Fall (Chapter 3 Part 9)

Inside the hut, the air buzzed. Chaff sat on the hard stone, pensive, the bricks digging into his skin, waiting for Hurricane or Tattle to say something. They didn’t. Chaff kept his eyes cast down on the ground. He couldn’t bring himself to look in their faces.

“If you need me to find her,” said Lookout. “I know where she is. But I can’t-.”

“Of course you know where she is,” snarled Tattle, and Chaff flinched. In his short time knowing the girl, he had never heard her raise her voice like that. “That’s only thing you’re fucking good for.”

Lookout wrinkled her nose and looked away, but didn’t say anything else. The owlcrow’s screech from on high was audible even inside the hut, though, and it was harsh and angry.

“Amateurs,” said Tattle. “I run a team of fucking amateurs.”

Hurricane put a hand on her shoulder, and immediately Tattle twisted and slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me, Lonwal,” she hissed.

“What you expect?” he said, his voice accusatory. “You pick gutter rats and kids off the streets. You think you get a crew like we used to run like that? You got amateurs ‘cause you picked amateurs. Ain’t no one’s fault but you’s.”

Tattle buried her face in her palms, and Chaff could see how her shoulders slumped, how she seemed to crumple under some unseen weight. He hugged his knees and traced the tabula on his belt. It was a little comfort knowing that if the girl was ever taken from him like Veer, he would be able to save her.

“She’s not dead,” said Bull, suddenly. The boy had been leaning on a wall in the corner, jaw stuck out, burly arms folded across his chest. His voice was surprisingly soft. “Fieldmen prefer slave over dead.”

“Lucky her,” Tattle said, and there was murder in her eyes as she looked up. “All of you, get out. I need to think.”

Chaff didn’t waste time in sliding over the windowsill and out of the hut. It wasn’t hard to find the big guy once he stepped outside. Wiping crumbling clay off his clothes, he walked very quickly towards the camelopard, still clutching the girl’s tabula tight.

He had barely made it two paces when someone caught him by the collar of his neck, and Chaff flinched. He twisted, arms raised, but Lookout grabbed his forehead and held him at arm’s reach easily.

“You were going to run,” she said. A statement, not a question.

“So?” Chaff said, angrily, trying to pry Lookout’s fingers out of his tangled hair. “You hear her, yeah? Nobody here knows what they doing! I never ever should trust you-.”

“You were going to run,” Lookout repeated. “Like you ran from her.”

“Not my fault,” Chaff muttered.

“What?”

“It’s not my fault!” Chaff screamed, and he didn’t care that the girl urchins were staring at him as he screamed. He wanted them to know, he wanted all of them to know. “I do as you tell, yeah? I see them come, I run. That’s my job, yeah?”

“Your job is to get us all out,” said Lookout.

“And I get that job today! You throw me into this job TODAY!” screamed Chaff, red in the face. His jaw hurt from shouting and he could feel the blood rushing through his temples. Behind him, the big guy reared and stamped his hooves, tossing his head. “What about your job? You supposed to keep watch out for us, what about that?”

Lookout’s face twitched. The bird overhead landed on her shoulder, its claws digging in tight to her skin, its eyes bright despite the dying sunlight. “That has nothing to do with the fact that you were the one who left her behind. You were the one who-.”

“If you don’t go and try to get closer, it never happens! If you don’t talk to- talk to that slave, it never happens!” Chaff was on the verge of tears now. His fists were shaking. His breath came in great shuddering gasps. The big guy, clearly agitated, had begun to canter to the boy’s side.

“Don’t pin this on me, you dirty, scrawny, little shit of a wild child,” said Lookout, and the owlcrow screamed, a harsh, raucous sound. “If you’re going to blame someone, then blame the girl in that house- the girl with the vendetta and the death wish that dragged us all into this.”

“At least she’s thinking of a way to save her,” said Chaff.

