Chapter 96: Three From Four

She smelled their fire before she saw them.

Not a careless fire—controlled, the specific management of a camp that knew how to minimize smoke. But the air above the snowline carried smoke differently than lower elevations did, and the smell had been in the air for ten minutes before Marcus raised his hand.

They stopped.

River came up to his position.

He indicated northwest—a rock outcrop on the slope, with what she now recognized as a break in the wind current. A natural chimney for smoke dispersion, the kind of place someone who knew the mountain would choose for a fire that needed to be hidden and still functional.

"Northeast group," she said. Low.

"Possible," he said. "Could also be—"

"QH don't make fires," Darro said. She'd come up on River's other side. "Their equipment reads as cold-camp. I didn't see a fire at the Shelf or at the cache."

River held that.

"I'll go ahead," Darro said.

"I'll go with you," River said.

They went together.

---

Three people.

Two of them were on watch when River and Darro came out of the rocks above the camp—they had weapons up and the body language of people who'd been ambushed once and hadn't forgotten it. River came out of cover with both hands visible and she said, clearly, the phrase Marcus had told her was the healer circuit identification:

"Running the circuit north."

One of the three—a tall woman with a cut above her left ear that had healed badly—lowered her weapon a centimeter.

"Who's running with you," she said.

"Six," River said. "Marcus Webb. Two others who know the circuit. Three who don't but have earned the road."

A pause.

"Webb," said one of the others—younger, sharp-faced, recognition moving through his expression. "Old Salt Webb."

"That's what they call him," River said.

The tall woman lowered her weapon the rest of the way.

"Dae," she said. Her name, not a command. "I'm Dae. This is Fenno." She gestured to the sharp-faced one. "And Kai." The third, smaller, already re-securing her weapon and moving toward the fire to make room.

River looked at the three of them.

She counted.

Three.

She looked at Dae and held her gaze.

"Addie," River said.

Something moved through Dae's face. She let it move and then she put it away.

"At the ford approach," she said. "QH patrol. She was running a distraction so the rest of us could reach the stepping-stone crossing." She held River's gaze. "She's good at the distraction. She would have let herself be caught."

"Would have," River said.

"Did," Dae said. Flat. "She's alive. I believe that. She knows the protocol for captive situations." She looked at the fire. "She'll hold."

River held that.

She'd heard people say things like that before. She'd heard Marcus say things like that before, in situations where the things hadn't been true. Sometimes they were right. Sometimes belief was the only thing you had and you held it because the alternative was nothing.

"She knew the circuit route," River said.

"Yes," Dae said.

"The QH has it now," River said.

"Yes," Dae said.

They looked at each other.

"Still," River said.

"Still," Dae said.

She walked back toward the fire.

River followed.

---

The camps merged. Nine people was a different camp than six—bigger fire ring, different watch arrangement, the specific negotiation of people who'd been doing things a specific way for weeks suddenly having to accommodate other people doing it differently.

River watched the merger happen.

Cal managed it without being asked—he moved through the logistics of the larger camp with the ease of someone who'd been doing camp integration since before she knew him. Lia introduced herself to Kai, who turned out to have basic medical training and who had been carrying a kit from the circuit's standard supply. They spread the kits together and assessed what they had.

Renn and Dae sat together at the fire's edge and spoke in low voices.

River sat across from them and listened without appearing to listen.

"—the contact lists," Renn was saying. "What's intact."

"We had the Year 13 and 14 lists," Dae said. "The active network at those times—distribution points, safe houses. I still have them." She held Renn's gaze. "Addie had a portion of the secondary records. She wouldn't have surrendered the records—she'd have destroyed them before captivity if she had a chance."

"If she had a chance," Renn said.

"If she had a chance," Dae said.

Fenno was on the perimeter. He'd gone there without being told, which told her something. He'd been on the road long enough to know perimeter duty was the default for a new camp merger.

She'd need to talk to all three of them.

---

Dae gave the intelligence account without being asked.

She sat across from River and Marcus at the fire and she spoke precisely: the QH group's movements from the time they'd intercepted her camp at the Harrow approach, the numbers she'd confirmed, the methods she'd observed. She was the kind of person who organized information as she lived it and that made the account clean.

"Four that I'm certain of," she said. "Two at the ford—the ones who crossed at the stepping stones and came north ahead of us. One joined them at the mountain base—I saw three together at the cache approach from our position. The fourth I only heard—another signal exchange, different position."

