Three arrows sprouted from the Yaloh chest and she faltered, the club wobbling as her arms lost their strength. She took another step, small, uncertain, and then one more before a final arrow took her through the throat and she toppled backwards like a felled tree.

‘Flight? Flight, can you move?’ Sarn asked, arrow clamped to the bow stock with his forefinger and his free hand dragging at her arm. ‘Up you get, Xenti. More killing to do.’

Air rushed into Ilandeh’s lungs and the pain roared its fury and then subsided, just a little, just a touch. A second, hotter fury at mention of her half-blood propelled her up to sitting – as though Sarn was any fucking better. Tlaloxqueh bastard. A pause to breathe again and she rolled to her knees and stood. Each movement of her chest caused a rippling coruscation of pain and the world lurched around her before her feet steadied.

Sarn handed her her spear. ‘At least half of them fled; archers are mopping up the rest. Runners went this way.’ He pointed and set off and Ilandeh had no choice but to follow. She was the Flight, but Sarn was leading them now, following protocol when she was disabled.

Only I’m not. I’m right here, three steps behind him.

If she wanted to retake command, she needed to shrug off the pain and start giving the bastard orders. Ilandeh pressed a hand to her ribs and sucked in a deep, deliberate breath, waiting for the scrape or creak that would tell her she’d broken ribs or cracked her sternum. Pain, a lot of pain, but she was intact as far as she could tell. No bubbling, no blood in her throat or mouth. Her armour had held then, just.

Ilandeh ran heavily after Sarn and the rest of her command, ignoring the urge to sit and rest, to hunch over. She was Flight, and she had a task. A duty to Empire, Singer, Setatmeh and High Feather all.

The Whispers were shadows in the gloom, flitting like moths across the face of a cloudy moon. Ilandeh moved among them, a little slower, a touch breathier, but with them. Sarn had the arrow’s tip of their formation, while she laboured along out on one of the barbs. She told herself it didn’t matter. She almost believed it.

And then screams and the faltering of the arrow, a structure that would’ve held strong if she’d been the tip.

‘Line out,’ she called ahead into the darkness, no need for stealth now. The Whispers re-formed and ran forward in a loose skirmish line, the better to encircle any enemy, dodging trees and tangles of shrub and vine. Ilandeh saw what Sarn had led them into, what his hubris had done to them in his desire to retake command.