6
A Mission
Awa was exhausted. Long-legged Green Elders had marched for a week, hardly resting or eating, rarely talking. They shared names only once. Awa remembered Yari, a veson with dancing braids and a singer’s voice, and Isra, a spiky-haired barbarian with a throaty laugh. No one else—she’d been too sad or mad to pay attention.
Yari gave full purses to farmers who sold daughters and younger sons to stave off ruin. The farmers were desperate, like Father. But Yari never bargained, even when the girls were skinny and sickly and likely to slow them down. A few boys ran off, back to their farms perhaps. Isra railed against treachery and warned Yari to save some sky rocks so they wouldn’t starve. Yari shrugged and kissed Isra’s cheek.
Mother was wrong. A Green Elder journey through the wild country wasn’t an adventure filled with song and wonder. Scrambling over roots and loose rocks took most of their focus. They traveled mountain tunnels or rugged goat paths, avoiding solid elephant roads. At night Yari whispered explanations to sullen faces while Isra and the other Elders kept watch. Most good citizens had forgotten that elephants first stomped wide thoroughfares from glacier-fed lakes to fruit forests. Awa knew this already. She and Kenu had read elephant escapades in Father’s scrolls.
High priest Hezram collected tolls on the elephant roads, even far from Holy City. If travelers couldn’t pay, they were sold to pay the debt or sent to transgressor huts to be bled. Hezram declared Elders enemies of the temple and banned them from elephant roads. He paid a generous reward for captured Elders. Mother spoke truth. Yari, Isra, and the others risked their lives to collect Sprites. Crafty farmers sold Yari their daughters then turned vie* in for a reward. Mercenaries hunted them. No Elders sang for fear of ambush.
Goat paths challenged muscles and joints. Awa hurt all over. When Elders stopped for water and a few berries, they also rubbed achy ankles. She wished she could have gone with Kenu to apprentice in Holy City next year. Building a tower to the stars had to be better than running and hiding for your life. The other Sprites cut their eyes at her, suspicious. She had no one to trade stories with, even the bees in her hair were quiet. Did Kenu feel as lonely as she did?
Awa fell asleep in the middle of swallowing a mango slice and ended on someone’s back, her head bouncing against spongy braids. Elders passed her from back to back until she woke from dreams of riding an elephant and slid down. Fear twisted the faces of the other Sprites. Awa counted sixteen. When she’d fallen asleep there were only eight, including her. Isra put a hand to her lips to stop her asking a question.
The six Elders were shadow warriors, fading in and out of view, as quiet as sweetgrass fluttering on a breeze. They spoke with their hands and mimicked jackals and crows to cover noisy steps. Awa might have marveled at griot tales come true, but she was sweaty and hungry and wanted to sneak back home. A stupid idea. No girls ran off. Father would turn her away or sell her off to someone else. Mother would weep and brother Kenu would fuss, but they’d take Father’s side. And then where would she be?
Isra marched the Sprites down a shallow creek and halted suddenly, still as stone. They were being tracked. Awa gulped breath. Her heart felt louder than the cricket serenade. Behind them, Yari drummed and sang. Vie pulled fire from the air, a bright blue column of flame that lit up the trees from root to crown. Another griot tale come true.
The trackers emerged from the trees. They stumbled over their own shadows, hissing and spitting, wobbly as drunks. Yellow cloaks snagged on branches. They were Hezram’s warrior acolytes. Spears, swords, and bows slipped from their grasp. They collided with one another and collapsed in the mud. Yari’s drumbeats made Awa woozy too. Isra tugged her and the other Sprites farther downstream. Awa’s head cleared as the drumming got fainter.
Isra squeezed her hand. “Yari drums the warriors into a stupor and steals their weapons.” Isra took great pleasure in this. “You could learn to be a shadow warrior too.” Awa didn’t want to be any kind of warrior. “Holy City swords and bows will fetch a good purse. That means a feast tomorrow and supplies for our long trip home.”
“Where is home?” Awa thought Elders were always on the run with no real home.
“We usually make home, every day.”
Awa didn’t understand this answer. “Oh?”
“Nothing but danger to eat here. No time for home.”
Before Awa formulated her next question, Yari and one of Hezram’s acolytes trotted down the creek, chatting and smiling like two friends. They both carried a bundle of weapons.
“Only the youngest dropped all the way to sleep.” Yari grinned. “I had to reason with the others.” Awa wished she’d seen that.
Isra grumbled. “How much did reason cost?”
“A few bags of herbs.”
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.”