The Neck, Xentiban, Empire of Songs
226th day of the Great Star at morning
The Melody was here. Pilos was here and Ilandeh’s heart leapt.
The ten, hundred-strong local pods Pilos had sent in to Yalotlan in response to her communication through the song had already pushed forward, retaking land and destroying the war parties who had thought to take the Empire by surprise. They couldn’t go too far in without reinforcements, but they’d managed to protect a string of pyramids from destruction.
Ilandeh stroked the single scarlet tail feather of a macaw that hung in her hair and then rubbed her thumb over the small tattoo of a chulul gracing the inside of her wrist. The symbol of a Whisper, elite among the macaws, and subtle enough not to be remarked upon. She’d missed the scarlet almost as much as the song. Neither could ease her nerves, however, as Pilos strode through the rain to the open-sided shelter she’d had built to receive him.
Ilandeh touched belly and throat and then knelt to bow. ‘Under the song, High Feather. Praise the holy Setatmeh you are well.’
‘Under the song, Flight, and you are welcome in it after such a long absence. Sit comfortably, please. We will rest here for two hours and then push on – the Singer is even keener than I to have this matter closed. The Third, Sixth and Seventh Talons will push into eastern Yalotlan under Atu’s command. First, Second and Fourth are going straight through to Tokoban. If we can take their mountain, we cut off retreat for the Yaloh and close in from both sides.’
The Singer is even keener than I … He must mean the strange dissonances in the song she had heard, the ones that made the Listener in the nearby pyramid scream and weep. The ones that made every warrior there, whatever their rank or status, cringe. An anomaly. An abomination to the glory.
‘We attack hard and without mercy,’ Pilos continued and Ilandeh blinked and focused. ‘The Singer wants ejab captives particularly and an inventory of the Tokob songstone – he cares little for the rest of them.’ Pilos sat cross-legged on the mats. ‘Your report on the city’s defences can wait until the Feathers are gathered. For now, tell me of the ejab and their spirit-magic.’
‘A concoction of fungus and herbs, plus a tiny amount of frog-venom. They eat it and then for that day they … the spirits either steal their hearing or plug their ears with spirit music. They hear nothing but that and it protects them, though the magic takes a terrible toll as the years pass. The oldest ejab are little more than shuffling madmen and -women, yet they are cared for, almost revered, for their sacrifice. The list of ingredients is here.’ She handed him a report.
‘And the songstone?’
‘There is a cave high up on the hill above the city. It is their most sacred place – they call it the womb and believe all life issued from within it, all creation. There are rich lines of songstone in that cave. It’s possible the entire hill may be veined with it. The echoes and hums and vibrations were consistent with those I have observed in other quarries.’
‘And they don’t use it?’ Pilos asked, curiosity furrowing his brow.
Ilandeh spread her hands. ‘The Tokob appear entirely ignorant of its true purpose and, indeed, ignorant of the world spirit itself. Unless this Malel is their understanding of it. Perhaps when we have shamans and historians as slaves …’ She trailed off; she was babbling, more nervous than she liked to admit, and Pilos knew it.
Ilandeh took a deep breath and began again with her report. She talked and Pilos listened, to stories of ejab and civilians befriended and gently interrogated, of luring people to the river for the holy Setatmeh to take, of the killings of the high elders. Of how Dakto had ingratiated himself into a Paw and then, so she’d heard, arranged the ambush and destruction of a war party.
‘And where is your Second Flight?’ Pilos asked.
Ilandeh frowned. Where indeed? ‘He chose to escort those captives to the flesh markets, High Feather,’ she said evenly. ‘I did not expect it, but in truth … it may be the thought of leaving the Empire again, of being outside of the song for more weeks and months, is affecting him. He will be disciplined on his return, of course.’
He watched her, silent.
‘Forgive me, High Feather. I should have paid more attention to Dakto’s words when we lived in the Sky City. I should have seen if there was restlessness growing in him. He was given much … responsibility by the Tokob. It may have planted unfortunate thoughts.’
The High Feather drummed his fingers on his knee as he studied her. ‘Then let us hope his time in the Singing City reminds him of his duty. Are there unfortunate thoughts growing in you, Whisper?’ he added. ‘Perhaps the Sky City’s freedoms have turned your head, too.’
Ilandeh pressed her forehead to the mat as the breeze blew rain in at them in a fine mist and tugged at her scarlet feather. ‘My loyalty is absolute, High Feather. Tell me how to prove it and I will do so.’
‘If I told you to kill Dakto?’
She twitched, wanting to look up and scan Pilos’s face for deception; didn’t dare. ‘Then I would kill Dakto. For the Singer, the holy Setatmeh, and the Empire. For you.’
Pilos was silent for so long that sweat broke out across her back. Then: ‘Sit up. We will see what is to be done with him when he returns. In the meantime, Sarn is your new Second Flight. He commanded the Talon in your absence.’
