"Yes, well, thank you very much for that brilliant intelligence," said Domingo. "But next time don't speak out of turn-I was addressing Shea. Furthermore, Brother Wan, in the future your agents will report back here to me before carrying out any military actions at all, is that clear?"

"As you say, sir," said Wan. "Only..."

"Only?"

"Only you said my troops were to report to me, and that I would then relate any pertinent information to you. Sir." There, that was definitely a faint smile on the monster's face; Domingo could tell by the way his cheeks moved. An awkward pause followed as the colonel began envisioning another violent fantasy, but he pulled himself back before it got too involved.

"I suppose I won't lecture a Chainite monk on semantics so long as he doesn't seek to advise me on swordplay. What about you, Captain, care to point out that the moon rises in the east?"

"Yes, sir?" Shea looked back at the canvas flaps that were snapping in the wind now that Wan had left them open. "I mean, no, sir. I mean, the Immaculates' wall is still under construction, so they may be doing reconnaissance to make sure we're not rallying to take their wall and reclaim the city before they can finish their fortifications."

"Not bad," Domingo nodded. "Not the best theory, but not bad."

"It's time to put our theories through the crucible," observed Wan, as the voices outside reached the tent, followed hotly after by the stomping boots that carried them. Definitely an Immaculate whining out there, and Domingo unhappily rose to his feet to meet the prisoners. That Captain Shea's company had ridden all the way up here to meet their returning colonel at the Azgarothian border only to let these puffed-up anathemas steal the show by capturing some scouts was unfortunate. What was unforgivable was that apparently not a one of his trained officers or soldiers had told those goons to detain their prisoners elsewhere instead of bringing them to the command tent. Who to horsewhip, though, that was always the question... Looking from the sheepish Captain Shea to the reptilian Brother Wan, Domingo found himself spoiled for choice.

"Baron Domingo Hjortt," the lead war nun called into the open door of the tent, her sonorous voice at odds with her slight profile. "We have taken captive three Immaculate scouts"-there came an outburst in Immaculate from the dark silhouettes bunched behind the small woman at the word scouts. "One claims to be a nobleman with writs of passage, and so I deemed it best to bring them before you."

Deemed it best, did she, to ignore protocol? This anathema had cut straight to the front of the horsewhip queue, but first there was the niggling problem that an armed posse under his command seemed to have abducted a foreign dignitary. "Bring them in at once."

The war nun entered, followed by two Immaculate women and a man, and then another three anathemas, just to make sure the formerly spacious command tent now felt as tight as the Chain's confessionals. Both Immaculates and witchborn were in a bad way, faces flushed, armor smeared with dirt and blood, but the anathemas still had weapons in their scabbards, while the only metal close at hand for the Immaculates were the chains around their wrists. From the way the two Immaculate women instinctively flanked the younger man, it didn't take a clairvoyant monster to guess the pretty boy was the supposed nobleman.

"Baron Domingo Hjortt, is it?" snapped the young Immaculate fellow in stiff but precise Crimson. It seemed he trembled out of rage, not fear. "How dare you, sir, how dare you!"

"I don't quite know," Domingo drawled, "but we'll find out soon enough. And Colonel Hjortt will do fine in this tent, lad."

"Lad? Lad!" The handsome lad had colored the shade of the seared venison on the table between them. "I am Prince Byeong-gu of Othean"-the twin winces from the boy's bodyguards implied that his accounting himself thusly was a habit they had vainly tried to curb-"fourth son of Empress Ryuki, Keeper of the Immaculate Isles, and you dare shackle me like one of your hounds! You dare, when I have writs of passage stamped by my mother! You dare, sir!"

If there was one thing worse than a twit like Captain Shea who put everything as a query, it was a blowhard who phrased questions as proclamations. This prince was like some hammy actor overselling the role of spoiled fop.

"With due respect, Your Highness, you have no notion of what I dare, so I'd take a deep breath if I were you," said Domingo. "Now, if my guests would make themselves comfortable by sitting on the floor, we can clear up what I am confident is all just one big misunderstanding."

"Sir," said one of the witchborn in the rear as the prisoners begrudgingly lowered themselves to the ground. "We found this in one of their satchels."

