Pilos snorted. ‘You were still sucking your mother’s tit when we brought the Quitob under the song,’ he teased, for Atu had been one of the youngest Pechaqueh ever to become an eagle and his youth and wide-eyed innocence had been a constant source of amusement among the older warriors.

His second laughed. ‘There was many a day I’d have gladly run back home for a cuddle during that campaign,’ he admitted.

‘Wouldn’t we all,’ Pilos muttered. The Quitob offensive had been bitter, drawn-out, and a fucking shambles, if he was honest, and though it was fifteen years in the past, the memory still bit at him. Forcing the final the battle in a flooded river delta, holy Setatmeh snatching the unwary on both sides, and warriors drowning in mud only strides from the fighting, sucked under before anyone could reach them. He’d lost an entire Talon of dogs and Coyotes and a full fifth of his eagles before the Quitob capitulated.

Now one in six of the dogs he was taking to war were Quitob, their tenacious, fierce determination put to work bringing peace to all Ixachipan. The glory of the song made manifest.

He didn’t doubt the Yaloh and Tokob would fight like the very lords of the Underworld in the moons to come, and he worried for the Melody as if each warrior, down to the lowliest slave, were his children. How many would they lose this time? How many offspring and partners would never see loved ones again? How many dog warriors, drunk on promises of freedom for themselves and their families – promises Pilos himself had made – would instead die screaming on Tokob and Yaloh spears?

Too many. The number, no matter how small, was always too many.

The eagles’ feathered banner was hoisted into the grey sky and the march began, first to the Singing City where Pilos would seek an audience with the holy lord, and then on, through Pechacan and Xentiban, out from under the song once more, and, with the Singer’s blessing, for the very last time.

Pilos’s feathered cloak fluttered behind him as they marched down the limestone roads, eight abreast, weapons and shields bright, war paint fresh on faces and arms. There was a long way to go yet, but the paint focused his warriors’ minds and reminded them that they didn’t march to sport or their families. They marched to war.

They made the Singing City in a week, but there were no messengers from the source waiting under the ceremonial arch to tell Pilos that the council or the Singer wished to see him. Despite the second incident with the song. Or because of it?