New to the series or certain you’ve missed a chapter? You can find the introduction Here and the table of contents Here.

With only two weeks to rest before we set out for the Wayfinder depot and then the Chicago Enclave, we needed to make a couple extra sleds so that the injured people could rest or be pulled the entire time. We had plenty of know-how and a decent amount of supplies, thanks to the nearby town, but the end result was far more cobbled-together than the sleds we’d started our journey with. They were solid enough, of course, but we weren’t able to find the right kind of fiberglass for the runners, so it took more effort to pull them than our original sleds.

Since we still had another week of rest once the sleds were done, I asked the chief engineer, Sergeant Jackson, if he could do anything to get them running better. He shrugged and told me he couldn’t polish better sleds into existence, so I let him focus his efforts elsewhere and took the extra work upon myself. I wasn’t doing much else since I was on light duties until we left, at which point my relatively minor wounds should be healed enough for me to return to my full duties. I knew enough about physical therapy to make sure my leg was healing correctly and to help everyone else keep their strength up where they could, so those of us who would be mobile again would be able to jump right back into it when I cleared us.

It was difficult being the primary medical officer on top of my normal duties while also making sure I rested. Almost every single day during that first week was a mix of keeping plates spinning and checking in on people. Most of the projects didn’t need my approval or monitoring, but it helped if I checked in on them every so often to make sure everyone had what they needed. We’d lost a lot of people, after all, so it was nice just to remind each other that we were all still together, on top of making sure nothing fell through the sudden gaps in our team.

With the Laborers gone, all of the tension in the group had vanished, so I wasn’t called on to keep the peace even once. I did get called on for some improvised therapy sessions, though. Not everyone was handling that side of things well, but I did my best to give people what they needed, be it a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, some advice, or just solitude. Most of us Wayfinders were so used to being around each other that the idea of being alone was uncomfortable for us, but a lot of the Naturalists seemed to prefer it as they all worked through their grief.

Other than that, the first week passed uneventfully. Cam’s group had found some supplies Natalie’s scouts had missed, so we were better off than we expected as far as food went, but we were still going to be doing a little bit of rationing just to make sure we weren’t showing up to the supply depot the day our supplies ran out. We still appreciated being able to eat more comfortably, though, and meal times quickly became one of the more cheerful parts of the day since we had a full kitchen to cook in.

Natalie spent most of the week cataloging supplies and taking over all of the logistical work that Jonathan had done. Luckily, he’d kept some physical records of the stuff that only existed in his head, but they were far from complete. Natalie was able to complete them eventually, but it took almost that entire first week to do it by herself. Cam was busy heading up the watch shifts, managing the scouts, and working on what they called their personal project. I did not ask what it was and they did not explain.

Jonathan, now nominally in charge of the scouts again because the person who replaced him had been buried by the Cultist trap, was stuck on bed rest. He’d been shot in the abdomen during the escape and refused to tell anyone when it had happened. It hadn’t hit anything vital and had passed through him, so all I had been able to do when I finally inspected his hastily bandaged injury was tell him off for being so mobile despite the damage to his core muscles.

All told, we had gotten lucky. Aside from five Wayfinders, everyone would quickly recover as long as they didn’t strain themselves. Two of the Wayfinders, the ones in critical condition, had even begun to pull through. Unfortunately, my backup medic and Jonathan’s backup surgeon, Sergeant Augustus, wasn’t waking up. I didn’t have any of the tools to check if she was bleeding internally anywhere, but her vitals remained strong and all we could do was care for her as she stayed unconscious.

Augustus seemed like the only Wayfinder who wouldn’t be able to do something to help when we finally left the Cultist base, but it was also entirely possible that she’d wake up any day and be entirely fine. The longer she went without waking up, though, the more likely it seemed that she might not ever. Caring for her while we were in the base was fairly easy, since we were out of the cold and could spare someone to monitor her throughout the day. When we were traveling, though, the challenges of caring for a comatose person would quickly become much more demanding.

Still, as our first week drew to a close, I remained hopeful. If caring for Augustus remained the biggest problem we faced during our travels, then we would have an easy time of things. As the second week slowly passed, it seemed like that would stay true. Natalie finished a full inventory and found out that we wouldn’t need to ration at all, which everyone celebrated. We would be scraping the bottom of the barrel if it took us more than twelve days to find the depot after we left the Cultists’ base, but that was the worst-case scenario.

Lucas began sending out scouts in the second week, since we had finished most of our preparation work, and they reported that the area around us was clear. It was probably a result of the hold the Cultists had on the territory around their base, but there wasn’t even the smallest sign of any groups passing through the area. Cam seemed pleased by that idea, but wouldn’t tell me why when I asked, again deflecting by mentioning their personal project.When I finally asked about it, they deflected and told me not to worry my pretty little head.

That, of course, made me worry more, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Plus, I trusted Cam, no matter what my anxiety whispered in the back of my mind. I knew they weren’t doing anything that would endanger us and was probably the sort of thing that I’d just worry about if they told me. Natalie seemed to know what it was and was helping Cam find stuff that she’d marked in the town that we hadn’t needed, but she didn’t mention anything to me either.

