The caravans are the breath between Sappho’s heartbeats. They keep the commune alive, pulsing outward through the broken valley and returning full of new life. When the gates open at dawn, every sound in the courtyard pauses: the soft jingle of harness rings, the low bellow of the albino elk, the creak of hemp rope straining as the first wagon moves. The Sisterhood watches until the white silhouettes fade into the trees, trusting those women to carry their work and will across the world.
Each caravan is a union of two classes—the Sellers and the Scavengers. The Sellers are Sappho’s diplomats and merchants. They trade not just goods but goodwill, carrying the Sisterhood’s reputation with every handshake. They are clever and calm, trained to listen before speaking, to measure a deal by what it might grow into rather than what it earns today. Their ledgers are written in hemp paper, bound with cord, and marked with the triskelion for every successful trade.
The Scavengers are the caravan’s bones and hands. They know how to mend a broken axle with scrap steel and a prayer. They are the ones who crawl through ruins, strip down wreckage, and coax dead machines back into use. What they can’t bring home, they sell; what Sappho can’t use, they barter for things it can. Between them, every wagon is both storehouse and workshop, filled with the living hum of tools, bottles, and barter.
The goods they carry come from across the commune’s crafts. Stillers provide barrels of cider, vodka, and clear spirits—potent proof that Sappho can turn grain, fruit, and patience into something valuable. The Sowers fill baskets with herbs and vegetables from the gardens. From the fields come bundles of hemp and rolls of hemp fabric, sturdy and unprocessed, ready to be traded to settlements that still weave. They pack dried leaves and buds of marijuana, pressed into clay jars to protect their scent and potency. Every item is practical, tradeable, and replaceable; nothing ornamental leaves the commune unless it can come home as something new.
When the wagons roll out, each convoy is small—usually three to four wagons, each pulled by an Enchanted Elk. These albino giants are the pride of Sappho, found years ago by the Skinners in the deep forest and raised ever since in quiet glades. Their white coats shimmer faintly under starlight, their eyes pale gray like river fog. They are steady, unafraid of fire or thunder, and their strength seems endless. Each pair can haul a loaded wagon at a pace that shames every pedal cart and wind wagon in the valley. The Sisterhood guards them fiercely; no elk has ever been sold or lent beyond the commune.
A single Sharpshooter accompanies every caravan. She rides ahead or walks the line, weapon slung but never idle. Her duty is vigilance—raiders, beasts, or desperate wanderers sometimes test the road, but most turn back once they see the antlers gleam. The Sharpshooter rarely fires. Her calm presence is warning enough.
The caravans travel as necessity dictates. There is no calendar—only the knowledge that somewhere out there, trade waits. They are gone about half their lives: weeks of journeying outward, weeks of returning. On the road, they move with rhythm and patience, setting camp by rivers and roadside clearings. At night the elk are unhitched and graze in quiet circles while the Scavengers sort their finds by lantern light—steel, wire, copper, glass. Sellers record the day’s trades or clean the hemp charms tied to the wagons. The air smells of mash and smoke, sometimes sweet, sometimes sharp, depending on what the Stillers packed in the barrels.
When the moon rises, songs begin—low voices weaving verses that speak of Sappho, of women left behind, of promises to return. The caravans do not sing to pass time. They sing to keep the rhythm of the road, to remind the elk and each other that motion is sacred.
They reach farther than any other travelers. In a day they can cover two hundred kilometers, double what the valley’s other caravans manage with their creaking wind sails and pedal chains. To watch them pass from another settlement is to see something almost divine: the flash of antlers like distant lightning, the glint of copper charms swinging from the wagon beams, the faint hum of hooves on packed soil. Children chase the dust they leave behind, calling them the white tide.
Their purpose is always the same—move what the Sisterhood has in plenty, return with what it lacks. The outward wagons carry spirits, hemp, herbs, and food. The inward wagons return heavy with scrap, mechanical parts, and anything the Scavengers deem useful: window glass, bolts, preserved wiring, old signs of hammered aluminum. Occasionally, a person travels among the goods—a wounded Sister too hurt to walk, an envoy bound for the Valley of Voices. Even those rare passengers understand they are cargo of circumstance, not privilege. Transport is precious space, never wasted.
When the caravans return to Sappho, the entire commune feels the change in air. The creak of the first axle on the hilltop sends women running from their work to meet them. Children run ahead, shouting the names of those they recognize. The wagons roll through the gates slow and tired but alive, their sides splattered with mud, their elk coated in dust but still gleaming white beneath it. Every arrival is half celebration, half homecoming.
The goods are unloaded at dawn the next day—Scavenger haul to the workshops, Seller ledgers to the Sacred Council Chamber, and sealed casks to the Sacred Circle for communal sharing. What the caravans bring back shapes the rhythm of the next project: new metal for tools, new spirits for trade, new stories to tell by firelight.
No one in Sappho doubts their importance. Without the caravans, the commune would shrink inward, starve for newness. With them, Sappho remains open—a living heart that keeps beating through distance and danger.
At night, when the wagons rest beside the walls, the elk sleep in quiet rows, their breath ghosting the air. The Sellers mark new routes, the Scavengers repair wheels, and the Sharpshooter cleans her rifle by the glow of a small lamp. Tomorrow they may rest. Soon, they will leave again. The road never ends; it only bends back toward home.