They set a wide perimeter and the rest of the Melody moved up; no point returning to their established camp. ‘Calan, pass word – we march at moonset. We’ve got ground to cover and I want to press our advantage – or at least make the enemy think we have an advantage and that that ambush didn’t hurt us. Set dogs to string out in a wide skirmish line to either side of the main force so we don’t get flanked. Whispers scouting a stick ahead and slave warriors behind them. If they trigger any more ambushes I don’t want the eagles taking the brunt of it. We’ll need them for the Sky City.’

‘As the High Feather commands.’

‘They’re starting to piss me off now,’ he added and Calan laughed.

‘They won’t live free to regret it,’ she said with a grin undimmed by the hours she’d fought. He smiled back and Calan touched belly and throat and vanished between the trees.

Pilos licked his teeth and then spat. ‘Fucking Wet,’ he muttered as the wind freed a cascade of droplets from the branches above. The advance was too slow, and every day they didn’t reach Tokoban was a day more that those heathen bastards could be killing or torturing the gods. There were four days left until the Great Star began its grand absence, when it would vanish for ninety days and return in the evening, not the morning. Surely its absence would be long enough to conclude the war. They might even be home in time for its reappearance. That would be a good omen.

Patience, Pilos. The Wet will end, the ground will firm and the conquest will proceed as the holy Setatmeh decree.

And then peace. Finally. Once I’ve strangled Enet with her own entrails.

Pilos huffed a quiet laugh and made himself a nest in the roots of a strangler vine. Moonset was only a few hours away; best sleep while he could. It was going to get far worse before it got better, and not even the prospect of strangling the Great Octave was enough to distract him from the cold worry of what was to come.

XESSA

Ceremonial plaza, upper Sky City, Malel, Tokoban

1st day of the grand absence of the Great Star

The Great Star had vanished.

All across Tokoban and Yalotlan, cities and towns should have been a riot of noise and colour as people celebrated the story of the Great Star’s disappearance below the horizon as, in his guise as the Watcher, he took their prayers to the spirits awaiting rebirth and brought succour to those trapped in the Underworld.