“And you would have helped by running away, would you?” Lookout sneered, and pushed Chaff away. “Go ahead and do it. I’ll find someone better and cheaper than you in no time.”

Chaff choked on his words. He felt so tired. He had felt tired and hungry and desperate for years, and the girl that had masked that for just a few hours had been snatched away. It wasn’t fair, it was cruel, and Chaff had to either blame someone or else believe that the world was just that cruel. And it couldn’t be, not if he wanted to believe it was worth living in.

He put his hand on the big guy’s side, leaning on him for support as Lookout walked away. The bandages around the big guy’s side were soaked red now. They were both hurting. He hugged the camelopard, even as he wished for someone who could hug him back, talk to him, support him, have a face that Chaff could recognize as a reflection of his own. It was a treacherous thought, and Chaff squeezed the big guy all the tighter for it, but he couldn’t help but think it.

He wanted to be friends with someone who owned their tabula. He wanted to be friends with someone who was free.

“It’ll never happen to her, yeah?” said Chaff, leaning on the big guy, gripping the disks in his belt. “So long as we got this, we can find her. We can get her back. We can…” He trailed off, mouth open.

And, in the depths of Chaff’s tired, hungry, desperate mind, lit the spark of an idea.

“Lookout!” he shouted, letting go of the big guy and sprinting towards the girl as she walked away. “Lookout, Lookout, Lookout!”

The owlcrow noticed first, and squawked, and Lookout turned around with a look of utmost confusion. She put a hand on her hips. “What do you want from me now?”

“You- you know where Veer is, yeah?” asked Chaff, breathless. He could feel the pressure under his eyes. He needed to sleep, and soon, but not now. There was no time now.

“Of course I do,” said Lookout, quickly, almost offended. “In the middle of the fucking caravan. But we have no way of getting her out without probably getting caught ourselves, and this time they’ll be ready for us, and-.”

“Do you know where her tabula is?”

Lookout’s automatic response began, but was then cut short. She looked at Chaff, her eyes slowly widening. “Veer doesn’t keep her tabula on her?”

“Yeah,” said Chaff. He stared into Lookout’s eyes, daring just a glimmer of hope.

With a furious humming to egg it on, the owlcrow launched into the sky, wheeling in tight circles that slowly expanded outward as Lookout’s vision glazed over. Chaff bounced on the balls of his feet.

“Do you know where she keeps it?” he asked, biting his lip. “In the house, maybe? In- in one of her favorite places? Where she eats?” It dawned on Chaff just how little he knew about Veer, how much more he could have known if he had just a little more time with her. He would get that time. He was sure of it.

Lookout’s answer was partial and distracted. “She’s got…places. Places that, uh…” And she trailed off, not finishing her sentence. She began to walk forward, and Chaff had to stumble out of the way as Lookout stumbled haltingly down the street.

Chaff looked over his shoulder. Should he tell Tattle and Hurricane? No, it would take too much time.

And, anyway, this was their fight. Their fault. Their battle to win, their chance to redeem themselves.

The boy hauled himself onto the big guy’s back and pushed him on to follow close behind Lookout. Chaff’s mind raced through the possibilities. Where would a girl like Veer, an urchin and a racer and a wild child, hide her tabula, her most precious thing, her one and only resource left to her in the world? Somewhere safe. Somewhere no one would look. Somewhere she could check daily.

She would hide it, Chaff realized, wherever I would hide it.

If only he knew this district as well as he knew his own. Chaff cast his gaze around, his throat dry. How many nooks and crannies would he have to comb? How many hiding places were there in the ruins of the city?

The big guy tossed his head, and Chaff let go of his belt, reminding himself not to channel too much of his emotion into the tabula. It might bleed over into the girl, too, and Chaff certainly had enough anxiety for the both of them. His head was beginning to spin, but he took several sharp breaths, trying to force himself to calm down.

