“Right then,” said Gerry. “What do we have? Everyone put their tools and anything else they’ve been carrying in a pile.”

  The pile wasn’t much to look at when it was completed. By the time everyone had dumped their tools onto the ground, all they had was a spear, a couple of pickaxes, a small hammer, an axe, and a few small knives.

  “That’s not as much as I hoped,” Gerry admitted.

  It wasn’t as much as anyone had hoped. Midge felt like dropping to the ground and crying when she saw their small number of supplies. There was simply no way that they could build a new life based off of this.

  “But we’ll make do,” Gerry finished. “Chins up, everyone. Come on, most of us come from small communities, don’t we? We must have some farmers. Carpenters, a blacksmith, anything.”

  Carij raised his hand first. “I used to build houses, long ago,” he said. “I do not know how much I can do with the tools that we have available, but we have an abundance of wood, and there are stones that I can use as well. I see this for what it is, a sign from Yoran that I am meant to build again.” He examined the tools on the ground and picked up the axe. He examined its edge, and nodded. “This will do, for now.”

  “That’s good,” said Gerry. “I knew I liked you. Warren, will you keep finding food for us?”

  Warren stared at her with his empty gaze. “I shall,” he said. He turned and began to walk away. Midge shuddered watching him leave, The skeleton had been nothing but helpful and polite since he first broke them from their cage, but she couldn’t abide by the presence of an undead. It made her so uncomfortable.

  “We can’t live forever on what Warren hunts for us,” said Kiara. “If you stay in one place for too long, then eventually the animals you hunt will move away.” Her brow furrowed. “Perhaps if I go with him, we could bring some back. Breeding pairs are far better than herds.”

  “Do it,” said Gerry.

  Kiara pointed at Zacharias and Orid. “You two, come with me. I might need you.”

  Zacharias nodded. “Yes ma’am.” The two young men jogged after Kiara.

  “Still, they’re right,” Gerry said. “We can’t live on only meat. We need other types of food. Plants, that sort of thing.”

  A dwarf woman stepped forwards. “I never ran a farm, but I worked one,” she said. “Things grow everywhere, and this mountain won’t be different. I can start looking for things, but it’ll take a while before we can grow anything. We need to forage for a while.”

  “What we need is a witch,” said Root. Everyone turned to stare at him. “Oh, come on, like none of you had thought of it. I know these aren’t the fae lands, but you must have the same sayings as we do. A witch casting a spell on a field of crops will make sure that they grow strong and true, or something to that effect. Every town has a witch watching over it.”

  “Well, we don’t have a witch,” snapped Tristan. “Unless you were hiding one from us in your mouth, Root.”

  “I wasn’t hiding anything,” Root said. “All I’m saying is, find a witch. That’s the only way we’ll have crops before winter.”

  Midge shook her head. “We can’t consider working with a witch. The gods told us that witchcraft is beyond their divine order, and not to be trifled with. Surely you know what they’re like. They’re evil creatures, bent on tearing people away from the light of the gods.”

  She could see people agreeing with her. It helped that people already didn’t like Root, whatever Gerry might have said in the woods.

  “We can pray to the gods,” she said. “Alara will give life to our crops. Edjas will guide our hands as we build. But if we ally with witches, then they turn their backs on us.”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Gerry.

  Midge frowned. “What?”

  “If the gods won’t help us, we’ll ask a witch. And if a witch won’t help us, we’ll ask the gods. We can’t afford to be picking and choosing who we work with at the moment. I’ll pray with you, Midge, and I’ll take all the blame for getting a witch to help us so that the gods know that they only need to punish me.”

  Midge stared at Gerry. She couldn’t understand this way of thinking, but she knew that nothing would change her mind. “Fine,” she said. “I’m going to find a place to pray.”

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  She walked away from the small gathering, to a small circle of rocks that seemed as good a place to pray as anywhere else, until they could build themselves a church. She knelt on the ground and placed her hands on her lap, then closed her eyes.

  The prayers should have been embedded in her mind. She had grown up as the daughter of a priest, who had taught her prayers every day and had her repeat them every night before she went to bed. He had been a good man, if a little strict, but he absolutely hadn’t deserved to be torn apart by the raiders that came to their town.

  They had tied him to their horses – one arm to each saddle – and had them run in opposite directions. They had challenged him to call to the gods and have them come and save him. He had refused. The horses still ran.

  While she was in their prison, Midge had tried to lead the others in prayer, but the guards had caught on quickly. They had laughed at her, thrown cold water – she hoped it was water – over her when she tried to pray, until she was gasping for breath. Why don’t your gods come and save you? Why don’t they free you?

