And now there it was, the Sky City a bright blur above them as Tayan climbed out of the jungle below the Swift Water. After all this time, it was almost impossible for him to conceive it. It didn’t take long for the relieved chatter among the surviving warriors to fade, though, as they made their way past the Swift Water’s loop and towards the walls and no one challenged them.

Tayan managed to swallow his grief long enough to summon some worry. ‘What’s happening? What can you see?’

‘It’s what we can’t see that’s the problem,’ Tiamoko said uneasily. They’d found him the morning after the ambush unconscious beneath two corpses, covered in their blood; the enemy must have assumed he was dead. ‘No warriors watching the approaches and barely any farmers in the fields or the orchards. Only two pipes running from the water temples, not four. And … shit, is that smoke?’

Tayan squinted desperately to where the young warrior was pointing. ‘Where?’

‘Looks like Xentibec’s burning,’ he said, and at that, no matter their fatigue and their wounds, they began to run again.

The weeks of journeying had done more for Tayan’s strength than he’d known until their flight from the ambush, and now he kept up with the warriors as they laboured up the hill and the images slowly resolved themselves in his poor vision. Smoke was billowing from at least four, no, five places in the Xentib quarter, and the gate leading out of it – the one closest to their route as they followed the boundary wall past the Swift Water – remained closed.

Tiamoko sprinted ahead, but he slowed before he got there and turned back. ‘I can hear fighting!’ he shouted and then hurled himself at the gate. It was locked from the inside and, even stranger, barricaded from without. They tore away the wooden props and the stones piled against the gate. ‘Up and over,’ he said when it was clear and Lutek ran at him, put her foot in the cradle of his hands and was thrown upwards. She got her elbows over the top and stared down through the smoke, then scrambled up to straddle the gate.

The others were shouting questions, but she pointed downwards and vanished. The shouting and screams were clear now and dread was a punch to the gut. Was it the Empire? The gate creaked open and Lutek’s face appeared. ‘I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but you need to get in here. There are Yaloh fighting Xentib.’

Everyone paused. ‘What?’ someone asked.

Lutek pulled the gate wider and they crowded through, into burning buildings and savage fighting. The Xentib were a mass of terrified citizens hiding behind their few score warriors, but the Yaloh were there in their hundreds, it seemed. Stones were being hurled from deep in the crowd. Blood spurted and a woman went down, screaming.