The man was going to die.

Ba’an watched from the clifftop as he staggered backwards and fell, clutching his side. Sunlight struck his blond hair, making it gleam in a brilliant, golden crown, shining in a way that was impossible to ignore.

She had noticed the yelling and screaming first. Curiosity had gotten the best of her, and she had veered from the pack of wild strifa to fly toward the road, settling on the rocks of the twin cliffs to watch. From her vantage point she had a very good view of the scene unfolding below—much better than if she had been in her human form. Crows had excellent eyesight, and as an entire flock of them she could watch the spectacle from many angles.

The road was relatively new, though one would have never guessed it with the way it looked. Here the illustrious empire had built one of their cobbled roads through the sand, but the desert could only be delayed, not defeated. Sand often blew in and covered the stones, and the carved red cliffs that marked the start of K’Avaari territory loomed over it, a constant reminder of just whom this stretch of desert really belonged to.

Ba’an watched the blond man bleed. Gut wounds were a terrible way to die. If she had arrived even a minute or so sooner, she could have likely saved him from that fatal blow.

If she had wanted to.

Ba’an was not in the practice of saving outlanders.

She watched from her perch—perches—as he rolled in the dirt, leaving a trail of blood where he had been. His opponent, a dirty-looking man with likely a dirtier temper, swore viciously as he kicked at his head. Sensibly, the blond man simply continued rolling until he was out of range, coming up into a painful-looking crouch with one knee tucked beneath him. He should have been in agony, but he was smiling, mouth bloody as he bared his teeth in a way that could not be described as friendly, though he looked maniacally cheerful. It was a truly bizarre expression.

…Was he insane?

She glanced around the battlefield, taking it in.

It seemed that the wounded man and his company had been ambushed by bandits. They were all dead now, their bodies strewn over the road haphazardously in bloody heaps. Ba’an could see that the attackers wore mismatched armor, which was a sure sign that the pieces had been stolen and assembled over time.

This bandit was wearing padded cloth and leather bracers, which made him look particularly…like a bandit. It looked hopelessly mismatched, and she couldn’t imagine it was much better than going without. His opponent, however, was worse off: he was completely unarmored.

He had been somewhat idiotic, running into battle in a tunic and chiton with only a sword in his hand. He was paying for it now; wounded, he was no longer as agile, and he barely listed to the side in time to avoid the foot that would have laid him out. If he had been wearing a breastplate like his fallen companions, he would have not suffered a gut wound.

The injury must have been agonizing. Even so, he never released his grip on his sword. The man was a warrior, and a good one at that. She could see it in the way the other attackers had fallen, their bodies lying clustered together as though he had killed them too swiftly for a sensible counter. She could only see a single lethal wound on each dead body. Efficient.

“Fucking die already!” The bandit was not in a good mood, clearly. Ba’an did not know why he persisted, but the man was Dolkoi’ri; Dolkoi’ri loved violence, so perhaps there was nothing more to it than bloodlust. Ba’an had heard that bloody shows where men fought to the death against each other or animals was a popular pastime in Dolkoi’ri cities. They built buildings specifically to house such spectacles, which did not surprise her in the least. What were they called again? Kolosums? Kolluseums? Something like that.

“Well, since you’re asking so nicely and all—” He ducked as the bandit lashed out at his head. The man wheezed, whatever clever rejoinder he’d had planned lost alongside the breath in his lungs, but the cheerful smile never left his face.

What a madman. He was even grinning as he turned his head and spat. Ba’an could see it was bloody, even from her position on the cliff. Oh yes, it was a very serious injury. Even if he won here, he would not live to celebrate his victory for long.

The bandit made a disgusted noise and tried to kick him in the head again. This turned out to be a mistake. The other man simply grabbed the bandit’s foot and yanked, slamming his blade right into his thigh and groin. The bandit screamed as blood sprayed in an arc. He collapsed, making truly heinous animal-noises of pain.

Well, he was a dead man. There was no surviving a wound like that.

The blond man cut his throat, silencing his cries.

Quiet settled over the road, broken only by the wind and the ragged breathing of the last man standing.

“Nngh. Fuck. Fuck.” Ba’an watched as the victor pressed his right hand against his side, left hand still clutching his sword. He staggered, nearly falling before he caught himself using his blade as a crutch. He turned his head this way and that, still alert, looking for enemies; tension slowly bled from his shoulders as he found only the dead and dying. He did another pass, slower this time, and she realized he was looking for someone.

Ba’an was not concerned about being spotted. He would only see a flock of crows, and there was nothing suspicious about crows on a battlefield.

The man ignored his fallen opponent and limped to a body that had clearly been thrown by a horse. The horse was nowhere to be seen, and the man was most certainly dead. There was an arrow sticking out of his neck, a precise strike that had taken him right in the gap between his helm and breastplate.

