Page 126 of Sun Warrior

“They’re our Pack!” Mari almost barked at the cat man.

Antreas held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! I hear you. I didn’t mean anything—or at least not anything too bad. We’ll make it work, which is why I asked you to call this meeting.”

“All right, we’re here,” Nik said, speaking slowly and reasonably. “We trust you. Tell us what we need to do.”

Antreas ran his hand through his hair, making the top of it stand up in spiky tufts. “We need supplies, medications, and travel shelters for twenty-eight people and several animals. We need to go west—through the mountains—and into the Wind Rider Plains. It’s a journey of many weeks—months even, depending on the weather. If we don’t get through the Middle Pass of the Rockies before snow and ice close it, we all die.”

“So, we must get through the pass. We are leaving soon. You said before we had enough time,” Nik said.

“Yeah, that was before, when there were only a few of us—young,healthy, strong. You added more.” Antreas shook his head. “We’re going to need to move and move fast, or it will definitely be too late.”

“No,” Mari said. “It isn’t too late. You said it yourself—before, we had enough time. So all we need is to move quickly. Don’t underestimate us. Earth Walkers are tough.”

“They are,” Antreas said. “But that doesn’t change the terrain or the distance. Or the danger. The bigger the group, the more insects you draw.”

“And the more people you have to fight them off,” Danita said.

Mari sent her an appreciative look, thinking that she liked this young Moon Woman more and more. “Danita’s right. We might draw bugs—but we’ll kill them, too. Stop telling us about the problems. Help us find solutions.”

Antreas sighed. “If you want to take all of these people there is only one viable solution. We must go down the river.”

“The Killum?” Nik shook his head. “Bloody beetle balls, I hate that river.”

“No, not the Killum. The river north of it—the Umbria, which heads eastward until it empties into Lost Lake. Once we cross the lake, we’ll be at the entrance to the Rocky Mountains.”

“Morewater travel?” Nik sighed.

“Yes, it’ll get us to the pass before snow closes it. It’ll also be easier traveling over water than over land—though not without a good amount of danger, but faster, so safer. Here.” Antreas moved to the table that sat not far from the central hearth of the birthing burrow. From a satchel he carried slung across his back he unrolled a length of rough mapmaking paper. On it Antreas pointed to waving lines, triangle markings, shaded mounds, and various other indecipherable scrawlings. “See here.” He pointed to a thick line that snaked in an east–west direction across part of the paper until it ran into a huge, strangely shaped blob of blue. Backing to the east of the blue spot was a clump of massive triangles with strange geometric markings throughout. “This is the Umbria River, and this is Lost Lake.”

O’Bryan spoke up. “I’m not ashamed to admit that the Umbria scaresme, and Lost Lake?” He shuddered. “We’ve all heard stories of it. It’s haunted by the ancients. And it’s supposed to be bottomless.”

“Of course it’s haunted and it might be bottomless, so it’s a good thing that we’re not traveling under it, but over it,” Antreas admitted. “Look, that river will get you past Skin Stealers, mutated plants, and a high desert that will make you want to drink your tears. The lake will save us weeks of travel, which means we’ll have time to make it through the Middle Pass before it traps us in a frozen world of blinding white with its own special brand of bugs.”

“Great. Just what we need. More bugs,” Danita said.

“You can handle them,” Antreas said. “Bast says you’re tough.”

Mari watched the smile bloom on Danita’s face. “As usual, your Bast is right!” Danita said, meeting and holding the Companion’s gaze so frankly that it was Antreas who finally blushed and looked away.

Mari cleared her throat, calling Antreas’s attention back. “So, we need to travel down the river and over that giant lake. Which means we need boats.” She sighed and looked from Sora to Danita, Isabel, and Jenna. As apprenticed Moon Women, Mari had insisted they attend what Sora was calling their first Pack Council meeting, along with O’Bryan, Nik, and Antreas. “We can make boats, right?”

“Well, rafts, yes,” Isabel said. “But they’re more for just trading with Clan Carpenter and floating our goods down Crawfish Creek to them.”

“Rafts will help carry our supplies, and they can also be used as litters when we do have to travel overland,” Antreas said. “But we’ll need real boats—though they don’t have to be big.”

“Clan Fisher could teach us how to build them,” Danita said.

“But they’re days away on the coast,” Jenna said. “And from what Antreas says we definitely don’t have time for boatbuilding.”

“The Tribe of the Trees has boats,” Nik said. Everyone turned to him. “Small ones. A lot of them.”

O’Bryan nodded. “They’re in the Channel. Dozens of them.”

“They’ll be guarded,” Antreas said.

“Actually, they probably won’t be,” Nik said. “There is only one lookout post near the bridge to Farm Island, and I would bet no one ismanning it. Not so soon after the fire.” Nik looked away, pain flashing across his face.

Mari touched his shoulder. “I remember. Like the little boat we rowed away in.”