It would be somewhere commonplace, but surreptitious. Not a place people went too often, but a place where no one would question him if they saw him going there.

The whole city pulsed around him. Shira Hay, a chaotic sprawl, unfolded in Chaff’s mind. Where, where, was the best place to hide a tabula in this city?

“Lookout!” Chaff screamed. “What do you see?”

Lookout’s answer was a distracted mutter. “Her friends, her favorite place to eat, where she sleeps, where she walks, the routes she takes, the race road, the rooftops, a quiet place, a quiet place, a quiet place…”

Chaff ran a finger through his hair. How long had it been since Veer’s capture? An hour or two at best. The sun had not yet even fully set. The fieldmen must have figured out by now that Veer wasn’t carrying her tabula on her.

Would they try to break her first, or just kill her?

Thinking and fretting would do no good. Chaff grit his teeth, and despite the sores developing on his thighs and the ache in his legs, he hauled himself onto the big guy’s back once more. It was just like the plains, he reminded himself. This was easier than days on days of endless riding.

“Lookout, get on!” Chaff shouted, as the big guy trotted forward. Dazed, Lookout turned slowly, her eyes unseeing, the tabula vibrating violently in her hands. Chaff reached out to grab her hand and pull her up, and Lookout moved as if she was sleepwalking, brow furrowed, still muttering under her breath. Just how much could that owlcrow of hers see?

“Where to?” asked Chaff, holding tight onto the big guy’s mane. He turned around and grabbed Lookout’s chin, shaking her head. “Lookout, where to? Where do we check first?”

The girl blinked, and she seemed to finally look Chaff in the eye. “There’s the house. Where she sleeps. We could go back and-.”

“Too obvious,” said Chaff, immediately. “Too close to people, too easy to find.”

“She trusted us. She trusted them, at least,” Lookout said. She sounded hurt.

Chaff did not know how much he believed that. She had said so, yes, but to honestly trust someone enough to leave her tabula out in the open for the taking…Veer would have been a fool. “The hut’s not a good place,” said Chaff. “Too easy to get into. Everybody know she live there, yeah? No good, no good.”

“There’s the way she races. We could check her usual routes, maybe she has some kind of hideaway where-.”

“Come on, big guy!” Chaff shouted, not waiting for Lookout to finish. He could not push the camelopard too much, not with the wounds the big guy had suffered from the fieldmen.

He followed the street down where he and Veer had raced just hours ago, the course still fresh in his mind. The evening bustle of the city was beginning to emerge, and even in this broken down corner of the city the people of Shira Hay still found room to mingle and haggle and brawl in the dusk as the Lady Fall’s eye slowly opened. Chaff had to twist and turn through the pods of people, squinting to make out the high rooftops.

Overhead, the owlcrow screeched. A couple people on the street cast wary glances upward, and Chaff in turn kept his eye on them, but in a few seconds they all looked away.

“You see anything?” whispered Chaff. Talking loudly about tabula in a street full of hungry eyes and desperate ears was not prudent.

“Up,” said Lookout, her response terse. Her finger drifted as she pointed toward the building that her owlcrow was circling over. “Up.”

“Take care of the big guy, Lookout,” Chaff said, hopping off the side of the camelopard. “Take care of Lookout, big guy!”

The camelopard brayed an affirmative, although Lookout said nothing else.

Chaff had to feel the handholds out, rather than see them, in the dim light. It was hard work, groping blindly at the stones until his hand found a grip that might not even be sturdy enough to hold his feet. Chaff was glad that all it took was the light of the sun to dispel his blindness. He didn’t think he would have risked the climb if it was for any other reason.

His bandaged hands and feet provided enough traction that Chaff made steady progress. He felt, rather than saw, the stares of other junior Kennya Noni fighters watching him from below, wondering if they dared to challenge this newcomer, but while the danger of a daytime race was thrilling, the danger of a nighttime race was just foolhardy. It was not worth the risk.

