“… disease,” Lakima finished with a sigh. She handed Fie a vinegar-soaked rag to clean her hands after handling the vermin, and wiped her own hands with another before standing and helping Fie to her feet.
“Oleanders coming,” Fie called. Drudge’s band burst into motion, snatching up aught they could carry, and Fie immediately realized her mistake. “Wait—just—everyone get closer together—you don’t need to go to the trees—”
“Mind your own band, cousin,” Drudge snapped. “Up, you lot, fast as you can.”
Some of his Crows hung back a moment, looking at Fie and the Hawks, but they followed their chief and vanished into the trees. Fie’s band just did their best to gather a little closer to the fire, rounding up all the goods about the camp so a spiteful Oleander couldn’t trample aught. Madcap made a show of peeling an apple, casual as could be.
Vexed, Fie sat too. She’d told Drudge she’d keep them safe.
Two moons ago, you’d be in those trees with them, her Chief voice reminded her. She did her best to ignore it as the Hawks assumed their usual post between the camp and the road.
This time something seemed different about the Oleander Gentry as they rounded the corner. When Fie spied it, a peculiar twist wrenched through her gut. It wasn’t the number; nigh twenty riders was high, but naught she and Lakima couldn’t handle. It wasn’t the weapons; she’d faced down steel before.
It was their faces, plain and furious. Not a single one of them had bothered to don a mask. Gloves, aye, and crude smocks of rough undyed cloth, but no masks.
They’d dressed for bloody business, but not one among them believed they’d be punished for it.
Much as they found strength in a pack, the Oleanders still seemed to have unofficially declared a leader in the man at the front, who slowed to a halt in front of Lakima. Fie heard Khoda suck in a breath and saw why at once: the Oleander carried a Hawk spear.
“Stand down,” he ordered Lakima. “We have business with the bone thieves.”
“We decline.” Lakima planted her own spear in the ground before her, point-up in her own kind of threat: an iron fist wrapped in formality.
“They abandoned a beacon,” another Oleander shouted.
“That little bitch burned my arm!”
“They turned their backs when called,” the Hawk rider thundered. “Karostei is dying by the dozen. And she”—he pointed to Fie—“assaulted citizens we’re sworn to guard. We need to make an example.”
“Ah yes,” Khoda said dryly, “that will certainly convince Crows to answer your beacons in the future.”
The stranger Hawk did not look pleased. “As a sergeant in Her Majesty’s army, I order you to stand down.”
Fie’s Hawks traded looks at “Her Majesty’s.”
“Again,” Lakima said, icy calm, “we decline.”
The Oleander’s Hawk drew himself up, nostrils flaring. “On what grounds do you decline a direct order, officer?”
“We have orders to protect every citizen, including Crows,” Lakima answered stonily. “And those orders…” Her brief pause was the most dramatic flair Fie had ever seen the corporal display. “… outrank you.”
“I doubt it,” the rider sneered. “The only one who outranked the queen is dead.”
“The queen can’t give orders to the military until after her official coronation as the ruler of Sabor.” Lakima glanced up at the waxing moon. “Until then, our highest authority is Master-General Draga. Besides, the first line of the Hawk code is I will serve my nation and the throne above all. The nation comes first. Surely a man who’s risen to sergeant in the master-general’s army knows the code.”
Silence stretched tight as a sunburn over the road.
Madcap chose that moment to take a hearty bite out of their apple. The juicy crunch echoed across the road like a thunderclap, their messy chewing the monsoon in its wake. They stared direct at the Oleander’s Hawk the whole time.
He just pointed to Fie. “She needs to answer for wounding good people.”
“Those ‘good people’ were attacking unarmed citizens,” Lakima said.
“It doesn’t matter—”
“Not to your like, aye.” That old anger was climbing back up Fie’s spine. She got to her feet. “Pray, where were you when your louts were going after Crows?”
“You attacked those men unprovoked—”
“Unprovoked?” Fie squeezed between Khoda and Lakima to stand before them, not so far that the Oleander Hawk could snatch her up without risking their spears but close enough to look him dead in the eye. “I asked them to stop hounding the other Crows. Then one of them decided to get in my face, and wouldn’t