Pilos aimed for the thickest knot of Yaloh and Tokob and trusted to the holy Setatmeh and his armour. Screams and shouts erupted, leaves shivered down from the movement of Whispers in the trees, and the High Feather gave himself up to war.

In the end they’d held and then more than held, pushing their ambushers back through the hours and the rain and wind that whipped the treetops and fluttered the fan of wet feathers in Pilos’s hair.

The macaws held the canopy and the eagles had the forest floor, dog warriors curving around on the flanks, and the Tokob and Yaloh were driven like deer ahead of a pack of grassland coyotes until they broke and scattered and not even the Whispers could track them through the gloom of storm and dusk. They lost nearly fifty dogs and half as many eagles before it was done, while the enemy dead numbered two-thirds that. They’d chosen the ambush site well, and they’d fallen back rather than fight to the death. It was no shame to admire a talented enemy, and Pilos did so even as he cursed their names and ancestors.

He walked among the wounded, shamans kneeling over them and bloody to the elbows, until he found the man. He squatted at his side. ‘How do you feel? No, don’t get up, that’s an order.’

‘Shaman says I’ll live, High Feather. I’ll be back in the line in a few days, less even,’ the dog tried, panicking. Pilos squeezed his shoulder, hushing him. He looked for the nearest shaman for confirmation.

‘A week, but yes, he’ll live,’ she said, wiping her hair out of her eyes and smearing blood across the blue paint zigzagged across her forehead.

‘What’s your name and how long have you fought?’ Pilos asked, offering him a gourd of water.

The man looked terrified. ‘Oteom of the Axib, High Feather. I have had the honour of fighting for four sun-years.’

‘Four, eh? And before that?’

‘My family are free weavers in Pechacan, High Feather,’ Oteom said with deep pride and Pilos nodded his respect.

‘You fought well. You fought bravely. And you saved my life. I’ll see to it you’re promoted to Coyote, Oteom, and your family and the Melody scribes informed of your change of status. Will you rejoin them when you have enough wealth?’

Oteom fought his way up to sitting, one hand clutched to the bandaging around his waist. His face was glowing. ‘No, High Feather,’ he said fervently. ‘My place is here. My life is the Melody, for Singer and Setatmeh and Empire. For High Feather Pilos.’

Pilos grinned. ‘Glad to hear it, Coyote Oteom of Axiban. Make sure you get your insignia from the scribes in the morning, yes?’ The man nodded, overawed, and Pilos snorted at his expression and then left him with an instruction to rest.