"Oh? Must be this writ of passage his highness spoke of." Domingo kept his eyes on the prince as the folded cloth was passed from war monk to nun, from nun to Brother Wan, and from Wan to Captain Shea. The little jackass was squirming now, and his bodyguards stiffening. The captain unfolded the pennant on the edge of the table. A blue flag-cobalt, really-with rather obvious heraldry. "Oh. I see. It appears his highness is scouting a long way north from the rest of his company."

"You dare defile the private belongings of a member of the royal family?" A lot of the bluster had left the boy now, and he looked almost as worried as his two handlers. Almost as worried as he should be. "You have the nerve to imply we-"

"Shut up!" Domingo barked, the bodyguards twitching, the boy flinching. That was good, they were all on edge... maybe so on edge they couldn't see how rattled Domingo was. If the Immaculates were supporting the Cobalt Company, then the Crimson Empire was in a great deal more trouble than Pope Y'Homa supposed. "We catch you skulking on my lands, with the flag of brigands who are terrorizing the Empire, and you dare talk down to me? I could have you all hanged as spies and your coddling mother couldn't do a damned thing about it, Headwoman of the Aloof Isles or no!"

"We are not affiliated in any way with the Cobalt Company," the prince said firmly, meeting Domingo's glare and making no move to wipe away the spittle that had landed on his bruising cheek. "We are not spies, nor are we scouts. We are returning to the Isles, after a very long and trying journey across the Star. The flag is... evidence we recovered, not a token of our sympathies."

"Evidence of what?" asked Brother Wan, and Domingo gave him a scowl to stop his deformed heart, or at least impress upon him the importance of letting his colonel do the talking here.

"Evidence of a crime. It is a private matter, of no consequence to Azgaroth, nor the greater Empire."

"I think I will make a far better judge of that than you," said Domingo, and when the prince looked down instead of elaborating, he whipped his saber from its scabbard with a steel hiss. The bodyguard on the left nimbly hopped from her knees to a squat, but before she could move farther the flat of a witchborn's spear had slapped against her throat, freezing her in place. A trickle of blood crept down the face of the blade where it had nicked her, the other bodyguard leaning close to her prince's ear and murmuring in some unintelligible noblecant. Domingo stepped around the table and approached the prisoners, leading with his steady saber until the tip of the blade hovered an inch from the prince's left eye. The whispering bodyguard went silent, easing slowly back into a stiff-backed posture, glaring at Domingo with all the hatred a vixen bears the hound who treed her. "I'm asking you as a courtesy, Your Highness-if you don't tell me of your own accord, I'll have my Chainwitch here peer into your brain and get the truth in nothing flat."

Brother Wan cleared his throat but made no further comment. Domingo didn't have the foggiest if the Black Pope had been telling the truth when she'd said the anathema could only glimpse the secrets of those with whom he was intimately familiar, but if Domingo himself was unsure about the limits of a witchborn's power, then how certain could this princeling be? The stoic little cuss scowled silently up at Domingo, and without breaking the boy's gaze, the general moved the point of his sword closer and closer...

"All right, all right!" The prince had his eyes shut tight, and Domingo realized he'd just drawn a drop of blood from the lad's lid. He flicked his saber up so that its curved back rested casually over his shoulder, his whole body humming at how close he'd come to putting out the runt's eye. "If the wildborn can read my very thoughts, he can confirm that I am telling the whole truth as the words leave my lips. And once I have told you the sum of my account, you will release us-agreed?"

"In war, there are certain codes that all true soldiers abide," said Domingo, leaning back against the table as he considered his prisoners. "The ignorant speak of war as savage, chaotic. In truth, when open war is declared between two peoples, it is a thing of meticulously obeyed law and absolute civility. The Crimson Codices are one such guide, and having read your own Ji-un Park, I know the Immaculates view war in much the same way. Without such rules of conduct, there is no war, only theft, arson, and murder on a grand scale. The Empire does not acknowledge the Cobalt Company as a legal army, and so if you are their agent I am not bound by the usual provisions in how I treat with you. Conversely, if you only represent the Immaculate Isles, Prince Byeong-gu, than I must uphold certain standards with how you are treated in my camp... and most pertinently, if you are not working for the Cobalts I will have no reason to detain you."

"Very well," said the prince, his eyes still as low as his voice. "My Martial Guards and I came to the Crimson Empire last winter, just after the New Year. We were searching for my fiancee, the Princess Ji-hyeon Bong. We believed she was kidnapped by a missionary of the Burnished Chain."

