front of the chicken house, his head cocked at an odd angle as if looking off into space, which was what he did when he paid fierce attention to every sound and smell. His wild hair stood up. In his arm he held a basket of onions and eggs.
“Legs!” she said. “Get in here.”
“I can hear men,” he said.
“Move!” she said.
Holding the eggs to the bottom of the basket, Legs jogged for the back door. He needed no stick to navigate the house and yard. If he knew a place, he could walk about as if he were sighted. It was only when he was in a new place that he might stumble, or when things were lying out of place. And so they all had learned to be very tidy.
Sugar ran to the barn. Fancy nickered. Sot had already moved out to the watering trough. Sugar grabbed the harness, slipped it over Fancy’s head, and fitted the bridle in her mouth. Then she led the horse out and tied her to the post by the back door.
The Fir-Noy stood with their hideous shields only a few paces beyond the chicken house. They’d formed up into a loose circle that ringed both the house and smithy. “Mark the horse,” one of the soldiers said.
For a moment Sugar thought they were going to shoot Fancy right there. Perhaps shoot Sugar herself. She rushed into the house and shut the door behind her. She went to her mother who stood in the doorway to the front yard.
“Fancy’s not going to be enough,” she said.
Mother gaze was fixed on Da out in the yard, but she reached out and smoothed Sugar’s hair. “You did just fine. Now, if anything happens, you and Legs need to be ready to ride. You’ll have the most cover in the woods. So it’s straight through Galson’s fields, low on Fancy’s neck. And if someone stands in your way, you ride them down.”
Fear seized Sugar’s heart. Had it really come to this? “What about you and Da?”
“You ride them down,” said Mother. “You flee to Horse.”
Mother had always told her that if the Mokaddians ever attacked, she was to flee into the Shoka lands and find the farmer many called Horse. His given name was Hogan. And that’s how she addressed him out of respect. Sugar didn’t know him well, but she had been to his farm a few times. Still, how would she ride through that ring of men? They’d fill her or Fancy full of arrows before she’d galloped a rod.
“Do you hear me?” asked Mother.
“Yes,” Sugar said.
She looked past Da at the soldiers out front. They’d stopped a number of paces from Da. Those with bows had strung them, and that was something fearful. Because keeping a bow strung all the time only ruined the weapon. You never strung your bow unless you were going to use it.
Midnight and Sky barked at the men until Da whistled sharply and called them back to his side.
Two men on horseback faced Da. She recognized the leader and the orange and blue patterns painted onto his armor. It was the territory lord, a man everyone called the Crab for his ruddy complexion. Next to him sat the district lord. Behind them stood Barg, the butcher and village harvest master, holding his spear.
Da bowed to the Crab. “My Lord,” he joked, “have you at last come to wrestle your humble servant?”
But the Crab did not smile. “Sparrow, smith of Plum,” he said. “You have been accused of dark magic. We are here to take you and yours to prove that you are whole and without spot.”
Dark magic? Sugar did not believe she’d heard him correctly.
“What?” said Da.
“If you’re clean,” said the Crab, “you need not fear the ordeal.”
An ordeal was designed to flush out Sleth. Supposedly, when such a creature was on the point of death or overwhelming pain, through drowning or torture, it would multiply its strength with its dark magic to save itself and thus reveal its true nature.
But how anyone could think her family was among such was impossible to fathom.
The Crab reached into a pouch tied to the front of his saddle and pulled out a thin collar, almost a necklace.
“I have here a king’s collar. I want you to put it on.” He tossed it. The collar shimmered in the early morning light; it landed in the dust two-thirds of the way between the Crab and Da. “When it’s about your neck, you will