seegodhatesme

The storm was out of season, fierce and violent and full of screaming that only the optimistic attributed solely to the wind. None of the Speakers slept easy, their wagons anchored to the trees of the first copse they'd reached, canopies billowing violently all through the night.

Morning came with more than its own share of ill luck. Typhon's canopy hadn't survived the night, and so all the grain they'd bought in the last town was soaked. Three horses had gotten spooked and tangled themselves, and one was lame. A tree had come down on the Elder's cart tongue. And the road they'd been traveling had become a ragged, impassable streambed, running away down the long slope towards the plains.

Sypha waited only long enough to do her part of drying clothes and starting the campfires before she took to the air, to scout for a solution to the road. If worst came to worse, they could leave the carts and take the horses through the brush, but there would be a better solution, she was sure of it. She flew up the boulder-strewn new stream, riding fire and wind just below the ragged crowns of trees that still met above it, keeping her eyes open for options.