Warn the city. Warn the city. Warn the city. The words pounded in counterpoint to her heart and her feet, the left one leaving a trail of blood from a cut that would, she prayed, be washed away by the rain that had started moments after the warriors below her had vanished back into the trees and she’d been able to slip away.

Xessa was under no illusions about her ability to move silently, so she thanked Malel for sending rain to cover the noise she made. The warriors had seemed cautious but not surprised to find the game trail. As if this was planned. She didn’t waste time speculating; her only task now was to reach the city and tell them the enemy was here.

She climbed straight up through uncleared jungle until the trees and undergrowth thinned enough to run, and then began to traverse the slope towards the city. The sky was the roiling black of an angry ancestor come for vengeance and the rain was heavy for so late in the Wet, making the ground treacherous under her bare feet.

Xessa fell, the bright pain of a split knee overlaying the black pain of a bruise deep into the bone. Ossa’s hot breath warmed the side of her neck as the cold wind buffeted her and she regained her feet. They ran on, Xessa’s long, loping stride shortening, tightening, as her feet bruised and her breath came ragged and the way back grew longer and increasingly unfamiliar this high up the slope. Ossa limped, his hind leg held up to his belly. He’d slipped when a pile of loose stones gave way beneath him and had damaged his paw or knee.

His suffering broke her, and how he kept going regardless. There wasn’t enough time for her to rest, but Ossa could, at least. Heavily, Xessa crouched down and the dog came back to her. She patted her shoulders and he gathered himself and jumped up, paws scrabbling for purchase and nails scoring the back of her neck. She grunted at his weight and then his hot body was draped around her neck, fore and hind legs dangling down over her chest.

Xessa grabbed his forelegs in one hand and a root in the other and hauled herself back to her feet, her breathing sharp and painful in her chest. The ground was shrub and sharp rock and she was probably outlined against the sky if anyone cared to look. Clinging to whatever she could find, she made her way on, slower than before. The wind strengthened further, blowing into her face and bringing a cold, stinging rain that battered at her eyes and made it hard to breathe. The clouds whipped overhead and the world was thrashing greens and hard, wet greys and spatters of sunlight there and then gone.