"South of the cache," River said.

"Below the cache's southern approach," Dae said. "Watching it from below while the other three held it." She held River's gaze. "You went in from above."

"Yes," River said.

"We saw you from the circuit path above you," Dae said. "We thought you were QH at first. When you pulled back up the slope we weren't sure."

"How did you know we weren't," River said.

"The way you moved," Dae said. "QH don't retreat that fast. They consolidate." She held her gaze. "You moved like people who'd made an error and knew it."

River absorbed that.

"Four confirmed," she said. "Possibly more."

"Possibly," Dae said. "I've been running this route for three years. The maximum QH presence I've seen on the circuit at one time was three." She held River's gaze. "Four is new. Four means the list was specific enough to warrant resources."

"River's name was at the top," Marcus said.

Dae looked at him.

She looked at River.

"Your mother's documentation," she said. Not a question.

"Original materials," River said. "The ones that came out of the fire."

Dae was quiet for a moment.

"I knew it was originals," she said. "Renn's section—the early materials, the source chain. Nobody's been running originals since before the fire. The QH escalated because of it." She held River's gaze. "The full record. The decision chain."

"And names," River said.

Dae held her gaze.

"The names," she said. "Yes."

---

They sat with that for a moment.

Marcus looked at the fire.

Fenno had come back from the perimeter and was standing at the edge of the firelight, listening. River could see him reading the dynamic—the new group, the fire, something in the air between Dae and River and Marcus that was too quiet for the stakes behind it.

"The cache," River said. She looked at Marcus. "We don't have a supply option now."

"No," he said.

"The Sanctuary will have medical supplies," Dae said.

"Yes," River said.

She held Marcus's gaze. He held hers.

She breathed.

"How far from the summit to the first western shelter," she said to Dae.

"One day, good conditions," Dae said. "One and a half in snow. There's a healer point in the western passage—not a full cache but consistently stocked. Basic compounds." She held River's gaze. "If the circuit's been running in the western passage."

"Is it," River said.

"It was, last I heard," Dae said. "Three months ago." She paused. "Things change."

River held that.

She ran the math. Summit in two days. Western shelter in one more. Basic compounds, if the circuit was still operating. Three more days to the Sanctuary's territory, if Renn and Marcus's combined route knowledge was accurate.

Seven days total.

Seven days of compound.

Exact.

No margin.

She breathed.

She looked at the nine people around her fire and she looked at the mountain above them and she held the shape of what they were doing.

"We push for the summit tomorrow," she said. "Hard day. We camp high and cross the summit plateau at dawn the day after." She looked at Dae. "You know the summit crossing."

"Yes," Dae said.

"Then you're on point for that section," she said.

Dae nodded.

River stood.

She looked at the fire.

She looked at the mountain.

She said nothing else.

She went to organize the watch.

---

She found Kai at the perimeter later.

The smaller woman was watching the slope below with the specific attention of someone who'd been watching slopes for a long time and had learned how to do it without looking like they were doing it.

River came up beside her.

"Addie," River said.

Kai looked at her.

"She'll hold," Kai said. "I know people say that when they don't know. I know. She'll hold." She looked back at the slope. "She's the toughest person in our group. Has been since the beginning."

River held that.

"What do they do with them," she said. "The people they take."

Kai was quiet for a moment.

"They ask them what they know," she said. "Some hold long enough that the information they have expires before they break. Some don't." She held River's gaze. "Addie knows the network as of six months ago. The contact lists she had go back to Year 12. By the time we reach the Sanctuary and send word back through whatever channels still work—" She stopped. "The exposure from what she knew might already be contained by the timeline."

River held that.

"Might," she said.

"Might," Kai said.

They stood together on the perimeter in the cold dark.

River looked at the stars above the Cascade ridge.

"She knew the Harrow approach," Kai said, after a while. "She ran the distraction because she knew the approach and she knew we didn't have time to make it all together." She held her gaze. "She chose it."

River looked at her.

"That doesn't make it easier," River said.

"No," Kai said. "But it means something."

River nodded.

She went back to the camp.

She lay down beside Cal in the dark and she didn't sleep for a long time and when she did she slept hard, the sleep of someone who'd stopped fighting the weight for a few hours.