‘As the High Feather commands, though my previous Second Flight was Beyt. She did not have command in my absence?’
Pilos stood and stretched. ‘Beyt was given other tasks. Come, there are many sticks to march before nightfall. Take a hundred out ahead and find us someone to fight.’
Sarn crouched behind her in the pre-dawn gloom beneath the trees. He’d made his displeasure at his reduction in status known, and had repeated some of the rumours she knew were flying through the Fourth Talon at Dakto’s unauthorised absence. Had she been tainted too? Was her status as Flight in jeopardy? Her life?
Pathetic, she told herself. They question their own devotion by questioning mine. If they doubt me, it is because their own faith is weak. My allegiance is total, my loyalty without reproach. I will prove it to Pilos. His belief is all that matters.
It wasn’t all that mattered, and everyone knew it. She dismissed the thought and slid on through the brush, concentrating on her task and ignoring the wet leaves rubbing against her face and hair and soaking her clothes. Her hands, knees, and feet were black with mud and clinging leaf mould. Bow and quiver were strapped to her back for ease of movement and her spear was in her right hand. The force they were tracking was both large and alert, and though most of it now lounged around a series of small, spitting fires scattered among the trees, others stood watch at regular intervals. Stood watch but did not see, for Ilandeh was a Whisper, and so were those who moved around her, quieter than snakes.
Ilandeh reached her left hand behind her back and gestured, fingers splayed open and then pointing left; she heard only the faintest scuff and knew Sarn and the others would be spreading out to encircle the camp, awaiting her signal to attack. But not just yet. They could get a little closer still.
A quick patter of raindrops from above told her Beyt was in position, hidden by the canopy. The woman could put six arrows in six targets in six heartbeats. She’d take out most of the guards before Ilandeh’s team even reached the perimeter, clear their path to make a quick ending to the Tokob and Yaloh shits who thought to seize Empire land.
She scanned the camp again and the trees around her; the enemy she could see, but not her Whispers. Ilandeh wiped the mud off her hands and the spear shaft so it didn’t slip in her grip. The obsidian tip gleamed green-black in the early light. She touched belly and throat and then gave a single long whistle. Beyt’s arrows, and those of other Whispers in the canopy, flew before the note ended and Ilandeh followed them in as shouts and screams erupted in the camp, warriors leaping to their feet and snatching up weapons, staring blindly into the gloom and clearly outlined by their fires.
A dozen were down with arrows by the time she cleared the tree and lunged into the clearing to take a man in the belly just below his armour. The spear tip rammed in, scraping off his pelvic bone before sinking deep and he whooped in a breath, choked, his own weapons falling as he clutched, one hand on her spear, the other on her upper arm, as if unsure whether to pull it out or push himself further onto the blade. Ilandeh solved his dilemma, ripping the spear free and jabbing it in again, lower this time, down into the groin.
The Tokob legs gave out and the Whisper stepped back, spinning the spear and clubbing him in the head, sending him into the dirt. She skipped over his body to the next, a woman, blood already sheeting down her arm from an arrow wound and a shaft falling from her hand as she tore it out. Black paint from the bridge of her nose up to her hairline made her eyes disappear, only the gleam of firelight revealing where she was looking. Yaloh. Ilandeh saw the woman’s feint too late; a club slammed into her sternum and sent her over backwards, lungs paralysed, mouth gasping, but no air left in the world for her to breathe.
Pain exploding through her chest, knives of agony shooting front to back and her spear lost by her side somewhere and the Yalotl approaching, mouth yelling something Ilandeh couldn’t hear through the roaring hurt. The club went up, slivers of obsidian set into its length gleaming golden in the firelight – the last sight she would ever see.
Under the song. May Setatmeh and Singer bless me and keep me. May the ancestors …
Three arrows sprouted from the Yaloh chest and she faltered, the club wobbling as her arms lost their strength. She took another step, small, uncertain, and then one more before a final arrow took her through the throat and she toppled backwards like a felled tree.
‘Flight? Flight, can you move?’ Sarn asked, arrow clamped to the bow stock with his forefinger and his free hand dragging at her arm. ‘Up you get, Xenti. More killing to do.’
Air rushed into Ilandeh’s lungs and the pain roared its fury and then subsided, just a little, just a touch. A second, hotter fury at mention of her half-blood propelled her up to sitting – as though Sarn was any fucking better. Tlaloxqueh bastard. A pause to breathe again and she rolled to her knees and stood. Each movement of her chest caused a rippling coruscation of pain and the world lurched around her before her feet steadied.
Sarn handed her her spear. ‘At least half of them fled; archers are mopping up the rest. Runners went this way.’ He pointed and set off and Ilandeh had no choice but to follow. She was the Flight, but Sarn was leading them now, following protocol when she was disabled.
Only I’m not. I’m right here, three steps behind him.
