Chapter 5

The corvid company is quartered in Espalle’s old horse market, whose intact stalls conveniently house the birds. The narrator reflects on the horse-plague called the Stumbles, recalling a childhood memory of surviving mare Idala and the cultural reluctance to erase horses from Spanth life.

After feeding the birds and assigning dams to watch them, the company camps in the roofless auction hall, rights a toppled bronze horse statue, and shares reverence for it. Fresh water is scarce because goblins foul wells, and Espalle’s bathhouse is defiled, so the soldiers bathe in the sea with homemade soap amid floating debris and a corpse, using humor to cope.

Freed from duty, the narrator seeks her brother Migaéd as promised. Navigating Espalle’s tight lanes, she locates the Scarlet Company at an inn, noting their dubious discipline, a well-equipped Bolsu dom Gatán, and a sober, hard-looking Galt Coldfoot guard lingering near officers.

Shown to Migaéd’s room by his servant Pedru, she encounters a young, limping woman bearing a Hordelaw scar, reconsiders her judgment, and briefly shares a look of fellowship. Inside, she finds their family’s springwood shield, the Mouth of the Storm, beautiful yet neglected, stirring memories of home and dreams from her school days.

Migaéd lies drunk and half-naked, with vomit on the floor; the narrator covers him, chooses not to wake him, and leaves, embarrassed for them both. As dusk falls, she passes a latrine ditch where captive goblins gape to receive soldiers’ waste—an image she first deems in poor taste but, recalling their atrocities, later accepts—marking the war’s brutalizing effects.