The first wave hit and the wall of roots shuddered. I stumbled but kept my balance as yells came from behind the lookout. The wave hadn’t been tall enough to go over the wall, but the roots weren’t waterproof. I could picture salty water forcing its way through the cracks, whisper women frantically gathering belongings and sending messages on the wind as water spouted from the wall.

Someone cursed and I swung my gaze up to see Kaylan clutching at something over the wall’s edge and no commander in sight. The pieces fit together even as the image of Fellen falling from a broken bridge blazed to life in my mind’s eye.

No. Not on my watch.

I rushed forward. Kaylan had the commander by her forearm and was trying to pull her back over the edge, but the commander was mostly a dead weight—she couldn’t get any purchase on the water and oil slicked roots. I started to reach down to grab her other wrist, but my gaze caught on something below her as I moved.

The wall was moving.

Fish, mostly blue-green with a handful of gold, covered the root wall from its base until nearly three quarters up. Many were already slipping off as the tightly packed, smooth and oily roots didn’t offer good places to hold onto and fins weren’t exactly suited for climbing, but they were here and there were at least five times as many we had fought in the skirmish.

More movement caught my eye. Glancing toward the horizon, I saw the ocean rising. And rising. Another wave was coming. My throat went dry and lightheadedness fizzed across my mind. Not enough time, enough protection, I was trapped—

“Gimley!”

I snapped out of the beginnings of panic at Kaylan’s rebuke. Reaching for the commander, I leaned further over the wall but a few inches of air still separated out our hands.

She spat, “Reach, girl!”

Cursing my short height and hesitation, I hooked my feet on the wall’s lip and reached. We clasped wrists. Kaylan hauled upwards with a grunt and I tried to help. But with half my body dangling over the wall and no way to brace my feet without letting go of the commander or my position anchoring me to the wall, I didn’t have much leverage to work with. The commander rose an inch or so, but she still wasn’t close enough to get a hold of the non-oily roots at the top of the wall. My side screamed in protest at the strain.

The sound of roaring water came closer and I did my best to draw in a breath around the pain.

Storm it.

It’s not like I would die.

I twisted and pulled the commander up. I ignored the scream the ripped its way from my throat, the pulses of hot pain flaring through my bruised side, the way my foot unhooked from the wall. Kaylan renewed her effort at my sudden burst of effort and the commander rose. Not quite there. The commander pressed a foot against the wall, gaining us a little more leverage. Kaylan hauled, the commander pushed herself, and I pulled even as I continued to slip. Her fingers grazed the top of the wall. I shoved, more pushing than pulling at this point, and the commander latched onto the top of the wall.

Kaylan reached down and gripped her upper arm and shoulder to help her up even further. I tried to scramble back so that most of my weight was back on top of the wall, but it was too late.

I fell.

The sickening rush of air streaming by. My stomach rose up into my throat even as some distant part of my mind chided me over how frequently I found myself falling lately. One hand skimmed the wall, but all I succeeded in doing was make my hand slick. Nothing to hold onto, nothing to slow my fall. Just the ground and enemy fish rushing closer.

The second wave hit.

It felt like I was punched in the gut and slapped at the same time. All the air in my lungs burst out of me and my head swam. There was no use trying to fight against the force of the water, no way to tell what was up or down as the wave slammed me into the wall and then dragged me further along on its whim. Scaled bodies hit me, sometimes cutting through my clothing, though I couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or if they were also being drug along by the wave.

I struggled to release my cloak. It bit into my throat, pulled along by the current even easier than I was. Waterlogged and pulled tight, the strings holding it together refused to become untied. The miserly part of me insisted that I didn’t need to lose it because it couldn’t kill me, but the rest of me didn’t want to test what living with a garroted throat might be like.

Reaching down I took a firm hold on the hilt of my eating knife against the pull of the water and pulled it lose. A long cut along my chin and few nicks later, and the cloak dragged free from my shoulders.

Even with the cloak gone, my vision was starting to go dark from the lack of air. The desire to breath air was quickly becoming an overwhelming need, but there wasn’t any. My mark started to burn, faint but there all the same.

The wave slammed me down onto a new surface and dragged me along it. Stones and grass cut along my skin and belatedly I realized that meant I was being pulled along the ground…and if the ground was under me than the other direction must be up. Up should have air. I gathered my legs under me along with my remaining strength and pushed off the ground.

A childhood of living in a waterhole tribe finally aided me in some substantial way. Even I had been allowed swimming lessons. I let the current carry me, not caring about where I ended up as long as I continued rising.

I nearly cracked my head on a tree branch for my efforts. Instead, a face full of needles gave me the split second warning to fling my arms in front of me. The bruises on my side screamed another protest as I hit the branch, but I gritted my teeth against the flare of pain and weakness, and clung to the branch. The water tried to rip me away with it, but this time I refused to give into its whims. I clung, vision graying out further, until I felt the odd sensation of air on my forehead.

