But it was red blood spouting from her enemy. Red blood, not green. Nausea surged in Xessa’s dry throat; she tried to swallow and managed a look to her left and right to see who fought with her – Toxte left, a warrior right to take those threats she couldn’t hear coming, putting themselves at risk by doing so, for there was no one they could scream at for help. If Xessa didn’t see them in trouble, they were dead. A risk they took because the defenders needed every last warrior who could stand in line and wield a weapon. Because they were losing.

The next woman to step forward was taller than Xessa, heavier than her too, with a longer reach and front upper teeth filed to points – a Tlalox. Xessa bellowed at her and parried the axe off to her right and whipped her spear in a wide arc to club the woman in the head. She missed, not sure how, and the axe was slicing for her leg. Xessa leapt high, tried for another smack with her spear shaft, caught the warrior on the elbow as she landed, stumbled, and then she was on one knee and the axe this time would take her face off.

Ossa would leap in and tear out the woman’s belly, but Ossa wasn’t here, and Xessa’s reliance on him, on how they worked together, was going to get her killed. She shoved her spear at the Tlalox, a wild strike that just spoilt the woman’s aim. The obsidian axe blade missed Xessa’s head and shaved a chunk of flesh from the side of her left shoulder so that it hung down like a lolling tongue, salivating blood. She screamed in shock and hurt, and went for the knife, not the net, and lunged, stabbing wildly, avoiding the axe only by Malel’s grace, no skill involved. The blade went into the Tlaloxqueh arm, out and then back into her shoulder and her lead thigh and if the woman said anything, if she begged or cursed or prayed, it was beyond Xessa, who was lost in terror, knife hand pumping until the woman fell backwards and was dragged away so another warrior of the Empire could take her place. And then another. And another. And another. Would it ever end?

Someone wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged her backwards: Toxte, pulling her into the protection of the line. He pointed to the grotesque hanging flesh on her arm. ‘Shaman!’ he shouted in Xessa’s face and pushed her through the warriors clustered behind. Bloody knife in one bloody hand, bloody spear shaking in the other, she squeezed through the throng, chewing her tongue to stop from screaming every time someone pressed against her arm.