The Merciful Crow

by Margaret Owen

  Pigeon witches, though, could play fortune like a flute. They wrought havoc or blessings as they willed, inviting a flush harvest as easy as a citywide scourge of rats. Lucky for Sabor, witches of the Common Castes were among the rarest, and their wayward teeth even rarer.

  And at dawn, Pa hoisted the only Pigeon witch-tooth he had into the clammy air, knotted his fist around it, and closed his eyes.

  Fie saw no change, but after a moment Pa lowered his arm. “Done.”

  Hangdog just shook his head and began walking down the road. He’d called it a waste; he’d been the only one. The rest of the band knew that with half their supplies burned up in the ruined wagon, they were sore overdue for good fortune.

  “What comes now?” Tavin asked, standing behind Jasimir.

  The prince knelt in the packed dirt of the flatway, face turned to the east and the rising sun, lips moving in a silent prayer. Barf sat beside him, tail flicking in the dust. Fie had heard the Phoenix caste kept rituals to honor the dawn. At the moment, she would have rather honored some breakfast.

  “No telling,” Pa answered, rubbing a hand over his beard. “But we’ll know when it finds us.”

  His eyes locked on the empty road behind them, where naught lurked but dirt washed in dawn-gray shadow. Then he slung a weighty sack from his back and fished inside, emerging with two teeth.

  “Fie.” His hand twitched toward her.

  She took the teeth. Twin Pigeon sparks burned inside—not witch sparks but the plain kind.

  “It’s time you learned to use two at once. That was too close last night.” That should have been his Pa voice. Instead it was his Chief voice, quiet, immovable—unsettling. It rose as he turned to the rest of the band. “Swain. How far left to go?”

  The lanky Crow tweaked a rolled-up map jutting from his pack. “We’re near the coast. One day until we walk the Fan region proper. From there, two days to the Cheparok fortress.”

  “I sent a message-hawk to our contact in Cheparok before we were quarantined.” Tavin helped Prince Jasimir to his feet. “He’s a Markahn stationed in the markets. His commanding officer will alert the governor to light the fortress’s plague beacon once I give them the signal. That gives us an excuse to walk right up to Governor Kuvimir’s front gate.”

  Pa nodded and whistled the marching call, casting one final look behind him. “Then let’s hope our good luck holds out awhile.”

  * * *

  Good luck came swift, wearing the face of ill fortune: a black finger of smoke beckoning over the treetops an hour later. Hangdog sulked the entire short walk to answer the beacon, and Fie couldn’t help chewing over her own doubts.

  When they returned to the flatway with a flush viatik of two river oxen, a new wagon, and all else they fancied from the dead sinner’s abundant property, Fie’s doubt was naught but dust in their trail. She hadn’t even had to cut the sinner’s throat.

  “How many villages are like that?”

  Fie looked up from the twin teeth in her salt-lined palm. She was allowed to ride in the wagon with the prince as long as she practiced her toothcraft, but thus far the two Pigeon canines only squabbled in her grasp like fussy toddlers.

  “Like what?” she asked.

  The prince leaned on the wagon’s railing, watching the vine-laced cypress reel past as he rubbed Barf’s ears. The tabby hadn’t strayed from his side all morning, save to beg attention from Tavin. “Friendly. Generous. Was that just the tooth at work?”

  “No.” She leaned back against a sack of rice, then hissed as a splinter from the wagon’s rough planks slipped into her thumb. “The Covenant marked that sinner long before we used the tooth. Likely the village wanted him gone. That skinflint sucked up all their wealth and squatted on it. Luck didn’t do any of that. Luck just made them wait to light a beacon until we were the nearest band of Crows.”

  “I see.” Jasimir pursed his lips, tugging on the hood that hid his topknot. A walking song from Swain seeped in over the rumble of the wagon.

  Fie picked out the splinter and sucked on her thumb, grimacing at the whisper of salt beneath her nail. “What’s Your Highness really after?”

  “I … I suppose I’m wondering why the Crows are still here if it’s all that bad.” Jasimir unfurled the words slow and careful. “You have no home. I don’t know why you would stay in a place that doesn’t want you.”