Domingo glanced at Brother Wan, but couldn't get a read on the freak. The Black Pope had mentioned this royal abduction to Domingo in the confessional, but how much had she not told him? If Wan had the trust of not only a cardinal but even the pontiff, how much did this anathema know?

"She... she was not," the prince went on, and, returning his full attention to the noble, Domingo thought the lad's voice was on the edge of cracking. "We sought her all over the Star, at first suspecting an Imperial plot, and then a Raniputri one, until the rumor we heard more and more frequently became impossible to discount. She is with the Cobalt Company now, which is why we have that flag-it was still flying over the city when we reached Katheli, even after the Company had ridden out before your armies could catch them."

"They took a princess hostage..." Domingo mulled it over-this could be a godsend, if it provoked the Immaculates into war against the Cobalt Company, or it could be a total fucking fiasco if it convinced them to sit out the war entirely, or, worse, aid the rebellion in exchange for the return of their noble...

"Not a hostage," said the prince, his voice thick with sorrow. "A general. I interviewed dozens of survivors, and many told the same story-Ji-hyeon helped lead the charge on Katheli. We'd heard such songs before, the closer we got, but after that I could deny it no longer. I took the flag as a... memento. No, that's not the word. In Crimson I should say... a reminder, a reminder to be more cautious with my heart. To not ignore the truth simply because I abhor it."

"What about Zosia?" Domingo asked, unable to help himself though the invocation of the forbidden name definitely raised the brows of every witchborn in the room. "If your princess was the general leading the Cobalts, where was Zosia?"

"Ah, the phantom of your Stricken Queen," said the prince, shaking his head. "Yes, she was there, too, if you believe the word of a few terror-stricken peasants who swore they saw her. I was more interested in finding my fiancee than listening to ghost stories."

Domingo tried to contain his excitement; further corroboration that Zosia had returned was as welcome as it was unsettling, but a wise tactician wages one battle at a time. Prince Byeong-gu's story was interesting for more than the mention of Zosia.

"And so after finally finding your intended after all that time, you expect me to believe you just turned around and ran back home?" The prince didn't bow under Domingo's gaze. "You didn't catch up with your beloved general and have a friendly chat about old times? Maybe speculate on how your people's relations with the Crimson Empire might improve once an Immaculate noblewoman helped the Cobalt Company seize the throne?"

"No, I did not." The prince sounded about as warm as the waters of Desolation Sound. "She could have been my first wife, but she ran away to be a petty criminal. I have nothing to say to a lying, scheming traitor like Ji-hyeon Bong. We should have listened to my uncle when he advised Mother against the engagement, but fool that I was, I convinced her to allow it. Taming the daughter of Kang-ho Bong seemed a challenge worthy of my talents, but I see now-"

"Kang-ho?" Domingo shivered, couldn't help himself, as he imagined that smarmy Immaculate scum coming apart under his bare hands. It was one thing to face an opponent on the field and then face him across a banquet table at court, that sort of thing happened all the time with members of the inconstant clergy. Kang-ho, though, Kang-ho had never, ever even attempted to be civil to his old enemy, only taking time out of laughing behind his back to laugh in Domingo's face. He always pretended to forget Domingo's name, which was not the sort of thing that becomes amusing with repetition. "The First Villain, Kang-ho? Everyone knew he'd fled back to the Isles, but how in all the heathen hells of your people did that crook sire a princess?"

"He is royal by birth as a child of Hwabun, and he married into the Bong family, who are beyond reproach." The prince seemed relieved, now that they had found some common ground in hating Kang-ho with the wrath of devils. "His husband is King Jun-hwan Bong, and with the aid of a wetmother they... well. Ji-hyuen calls King Jun-hwan Bong her first father, since she resembles him more, but given her deceit I am inclined to believe it is the blood of Kang-ho that-"

"I know how babies are made," said Domingo, a glorious stratagem blossoming in his brain like a crimson lotus. And here he'd been cursing this far-flung detour but an hour before. "Kang-ho's daughter is one of the Cobalt leaders, you're sure of this?"

"Sure enough to abandon all hope of saving her from herself," said the prince forlornly. "We should have been married last spring, and by now she could be fat with our-"

"But nobody on the Isles knows what became of her, that's what you're telling me?" Domingo tried to keep the excitement out of his voice. "You found out her secret, and are going home to inform everyone-yes?"

