one knee on her back. Jasimir tossed him a length of hemp rope from the other man, lying bound and unconscious nearby. “Viimo. It’s been a while.”
“Choke on horseshit, you little bastard,” Viimo spat back, face scored with scratches.
Fie yanked Viimo’s head up by her blond curls. “How many Crows did you kill?”
Viimo frowned. “As in today? The last year? Got to be a mite more specific.”
“Fie left you both your eyes,” Tavin said, mild. “All things considered, I’m fairly sure she’s willing to revoke that decision if you don’t start talking.”
Viimo snorted at him. “You ain’t got the tripes for it, Hawkling. And even if you did, you ain’t got the time. How long you reckon before Tatterhelm comes crawling right up your—”
“Then we cut to the point.” Fie let go and pried a tooth from her string. A Crane witch answered her call, an ancient magistrate whose righteous fury resonated with Fie’s own wrath, ready to ring the truth in Viimo like a bell. “Sit her up.”
Tavin pulled Viimo to her knees. The skinwitch’s face soured when she spied the tooth. “Ugh. Cheater.”
“How many Crows survived your ambush yesterday?” Fie asked.
The Vulture fought at first, her eyes burning, lips twisted shut. But the Crane Birthright of honesty would not be denied, and neither would Fie, and so the truth flossed through Viimo’s clenched teeth: “Ten. Not counting your dead traitor boy, o’course.”
Fie’s heart sank. She’d lost one Crow. “There should be eleven. Who … who died?”
“Dead gods if I know.” The skinwitch shrugged. Fie near went for her eyes again. “But it’ll be nine soon. One’s well on her way to wolf-feed.”
“Who?” Fie’s voice came out higher than she wanted. The Crane tooth slipped. “Is she wounded?”
Viimo gave Fie a look of disbelief. “No, just pining for her homelands.” Fie yanked the tooth tighter, and Viimo grimaced. “Of course she’s wounded. Oldest woman in your kin, caught a few too many arrows from us on the bridge. She’ll take water, but she ain’t got much more’n a week left in her.”
Wretch. It had to be. Wretch, who’d helped Fie practice all her whistle signals, who’d schooled her in laceroot and counting days and moons, who’d been the last one to cut Fie’s hair before this terrible oath. And she was dying among Vultures.
“… brought her water?” Tavin asked at the edge of Fie’s ken.
The skinwitch looked away. “Aye. Dead hostage’s no good.”
The Crane tooth had slipped from Fie, but she rallied it again.
“Why take my kin hostage?” Fie demanded.
Viimo cracked a bloody, split-lipped grin. “You’re the girl with all the teeth. And we already talked over one Crow chiefling. Maybe we can deal with you, too.”
Tavin reached for her elbow, then caught himself. “Fie—”
She ignored him. “What did you promise Hangdog?”
Viimo shook her head. “You don’t want it, chiefling. Help me bring these boys in and—”
The skinwitch had wormed out of the Crane witch-tooth’s hold. Fie bore down with every scrap of rage in her bones. “What did you promise him?”
“He didn’t want to be a Crow no more.” The words burst from Viimo in a wheeze. “One of our scouts caught him a few nights back. Promised him he’d be spared, that he’d never have to burn another body again, never deal with Oleanders no more. All he had to do was give up the prince, and we’d forget he was a Crow.”
The Crane witch-tooth slipped from Fie’s hold in the stunned quiet. For a moment all she heard was the rush of the sea, the whine of the gulls kiting about overhead.
Viimo spat a bloody wad in the sand. “Guess he ain’t a Crow no more now he’s dead.”
Fie sucked in a breath. She reached for Pa’s sword.
“Wait—” Tavin threw a hand out.
She flinched back.
It was habit, really, old as her bones. A Hawk was a Hawk, and she jumped at any sudden moves. Even one who said he was sorry.
Even one who stared at her now, horrified, as he kenned true what that meant for the first time.
He swallowed. “Please … just … keep using the tooth. If you can. We need to know more.”
All Fie could manage was a stiff nod. The tooth droned for her once more.
“Where do you think we’re going?” Jasimir asked.
Viimo’s look was pure venom, but the Crane tooth reeled the words from her regardless. “To the master-general. To Dragovoi.”
Tavin and Jasimir traded looks. Dragovoi was the ancestral seat of the master-general, days north of Trikovoi. An opportunity.