hut, same as they did with the king. Wouldn’t we have heard if the palace were rotting from the inside out?”
“Imagine that, it’s almost as if the king didn’t actually die of the plague at all and the queen is just exploiting an opportunity to further vilify the Crows and consolidate power,” Khoda muttered under his breath.
The arbiter blinked at him. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Khoda said. “Though perhaps I’m wrong, but … a corporal qualifies as a ranking officer, correct?”
“Correct,” Corporal Lakima said, and yet again, the arbiter shrank. Lakima’s voice rose. “Guards, stand down and let the Crows in.”
The six Hawks on the road didn’t need further prompting. Fie couldn’t help noting that they took the opportunity to distance themselves from both the arbiter and the decaying wall.
“You can’t—these bone thieves just want money! It’ll pass!” The arbiter threw himself in front of Lakima. “All they’ll do is burn the town to the ground!”
The other chief, a man near Wretch’s age, spat into the road with disgust. “Don’t blame us because you called too late,” he said. “You know damn well how it runs with the plague. If we don’t stop it here, it’ll take your fields next, and your livestock, and your people, and then the only mercy you’ll get is death before the famine.”
“We won’t pay for you to destroy our homes,” the arbiter insisted. “Go cheat someone else.”
“Viatik fits the means,” the first chief said. She pointed to the ragtag camp. “Your means aren’t much right now. Nor are our expectations.”
“Let them in!” a woman shouted from the gathering crowd. “If the plague takes the fields, we’ll all starve!”
“My father’s suffering in there right now! Give him mercy!”
“I SAID IT WILL PASS!” roared the arbiter, nigh purple in the face.
Something about that caught Fie’s notice. She took a step closer to the arbiter, eyes narrowed. “How many did you leave in town?”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“Five score,” the first chief said.
The other chief added, “Nigh a quarter of the town.”
“It’s on his head!” someone shouted from the crowd. “All hundred on his head!”
“He told us we were safe!”
“He said he’d take care of it!”
“And you believed him?” Khoda asked, incredulous. No one in the crowd had an answer for that. Or at least not one they’d shout to a Hawk standing with Crows.
“It’ll pass,” the Crane arbiter repeated, sweat glistening on his brow.
Now it was clear enough for all on the road to see: a dark curl of the Sinner’s Brand had begun blooming just below his eye.
“Oh, cousin.” Fie tapped her cheek in the same spot. This was the Peacock girl all over again. “Not for you.”
He lifted a hand to his face, only to find the rash stippling his fingers. Some believed the Covenant sent the plague to hustle sinners into the next life. Fie suspected that, if they were right, the Covenant certainly wasn’t dragging its feet with a man who’d doomed nigh a hundred of his townsfolk with his own spite. Not with how swift the Sinner’s Brand was now etching purple-gray vines up his wrists.
“This is a mistake, it can’t—”
“You’ve not long,” the first chief said, not unkindly. “We need to get you inside the walls.”
“But—why?”
The second chief motioned for his Crows. He had considerably less patience with the arbiter. “Because you’ll spread it if you die out here. Shrew, Gall, make sure he gets to the gates.” Two of his Crows steered the arbiter down the road as their chief turned to Fie and tapped his knuckles to his teeth. “I’m Ruffian. Don’t know how you wound up with Hawks for friends, but you have my thanks for them.”
“Aye, and mine, too. I’m Jade.” The first chief nodded to Fie. “New band, or new chief?”
“Took over for my pa,” Fie answered. “I’m Fie. Either of you cross roads with Cur?”
Ruffian bowed his head. “He was a good one. Sorry to hear he’s gone.”
“No, just lost a finger and couldn’t deal mercy. Little Witness sent him to Gen-Mara’s shrine.”
“That’s a blessing, then. We’ll be better for having the groves under a chief’s watch.” Jade tipped her brow at the Hawks. “Looks like he taught you well, if you’ve already made high friends. Is this your first ash harvest?”
Fie did her best not to fidget. An ash harvest was the Crow name for a hard day like this, dealing with a town beyond saving. “Aye. Saw one from a distance when I was a whelp, but that’s it.”