The Melody pushed them back from three sides and then somehow, without warning, from below, too. Surrounded. Warriors trying to make a stand got caught up in the crush, and once they were moving, they couldn’t stop. Somehow, Toxte had found her, and with him were a dozen ejab. They were pushed deeper into the avenues and plazas at the centre of the city by wave after wave of Melody warriors: desperate fights in the half-light among houses splashed with blood and screams, where the young and old were dragged from hiding and butchered if they wouldn’t surrender.

Now dawn was coming, and madness rode its wings.

Eventually Xessa and Toxte burst from the streets into the grand plaza below the council house where hundreds, thousands, of Tokob and Yaloh had pressed together. Each avenue leading in was cordoned off by a double row of defenders – the ejab slipped in and were directed to the east. Scores of torches burnt all around the plaza, lighting its edges and leaving its centre in pulsing, milling darkness.

They wriggled through the frantic crowd and stood with thirty warriors, mostly ejab, at the eastern entrance. They were to hold it no matter what. Xessa had her spear and knife but her lungs were tight, her thirst shards of obsidian in her throat with every breath. Toxte was haggard, his mouth a slash more bitter than any wound.

Her eyes settled on Ossa – his lithe black form as he lay on his side at her feet, his broad head and elegant muzzle, those huge ears that were her ears, his unwagging tail. Exhausted and hurt, only his fierce loyalty had carried him this far. Lilla and Tayan were gone: dead, captive – she didn’t know. Lutek and Tiamoko were on the western side of the plaza, she thought, out of reach, distant as the sun. Otek was missing and her fear for him was a bird trapped high in her chest, wings frantically beating. Here and now, Toxte, Ossa, and Ekka were all she had left in the world: her husband and their dogs, her ancestors and Malel.

Protect Ossa. Protect Toxte. Protect the city. Eja. Warrior. Life-bringer.

Life-taker.

A ripple of movement, of gestures, down the line told her the enemy was coming, and in force. Demons. Monsters that looked human. Denizens of the Underworld. The few warriors mingled among the ejab shouted directions, organising them into a Paw to face the threat.

A black shape in the corner of her eye and Xessa spun to it, the recall whistle already on her lips, but Ossa was still at her feet. The figure was a little boy, running, mouth wide and square with screams, a long-haired, black-painted warrior wearing a grey-and-white banded eagle feather chasing him down, spearing him in the back and leaving him to fall. Killing him. Killing a child.