The still-seated bodyguard's eyes opened infinitesimally wider, but the prince obliviously carried on. "By now my message will have reached Mother. I requested her to remove the white from my palace before I returned, for there is no longer cause to mourn my fiancee."

"Nothing else? Before I let you go, I would have every detail-for the safety of the Crimson Empire, what else did you tell Empress Ryuki about the Cobalt Company?"

"Your Highness," the seated bodyguard hissed, but the prince waved her quiet, all confidence now that his tale was nearly told and his captors impressed with his innocence.

"I told her everything-that I had found Ji-hyeon and that she was not kidnapped, but must have run away to become a general in this Cobalt Company. Oh, I advised her that Kang-ho ought to be questioned about his involvement in her disappearance. It hardly seems a coincidence, that she would join a mercenary army with the same name as her father's old company." The prince pursed his lips, and then decided to tell all. "I also asked Mother to ask Uncle to call the matchmakers back to Othean, since I am apparently in need of a new fiancee. And that, Baron Hjortt, is everything there is to know-you cannot fit many High Immaculate characters on an owlbat scroll, and Mother insists I never write to her in the baser tongues. I hope this intelligence has been helpful?"

The prince smiled cautiously up at Domingo, and Domingo smiled back. Then he whipped his saber down into the lad's throat. The squatting bodyguard cried out, belatedly trying to lunge in front of her lord even as the witchborn who held a spear to her neck wrenched the blade with such force it nearly decapitated the woman. The seated bodyguard bellowed at Domingo as the colonel wiggled his blade free from the shocked, dying prince's collarbone, the other bodyguard falling dead at Domingo's feet. Then one of the witchborn punched in the screaming woman's skull with a pick. It went very quiet in the command tent, save for the sound of blood running off of Prince Byeong-gu's silk robe to pat-pat-pat on the face of the dead bodyguard beneath him. After a moment, the prince toppled over to sprawl with his countrywomen on the ground.

"Fallen Mother have mercy," Captain Shea finally managed, staring at the carnage. "The prince... you...?"

"I didn't do anything," said Domingo, hardly surprised to see that every witchborn in the room wore the same stoic face, save the grimacing Brother Wan. But was it a happy grimace or a sad one?

"The codes of war," Shea whispered. "You told him-"

"I told him the truth," said Domingo, taking Brother Wan's napkin from the table to wipe his saber off. "I chose to take him on his word that he was not an agent of the Cobalt Company, and therefore not an enemy combatant deserving of all those complicated bylaws cluttering up the Crimson Codices. What a happy day for all the Empire that we have not been at open war with the Immaculate Isles for many years, despite the recent Linkensterne debacle."

"Nor will we be again anytime soon," said Brother Wan, his sharp, blue-grey tongue playing over the dry pegs in his upper jaw as he fished around under his robe. He removed a long, black-pommeled dagger and offered it to Domingo. "Next time you need to execute an enemy of the Empire, Colonel, pray use this gift of the Chain."

"I told you, Brother Wan, don't lecture me on what to do with blades and I won't lecture you on how to carry out your pagan worship." Domingo sheathed his saber and waved away the offered knife, turning his full attention to the still-shaking Captain Shea. "Captain!"

"Sir!" She stood straighter at that, but her eyes were still on the corpses. "Sir?"

"Captain, it hardly needs saying, but you are to speak to no one of this... interrogation. No. One. Is that clear?" She nodded, but too quickly for Domingo's liking, so he added, "As this is a matter of Imperial security, these agents of the Chain will be monitoring the camp to ensure no baseless rumors start flying around. As senior officer until we reconvene with the rest of the Fifteenth, it is dependent upon you to make sure any gossip is quashed long before it reaches the keen ears of these witchborn, or less friendly company. There is to be no gossip because there was no incident-no Immaculates were ever brought into camp. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir!" That was what Domingo needed-a statement, not a question.

"Now, leave me with Brother Wan and his subordinates so we can clean this mess up." As Captain Shea nearly tripped over the bodies in her haste to be away, Domingo looked up from the Cobalt flag strewn over the dirty table and called after her, "And send in another round of this venison. I think I've found my appetite at last."

CHAPTER.

4.

Goatsdamn, but Grandfather was a pain in the arse. Or rather, the small of the back. Shrunken as the greylock was, lugging him over hill and dale for days and then weeks and finally months without end had put a whiny kink in Sullen's spine, one that troubled him even after he'd shrugged off the old man and settled in atop the mountain's ridge. Family, man, what can you do?

