Pilos gritted his teeth and marched in impenetrable silence and his Feathers faded back behind him to avoid being a target if his temper snapped. He didn’t realise his mood had spread to the thousands of warriors marching behind him until Feather Atu coughed and then appeared at his shoulder.

‘Perhaps a song to lift the heart, High Feather?’

Pilos grunted, eyes fixed ahead, but then Atu’s words reached him and he consciously loosened his hands and shoulders. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said and then his gaze flicked sideways and he huffed a laugh. Elaq was marching off the edge of the road, unconsciously in step with the Melody and waiting for Pilos to glance over.

Atu touched belly and throat and vanished and, at a gesture, Elaq replaced him. Moments later the Feathers began the song of Chitenec, an old favourite. It rippled down the seemingly endless snake of warriors with its tail of cooks and builders and weapons-makers and offerings. Pilos and Elaq marched in silence for a while, listening to the voices settle into harmony. The song within the song.

‘Atu’s right; it does lift the heart,’ Pilos said and clapped Elaq on the shoulder. ‘Business or pleasure?’

‘The former,’ Elaq said, and Pilos sighed. Of course it was. ‘About the Great Octave; about the song,’ he added and Pilos was suddenly grateful for the singing of thousands of warriors behind him. He let it fill his consciousness, focusing on the rhythm and the story, so that as Elaq spoke, the words mingled in his mind and would be harder see. A poor imitation of the Listeners’ method to transmit confidential information.

‘Tell me about the song first,’ he said. Whatever Enet was up to could wait; the changes to the song could not.

‘Word from the source is that Pikte, son of the Great Octave and the Singer, is dead.’

‘The song first,’ Pilos repeated and Elaq held up a hand to still him. The eagle so rarely acted as Pilos’s equal that when he did, it meant something, so Pilos bit his tongue and waited.

‘Pikte was murdered. In the source, by Enet and the Singer. That’s what caused the change in the song—’

‘Stop,’ Pilos interrupted, his stride faltering. ‘This can’t be right. Why are you saying this?’

Elaq marched in silence, sympathy mingled with grim reality twisting his hard face into something harder. Pilos felt sick and the warriors’ singing suddenly seemed more like the wailing of spirits condemned to the Underworld. The afternoon was grey and windy – a typical end-of-Wet day – but it seemed more. Portents in everything.

‘The Singer was casting Enet out, stripping her of title and status, and so she offered him Pikte and the old ritual stone knife from back before. He took it, Pilos. He blooded the song, against all tradition, against the law. He blooded the song with his own son.’