Vella proposed the traveling clinic after watching two sick families arrive on foot through the town gate.
They had walked two full days just to reach her door, and one grandmother would not survive the walk home.
"If illness can drag them that far, healthy horses can carry treatment toward them," she said while packing supplies at breakfast.
Nobody found a useful weakness inside that argument, so the column left after sunrise with Cassie's party escorting the wagon.
Ash rode strapped against Hajin's chest, where the toddler gnawed a strip of dried fruit in smug comfort.
Juna ranged ahead along the northern road, ghosting through the hedgerows in long unhurried bounds.
Loccy stayed behind at the mine gate under a parade posture she had personally invented for guard duty.
The last view of her showed the hammer waving above rabbit ears like a military banner.
The first village stood half a day north behind a stockade repaired until no original timber showed.