In the few days before we left, as the scouts started focusing their work on the path we would take rather than the area around us and those of us who had been resting began to do a more advanced version of our physical therapy to get us ready to move again, I found Cam, Natalie, and Lucas having an impromptu meeting in one of the storerooms.

“Marshall! I was just about to yell for someone to go find you!” Lucas used one of his crutches to push out an empty folding chair next to the crate they were all standing over. “Take a seat!”

I looked down at the chair and then back up at Natalie and Cam. “Thanks, but I’m a little behind on my stretches for today, so I’m gonna stay standing.”

Cam shrugged and Natalie gave me a searching look, trying to see if I was pushing myself too hard, but I shook my head. “I’m taking it easy. I spent most of this morning sitting in the foyer, trying to smooth out one of the rough spots on a sled’s runner since it keeps catching on stuff underneath the snow when we take it out for test drags. I would very much like to not sit for a little bit.”

“Suit yourself.” Cam shrugged. “Natalie was just going to go over the walking shifts for the next week.”

“It’s pretty much the usual, but with a few small changes.” Natalie gestured at the paper sitting on the box and I walked over to look at it. “Since we’ve got more sleds and fewer people to drag them, we’ve worked the Naturalists into our rotations and I’ve set up more frequent changes. It will probably be more tiring over the course of a day, but our pace is already limited by the children and injured people, so we shouldn’t need to push ourselves too hard.”

I looked over the paper, noting the numbers of people and how many shifts they’d be taking. There were a few who’d be taking extra time every day, more than we usually liked to put on people, but it was spread out so it was a different group of people every day until the cycle started over on the fourth day. I looked up at Natalie and nodded. “Okay. Was there more?”

“No, this is just the final list. I wanted to make sure you would be ready to clear everyone who is currently on light duties.” Natalie pointed to a few names. I did not see Lucas’ name amongst them and saw that he was an assigned rider.

“Has anyone else seen this yet?”

Natalie shook her head. “Only those of us in the room. And probably just me and Cam, since Lucas seems to be studiously avoiding it.”

I looked over in time to catch Lucas guiltily look up from poking at the bandages wrapped around his abdomen. “You’re on a sled, Lucas.”

Lucas opened his mouth to argue but saw something behind me that shut his mouth immediately. I glanced over my shoulder to see Cam glaring at him and sighed. “Object if you want to, Lucas, but you can’t pull anything with a gut wound. You’ve already busted your stitches twice moving around this week. It might not be a particularly dangerous wound, but it has really messed up your muscles.”

“I know.” Lucas glared at me for a moment and then sighed, the fight suddenly going out of him. “I know. I accept it. I just don’t like it. I don’t like being carried.”

I reached out a hand and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re healing. You’re resting. As soon as you’ve healed up, I’ll let you get back out there where you belong.”

Lucas nodded, but didn’t say anything and shifted his attention back to playing with a loose bit of fabric on his bandages.

“Anything else?”

“My personal project is finished. You’ll find out about it the day we leave, I promise.” Cam met my gaze for a moment and then looked over at Natalie. “I think that’s it, right?”

“Right.” Natalie nodded. “I’ve gotta finish some balance calculations, so I’ll be a few more minutes, but it’s almost lunch time so you all should be good.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice.” Cam moved over to Lucas and lifted him to his feet. “I’m bushed. Let’s get food.” The two of them walked out, the tap of Lucas’ crutches echoing off the walls of the hallway outside the storeroom as I stared after then, amused.

When the door had finished slowly swinging shut, I looked over at Natalie and quirked an eyebrow. “What, did you request some privacy? You tell them to make themselves scarce afterwards so you’d have me all alone in a storeroom?”

Natalie smiled and chuckled. “Sort of. Not for that reason, though. You haven’t had anyone look at your leg in a week, so I am going to pin you down, rip off your pants, and administer first aid unless you are willing to work with me.”

“I dunno.” I moved over to the box and casually leaned against it. “When you put it like that, resisting sounds like more fun.”

“How about if you help me out, we can maybe make proper use of the storeroom afterwards?” Natalie quirked an eyebrow back at me.

I smiled but then sighed. “As nice as that sounds, I’m actually really worn out from all that work on the sled this morning.”

“Oh my. You’re not in the mood because of all your solo woodworking?” Natalie chuckled again and moved over beside me. “Well, then let’s get your pants off and take care of business for now. We can always get up to the less business-y business another time.”

I chuckled back and started removing my pants and hoisting myself up onto the box so Natalie could examine my leg. Natalie bent over and then, after a moment, pulled over the chair I’d refused so she could sit while she unwrapped my leg.

“Any pain?”

“Only if I bump it. There’s a dull ache, about what I’d expect, towards the end of every day, but that’s physical therapy and recovery for you.”

Natalie finished unwrapping the bandages I’d swapped out the night before, after I’d bathed, and looked closely at the bits of red and pink skin lining the wounds that had been big enough to need a stitch or two. All the others were slowly shrinking scabs at this point. “It looks fine.”