All the same, Chaff kept a wary eye on the bare-sleeved racers down below. Some of them, no doubt, had nothing left to lose.

He hauled himself over the lip of the roof, his muscles aching in protest as he tumbled over the side. He laid on the flat clay, breathing heavily, ignoring his spine’s fervent protests as he curled up into a sitting then standing position. The owlcrow landed in front of him, flapping its wings as its claws clicked on the clay, and Chaff did his best not to flinch as he looked into its beady eyes.

“Lookout, where?” he asked, half-shouting in case she needed to hear him from below. The owlcrow preened its feathers once before, with a sudden jerk, hopping and flapping towards an alcove on the roof.

Chaff nearly tripped over his own feet as he ran to the odd depression, and he stuck his hands into the shadows, feeling for something, anything, that felt like a tabula. If he looked at it from the right angle, there was the glint of something in the shadows…

He pricked his hand on something sharp and metal and winced, withdrawing reflexively. A thin line of red oozed down his palm and, grimacing, Chaff reached in with his other hand just to see what it was. It wasn’t a tabula. Tabula didn’t cut.

His heart sank. Just a shattered piece of bronze, from some pot or pail, the hoardings of a spring magpie or some such creature.

Chaff threw the shard aside, and the thin, corroded metal cracked on the tiles. He looked around, trying to quell the fluttering in his chest. It was one roof. There were many more to search.

There were so many more to search.

Chaff could almost feel his own pulse inside his fingers as he climbed back down. It would have been so much easier to let go and fall, but he made the painstaking climb until his feet touched the cold, unyielding ground.

“Where next?” asked Chaff. He tried to climb onto the big guy’s back again, but his legs folded under him before he could. He knelt in the middle of the street, not caring how vulnerable he was, not caring the weakness he showed. He was just so tired.

Lookout stared at him for a while. “I know you’re exhausted,” she said, finally.

Chaff didn’t have the energy to come up with a reply.

“There are too many places. Too many hiding holes in this rotten city, too many streets where Veer liked to go. She never stuck around much in one place.” Lookout paused. “Chaff, it’d be easier to just take Veer back than try and find where she hid her tabula.”

He glared at Lookout. “We’re not giving up,” he said.

Lookout seemed like she wanted to say something testy. Her face twitched as she opened her mouth to speak, but after a moment looking at Chaff, she just said, “OK. We’re not.”

Holding tight onto the big guy’s side, Chaff hauled himself up. “Where now?”

The girl shook her head. “I don’t know,” Lookout said, haltingly. Her voice caught as she said it. “There are too many good places in this city to hide a tabula.”

“I don’t care about good places to hide it,” said Chaff. “Where would Veer hide it?”

“I don’t know,” said Lookout, and Chaff turned to look at the girl’s face contorted in frustration. “I’ve never known- I don’t- Tattle’s always been better with people than me. I just see things. I can’t see inside people’s heads.”

Chaff looked at the ground. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. The owlcrow flapped overhead, on its lonely patrol in the crepuscular gloom.

Abruptly, Lookout gasped. “They’re moving,” she whispered.

That made Chaff look up. Lookout’s owlcrow had flapped away, screeching, and the boy’s head snapped around to see where it was going. “Who’s moving?”

“The caravan,” said Lookout, hoarsely. “The fieldmen. There’s…there’s an elector with them. Inviting them…somewhere. Gesturing towards the river, towards the bridges, towards the Libraries, towards…oh, shit.”

“Lookout, what is it? Tell me,” hissed Chaff.

“The duarchs. They’ve come out of the towers. They’re getting ready to talk with emissaries.” Lookout choked on a strangled sob, and Chaff’s eyes widened. “We’re out of time. The robbery, the rescues, everything. There’s not enough time.”

Chaff licked dry lips. The echoes of three years ago still seemed to haunt him.

