“Don’t be absurd.” Jasimir’s voice faltered the tiniest bit.
Fie worked a tooth from her string, stone-faced. “Five skinwitches on the queen’s hire, six more by commission, aye?”
“Aye.”
“Eleven’s enough to bring the lordlings in?”
“Aye.”
Fie worked a tooth from her string, stone-faced, and dropped to a knee before the skinwitch. “See this? It’s a Hawk tooth. You hold this, and I’ll heal you. You’ll stay bound, mind. I won’t deal with Vultures without my own hostage.”
Viimo rolled her eyes. “Aye, I suppose that’s fair.”
“Fie.” Tavin sounded as stranded as the prince.
Fie pushed the tooth between the skinwitch’s bound palms. “There. Don’t drop it.”
“You’re turning on us, too?” the prince demanded.
Fie stood and stepped back. “No.”
Pa had had her wake up Hawk teeth before, but never a witch-tooth. Blood was a fearsome Birthright; he’d told her Hawks took years to master it, that even one slip could burst a vein she’d meant to mend. A handful of older chiefs like him could call on those teeth to heal, but only with enough practice to know what they were doing.
Fie did not know what she was doing. But she knew what she wanted: a Vulture’s blood.
She would never forget the scream. One moment Viimo’s hands were hands; the next they were a tangle of raw red flesh and tattered skin. Viimo curled over them, sobbing.
“What are you doing?” Jasimir stared at Fie in horror.
“Making sure she can’t track us,” Fie said, grim. “She needs to touch something of ours to pick up our trail. And Tatterhelm can’t leave one of Rhusana’s best to starve. Probably.”
“But—”
“This,” Fie said, tucking another tooth into a pouch on Viimo’s belt, “is also a Hawk tooth. If Tatterhelm wants to make use of you again, then he’d best collect you quick, and he’d best give that tooth to Pa. Once Wretch is sorted out, perhaps Pa will have time to heal you.”
“You could have had your kin,” Viimo snarled.
“And the queen could have had eleven skinwitches.” Fie stood. “Now we’re both down to ten.”
This road had caught her the way only terrible roads could. The way back lay thorny and short, and the way forward lay thorny and long, and worst of all, she knew which way Hangdog had chosen.
But Fie’s own were in Cheparok, her own were all across Sabor, her own were bound up in every word of the oath. Being chief meant leaving what she wanted behind, and the Covenant didn’t give a damn if she hated that, too. By daylight she could see it all too clear. And if that meant dragging the prince all the way to the feet of Master-General Draga, she’d do it.
If it meant being a chief, even of a band of two false Crows, then that was who she’d be.
When she turned to the lordlings, she found Prince Jasimir studying the sand at his feet as if it held the answer to some great trial.
Then the crown prince of Sabor drew his dagger, pulled his topknot down, and cut his hair.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, hollow, and strode to the surf. When he returned, his hands were empty. The last sign of his lineage was gone.
Fie’s belly growled. It only sharpened her head more. Food, new cloaks, new masks. They’d need to find the nearest Crow shrine for help. And by every dead god, Fie wasn’t going to march all the way to the Marovar without some damned soap-shells.
“Hawk boy.” Fie donned her Chief voice. “You took watch. Are you good to put some distance down? We’ll stop for rest in a few hours.”
Tavin looked from the prince to her and nodded, running a hand over his face. “Yes, chief.”
Fie thought of traitors. And chiefs. And the oath. And Pa.
Then she wet her lips and whistled the marching order.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CROSSROADS
By the time they found a Crow shrine, Fie had gnawed through the better part of three mint plants. Like Maykala’s shrine, this one lurked in the safety of trees and teeth, shrouded by both fat-leaved shrubs and Sparrow magic.
At first, Tavin and Jasimir just gaped when Fie plucked a vine from the trunk of a massive red flaybark tree and began climbing. Not that she blamed them; their hair wouldn’t stand on end like hers did here, on the burial grounds of a Crow god. To most of Sabor, this would appear as one more stretch of forest.
“We’re dead men, Jas,” Tavin said. “She’s abandoning us after all.”
Fie briefly contemplated whether scalping a member of her band would make her a bad chief.
“If you’re just going to laze about, then aye, I’m abandoning you.” She hoisted herself up to a branch thicker around than she. “Shrine’s this way.”
There was a pause, then she caught, “We’re definitely dead men, Jas. She’s completely addled.”
Fie ignored him and kept climbing.
Once she broke through the wards of Sparrow misdirection and a touch of Peacock glamour, the shrine itself showed clear enough. Wooden rafts coasted on swells of smooth red boughs, staggered like a poppy-sniffer’s notion of Cheparok. Palm thatches tented over low walls and woven screens. A wood-carved figure twice Fie’s height perched above the platforms, lashed to the tree by thick vines that wound round its crossed legs and the four wings it had in place of arms. Four faces stared her down with eyes carved like four-pointed stars, each mouth twisted into a mask of fear, wrath, mirth, or sorrow.
“Cousins.” The voice struck from beneath a palm thatch like a viper, thin and swift. “What brings you to the shrine of Crossroads-Eyes?”
It was an innocent question by the ear of any other caste. Fie knew better.
“The dead gods’ Covenant led us here.” She’d learned the words at Pa’s knee. “And the dead gods’ mercy will call us onward.”
A woman emerged from the shadows of the highest thatch. A faded crowsilk tunic hung loose from her wiry frame, and a twist of rag looped to cover one eye and knotted in short gray curls. The other iron-hard eye fixed down on Fie as she pulled herself onto the lowest platform.
“You’re young for a chief,” she observed.
Fie got to her feet. “You’re old for a Crow.”
The shrine-keeper’s mouth cracked into a smile more tooth than humor. It skewed toothier when the boys climbed up behind Fie. “And who’re these, then?”
“My band.” Fie jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Mongrel and Pissabed.”
“You leave your packs below?”
“Haven’t got any. We’re here for a restock.”
The woman’s eye narrowed. “What happened?”
“Oleanders,” Fie said. It was enough of the truth to stand. And any Crow knew sore well how much awful possibility could be stuffed into just that one word.
Sure enough, the shrine-keeper waved her up. “I ken that, little chief. Let’s get you lot kitted out.”
Fie scrambled over the broad shallow arch of a branch, following a path chewed by scores of other nail-studded soles. Her breath caught as she scoured for footing. The tree’s meat flashed green in too many patches to be the recent work of one woman.