  When she tried to pray now, amongst these rocks, the words she had learned wouldn’t come to her. She closed her eyes and all she heard was those voices asking why her gods hadn’t come to her, the thousands of times they had seemed to ask before she screamed that they weren’t coming. It had been anything to get them to stop, to just let her alone, but it had been a betrayal. The warmth that she had once felt, of knowing that the gods would be there for her, simply wouldn’t come to her.

  She tried to remember the names of the gods who she had learned about. There was Alara, the goddess of the harvest. Edjas, the god of builders. Tiagem, the law god. Bams, the god who brought the rains. Uvine, the goddess of the home. Others… she had learned about eight gods. Who were the last three? She couldn’t remember the last three!

  Her eyes opened, and she gasped in a small panic. While her eyes had been closed, Gerry had come to find her. She sat next to her now, twisting grass around her fingers.

  “Nial thinks he might know a place where a witch would hide if she lived around here,” said Gerry. “Root is going with him to search. We thought if anyone could persuade a witch it would be one of the fae-kind.”

  Midge didn’t respond. Gerry must have taken that as a sign to keep talking. “Mora is in charge of our farms, now. Not that we have any, but she’s taken about half of our people to work on that. Carij has taken the other half. They’re looking for stones that they can sharpen to cut down trees.”

  Mora. Midge didn’t know that name. She assumed it had to be the dwarven woman who had worked the farms. Midge had never even spoken to her before.

  “That leaves me without a lot to do for the minute,” said Gerry. “And Lenore says I’m crowding her, and she wants Tristan with her. Imagine that. She wants to be with her husband instead of her mother.”

  “I was the same,” Midge muttered. More painful memories. Garas, the god who made the seasons pass.

  “I didn’t know you were married,” said Gerry. She took Midge’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

  Of course, there was no need to explain. Everyone here had lost almost everyone in their life who wasn’t here with them. Misiel, the goddess of children.

  “I didn’t mean to speak over you,” said Gerry. “I don’t want to dismiss anything that anyone says, so I reacted when you disagreed with Root. But in doing that, I dismissed you.”

  “I can’t remember how to pray,” Midge said. “Gerry, the gods didn’t come. I begged for them to come and save me every night, and they never came. How can I still put my faith in them after that?”

  Gerry squeezed her hand. “I don’t know, love,” she said. “Faith was never what I was best at. Oh, I went to church and all, gave my offerings, danced as hard as anyone else did when the festivals came. I never really thought too much about it. I didn’t ask for the gods to come and save me, but I asked that they’d keep my daughter safe. In the end, she lived, and I can’t say if that’s luck or the gods interfering on my behalf. Not the sort of question I care to answer, darling.”

  The eighth. Gavera, the goddess of death.

  “I betrayed the gods,” Midge said. “When they hurt me in that fortress, they made me curse the gods. They won’t ever forgive me.”

  “Maybe not,” said Gerry. “But you could always say sorry. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll at least help you remember how to pray. I always needed to use the books during service, but I reckon I have a little bit bouncing around in the old noggin.”

  “But should I?” Midge asked. “They really didn’t save me. Do they…” she trailed off before she could ask if the gods deserved her prayers, but the thought was bad enough. Gerry seemed to understand.

  “I’m an old woman, but I don’t have all of the answers,” she said. “People keep thinking that I’m wise, and I seem to have ended up in charge of all of these people somehow, but I don’t have one lick of knowing what I’m doing.”

  “So, if you do manage to work out how to get in contact with the gods, ask them what I’m supposed to be doing. I could use all the help I can get.”

  Midge smiled at that. Gerry had quite a way of getting people to smile – it was a relentless quality that often caught her off guard.

  “Listen,” Gerry said, more serious now. “I know you aren’t comfortable with the idea of us having a witch around here. That’s not going to change anything, because we need all the help we can get, but I don’t want us starting off with choices that are going to make people unhappy. So, what do you want, Midge? How can we make this better for you?”

  Midge considered the question. What did she want?

  “A church,” she said. “I want a church. And a priest.”

  “I’ll add finding a priest to the list,” said Gerry. “But you know, these people likely haven’t prayed together in a while. Maybe they could use some help with it from someone who wants a church.”

  Midge’s eyes widened. “Me? But I can’t…”

  “Why not? I always say the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. The way I see it, those gods want people to pray to them, right? If you’re helping other people, that might be a good way to get them to forgive you.”

  She patted Midge on the shoulder and stood up. “Think about it.”

  As she walked away, Midge called out to her. “But a church –“

  “Aye, we’ll build a church,” Gerry promised. “Good things, churches. Good for a lot of things.”

  Midge looked up at the sky. “Please forgive me,” she said. She had no way of knowing if anyone heard her.