“I know you’re tired, big guy,” said Chaff, rubbing the camelopard’s neck. “But we got to go fast one last time tonight, OK? Just one last time.”

The big guy nodded once, twisting to turn back towards the river.

“Hold tight, Lookout,” said Chaff, lowering his body and gripping the camelopard’s mane. The camelopard started at a slow trot, sidestepping around the pedestrians on the crowded street, but Chaff could already feel the wind starting to stream around his face.

It had worked last time, hadn’t it?

Chaff had barely re-entered the slum where their headquarters were situated when someone stepped in his way. The big guy reared and pranced aside as Bull stood in front of them, bent low as if he was going to tackle the camelopard to the ground.

“Where you guys go?” said Bull, his voice low and guttural. His lips curled like a dog’s as he spoke. “You skipping on us?”

The beginnings of an indignant reply built up in Chaff’s head, but before he could think of something to say Lookout spoke over him. “Bull, they’re moving. The fieldmen are moving! Tell Tattle that we have to-.”

“There’s no need for messages, I can hear you from here,” said Tattle, pushing the door open with her shoulder. She looked odd, standing outside, her skin oddly pale and her hair thin. Inside the hut, there had been a courtly aura to her; now, she looked like any other homeless urchin, except she stood a little taller and spoke a little louder.

Hurricane followed close behind her, and Chaff noticed a reversal there as well. Inside, he had been Tattle’s lackey. Outside, he was a brooding menace.

Tattle clapped her hands together. “Details, Lookout, details!”

“They’re at the bridge now,” she said, closing her eyes. “The electors are standing at the middle while the fieldmen are waiting at one end, on our side of the river. It looks like…like the duarch- no, the arbiters are talking with the farmer lord, the one in the shawl. No one’s moving much. There’s a crowd gathering.”

“What now?” asked Hurricane, low enough so that it was directed only at Tattle but loud enough that the rest of them could hear. “Do we go through with it?”

Blinking rapidly, Tattle twitched her head, as if she was shaking off some buzzing pest. “Through with the plan? We got our supplies. We got a fucking lionox’s weight in stones inside, we got months’ worth of preparation. I know each and every alsknight on that fucking wagon train like they were born in the same hollow as me. I been working this plan over for- for years.” Tattle shook her head again. “And everything that’s happening right now just about fuck that all over twice, so you know what? We’re improvising.”

Tattle kept running her hands through her hair as she looked around, walking into the center of the triangle that Hurricane, Bull, and the big guy formed. “Lookout, scoot up. Lonwal, get on. We have to move fast.”

Hurricane grit his teeth. “I can run faster than-.”

“I need you fresh, ready for action,” said Tattle. “Don’t worry, I can think while I run.” She turned around. “Bull…Bull, you stay on the ground with me.

The boy raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Because you’re fat and you won’t fit and you need the exercise anyways,” said Tattle, exasperatedly. “Now come on, get moving.”

As Hurricane clambered onto the big guy’s back, Chaff gripped the big guy’s tabula and nudged him forward. The tabula began to hum as he lent what strength he had to the camelopard, and the big guy ran forward at a steady pace despite the unprecedented amount of weight on his back.

The hum of two tabula at once was enough to make it feel like the air was buzzing around them. “There’s too many people around the bridge, Tattle, we’re never going to be able to get close,” said Lookout, eyes closed.

“Alright, good,” shouted Tattle, a little breathless as she dashed through the streets. Chaff could see it now; streams of curious watchers gathering towards the Libraries. “Getting close isn’t part of the plan!”

“There’s a plan?”

“There will be! And getting close won’t be part of it!”

They ran, and while Chaff had no idea where the next step would take him, it was better than not moving at all.

People had gathered around the bridge, and they whispered and muttered at the solemn congregation of electors at the center of the bridge. Chaff stopped the big guy once the crowds grew too thick, and nodded to both Lookout and Hurricane to disembark. He rubbed the big guy’s neck as he got off, and whispered, “You did good, big guy.”

