As the Crow Falls | ✔

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The last of the prisoners began sobbing when the cuff finally fell from his ankle. Niccola caught the eye of another, who stepped in to comfort his companion. However long they had known each other, or however many others they'd seen killed or taken away, Niccola neither knew nor asked. This wasn't the time to grieve. The body of the woman Dinah had killed still lay crumpled between the trees. Niccola didn't look at it as she ushered the final prisoners into the clearing, where the rest stood huddled together like birds in a nest. Two held torches cobbled together from the forest and lit from Niccola's own. A third torch was in progress.

Niccola addressed the group as a whole. "Is any one of you a wayfinder?"

They shook their heads in silence.

She switched to the language of the crows. "I need a guide to the edge of the forest. Which of you is returning there?"

Two birds hopped forward.

"Lead these people to the shiny ones outside," said Niccola. "The people will feed you."

Both crows cawed their affirmatives.

Niccola turned back to the people. "These two will take you back to the lowlands. Make sure you reward them when you get there."

The once-prisoners watched her fearfully. Warily. Niccola had long since blown her cover as a barrower, and had little patience for their continued hesitancy now that she'd proven she was on their side. When she pointed them after the waiting crows, none of them followed.

"You can take the guide, or you can stay here," said Niccola shortly. She snatched up the torch she'd thrust into the ground while she freed the prisoners. "I'm going after my sister before that woman slits her throat."

"Wait," said one of the prisoners. He was currently the calmest of their number, and met Niccola with a level eye when she turned to him. "There are no barrowers who speak to crows in Calis. Who can we say sent us, so they know to trust our story?"

Niccola smiled. "Niccola Hadani, demi-queen of Varna and partner to the Calisian prince. If you have any issues with the Guard, take it to him. He'll see it settled." With that, she called to the crows above her again. "Does the woman who took my kin shelter here?"

"Not far," replied several, their voices overlapping in a chorus.

"Take me there."

They began to fly. Niccola turned to the prisoners a final time. "May luck and fire see you out of the Talakova safely."

She ran after the crows before the people could reply.

Dinah's shelter was not far. The crows pulled up near a deeply forked tree, their eyes glittering in the darkness as Niccola raised her torch. Some two stories up the fork was a cabin. Its floor was made of logs, crudely cut and laid on wedged cross-beams. Its walls were made of properly hewn timber. Dinah must have stolen that from Madeiran workshops at the Talakova's edge. The fringe of a roof thatched with leaves was visible over the whole construction. Niccola circled the tree in search of a way up. Madeiran timber camps were built in the trees like this, but those had ladders. Dinah's abode did not.

Only when Niccola lifted the torch again did she spot a coil of thin cord clung over a peg hammered into the tree, well out of reach. She cast about for a stick. She found one, too: a whittled branch longer than she was tall, with a small fork at one end. This was clearly Dinah's doing. It caught the cord easily and brought it slithering down the tree. Niccola picked it up gingerly. Like everything this deep in the Talakova, it was cold to the touch, damp and slimy with mold. Niccola gave it a light tug.