"Leave me to die in the mud like a common animal," grunted Grandfather as Sullen lowered him down to sit on a slab of brown stone protruding from the lichen-draped mountainside. "That's what they wanted you to do. Born-agains playing at being heathens. It's enough to make a horned wolf puke."

"Yeah, Fa," said Sullen, knowing the prospect of meeting an army was stirring up memories for the old man. "You sure this is far enough off the path?"

"It'll do," said Grandfather, closing his eyes as he panted. As though he'd been the one to haul Sullen up the steep, treeless mountain. The two men looked back down the way they had come, the crust of frost on rock and moss sparkling in the dawn. Far below, a road cut through the evergreen bamboo and browning saam groves that thrived in the valleys here, a ribbon of bare earth wound through the hair of the mountains. "They'll make through yon pass and camp in that meadowland beyond. Creeks coming down to water the animal, flat enough for tents-too posh for lambs like them to pass up."

"I still think it's best if I go myself, just at first," said Sullen. Grandfather cracked one eye at his grandson, and Sullen blundered on, knowing full well that reason never carried him nearly far enough with the stubborn old wolf. "I'm faster and quieter, and-"

"And you don't know what your uncle looks like," said Grandfather. "And even if you are a little quicker without me, so what? If some half-wit sees you creeping and gets lucky with a weakbow, where does that leave me? Up a damn mountain, waiting for a vulture to peck out my liver, or whatever mercy the Old Watchers give me for sitting out a fight. We stick to the creeks it'll cover your racket, and if they catch us 'fore we find your uncle you can always toss me on the enemy to cover your escape, you're so worried about getting away."

"I wouldn't," said Sullen. Grandfather had adamantly refused to hear his account of his encounter with the Faceless Mistress after their brief initial exchange on the subject back in Emeritus, saying if the gods wanted to involve him they'd call on him themselves, instead of sending Sullen. As a result, Sullen hadn't told the old man about his need to thwart this Zosia character from murdering an entire people, a need far more pressing than reuniting Grandfather with his ne'er-do-well son. Since that Faceless Mistress implied the two of 'em ought to be in the same camp, though, maybe it did make more sense to find Uncle Craven first. "Never mind. We'll go together."

"Oh, I hope that's not true, laddie," said Grandfather. "I hope you've got more thaws than me ahead of you yet."

"No, I mean... you know what I mean."

"Oi, there we are-not a breath too soon! Ha!"

Following Grandfather's gaze, Sullen made out a distant glint that might have been morning light striking a patch of early snow in the dying saam forest. It bobbed up the road, disappearing for stretches and then reappearing, and at last it came close enough for Sullen to decide what was what. Four riders in dark blue, the occasional twinkle coming from their bridles, which seemed to be the only edge of metal not obscured to prevent just such detection. The scouts passed far beneath them, and though Sullen knew he and Grandfather must be invisible at their perch among the high rocks, he still pressed himself flat to the frozen earth.

More shimmers and sparkles came quickly after, and then, as though the first few were but the trickles heralding a flash flood, a column of reflected light poured up the wide road. On and on the caravan came, Sullen quickly losing count of individuals, and then losing count of wagons, and finally turning to Grandfather when the stream showed no sign of stopping after close to an hour.

"Didja know there'd be so many?"

"One good wolf is worth a thousand sheep," said Grandfather, but even he looked rattled by the sheer size of the Cobalt Company.

Grandfather had always just looked like Grandfather, but now with the chill light of dawn striking his leathery features and the few wisps of hair left on his head and chin, Sullen had to be real: Grandfather had gotten... well, old. Maybe it was being away from the Savannahs, chasing rumors and false leads all across the Body of the Star, dealing with crazy Outlanders and exploring desolate ruins-Sullen felt five years older, so imagine what toll the quest must have taken on Grandfather.

Then again, Grandfather hadn't been the one touched up by a god. The old man clearly slept like a babe whenever he wasn't taking watch, and probably sometimes when he was, too, whereas Sullen hadn't gotten a good night's sleep since his encounter with the Faceless Mistress. During the months since, he had yet to unearth any information at all about her worship, the faith of the Forsaken Empire as obscure as its fate, but he did learn much of the woman she had charged him with hunting down: Cobalt Zosia. They called her the Stricken Queen now, but in her day she'd brought this land to its knees, leading an uprising of peasants against the Crimson Empire and becoming queen, only to die at the hands of her successor, Indsorith. Yet now she returned from her twenty years in the earth, and brought fresh war against the rule of her assassin.

