Fie returned to the front of their gruesome procession. The crowd drew back as Tavin and Jasimir hauled Surimir onward toward the gates proper. Fie saw Peacocks, Owls, Sparrows, Pigeons, Cranes, a few Swans, all crushed together. She almost let out a bitter laugh. Rhusana had united them after all.
“Is that the king?” someone called more forcefully.
In answer, Tavin let golden fire unfurl from his fingers, then lifted Surimir’s limp hand into the air by the wrist. The flames rolled around them both, harmless.
A hush fell over the crowd.
Finally Fie stood before the gates. They were solid lacquered oak, and she saw no bar across the double doors, which meant they’d been sealed from the outside.
“Open the gates,” she called to the Hawks standing behind the stone parapets, a score or so in a line, bristling with spears.
They didn’t answer.
“Open the gates!” Jasimir’s voice soared over her shoulder. In the edges of her sight, she saw him lift a burning hand. “As crown prince, I command you to open them!”
The Hawks only shifted their spears, the sunset flickering along steel.
“There are Crows outside,” someone shouted.
A nearby Sparrow nodded. “We heard you shut them out! Let us go!”
“Let the Crows in, you damned fools!” Fie shouted.
“Fie?” A voice rose from beyond the gates. “Fie, is that you?”
The Hawks did not move.
Fie knew what this was. She’d seen it in more villages than she could number, she’d seen it in the faces of Peacocks and Pigeons alike, she’d seen it in everyone who thought they could yank the Crows about as they pleased because the Crows always, always had to let them. Even on the edge of the plague, they feared the queen more than the Crows beyond the gates.
They should have feared the one within.
Fie lifted her chin, drew the chief’s sword, stared them down. “You have a count of one hundred,” she said, loud enough to carry out across the courtyard. “Then I cut your sinner king’s throat, and you’dbest hope you’ve let in the Crows and gotten far enough from here that the plague won’t catch you, because it all goes guts-up from there.”
Then she planted her feet on the tiles of the courtyard and let out a piercing, unmistakable scream.
A silent heartbeat passed.
Then the answer roared back like a hurricane, shrieking from beyond the palace walls, carving from hundreds, maybe a thousand throats.
Fie tried not to let her shock show. When she’d asked Pa to send help, she’d expected her band, maybe Ruffian and Jade’s.
Khoda had said a conqueror without an army was just a thief. But she had no use for armies, and that Pa had known.
Instead, the Messenger had sent her a flood.
She trilled an order:Pass it on.Outside, another chief picked up the commands, wailing sharp as steel. Every stamp shook the ground. Every sweep rolled like thunder.
“One,” Fie said.
Finally, one of the Hawks spoke, only to say, “We—we have orders from the queen—”
Tavin and Jasimir let the king fall to the ground.
“Two,” Fie said.
One of the Hawks broke, then another. They lunged for something behind them, only for their fellow soldiers to swing spears their way. A scuffle broke out as the rumble and howl of the Money Dance swelled to bursting.
“Three,” Fie said. Then she turned to the lordlings and added: “If you’ve aught to say to the king, say it now.”
