Xessa wore the ejab symbols of courage and protection on her hands and face, but Lutek had taken a moment to draw the warrior’s bands on her biceps and wrists, and around her knees and ankles too. Xessa called on her ancestors and the spirits to guide her, her gaze travelling down to the side every few strides to look for Ossa. Each time he wasn’t there, her chest got a little tighter, her palms a little clammier.

Another incoherent prayer babbled in her head as they closed in on the rear of the Tokob line and wriggled through to the front. Instantly, they were in the battle, not allowed even a breath to adjust to the chaos all around them.

A warrior wearing a string of dog teeth around his neck lunged at her and she jabbed; he got a hand on her spear and nearly wrenched it from her grip, punching his own towards her as she stumbled. Desperately, Xessa let go with her right hand and twisted side-on to evade the flint point. She tried for a grab of her own and missed as he pulled back. He still had control of her spear, but the ball of her foot slammed into his chest hard enough to force him backwards and he finally let go. Xessa rammed her spear at his face, cutting the cheek and ripping through an ear. He screamed and she paused to let Ossa leap in and tear flesh from her enemy. He wasn’t there. The hesitation nearly killed her.

A second warrior stepped forward as the first fell back and swung a club, studded with obsidian shards, across Xessa’s chest, peeling open bamboo scales and salt-cotton like the petals of a dying flower. Clumsily, she batted it away with the shaft of her spear, the impact shuddering through her hands. One of the shards snagged on the wood and the weapons locked together. Xessa twisted the spear, taking the club out of the woman’s grip so unexpectedly that she didn’t know what to do next. The spear was still impaled on the club, useless.

The woman came for her with a knife and Xessa surrendered to her training, flinging the net hanging from the back of her belt. It snarled her enemy’s head and Xessa wrenched the club free and slammed it into the woman’s shoulder, smashing her collarbone, the obsidian opening her face and neck and chest. She fell to her knees and Xessa ripped it back out, dropped it and reeled in the net, coiling it in her hand. Net and spear. Just like a Drowned. Familiar.