The dead crow fell away from Gurdig’s face and dropped to the ground, feathers almost extinguished, all movement ended. Gurdig’s eyes bulged in disbelief as he looked from the crow to the shining length of Naidel jutting just beneath his breastbone. He opened his mouth to say something but only blood issued from his lips, then he slowly sank to his knees before toppling face first to the ground like a falling tree.

Unver stood over him, expressionless, staring at nothing. The crows overhead began to settle back into the trees around the camp, their harsh cries changing to something more muted, the branches sagging as they gathered once more.

None of the crowd touched Unver. Nobody dared to come near to either the March-thane or his killer. Instead they stood, awestruck and terrified. Someone shouted “murderer!” but another cried, “The crows knew!”

Like Edizel Shan, Hyara thought, stunned and helpless. The birds swarmed at Edizel’s birth and flew through the fire. She stared at her husband’s body, at Gurdig’s sightless eyes staring up into the night, but she felt nothing. He had been her world, and a cruel world it had been. Now he was dead. She felt nothing at all. She could not understand how everything in her life had changed so much in the space between twilight and dark.

She was still standing when Vorzheva led her son back to the steps of the thane’s wagon. Still as speechless as an infant, he let her seat him there. Some of those who had been watching now came forward to gather silently around the body of the March-thane. Others stared at Unver where he sat on the steps, bleeding and silent, the slender, red-smeared sword still gripped in his hand.

“My father is dead,” said Vorzheva. She almost sang it, as though the words were a cradle song. “Fikolmij is dead. And Gurdig is dead.” Now she raised her voice, so everyone could hear. “The March-thane Gurdig is dead, in fair combat. The gods spoke—you all saw. My son is March-thane now.” She put her hand on his head, but he seemed not to feel or even notice. “And you will make them all pay, now that you have returned to me. You will show them blood and fire, my son—all the clans, and the stone-dwellers too. You will show them blood and fire!”

Unver remained silent. All around the camp wide-eyed clansfolk whispered to one another, looking from the thane’s corpse to the black birds still watching from the trees.

At last, as if waking from one dream and passing into another, Hyara went to help her sister wash Unver’s wounds and bandage them with clean white linen.

53 Their Masters’ Folly

It was a terrifying journey down the wide Avenue of the Martyred Drukhi. The weight of her few belongings and the food she was carrying meant she had to go slowly—not that Tzoja would have dared to walk much faster even if she could. No slave ever wanted to attract attention so they all went at much the same pace, just fast enough not to be accused of slacking, but not so swift as to attract the attention of suspicious guards.

The thoroughfare was dazzlingly lit by Nakkiga’s standards, with a torch column at every crossing, but the light for which Tzoja was usually so grateful now made her feel conspicuous and vulnerable. She pulled the hood of her cloak down as far as she dared as a trio of fully armored Sacrifices walked past. But the soldiers were discussing something and did not even look at her. When they were gone, she stepped up out of the gutter and continued on. The streets were quiet, which was not unusual—unless there was a public celebration, Nakkiga was never noisy—but also strangely empty. Something was happening, Tzoja could tell.

Nothing to me, she reminded herself. It’s nothing to me. Head down, walk straight, don’t bump into any Hikeda’ya and don’t look up unless someone addresses me. It was a good thing that all slaves in Nakkiga were frightened of being noticed, because that was at least one way in which Tzoja did not have to pretend.

She turned off the broad avenue into the slightly less daunting confines of the Street of Sacred Discipline, a shadowy, narrow passage with old stone houses looming close on both sides. Some of the buildings were training dormitories for the Order of Song, which made her anxious—even the youngest Singers were strange and could be full of disturbing surprises—but at this hour of the clock they should be at their academies, and it was by far the fastest way to the city’s outer roads.

So far to go! Tzoja had seldom left the residence in Clan Enduya’s compound during the last years, and other than an occasional trip to the Animal Market, she only went out in Viyeki’s company, borne by litter on the back of carry-men. All this walking had exhausted her already, but she could not stop to rest. Her only hope was to remain unnoticed until she reached the level of the deep lake.

The overhanging houses here oppressed her. Uniformly dark, finished in the slate that had been fashionable centuries earlier, they seemed like a row of heads leaning in to watch her pass. Low, narrow windows facing the street gave them the slit-eyed stare of something that had just been awakened and was not happy about it. It felt as if every window held a watcher she could not see, that each step she took was being silently observed and judged, and that at any moment someone would raise an alarm about the intruder in their silent neighborhood.

She passed through a grave cache at the end of the road, a kind of fenced park built around a pile of stone slabs. Beneath it lay the crypt where the Hikeda’ya interred the ashes of those who sentiment forbade dumping in the Field of the Nameless, but who had not been important enough to earn a place in a family tomb or in the death-cote of one of the great Order-houses. The grave cache was largely overgrown with grass and black creeper, but here and there the bright bloom of a blood lily burned like a candleflame. A few offerings had been left before the crypt door, loose flowers and pairs of house slippers, which made her think that at least some of those entombed here must have been students from the Order of Song. Even the idea of dead Singers made her uneasy. She decided a slave who hurried through such a place would not attract undue notice, so she walked as quickly as she could.

On the far side of the grave cache she left the park and was able to move into the network of smaller streets surrounding the center of Nakkiga. Her heart finally slowed a little. There was much less chance that one of the lower caste folk living here would stop or question a slave, because any slave might be on an errand for someone powerful; just as slaves did not want to be noticed by anyone, lower caste Hikeda’ya, both Bound and Pledged, did not want to draw the attention of the Recognized, their high caste superiors. Utuk’ku’s people were reluctant to kill any of their own pure-blooded folk because they were now so few, but it was no gift for even a full-blood criminal to be allowed to live: the punishment for angering a noble was often far worse than mere death. But because of all these things, the closer Tzoja got to Nakkiga’s center, the less likely it was anyone would stop her.

Terror is a weapon with a sharp edge on both sides, she thought. That is its greatest weakness.

A rare memory of her father pushed up into her thoughts, of him telling her, “He who rules by fear can expect at best only obedience, and even that only as long as fear remains.” She had been too young to understand him at the time and had not thought of it for years, but suddenly it was as though he stood over her again. How tall he had seemed!