  Fie’s fist closed around the teeth a little too tight, thoughts skittering around her head like water off hot iron.

  It was the same as Jasimir calling her bone thief, as leaving his dagger hilt unwrapped. He didn’t know better. He didn’t mean hurt by it. To a prince, this was all a week’s mummery before he paraded, glorified, back to Dumosa.

  But that did naught to lessen the damage.

  Fie’s hand shook as she pointed to the road. “That is my home, cousin.” She pointed, again, this time to the rolling hills due north. “That is my home.” The thin blue rag-edge of sea to the southern horizon. “That is my home.” And last, she pointed to the Crows scattered around the wagon as Swain’s walking song wound down. “This is my home.”

  Wooden wheels ground against the sand-grit road, scraping at the silence that stretched betwixt Fie and the prince. Finally she trusted her voice enough to continue.

  “We stay in Sabor because it’s our home. Aye, the villages don’t want us, but the sinners always do. Every plague-fearing soul sleeps easier knowing we’ll come when they call. So you ask why we stay? Because the plague stays. Because someone out there needs mercy. And because this is our damned home.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend—” the prince began.

  “You’ve been good as dead for two days and no one cares,” Fie interrupted. “Why don’t you leave? Ask a village with a live plague beacon if they want Crows or kings more, and you’ll know which of us the country can do without.”

  The wagon rocked as Tavin swung himself up to peer at them over a railing. “Do we need a healer in here?”

  “What?” Fie asked, startled but not surprised. The Hawk seemed to have a sense for when the prince’s pride risked a puncture. Barf chirped at Tavin until he scratched her chin.

  “Do we need a healer?” he repeated, giving an exaggerated wave of his witch-sign. “Because it sounds like someone’s getting skewered.”

  Jasimir’s cheeks darkened. “We were … having a discussion.”

  “Of course.” Tavin rested his own chin on a forearm. “You know, you two are almost making the exact same face right now.”

  Fie hadn’t known what to expect when his Peacock glamour ebbed away, but pretty-boy blood ran plain strong in the Markahns. By daylight, he still looked the prince’s kinsman but more the Hawk, one the world had gnawed at like a mutt gnawed a bone. He tilted his head at Fie. “I’d pay good Saborian coin to watch you have that discussion back at the palace. You’d tear half the court to shreds.”

  Hangdog sent a foul look their way.

  “Only half?” Wretch asked from the road.

  For once, Fie caught no whiff of schemes in Tavin’s grin. “I’m hoping the other half would figure out to run for their lives. If they don’t, that’s entirely their fault.”

  Fie couldn’t stopper up a laugh. This time, Hangdog wasn’t the only one to shoot her a look.

  She ducked her head, ears burning.

  Pa cleared his throat from the driver’s bench. “How’s that practice, Fie?”

  “Coming along,” she snapped, and unfurled her fist. The teeth had bit two hollows into her palm. Beyond the wagon, Wretch set on a new walking song, a marching hymn to the dead god Crossroads-Eyes.

  “Lord Hawk.” Pa patted the bench. “A word.”

  Tavin clambered over to Pa. Jasimir hunched into a sulk disguised as a nap, but Fie paid it no heed, glowering at her Pigeon teeth. Wasn’t her fault if nobody else had cut him a slice of hard truth before.

  “How may I be of service?” Tavin asked, settling beside Pa.

  When Pa spoke, Fie had to
strain to hear over the cart’s rattle. “Tell me about the queen’s Vultures.”

  Fie caught her breath.

  The bench creaked as Tavin shifted. “Are they on our trail?”

  “Something is.” Pa flicked the reins. “They won’t catch up unless they’re riding devils themselves, but…”

  When, not if. No wonder Pa had stared at the road so.

  Fie stole a glance at Prince Jasimir. He’d traded the fake nap for a true one, eyes shut against the noon sun, head lolling against the railing.

  “Rhusana keeps five skinwitches in her pay,” Tavin muttered low. “Four are just trackers. Damned good trackers, but you, me, or Fie could easily drop them in a fight.”

  “And the fifth?”

