‘There it is.’ Beyt had halted at the top of a small, flat rise amid muddy fields. The rain out here, without the cover of the canopy, was relentless, and all of them were muddy to the knees, tunics and kilts and hair plastered to their skins. Tayan’s paint had long since washed off and he’d decided not to bother reapplying it until they were dry and able to meet with someone who would respect it.

He squinted, but the Singing City was too far away for him to make out in any detail. One thing he could see, far too close, was the wide, lazy curl of a river below them. He let out an involuntary yelp and leapt backwards from the lip of the hill, Betsu following. The four warriors who always marched at their backs caught them roughly, pinning their arms.

‘We wear the feathers, the peace feathers!’ Tayan shouted.

Beyt was frowning, but it melted into a delighted laugh. She shook her head, clapping. ‘You poor, misguided fools. Another reason why you’d be better off under the song. Bring them.’ She vanished down the other side of the hill and her warriors wrestled Tayan and Betsu forward. Helpless and sliding in the mud, Tayan strained to pull himself free. If this had all been some elaborate joke, some drawn-out murder, he would make them earn their laughter.

The river twisted around the base of the hill, a monstrous, sluggish, lethal snake of brown water, straining its banks with runoff from the Wet. Spanning it was a bridge, wooden and as wide as the limestone road. It wasn’t strung high between the trees like at home, only to be used as a last resort. Instead, it sat solid and stable and only an arm’s length above the water.

Betsu was shouting curses, wrenching at the grips of the men holding her, her muscles bulging. Beyt sent a third warrior back to help and he pulled her into a headlock while the other two dragged her arms up behind her back. She let out a strangled screech of pain. Beyt and the pair of warriors flanking her walked onto the bridge without hesitation.

‘Holy Setatmeh, gods of rivers and lakes, of the rain and the crops, revered spirits, we worship at your feet,’ Beyt said. ‘Know that you live within the song with us, that you live in our hearts with the song, and that the song lives within us all. If it be your will, let us pass.’

Sweat blinded Tayan but he blinked desperately as he was dragged onto the bridge, the planks loud under his scuffling sandals. He squinted right and then left, looking for the mottled skin, the dead black eyes, the reaching hands. He’d only ever seen one up close, and he had the scars from mid-thigh to ankle and a dead eja on his conscience to prove it. His heart was pounding hard enough to burst.