“Tatterhelm,” the Vulture cackled, “who’s enough on his own.” Fie gave the tooth a push, and Viimo coughed. “… and me. And the queen’s other three trackers. Six more skinwitches by special commission. A dozen grunts. And—” She cut off. A grimace stretched the scratches on her face farther. Her cheeks turned red, then purple.
The Crane witch-tooth squealed in Fie’s bones. Viimo meant to fight, to outlast. But the tooth burned on Fie’s wrath, and that well ran deeper than the reservoir of Cheparok.
She thought of Hangdog throwing them to the wolves and fed the tooth.
Viimo doubled over.
“Ghasts,” she choked out. “The queen raised ghasts for us.”
“What are ghasts?” Jasimir asked.
“And how many?” added Tavin.
Viimo didn’t fight those questions at all. Instead she grinned up at them, a little spit dribbling over her split lip. “You’ll see soon enough.”
To that, the Crane witch-tooth gave not a single hitch.
The lordlings looked to Fie. She shook her head. A queasy pinch gnawed at her gut, like she was back in Dumosa, staring at a gilded door. “She’s telling the truth.”
“Splendid,” Tavin sighed. “Anything else?”
Jasimir fidgeted. “Has there … Have you seen a cat?”
Viimo squinted at him.
“She was in the Crows’ wagon,” he mumbled. “Her name is Barf.”
“No, Highness,” Viimo said in the slow, strung-out way of one scenting a joke they weren’t in on, “I ain’t seen a cat.”
Maybe Barf had got lucky again. Fie wouldn’t roll shells on those odds, though. “We done?” At the lordlings’ nods, she let the Crane tooth fade.
“Last chance, chiefling.” Viimo stuck her chin out. “Swear on my pappy’s skin. You want your kin back? Covenant knows you’re toting enough teeth to take these boys to Tatterhelm. Easy as that. Don’t even have to turn traitor like your dead lad.”
“Enough,” Prince Jasimir snapped, arms folded. “What do we do with her?”
An awkward silence followed. Then Tavin drew a short sword. “I’ll handle it.”
Viimo’s eyes flashed. “All right, Hawkling, let’s get it over with.”
Fie thought of Wretch, draining away under Tatterhelm’s watch.
And then she thought of hostages.
“Wait,” she said.
“Now here’s a twist.” Viimo grinned up at her. “Fancy a trade, chiefling?”
“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