He was dressed in the same manner as everyone else in the convoy—a neat tunic with blocky patterns on the hems beneath a bronze breastplate, thighs bare aside from the leather skirt—and in the same sort of colours. There was no mistaking the Dolkoi’ri workmanship in the armour, either. The breastplate still gleamed bronze beneath all the blood and she could still see they were stylized to resemble a man’s bare torso. It left no room for guesswork as to its origins.

They had been armed and armoured, but that hadn’t saved them. The covered travelling chariot was tipped over on its side, one of the wheels still spinning lazily as it teetered ever closer to falling off its axle. The surviving horses had long since bolted except for one unlucky roan lying on its side, its legs broken as it struggled and whinnied weakly.

They had been some kind of escort. She could tell by the weapons and armour that they were what outlanders called hippeis—armored, mounted soldiers, very much like K’Avaari raiders, but with more bits of metal attached. They rode horses instead of desert strifa. The covered chariot looked expensive; it was pitch black, except for the wheels and axles, and decorated with what appeared to be precious metals, hammered thin and used as inlay. There was a crest that was made of gold on the door: it was the sun, depicted with bold, stylized rays protruding from a gleaming disk.

Ba’an had heard of things like this before, but she had never seen it in person. It looked very impressive, though Ba’an was not sure if she would find it so if she had been using her human eyes, rather than the eyes of a crow. The inlay seemed to have its own inner glow.

The man had arrived at the body. Laboriously, he raised a hand to shake him. “Rekos,” he said, and she knew the moment he realized his friend was dead because he closed his eyes in what could only be grief. She watched him turn his head to survey the field.

Dead, dead, dead, the lot of them. Soon, he would join them as well.

He was the only unarmored man she could see. She wondered if he had been inside the carriage. Well, even so, she doubted he had been the only one. There had been someone else in there; judging by the décor, Ba’an knew it had been a woman. She was long gone now. A kidnapping?

The man levered himself back up to his feet with his sword, his face twisting into a grimace of pain. “Fuck. Fuck.” Grunting, he made his way haltingly to the fallen horse, which was still thrashing. He looked down, and though she couldn’t see his expression from where she was, she knew it must have been something like pity.

Painfully, he sat himself down on the ground, leaning against the horse. “I’m sorry, old girl. Shhhh. Shhhhh. It’s okay.” The horse stared up at him, and Ba’an thought they must have been good friends. “Shhhhh…I know, it hurts. Just…”

He dropped his sword and pulled a out a knife. She saw the metal flash in the sunlight. The horse didn’t make a sound; eventually, the twitching stopped. The man settled himself against the dead animal and closed his eyes. His hair was matted with blood, but even so the clean bits gleamed in the light. His skin was pleasantly tanned beneath the blood and dirt; everything about him was warm and golden.

He was young. It was a pity he would die at his age, but she had seen younger men than him go. It was no business of hers if the Dolkoi’ri killed each other. If anything, it was deeply…convenient.

She hopped up onto lean, twiggy shrub clinging to the top of the overhang, readying herself for flight. Her other bodies did the same.

Outlander problems were outlander problems. They had nothing to do with her, or with the People. It would be best if she simply flew on to her destination.

It had nothing to do with her.

At all.

The man’s eyes were closed, head tilted back as though enjoying the sun. He was still bleeding sluggishly, his hands and clothes a bloody mess.

Perhaps he had lost consciousness.

Ba’an watched him for another moment, noting the subtle rise and fall of his chest. He looked relaxed, as though he were only resting beneath the sun, not bleeding from his gut.

To an onlooker it would have been a fantastical sight. A flurry of crows flew down to the ground and coalesced into a woman, dark-haired and barefoot and wearing only a coat of black feathers. She looked down at the young man, who was even now dying.

Ba’an looked around at the carnage. This road ran right through the sand and past the two great cliffs which marked the start of K’Avaari territory, an open gate into the desert. Carved into the eastern cliff was the figure of Sa’nuvan, the witch that had led the People into the sand and freedom. Opposite to her stood Kuva’rin, the chief who had joined the twelve tribes so they could be led. Between them was the open desert, and beyond the sandy dunes lay the saa-vuti vur of the People, scattered now, and hidden. She knew the closest tribe was six days out by strifa, four if one travelled the hidden paths through the bir-vuti beneath the sand. It was close, though perhaps not so close that the K’Avaari would be blamed.

Of course, the Dolkoi’ri never needed a reason to blame K’Avaari for anything.

She looked down at him again. Young. Healthy, from what she could see, except for the wound that was killing him. He was handsome in a way that suggested a life of wealth and plenty. She did not think he had ever starved.

Someone important.

Her shadow fell across him, and he frowned. Blearily, he opened his eyes. They were amber and bright, even as he lay dying in the dirt. She could feel his soul, blazing inside of him like a fire refusing to die even as his body began to fail.

He met her gaze, eyes widening in what she guessed was surprise—or shock. But he never looked away, staring up at her as though transfixed.

Ba’an made her decision. She raised her hand and covered his eyes.

In another moment, a murder of crows cawed as they took wing. The man and woman were gone from the road, leaving only the dead staring up into the sky.