The Whisper collected her thoughts. She’d been tired before the Listener had swept her out of her body; now she was nearing exhaustion and her emotions painted the darkness of the space they were in, the rich, living black of fear and the grey of grief streaking from her. ‘I … Their high elders are both dead, as is the elder of the Tokob ejab. I stayed as long as I could, but, High Feather, they were going to attempt to capture and torture a holy Setat. I could not let that happen, not when I have been witness to so much. I had to act, I could not …’ She trailed off at the remembered horror. Pilos had wanted her in the city for the duration, even up to their attack so that she might disrupt the defence if she could, but the sheer spirit-horror of listening to ejab discussing slaughtering her gods, over and over across a year, had shattered her.

‘I killed the leader of the frog-lickers and stole the list of … of things they were going to do to the god if they captured it. It will delay the attempt but no more, I fear.’

Pilos was silent, but the space around them pulsed a deep, angry purple again. Just once as he fought to control his emotions.

Ilandeh didn’t know if it was directed at her. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispered again.

‘You have done well,’ the High Feather said eventually. ‘Give the Listener a full and detailed report and have them transmit it to Citla. But first, your observations.’

Ilandeh pulsed gold with relief. ‘The city can be defended, but the walls are more to prevent line of sight for cats than any real barrier. We can be over them easily. Arrows and darts from above will be a danger. There is a rope bridge over the river below the city, but there are longer, slower routes past it that bypass the water. Those will be heavily guarded.’

She paused again; still no response. Pilos’s control now was total. ‘The Swift Water – the river – is populated with holy Setatmeh but the Tokob have a way to transport water through pipes uphill to the city. I have learnt the method, and I know too the ingredients and proportions of what they call the spirit-magic, which allows their god-killers to be deaf to the call of the holy Setatmeh. Also journey-magic, which is something their shamans use to commune with their ancestors or their goddess. They’ll be in my written report.’

Still Pilos was silent, but Ilandeh was used to that – had remembered that about him, now. Pilos sat and absorbed the information, and the quieter he was, the more people spoke, drawing out things they might have forgotten and that they now fumbled for to fill the silence.