Valyn took a deep breath, surveying the scene. Everything appeared under control. Talal and Laith had made a large pile of bows, knives, and spears; Annick stood a short way off, scanning the camp, bow in hand.

Pyrre caught him watching her and smiled a wide, open smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “My god accepts all sacrifice, but I’ve always felt that the unarmed make for meager offerings.”

She knelt behind the two hostages, trussing them quickly with the length of cord Talal had tossed her. It looked safe. If the Urghul were going to fight, they would have done it already, when they still had their weapons and full numbers.

“I apologize for this measure,” Valyn said, gesturing toward the tied Urghul.

Huutsuu shrugged once more. “It is a while since we were Hardened. Kwihna will be pleased.”

Valyn shook his head. “Hardened?”

She nodded. “Through pain.”

“No,” Valyn said. “We’re not here to harden you.”

“Less ethnography, Val,” Laith cut in. “More medicine.”

Valyn waved him down. “We’re here because we have wounds that need cleaning and cauterizing. We need food, and maybe horses as well.”

Something dangerous flashed in Huutsuu’s eyes. “No horses.”

Valyn started to point out that the woman wasn’t in a position to contest the point, then thought better of it. For all their success thus far, the situation had him edgy. Between his own pain, worry for his soldiers, wariness regarding the Urghul, and fear that the Flea would drop out of the sky, he felt like a flatbow cranked a turn too far, the whole apparatus so tight that a touch could snap the string or shatter the bow’s arc.

The injured first, he reminded himself. Then the bird. Then food.

Talal’s wound was straightforward enough, or it would have been if the clouds hadn’t opened up, pelting them with a vicious rain while lightning lashed the steppe a dozen miles distant. Valyn considered moving his Wing into the api, but that would leave them blind to what was going on outside. He could split the group, but splitting a small force was a piss-poor idea, no matter how complacent the enemy appeared. Which left them all out in the rain, close enough to the hissing fire that the heat taunted without doing anything to warm him. At least the sudden squall would limit the Flea’s visibility, if the bastard was even up there.