Needing no other encouragement, I tilted my head back and breathed in crisp, cold air. It tasted like victory. My mark’s burning faded away as my vision slowly returned. I clung to the branch for as long my arms were able to support me. Then I fell a relatively short distance and Rawley’s training kicked in enough that I didn’t break anything when I hit the ground.

I laid there and didn’t move. The water that remained wasn’t strong enough to carry me along with it anymore and I needed time to recover. No matter what images my imagination conjured up of fish breaking into the camp or the whole thing being washed away, I wouldn’t be much use to anyone without some of my strength back.

So I laid there and hoped that no fish had also been washed away near me and that all the wild predators had fled. I checked my supplies. Everything I hadn’t used was still where it was supposed to be, even my sling, thankfully. My cloak and eating knife were missing, and I couldn’t remember when I had stopped holding onto the later. I looked at the ground around me, just in case, but it wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

I did learn, however, that I was back on the edge of the goddess’s great forest. That wasn’t very surprising after the tree branch, though it was shocking to realize how far the rush of water had carried me from the front of the camp. Really, if the Lady Blue could pummel us with such strong waves of water along with small armies of fish, I didn’t see why she didn’t make it her main tactic or, on the opposite end of things, why the base hadn’t been built further from the shore.

Either way I wasn’t going to get answers here. I rose to my feet, strong enough now that my arms didn’t shake from the strain when I pushed myself upright. The cold air did cut through my wet clothes and I shivered. I might not be anywhere near fully recovered yet after the beating the wave gave me, but if I kept waiting the cold would get to me first before the rest of my strength did.

The walk back to camp was miserable. I kept waiting for a fish to leap out and attack me in the fading light or for another wave to hit. Neither did. As I did my best to furtively cross the scrubland I didn’t know if it was through sheer luck or if the fish were particularly bad at spotting tired, short girls doing their best to stay low to the ground.

I got my answer as I came around to look at the seaside facing wall of the camp. The fish were all dead. Some had stone speared through them, others roots, and still others looked fried or had been cut open. The bodies littered the waterlogged ground in front of the wall, a testament to the wrath the whisper women could bring to bear when they were challenged. It looked like a one sided massacre. Most likely those with long range blessings had popped up on the wall once the waves finished and rained down the goddess’s judgment while the fish tried to climb or flee.

My gaze fell on a large spot on the wall where some of the roots were missing and amended my thought. Or break through. It didn’t look like any of the cut pieces opened all the way to the other side, but seeing cut roots made my heart freeze for a moment even as my blood boiled. Cut roots might not be a cut tree, but neither made the goddess happy.

I jumped a bit as I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, but rather than the enemy I feared, it was a group of whisper women collecting weapons and turning the fish to sand. Taking a moment to look past the scaled bodies and raw destruction, I saw other groups doing similar work.

I headed for the nearest one. I had no desire to try to climb the root wall now, even if experience hadn’t already taught me that it was a futile effort. The group of six whisper women noticed me as I approached and paused their gathering to watch.

A woman not much taller than me and a mark scrawled across her nose grinned and called out, “Little Diver! Catch any fish while you were out?”

I stopped, brought up short by seemingly being recognized, the new nickname, and not sure how to respond. After a long, noticeable moment I offered, “Looks like you all caught them for me.”

The spokeswoman preened. “Took out a whole clutch with a well placed hole. Can’t do that very often you know.”

I nodded, more to buy time than actual acknowledgment of what she was talking about.

She continued on like I hoped, “Commander’s orders to bring you to her if you came back. Storms are bad business when they’re not the goddess’s work. No shadows to travel through, winds all wrong…” She shuddered. “But you caught it and we made the fish pay.” She glanced around at her group. “Save the dusting until I get back.”

A taller woman with a plait of ankle length black hair meaningfully hefted her sack full of spears. “Aye Aye. Get going before your mouth keeps the commander waiting.”

We went, the short whisper woman detailing her entire experience from the wall shaking and water leaking through to being up on the wall and dropping fish into muddy holes. It went much like I expected. I even spotted one of the holes as we walked close by. Not that I could have missed it, given that my guide pointed it out.

Once we reached the wall’s shadow she took my hand in hers before leading me through the shadow paths to the shadow of one of the giant trees in camp. From there she led me to the commander’s tent. All in all, it wasn’t as large as I expected. Just two simple domes connected together and the depiction of a spear decorating the spot above the entrance. A fire starter waited to the right of the entrance and he whistled at our approach. An answering whistle came from inside the tent.

He nodded to us and opened the tent flap before gesturing for us to step in. “Squad Leader Hattie and Seedling Gimley.”

Hattie stepped inside without so much as a flinch of hesitation and I was forced to follow without even a minute to gather myself and fix my hair, much less ring out my soaked clothing. I hoped the commander remembered how I had recently helped save her life more than she cared about appearances.