  Tavin paused. “Greggur Tatterhelm,” he said at last. “The queen’s favorite. Biggest northman I’ve ever seen. You’d swear his father had a deviant shine for mammoths. He cuts a notch in his helmet for every mark he brings in, one if they’re alive, two if they’re dead.”

  “Tatter-helm,” Pa drawled. “Quaint.”

  “He’s not the best skinwitch, nor the fastest. But he’s all twelve hells to cross.”

  “Hm.” The bench creaked again under Pa’s weight. “And this lord in Cheparok, he’s sound and true, aye?”

  “What?”

  “You boys trust him to hold to your plan?”

  “Of course,” Tavin said a little too loud. Pa let the unanswered silence speak for itself. Tavin lowered his voice. “The governors of the Fan have been the crown’s strongest allies for centuries. Besides, Cheparok sits on the biggest trading bay in the south. No country will do business with a nation on the brink of civil war. Kuvimir’s been very clear who he stands with.”

  “I see.”

  The last time Fie had heard Pa use that tone was just yesterday, when the Crane arbiter had told them their viatik was only firewood.

  “It’s all been arranged,” Tavin said. A wiry strain of conviction twined about his words, the kind that said you’d draw blood trying to pull them loose. “He’ll take Jas in once we get to Cheparok, and then Tatterhelm will have to go through the governor.” He stood. “Let me know if the Vultures get closer.”

  “Aye.” Pa waited until Tavin had jumped clear of the cart, then half twisted round. “You catch all that, girl?”

  “Aye, Pa,” Fie answered, quiet, eyes on the road behind them. The wagon rolled on.

  “Then keep practicing.”

  “Aye, Pa.”

  * * *

  “There. Harmony.”

  Fie tried to brand the moment into her memory: the rosy campfire against the dark, the cool, sandy earth pressing against her crossed legs, and most of all, the two teeth humming in her hand.

  “Harmony’s the key,” Pa said, nodding his approval. “They don’t wake up the same, they don’t burn the same, but they’ll burn together if you strike a balance betwixt them.”

  Using one Pigeon tooth always felt like stepping on a loose paving stone: an odd, sudden tilt, and then it was gone. Calling on two was wholly different. Now fortune flowed like a river around her, eddies coiling about her fist. Whorls also bloomed round Pa, likely from the lingering witch-tooth’s pull.

  Fie gave one coil an experimental tug with her mind. It lit up … then sputtered out as the teeth’s harmony frayed. Both sparks flared and died as she swore.

  Pa chuckled. “First step’s the hardest. Just a matter of practice from here.”

  “I’ve been practicing all day,” she grumbled.

  “Do you want to take a break?”

  Fie looked over her shoulder. Tavin stood on the other side of the fire, stretching an arm. “If you want, I’ll teach you to play Twelve Shells.” He waggled his fingers at Jasimir and Hangdog. “Oh, look at that—twice in one day. Now you two are making the same face.”

  “Because you always do this,” the prince grumbled, just loud enough for Tavin and her to catch.

  Hangdog was less subtle. He ran a thumb down the scratch across his cheek, thunder in his brow. “Keep your own business.”

  “You keep yours,” Pa rumbled. “Go on, Fie. You’ve earned a rest.”

  Fie reckoned anything that riled the prince was worth doing. She rocked to her feet just as Hangdog’s snarl echoed across the clearing. “Just because he can’t rut his own women out here doesn’t mean he’s welcome to ours.”

  She froze, an angry flush clawing up her neck, as the camp went quiet. Every Crow eye stuck on her.

  Pa’s voice cracked across the clearing like a whip. “You’ll keep a civil tongue, boy, or you won’t use it at all.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause you trouble,” Tavin whispered close behind her. She started. Damn if the dead Hawk Queen hadn’t trained the boys well. “We … we can forget the game.”

  That settled it. Fie’d be cinders in a pyre before she let Hangdog say who she could sit at shells with.

  “You need a whole set of gambling shells, aye?” she asked, a little too loud. “Madcap? Can we use yours?”

  Madcap tossed their small leather bag over Swain’s head, then followed it with a less-than-discreet wink. Fie ground her teeth and stalked to a clear patch of sandy dirt big enough for both her and Tavin.

