The only Order Militant in Hazad — elite soldiers, and something much more feared.
History
Founded to protect Hazad. In the Fourth Crusade it stood by the Sultan against the Most Holy’s crusade, the act that made the Eastern Church viable.
The Eyes of the Eagle
Half secret police, half visible doctrinal enforcers, the Eyes fill the role the Order of the Phoenix once did — watching for the Arts of the Corrupted, monitoring the elven communities, enforcing orthodoxy. The identity of the head of the Eyes is a carefully guarded state secret.
Motto
“Soaring Prayers.”
Key People
- Julius Menenius — Knight Captain; his squire is the elf Donatello. (S1)
- Nusra al-Bushra’s husband is a captain in the Eagle Knights. (S3)
- The Armory in Isbi’liyyah is their fortress headquarters.
- Haroun al-Affan has friends and contacts in the order. (S2) He squired for Naqi al-Akram, an Eagle knight of House al-Akram, now dead — branch not yet established. (Aaron)
- The order supplies royal protection. Naqi was often assigned to Crown Prince Awad, and Princess Ensah arrived at the dockside attack with a royal protection detail (S2). If the Eagle guarded Awad, the Eagle knows who was in the ruins — see The Death of Crown Prince Awad.
- Sadiq — an elf, quartermaster of the order, in his forties, with a minor light gift. He also squired for Naqi al-Akram, and wears his tabard in public because being an elf in Isbi’liyyah is currently dangerous. (S6) See The Elf Scapegoating.
- Eagle Knights fought and captured a group of Owl Knights in Halwa in Fall 1734 — a whole block burned. Three of the five were killed; the two survivors, Visenne de Tarrand and Isabel d’Allais, have been held at the Citadel of Gazra ever since. The mission the Eagle broke up was an escort taking a child out of the West’s reach. (S4, S6)
- They have been told about Madeline Foussard by Uncle’s Men and have not dispatched anyone — it looked too dangerous, and she has since left Kraus’s Folly. The decision remains theirs. (S6)
- They have since drawn down in Halwa. There used to be a larger presence; after the Owl incident they reduced it deliberately and adopted a more observational approach. (S5)
Speculation
Where were the Eagle — and especially the Eyes — during the smuggling of Phoenix knights into Hazad? Uncle’s Men caught it instead. Institutional rivalry between Uncle’s Men and the Eyes seems structurally inevitable.
Speculation
The Eagle killed the party’s best witness. Jean-Marie, the knight closest to the Owl’s commander and the only one on that mission likely read into the order’s real business, died in the Halwa street fight. Five years later the party arrives asking exactly the questions she could have answered. Nothing suggests the Eagle knew what it was breaking up — a whole city block burned, which is not the signature of a careful operation — but the effect is the same.
Speculation
An elf holds the order’s stores. Sadiq is a quartermaster in the one Order Militant in Hazad, in a country where elves with more than minor gifts are pressed into service or purged, and whose Eyes exist partly to watch the elven communities. His gift is small enough to be safe and his position is one that sees every requisition the order makes — including, presumably, whatever outfitted Crown Prince Awad’s expedition to the dwarfhold. See The Death of Crown Prince Awad.