And Sullen, armed only with his mother's spear and his father's knives, was supposed to stand against a woman whom not even death could stop, on behalf of a long-forgotten god he'd never once prayed to. If he failed, more people would die than he could even count. It was enough to get anyone down.

Sullen and Grandfather were spotted before they'd even cleared the second perimeter of sentries. They would've made it farther had it been darker, but the Cobalt Company kept the edges of their camp brightly lit and tightly patrolled. The shadowy creek Sullen slunk through suddenly flashed with firelight, and shouts encircled them. He wheeled about, blinded by the unhooded lanterns directed at his face, and was about to make a run back up the stream when two arrows struck the shallow water on either side of him.

"Move something something you be dead, something!" came a voice from just up the slope, and Sullen gave thanks their search for Uncle Craven had taken so long-when he'd first left the Savannahs he hadn't spoken a word of Crimson, but now he was conversant enough to get the gist of the order. He planted his spear in the creek bank and raised his empty hands as the same voice called, "Something something wrong you back?"

"Tell them we're here for 'Maroto,' " sighed Grandfather. "Our only hope is he's got some pull with these Outlanders and isn't just taking orders."

"Devil!" cried another unseen sentry.

"No!" said Sullen in childish Crimson, pointing at Grandfather. "Not devil! Grandfather on back! Grandfather no walk! Not devils! Horned Wolves! Here look Maroto! Maroto family!"

"Something something figures," said the first sentry. "Something Maroto something something?"

"I speak small Crimson," said Sullen, wishing for the hundredth time that the Imperials did as much trade with the Immaculate ships as the Flintland clans did-he was near fluent in Immaculate, but that hadn't come in as handy in the Empire as he'd expected. "Maroto here, we talk Maroto. Take us Maroto. Uh, please?"

"Wait," said one scout, so wait Sullen did, despite the icy water running into his worn-out boots. Walking the Frozen Savannahs could make your feet cold, but hanging out in this mountain stream was something else entirely. The lantern light didn't flicker or leave his face, so he closed his eyes and ignored Grandfather's sour mutterings about how Sullen couldn't sneak up on a deaf turtle. Oh, if the Faceless Mistress could see him now...

"Told you we shoulda just grabbed that first scout and snapped her neck," Grandfather grumbled. "Could've worn her cloak and snuck right through the lines."

Sullen didn't talk back, but really, how would that have worked, with Grandfather jutting up over his shoulders? Maybe if they were sneaking into a camp full of hunchbacks...

"Horned Wolves?" said a new voice in the root language of Flintland that most of the clans used for local trading. "Let's see some horns, then."

It felt so good to hear the true tongue that Sullen broke into a wide grin and flashed the secret hand signals of his people. As soon as he did, Grandfather clocked him upside the head, whispering, "That's a damn Eagle accent if I ever heard one, no kin of ours."

"All barbarians are kin out here in the Empire, cousins," said the voice, and, feeling the brightness diminish, Sullen opened his eyes again. The circle of sentries had tightened up close, but the lanterns were now directed low enough on the ground that Sullen could see the woman still wore the plumed headdress of the Crowned Eagle People, as well as a cobalt cloak. "How many more of you are up in the high country?"

"It's just us," said Sullen. "Me and Grandfather are Maroto's kin."

"Maroto didn't tell us to keep an eye out for any of his people who might sneak down under cover of night," said the Crowned Eagle. "So may I ask just what in the holy fornication of the gods you two are doing out here? If you're friendly why not enter our camp by day?"

Meeting the scouts on the road that morning, openhanded and all, was just what Sullen had wanted to do, but Grandfather wouldn't hear any of it. Sullen wasn't about to say that in front of strangers, though. "My Crimson is bad and most Imperials we've met don't speak Immaculate so good. We thought this would be a surer way of finding my uncle. I swear on my knives we mean him no harm. We're his family."

"And how can we know that?" asked the Crowned Eagle.

"Our talk is with Maroto, fledgling," said Grandfather. "Don't tell me that pup sends a bird to do his business these days? Bring him out, and then we'll hear what he has to say on the matter."