‘Cut them off!’ she shouted, gesturing to the pod around her and then whistling. Second Flight Beyt, restored to her proper place as Ilandeh’s subordinate, looked up and Ilandeh pointed at herself and then downhill. The other woman nodded and waved her on.

Ilandeh ran on burning, shaking legs, the shield on her left arm long since splintered into nothing and the flesh beneath pummelled black. She’d lost her spear and found another, lost that and stolen an axe from a dying Yalotl. Her pod formed the arrow shape with her at the tip, and they plunged down through the panicking, fighting roil of defenders. Cut them off cut them off cut them off.

A few more Tokob broke for the city, then a knot of Yaloh. Ilandeh forced more speed into her legs, teeth gritted against pain and the uneven, slippery ground and the desire to stop. She was macaw, the half-blood warrior daughter of a Pechaqueh noble, she was Flight, she was Whisper, and she would not let down the Empire of Songs or the High Feather. She would not.

Even so, it was mostly Calan’s dog warriors who got there first. Ilandeh knew they would be the ones only a few moons or a few actions away from freedom, that tantalising taste like honey on the lips that was a future armed with digging sticks and cooking pots rather than spears or knives. A future with their freed families around them, land to call their own, and the glory of the song forever in their hearts.

Perhaps a hundred of them got between those fleeing and the Sky City’s eastern gate, fighting viciously to keep the Tokob and Yaloh away from safety. Ilandeh sped up some more, ignoring the fierce battles all around her, intent only on supporting those dog warriors at bay before the walls.

Calan’s spear-throwers opened up on the Yaloh flank, and more of the enemy broke and ran. The dogs were badly outnumbered now and overseers were cracking whips and forcing the slave warriors forward through the enemy while the eagles followed, taking apart Paw after Paw with lethal efficiency. The slaves wouldn’t be in time to save the dogs. Ilandeh might be – as long as the gates didn’t open and reserves pour out to take them in the rear.

‘Setatmeh!’ she screamed and the dogs saw her, took heart, and pulled into one long impenetrable line in front of the gate that neither Tokob nor Yaloh knew how to counter. Ilandeh’s arrow formation punched into the biggest knot of Tokob and cleaved it in half. They spun to face the new threat and the dogs responded, curling the edges of their line inward to trap them in the scorpion’s pincer. Between them, none survived. It was wasteful, but the first day’s battle always was. They could begin taking slaves once the defenders’ will had been broken.