“Yeah. I’ve been doing my own check every night. Figured I’d save myself and someone else the time since I gotta rewrap it anyway.”

Natalie looked up at me with a mocking scowl on her face. “Marshall. You were the one who came up with the rule about needing someone else to check your wounds so Wayfinders wouldn’t push themselves too hard.”

I leaked back and crossed my arms in faux indignation, playfully putting on a petulant tone as I said “yeah, but I also wrote the bit about the chief medical officer getting the final say on all things medical and that’s me right now.”

Natalie laughed lightly and then pulled a new bandage out of the medical kit she’d brought with her before wrapping the whole thing back up in the fabric I’d swapped to using once the wounds had stopped bleeding if I accidentally pushed myself too hard. “You sure write a lot of loopholes.”

I stood up and started carefully pulling my pants back into place. “Well, sure. Gotta leave room for odd situations so that we can override people with more legalistic sensibilities than actual common sense.”

Natalie rolled her eyes as she cleaned up the old bandage and wrapped. “Only you would think that we need to be prepared for that.”

“And I’ve been proven right several times.”

“Sure.” Natalie stood up and gave me a kiss on the cheek as she patted me on the arm. “You definitely have.”

I chuckled and gave her a hug. She leaned into it, wrapping her arms around me after carefully tucking the trash into a pack on her pants, and sighed deeply. The two of us stood there, savoring this moment of quiet and comfort for a few minutes before we split up and turned our attention back to our duties.

The last few days of our time in the base passed in a blur. Once I was satisfied that the sleds were as good as I could make them, I put myself back into the guard rotation to fill my now idle hours so that we could spare another person for scouting. Cam disappeared entirely for the last two days prior to our final day, only showing back up part way through lunch on that final day, a smug look on their face as they pointedly refused to explain where they’d been. Everyone else seemed to be doing better as the healthy people buzzed with excitement to finally be leaving and the recovering people willed themselves to heal enough that the trip would be easier for them.

Our final meal the night before we left was a somber affair, everyone turning from wistful thoughts of losing access to the kitchen to mournful remembrance of those we’d be leaving behind the following morning. I did my best to at least keep the group from sinking too deeply into the grief and regret I myself was feeling, but we all wound up going to bed fairly early that evening.

The quiet continued into the following morning, as final preparations were completed and everyone got ready to leave shortly after dawn. Everyone seemed grimly eager to leave at that point, aside from a few who were struggling to tear themselves away from the graves, but no one objected when I gave the order for us to move out. As much as we might regret leaving people behind here, it would also allow us to finally leave the place where we’d all lost so much.

When we finally left the base and started following Natalie’s route, I did my best to project confidence and get people’s minds focused on traveling again. My efforts were undercut by the injured Wayfinders we had strapped to a couple of the sleds and the limp I was still dealing with didn’t help either. I had cleared myself two days earlier, and had been walking fine while we were still moving around the base, but traveling through the snow was a different matter entirely. Everyone was struggling at least a little bit, with the exception of the scouts, as we all worked through the accumulated rust from spending so long inside.

When we finally cleared the edge of the suburbs around the town and were in the open again, I felt everyone’s spirits begin to lift. Sure, we were hauling more sleds and had to carve a wider path than usual, but we were moving again and still making excellent time despite the slower pace we’d set for our first day out. When we stopped about a mile out of town to readjust clothing, tighten straps, and get some water, the mood of the group seemed almost happy.

Just as we were about to get moving again, there was a booming explosion behind us, followed by a shockwave just far enough behind that we all got a faceful of snow as we spun around to look. When I’d finally cleared the snow from my eyes, I could see a column of smoke rising behind us, from approximately the location of the Cultist’s base, as the first boom was followed by rumbling cracks. As I turned to signal for the Wayfinders to grab their guns and barricades, I saw Cam flashing the “stand down” sign.

When things finally quieted down enough that the Naturalist caretakers could be heard soothing their charges, Cam snorted. “I thought it would take more time.” Cam shrugged and turned around, giving the signal for everyone to start moving again. “They had a bunch of explosives I rigged up around a couple points that seemed suspicious to me, plus a final set around all the exits as we left. Thought they’d wait a bit longer before trying to reclaim it.”

“Secret exits?” I moved over to Cam and fell into step with them as the group began to walk, making sure that I kept my voice loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Sure, or safe rooms. Maybe secret entrances. There was definitely a group of them that was in charge of patrolling the area, otherwise how would they have known to hide their tracks and get into contact with the traitors without us noticing them? Figured they were still out there somewhere and I was right.”

“You sure were.” I looked over at the dark pillar of smoke as it began to disappear into the cloud cover above.

“And now, no more Cultist base.” Cam smiled at me. “And no Cultists.”

I nodded slowly and then, as we finished getting back into line for our hike, called out to the group. “Let’s get back to full pace. We can take the breaks we’ve got planned, still, but I want to start covering ground more quickly. I want us long gone by the time anything shows up to investigate that explosion.” I saw a few heads nod, most without looking back at me, and increased my limping pace to match the people pulling the sled. I got the feeling as the almost happy atmosphere was replaced by grim determination that no one else wanted to find out either.