The big guy shook his head and nickered.

“Shoo, now,” said Chaff, pushing the camelopard away. “Get some rest.” He craned his head back to look the big guy in the eye. “I’ll be fine. You draw too much ‘tention anyways, yeah? Go and eat and sleep and all that, yeah? I call if I need you.”

The camelopard trotted away, wading through the growing tide of spectators.

“Lonwal! Lookout!” shouted Tattle, as she shouldered her way towards them. A clearing opened around the group; no one wanted to stand too close to an urchin, for any number of reasons.

“Planned out yet?” said Hurricane, taking Tattle’s hand and pulling her forward through the last press of bodies. Bull followed in the gap close behind.

“Still working on it,” said Tattle, breathlessly. “Lookout, I need eyes.”

“You got them,” said the girl, and her voice had lifted back up to her old, confident self again. Chaff stared. The change had been so sudden. “What am I looking for?”

“Veer?”

“Wagons, near the bank. See them? Half the alsknights are there, half the alsknights are escorting the big shot fieldmen. She’s…” Lookout stopped talking for a moment. “Never mind,” she said hoarsely.

Chaff opened his mouth to press for more details, but Tattle stuck a palm over it and glared at him. “Walsh?” she asked, after Chaff closed his mouth and looked away.

Walsh? Chaff thought. “With her,” said Lookout. “Same state.”

Tattle nodded. Sweat beaded down her red cheeks.  “Tell me what the electors are going to do.”

“It’s formal,” said Lookout, closing her eyes tight. Chaff looked up, and saw that her owlcrow wasn’t the only one flying overhead. A menagerie of screeching, flapping things ducked and wheeled over the bridge. How many were watching with just their own eyes? “It’s public, too. They’re waiting for people to gather, but I doubt they’ll wait much longer. By the Ladies Four, both the duarchs have come out of the towers. Kobarr and Teyya Lay are all dressed up and everything.”

“What does that mean?” Chaff asked, before he could stop himself.

Lookout opened her eyes, and the humming Chaff had long ago stopped noticing fell silent. “They wouldn’t need something this public for a refusal.” She gulped. “I could be very wrong. But I think it’s more likely than not that Shira Hay is going to war.”

Tattle cast a dark look around. “These people aren’t going to be happy about helping fieldmen…” she muttered. Her eyes lit up. “Which is a good thing.”

“Everyone here gets all angry,” said Chaff. “That’s a lotta angry people. How’s that good?”

“This isn’t going to be clean, Chaff,” Tattle said, shaking her head. “But we’ve got an opportunity here and I mean to use it. Bull, Lonwal, get to the edge of the crowd.” Her gaze flickered from Bull’s adolescent face to Hurricane’s near grown old one. “Bull, you go first. Lonwal, stay back. They might still recognize you. I’ll join up with you in a bit, the timing on this one is going to be tricky.”

Terse nods from the both of them, and they set off. “Lookout, stay with me now,” said Tattle, and she had to raise her voice to be heard over the growing chatter of the crowd. “We’re going to give a lot of people a lot of reasons to be angry.”

“And me?” asked Chaff.

“Saving you for last, new kid,” said Tattle, smiling. “Remember what I told you? One race, that’s it. You get out there, by the river, and you wait. Don’t summon your pet yet, I don’t want anyone noticing you until it starts. And when it does, I want you to grab whoever Lonw- Hurricane tells you to grab and run, got it?”

It was simple enough, but Chaff felt that there was some piece of the plan he wasn’t getting. “How will I know when it starts?” Chaff shouted. It seemed like every man and woman, slave and wild, had come out to the bridge now. Were the electors waiting for the whole city to come out?

“Oh, trust me, you’ll know,” said Tattle. “Get going, it’s going to be impossible to get anywhere soon! Come on, Lookout, with me!”