If she wanted to retake command, she needed to shrug off the pain and start giving the bastard orders. Ilandeh pressed a hand to her ribs and sucked in a deep, deliberate breath, waiting for the scrape or creak that would tell her she’d broken ribs or cracked her sternum. Pain, a lot of pain, but she was intact as far as she could tell. No bubbling, no blood in her throat or mouth. Her armour had held then, just.
Ilandeh ran heavily after Sarn and the rest of her command, ignoring the urge to sit and rest, to hunch over. She was Flight, and she had a task. A duty to Empire, Singer, Setatmeh and High Feather all.
The Whispers were shadows in the gloom, flitting like moths across the face of a cloudy moon. Ilandeh moved among them, a little slower, a touch breathier, but with them. Sarn had the arrow’s tip of their formation, while she laboured along out on one of the barbs. She told herself it didn’t matter. She almost believed it.
And then screams and the faltering of the arrow, a structure that would’ve held strong if she’d been the tip.
‘Line out,’ she called ahead into the darkness, no need for stealth now. The Whispers re-formed and ran forward in a loose skirmish line, the better to encircle any enemy, dodging trees and tangles of shrub and vine. Ilandeh saw what Sarn had led them into, what his hubris had done to them in his desire to retake command.
The force they’d been tracking wasn’t alone. The force they’d encountered had fled – back to its friends. Two, maybe three hundred Tokob and Yaloh warriors spread across a clearing – a full war party – and Sarn had led them straight into it. Fighting broke out immediately and Ilandeh threw herself into it, shouting orders to tighten up again. Where they could, her pod obeyed, falling into close formation to protect each other.
Ilandeh heard the distinctive sound of a blowpipe and leapt to one side – no idea if she was moving into or out of the dart’s path. Nothing hit her so she kept moving, adrenaline speeding her limbs and smothering her hurts. She slipped beneath the flashing edge of a hatchet and ripped upwards into an armpit with her spear. Her attacker spun with the movement of his weapon and avoided the blow; she flowed into the next attack, letting the spear’s momentum carry it and her forward, the butt rising to catch her opponent in the back as he turned and shoving him off balance. She brought the spear back down again in an overhand blow, the haft slamming into the top of his shoulder.
The hatchet was too short and he couldn’t get close. She whirled around him and sank the spear tip into his arm, his arse, his thigh, none of them killing strikes as he managed to parry the full force of her blows, the hatchet’s stone head chipping pieces out of her spear haft as they attacked and counter-attacked. An arrow hummed between them and both ducked on instinct, but no more followed it and Ilandeh thrust again. The Yalotl countered, but the crack of wood on wood was high and wrong, and the hatchet’s head flew off the broken handle. He threw it at her and tried to grab for her spear; he got a hand on it, and pushed it wide and then jerked it back, free hand flailing for her. Ilandeh let go. The Yalotl stumbled back, unbalanced, and she kicked him in the thigh, where she’d grazed him with the obsidian.
He growled and began to swing the spear at her; Ilandeh spun in the same direction, just ahead of its arc, and punched him in the side of the neck; she kept going until she was at his back and snaked her right arm around his throat, grabbing the biceps of her left to complete the lock. She drove her right foot into the back of his knee, wrenching upwards at the same time. There was a grinding crunch and a pop, and his neck came apart in her arms.
Ilandeh held him up as a shield as she quartered the clearing. Most of her command was down: only fifty or so still fighting hard, and while their formations were holding, they were outnumbered two to one at least. She couldn’t untangle the mess Sarn had dropped them in.
‘Scatter,’ Ilandeh screamed. ‘Scatter!’
Those Whispers who could disengaged instantly, ducking, rolling, and sprinting out of reach of their opponents, weaving through the trees at the edge of the clearing and vanishing into the pre-dawn. Five were too heavily engaged to make it out and Ilandeh retrieved her spear and dashed for the closest, her ribs a forgotten hurt that would haunt her later, and scythed the legs from under the nearest enemy warrior. The Whisper didn’t waste time thanking her – together they helped a third and turned for the dark of the jungle, Sarn vanishing just ahead of them. The final two they left to their fate, and screams rose before they were ten strides into the treeline.
Fury boiled in Ilandeh’s veins as she ran. The first engagement since Pilos had arrived – one intended to clear the route ahead of them – and fucking Sarn had got half her pod slaughtered. No, she reminded herself, she’d got half her pod slaughtered. She was Flight. The responsibility – and the blame – was hers, no matter what Sarn had done.
Ilandeh gritted her teeth. Knowing she’d disappointed Pilos hurt more than a club to the chest. She’d forgotten just how much the High Feather’s good opinion of her mattered and how, despite the utter purity of his blood and lineage, his status and reputation, he never once looked at her with anything other than respect. Or he hadn’t, before this.
They reached the camp. Ilandeh snagged Sarn’s armour and pulled him close. ‘With me, right now,’ she growled, and strode towards the High Feather before she lost her nerve.