The two reeves had no pulse and no breath, their spirits utterly vanished. They had flown beyond the Spirit Gate. She searched their bodies but could find no dart or needle that might have pricked poison in them. They had packs set on the ground and now crawling with bugs; inside she found a blanket, reeve’s gear for tending harness, a set of clean and mended laborer’s clothing for off-duty wear, and travel food: rice balls wrapped in se leaves, nai paste, a pair of sprouting yams, and a pouch full of nuts.

“May your spirits go gently under the gate,” she whispered. “My thanks for this gift. I’ll seek justice for you, comrades.”

She hoisted the packs and backtracked cautiously until she saw Warning trotting toward her along the road. Well enough. She took the mare’s lack of concern as a good omen. She scrambled up to the road and caught the reins. “Dead,” she said to the mare. “I hope you don’t mind the extra weight.”

She could not get out of her mind the way they had both simply fallen, as though that woman was a demon in truth, a lilu who had sucked their spirits right out of their bodies even though she hadn’t been touching them. Gods, that was a frightening thing!

Aui! And what of their eagles?

The hooded eagle lingered in the clearing, unable to fly because it was blind, but the other eagle had vanished. No doubt it was the raptor who had flown at first light. Eagles were not sentimental beasts. Reeves often joked that eagles jessed their reeves, not the other way around, since everyone knew that an eagle chose its reeve. Once a reeve had died, her eagle did not maunder or grieve. They departed for Heaven’s Ridge, and in time—weeks or months or years—they might return to jess a new reeve.

The hooded eagle could not fly. It was in distress, calling out, wings extended, hackling and feathers flushed. Marit had lost her own eagle. She was not about to let this raptor starve or be slaughtered.

She balanced her staff in a firm grip in her left hand and fixed her knife in her right.

“Here, now, sweetheart,” she said in her most soothing voice, but an unjessed eagle is a wild eagle. The raptor struck at the sound of her voice or perhaps a tremor felt in the earth. Marit danced aside. She lunged for and grabbed the slip. No time to strike the hood properly. She slashed with the knife, and cursed if the eagle didn’t hook the plume with a talon and cast the loosened hood straight to the dirt.

They stared at each other, Marit standing stock-still and the eagle glaring with utter fury from under her ridged brows.

The raptor struck so fast Marit didn’t even have time to scream.

RAIN POURED INTO her mouth, pounding the earth on all sides, hammering her flesh. She cursed and rolled over, spitting out a throatful of water. A big body appeared out of the storm, and suddenly the rain lessened because she lay in a rain shadow under the shelter of pale wings.