Tattle slipped away, worming through a crack in the push and shove, but Chaff grabbed Lookout’s hand as she turned to leave.

“Lookout!” said Chaff. He met her eyes. “Before we goes, I got to know—what’s with you guys? Who are you, really? ‘Cause you sure ain’t like any urchin I ever see.”

Lookout just smiled, and ruffled Chaff’s hair. “Neither are you. Make it out of this alive and I promise I’ll tell you.”

And she slipped away, leaving Chaff alone, to be buffeted by the surge of onlookers.

Chaff was small enough that navigating the crowds was no great difficulty. He had to duck to make his way through a collection of dirt-smeared nomads, stumbling out into the fringes of the crowd where he could walk unobstructed. He straightened himself, looking for a good place to wait.

At that point, he heard a familiar voice.

“Wazzat? That Stink?”

Chaff froze. His hand fled to his tabula immediately, but he remembered Tattle’s warning. He couldn’t draw attention to himself. Not now. Now until…whatever it was started.

Hook sauntered up to him, grinning ear to ear. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, though, which were bloodshot and wide open. Scrabble wasn’t with him anymore, although lanky Shimmy, a year or two older than Chaff, walked close behind, and Chaff could see Crook watching from the roof.

“What’sa matter, Stinky?” said Hook, swinging the tabula on a string in front of him. He had not yet found a replacement rod, it seemed. “Where your boooyfriend now?”

“No trouble, yeah?” said Chaff, backing up to the safety of the crowd, but like a tide the spectators watching seemed to be pulling away from him.

“No trouble, sure. No hard feelings,” said Hook, and Chaff knew from experience that it was a complete lie.

“Come on, Hook,” said Chaff, grinning weakly. “Big two gon’ say something. Let’s have a look-see listen, yeah?”

He saw Hook’s hand coming but was still too slow to get out of the way. Hook grabbed him by the collar, his face twisted in a mocking smirk. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “Look-see listen, alright.”

Chaff closed his eyes. Fighting back would just prolong what was coming, and he needed it to be over quickly.

And then, like the angel voice of the Ladies themselves, Chaff heard the criers shouting, “There will be silence!”

Hook looked up. He didn’t let Chaff go, but he didn’t move either. A hush of anticipation fell over the crowd, and the sudden quiet was almost eerie. All Chaff could hear was the screech of the birds overhead, the seep of the river as it sucked at the pebbles on the shore.

Chaff turned to look and saw two silhouettes standing alone in the center of the bridge. The first man’s voice echoed as he spoke. “Bax of Alswell,” he said, his voice clipped, pointed, and harsh. “I am Kobarr, duarch of the grove that does not move. You speak for Engers of Alswell, whose liege is the farmer Greeve.”

The second man’s voice wheezed, but still his voice carried over the hushed masses. “Bax of Alswell,” he said. “I am Teyya Lay, duarch of the grove that does not move. Your intent is to make Shira Hay an ally against the aggressor Banden Ironhide. Make your case.”

As the Alswell emissary stepped up and began to speak, Chaff recognized it as the same tired speech each of the fieldmen had shouted over Shira Hay for so many weeks. A disgruntled muttering built up among the crowd, and the sudden torpor that had come over them broke slightly.

As people began to move, someone emerged from the fringes. Chaff turned to see Lookout glaring, and closed his eyes. As much as he was glad to have someone on his side, he did not know how good Lookout was in a fight.

“Violence while the duarchs are speaking?” she said, her nostrils flared wide, as the fieldman continued to argue his case. She had affected a different tone of voice, and stood like Tattle, tall and imperious. To his surprise, it seemed like Lookout pretended not to notice Chaff.

And, to Chaff’s even greater surprise, Hook looked down. “Sorry-sorry, ma’am,” he said, backing away, although Chaff could tell he was smoldering. “We was just-.”

“Just what? Are you prepared to make a thorough and convincing case, boy?” said Lookout. Chaff blanched. Boy? Lookout looked barely a summer older than Hook.

