Crows echoed.
“Yes, chief,” added Lakima.
A curl of purple smoke rose and drifted away—another beacon from Karostei choked out. Fie frowned deeper. “Then let’s get to the road.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ASH HARVEST
There were a great many things Fie noticed when they emerged from the roughway and took in the sight of Karostei, yet there was only one conclusion to draw.
It would not be saved.
The main town had been carved from the stubble of thinner forests along the northwest edge of the Hassura Plains, and beyond the rooftops, Fie could see rolling fields of ripening maize, buckwheat, even green beads of gourds. The nearest fields’ crops, however, were much less traditional: their dirt was covered in scores of rows of tents, sleeping mats, and wagons full of furniture and goods, as if most of Karostei had just moved a quarter league east. Iron kettles smoked over cooking fires, and chickens pecked at the dirt in makeshift pens. Goats and cattle lowed from a pasture Fie couldn’t see but absolutely could, and did, smell. Children chased one another up and down the dusty lanes, shrieking, as adults watched from tense knots and muttered among themselves.
The town itself sat too still behind a timber wall, one that looked as if they’d been halfway through replacing its older gray wood with newer, still-pale planks. And that was where Fie saw the ugly omen of Karostei’s fate: a deep, sickly gray rot spread across the clean lumber in the same stark, veiny rings as the Sinner’s Brand.
That was when she knew Karostei could not be saved.
Another puff of black smoke went up from the town’s signal post, and Fie spied clusters of black cloaks gathered a dozen paces from the barred gates. Half a dozen Hawk guards stood in an uneasy line between the Crows and the only way in, as two cloaked figures argued with a man in Crane yellow.
Lakima cleared her throat. “Chief … how close can we get to those walls?”
“Treat it the same as a corpse,” Fie said. “Keep a few paces off. Looks like we’ll need you to clear the way, but you’ll be safest outside. I doubt there’s aught in there but dying sinners now.”
“Understood. Shall we take the lead?”
“Aye.” Fie let the Hawks form up ahead of her. Better to let Karostei’s arbiter negotiate with them first. Besides, she had a single Phoenix tooth left on her string now. She couldn’t afford to waste it on cowing an arbiter.
That proved to be the right choice. The Crows on the road ahead parted to let them pass, trading baffled looks when they saw Fie’s band in the Hawks’ wake. Lakima marched them right up to the arbiter and the two Crows he was arguing with. This close, Fie could see the strings of teeth about their necks that marked them for chiefs like her.
“Corporal Lakima Geli szo Jasko of the Trikovoi fortress,” Lakima barked. “Who’s the ranking officer here?”
“I am,” the arbiter said.
Fie couldn’t see the look Lakima gave him, but she had a wonderful view of how he seemed to almost wilt beneath it.
“That’s … doubtful,” the corporal said. She wasn’t wrong; though an arbiter was meant to serve as a town’s leader, it didn’t mean a Crane could give orders to Hawk soldiers.
“The sergeant died two days ago.” The voice came from the signal post above, where a fresh string of black smoke had begun coiling into the sky. “We’re all guard rank, so until a new officer arrives—”
“I’m in command,” finished the Crane arbiter. Their arrival had drawn the notice of some idling citizens, who were edging nearer, and that seemed to make the arbiter even more nervy. “Put that out at once. We don’t need their help.”
Fie ignored him, staring up at the guard by the beacon. “Tell me your sergeant didn’t die of the plague two days ago.”
“Oh, it’s much worse than that,” one of the other chiefs answered. Lakima stepped aside, and the woman spoke direct to Fie, anger and weariness in her lined face. “The first sinner died four days ago. This scummer”—she flicked her hand at the arbiter—“decided he could deal with the body like the dead king and just had a couple Sparrows burn it. They were dead of the plague by the next morning, then the sergeant’s house came down with it, and next thing you know most the town’s run to the fields with what they could carry.”
“I’m telling you, it’ll blow over,” the arbiter insisted. “We burned the quarantine