  He sat a moment after she did, glancing sidelong at Hangdog, then dragged a line in the dirt between them. “It’s a fairly simple game. We both start with six shells.” Fie handed half the bag over. He dropped his shells into two rows of three, and she followed suit.

  “There are twelve rounds,” Tavin continued. “Each round, you can either take a shell from my side…” He reached for a shell on her side of the line. She seized his wrist out of habit. He snorted a laugh. “Or try to stop me from trying to take one from yours, just like that. Once you touch a shell, it’s yours. After twelve rounds, whoever has the most shells wins.”

  She let go of him and blamed the flush up her neck on the campfire. The one a solid dozen paces off. “That’s all?”

  “For the basic game. At court we play a couple different variations”—his voice hitched for the briefest moment—“but those are more … complicated. Any questions?” She shook her head. “Then on the count of three. One—two—three.”

  He tried for the same shell as before. She caught his hand before it came close.

  “Well done,” he said, and drew a tick mark to the side. “Round two.”

  This time she caught him again, reaching for an outside shell.

  “Beginner’s luck,” he huffed, the corner of his mouth tilting up even as he sat back.

  “You’re easy to read,” Fie returned. That was a half-truth. She’d sorted a handful of truths about the prince’s Hawk by now, though most ran as deep as the line in the sand between them. Yet one was clear enough: she’d met holy pilgrims who put less effort into getting to their dead god’s tombs than Tavin did trying to make it onto her good side.

  Time to sort out an uglier truth, then.

  “Round—”

  “It wasn’t right,” Fie interrupted. “What Hangdog said about you.”

  About us, that ugly voice whispered. Fie kept that to herself.

  Tavin blinked at her, wordless. She’d managed to throw him off-balance once more. The question was if that meant Hangdog had the truth of it.

  “Thank you,” Tavin said quietly. “If you’re concerned I’m going to hurt him—”

  “He shouldn’t have said it,” she said, cutting him off again. It’d take a harder push to crack the Hawk. “We have two more days to Cheparok. He’s going to keep saying things he shouldn’t.”

  “And I’m going to keep ignoring them.” Tavin glanced across the fire to the prince, then back to her. “My … the old queen, Jasindra, had a favorite Hawk proverb: ‘When you act in anger, you have already lost your battle.’”

  Fie reckoned that hadn’t worked out too well for the dead queen. She also reckoned she’d best keep that to herself as well. Instead, she asked, “Did you see her much?”

  “E
very day.” Tavin’s voice roughened at the very edges. “She raised me like her own, though … King Surimir made sure Jas and I remembered who was the prince. But you could say the queen and my mother were close.”

  He’d not mentioned his mother before. Not with the prince in earshot. “Is she with the palace Hawks?”

  A shadow slipped across his face. “No. She’s a mammoth rider in the Marovar.”

  Fie whistled under her breath. Mammoth lancers had to be hammered of stern stuff. Only the sternest guarded the ancestral Hawk stronghold of fortresses scattered about the northeastern Marovar mountains. “Sure it’s a proper holiday, riding for the master-general.”

  Tavin cracked another honest smile. “You want to know a secret?”

  “Aye.”

  “My mother once told me Master-General Draga just wants to be left alone with her spears, her mammoths, and her husbands and wives. But she’ll bring all twelve hells down on anyone who takes her away from that.” Tavin tossed a shell from hand to hand. “In retrospect, maybe that contributes to the ‘don’t get angry’ philosophy.”

  Fie wrinkled her nose. “Reckon ‘don’t get angry’ is a lot easier to say from the back of a mammoth, too.”

  “The mammoth probably helps,” Tavin admitted. “Round three.”

  Fie came away with a shell this time, snatching it before he could stop her.

  “You know what else helps?” Tavin asked, grimacing as she added the shell to her side. “A bag of Phoenix teeth. Round four.”

  “Teeth burn out. Phoenix witches don’t.”

  “One. Two. Three.”

  They both seized shells. Tavin stayed silent as he placed his stolen shell in the gap she’d made in his rows. Something was amiss; he always had a parry to every strike.

  “There are Phoenix witches, aren’t there?” Fie asked.

  His mouth twisted. “Right now? Only King Surimir. If Rhusana kills him before another witch appears…”