‘She’s an animal,’ Enet said dismissively. ‘Clearly all ejab are. The High Feather is wasting our time. Offer them all to the Setatmeh; it is only fitting that the gods take their lives.’

Rix waved, gaining Xessa’s attention, and then translated Enet’s words – or Pilos assumed he did. They could be saying anything.

‘Watch her,’ he murmured to Detta.

Xessa showed no emotion, but Pilos heard a faint snort of derision. She locked gazes with the Great Octave, her own flat and dead, and began to sign.

‘Ejab kill the Drowned because they are killers who take our people, because they are unnatural creatures who kill for entertainment and not just food. They kill for fun, take our children and elderly and rip them apart, leave them scattered across the riverbank. The Drowned are the animals here, not Tokob.’ Rix paused and sucked in a breath, signed a question and received an answer, and then continued, slower than before.

‘You keep slaves and pride yourselves on being civilised; you think you are better than the rest of us. You are not. You are the slaves, slaves to these monsters you keep glutted with human flesh in the hope they won’t lure you in next. You tell yourselves you are too good to be eaten by your gods, but the truth is your gods are too gorged and lazy to hunt you. Your lives are lived in terror masquerading as worship. While you cower and give them defenceless people to be consumed, we are true warriors who take the fight to the Drowned. We will not stop until every last one is dead. Every last Drowned and every last Pecha. Only then will there be peace.’

The silence was profound and Pilos knew Rix understood he was a dead man breathing. That they all were. Perhaps it had been their plan from the start, a way to avoid slavery and maybe take some of the council – even the Singer – with them. Pilos had an intense urge to offer them his respect, even as he acknowledged the utter waste of life that was to come.

‘Words with as little thought behind them as the imitations of a parrot,’ Enet scoffed, surprising him. ‘Animals jerking against the ropes that bind them. Savages who bark of honour but gave up their homes, their gods, and their offspring to save their own skins. They can tell us nothing, teach us less. Have them killed and be done with it.’

‘Is this the will of the Singer?’ Pilos asked.

Enet’s gaze was undiluted malice. ‘Of course it is.’ Pilos waited her out until, with a tiny huff of irritation, she leant behind the hanging and whispered a question.