking.”

“Maybe.” Bal blocked Jod’s second attack and put a knife to his neck. “Maybe not.”

Jod grimaced at her skill. “Why are we on the run if they’ve been defeated?”

“No one has won.” Yari stepped from the shadows and separated them. “Tell a different story.”

“You know every story,” Jod shouted. “Why know so much and live worse than savages?”

“That’s your question, not mine,” Yari replied. Awa wanted Yari to argue with Jod. Instead, vie led scouts the tricky way around the gorge to throw off trackers.

Awa argued with Jod in her head. Anawanama and Zamanzi lived better than poor Empire citizens, even as renegades on the run. They ate well and lived free. Father’s farm had been headed for ruin. He had to sell Awa, so his sons could have prospects. Green Elders lived simply, not poorly. What good was a dank stone house, slaves who hated you, and dumb animals who couldn’t take care of themselves?

As if to prove Awa true, Yari took them by abandoned farms and villages where groundnuts rotted, wells ran dry, and grain stalks crumbled. Poison dust raised stinging welts on exposed skin. They paused in a barn to get out of a foul wind. Two balls of rags trembled by a dead farmer in an empty corral: young boys too weak to moan or stand.

“They probably sold their girls,” Yari muttered.

Scouts drizzled water on parched lips, and, when the wind died, threw the boys on their backs and trotted on, singing comfort.

Six days the scouts wandered, gathering survivors and refugees. A silent trek. Exhausted and numb, they finally reunited with the enclave in a green-land valley. The leaves on a hundred hundred trees whispered welcome. A stream rushing over rocks gurgled joy. Standing in a waterfall, Awa and the others washed the poison dust away and smeared on Smokeland honey to ease the sting. The story Awa told at the feast fires was of shadow-warrior bravery, Yari’s wisdom, and barbarian resilience.

“Well done.” Isra had slicked spiky white hair down with red clay for celebration. “What of the fields and forests?” Vie wasn’t fooled by Awa’s omissions.

“The land near Kaharta is dead,” Bal said, “and poison desert spreads.”