“Nothing, elector ma’am,” stuttered Hook, and then Chaff knew.

It was the scarf, the beige scarf around Lookout’s neck. Chaff had almost stopped noticing it, but to Hook, it must have been the first thing he saw. Poor, stupid, simpleton Hook, who did not know that the scarves of the electors were always red, who did not know that women had not been electors for centuries in Shira Hay.

“Leave,” hissed Lookout. “Before you cause further disruption.”

Hook backed away, gesturing for Shimmy to follow. Chaff saw Crook disappear over the lip of the rooftop, and Chaff’s shoulders slumped as he breathed a sigh of relief.

“How did you know?” he began, and Lookout just smirked. Chaff took Lookout’s hand gratefully to stand up. “Who says you’re bad with people?”

He saw Lookout smile before she tried to hide it. “Shut up, before a real elector notices.”

“Where’s Tattle?” whispered Chaff. “You done what you had to do, yeah?”

“Tattle’s with the boys, she’s waiting for the right time to get them moving,” said Lookout. “And I did the best I could.”

Chaff fell silent, as the fieldman Bax concluded his speech. He could only hope that the best Lookout could do was good enough.

“We have considered your argument,” said the first duarch, Kobarr, and from the speed with which he said it was clear that they had already come to a decision beforehand. “And we have decided thus.”

“Bax of Alswell,” said the wheezing one, Teyya Lay. “Approach to receive your arbitration.”

From afar, Chaff could only see the silhouette of the fieldman as he walked forward. He made a dramatic figure against the sun setting over the river.

“So what’s the plan?” hissed Chaff.

“The moment the duarchs announce that Shira Hay is joining the war,” said Lookout. “There’s going to be some…shall we say, discontent. Tattle’s going to take that and see if we can start a small riot with it.”

Chaff’s eyes widened. “A small riot?”

Lookout shrugged. “Just enough to distract the fieldmen. Just enough to grab Veer and Walsh in the chaos. It’s the best plan we got. By the Ladies, it’s the only plan we got.” She hunched. “Shh, get ready, he’s almost there.”

“Alswell is a nation of great bounty,” said Teyya Lay. “Alswell is a nation of peace. This, we know to be true.”

“Here it comes…” muttered Lookout.

“However,” said Kobarr, and Chaff saw a sudden look of consternation flash across Lookout’s face. “Alswell’s peace is one founded on oppression.”

“Alswell’s bounty is one hoarded from the hungry,” said Teyya Lay.

“You have not respected our borders.”

“You have offended our people.”

“You have been arrogant in times of prosperity.”

“You have been self-righteous in times of need.”

“This is our answer, Bax, who speaks for Engers, whose liege is Greeve,” said Kobarr, and before the emissary could run the duarch grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him in close. “Shira Hay will go to Alswell, and Alswell will burn.”

Chaff saw the glint of the knife for just a second before he heard the strangled, gargling choke of the fieldman who had spoken so eloquently. There was a dead silence as the emissary staggered away and tumbled over the edge of the bridge, and a collective breath being held as he fell down, down, down to the water. He hit the river with a dull splash, his blood mingling with the orange light of the sun bleeding over the horizon.

And then everything fell apart. Immediately, the crowd roared, some in outrage, some in shock, but many more in celebration. The solemn cluster of electors on the bridge moved into action, pulling from beneath their great cloaks weapon after weapon, as tabula buzzed and hissed all across the riverfront. Both groups of alsknights reacted immediately, mounts stampeding over civilians who had become casualties of war, and over it all Chaff could hear the high cry of the fieldman noble shouting, “Away! Away! Out of the city!”

Mouth dry, Chaff reached for his tabula. He needed to keep the big guy safe from the chaos. He turned to Lookout, eyes wide. “What now?”

“Now?” Lookout shook her head. “Now, we really have to improvise.”

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