Sky City, Malel, Tokoban
34th day of the grand absence of the Great Star
He had them. While thousands were no doubt hiding in houses and buildings elsewhere, Pilos had most of the defenders contained in one huge ceremonial plaza.
Scores began to surrender, those civilians trapped with their offspring among the fighters giving up first. And once it began, it spread faster than fever. Control the children; control the council.
The warriors began to drop their weapons and plead for clemency and the Melody switched smoothly from fighting to capture, disarming and herding together Tokob and Yaloh, forcing them to give up their armour and their sandals. A barefoot, unarmoured, frightened captive was less likely to run.
There was still fierce fighting in the western part of the city, but the dogs had it under control. By dusk tonight – tomorrow night at the latest – the Sky City would be theirs. But what would be the cost to his beloved Melody? The dead were everywhere, and everywhere eagle feathers stirred in hair, twisting on bodies that would never move again.
This might have felt like the decisive battle, and likely was, but there were thousands of sticks of jungle still to comb. The Melody would be desperately under-strength by the time Tokoban and Yalotlan were fully subdued.
Under-strength but with no enemies left to fight. The whole of Ixachipan will live beneath the song and all its people will know its glory.
If it still has any.
Pilos pushed away the thought and watched the eja. Her hands were tied before her and she sat on the stone with her head bowed. Her dog was trussed by her side and he wriggled occasionally, straining against his ropes, and then the woman put her bound hands on him and he was still. She made no other move, gave no indication she was aware of anyone around her. She was staring at the spot where the old man had died. Pilos had ordered the corpse to be dragged away. Warriors staring at their dead were angry warriors. Better to have them on their knees with nothing to look at but others like them – and the Melody standing tall on guard.
‘Feather Calan.’
The woman was hoarse from shouting orders and rusty with dried blood, her salt-cotton stained. ‘High Feather?’
‘Get the prisoners moving. I want them into the jungle before dark. Send them along the most secure trails through Yalotlan – where our pyramid-builders are numerous and well guarded – and get them into Xentiban. They’re to hold at the border with the heartland and wait for us; we should be no more than a few days behind. We’ll enter Pechacan and the Singing City together.’
Calan swelled with pride at being in charge of such an operation. ‘As the High Feather commands.’
Pilos found a smile for her and punched her shoulder. ‘You fought well and commanded well, Feather. I am pleased.’
Some of Calan’s fatigue vanished in the heat of her delight. ‘You honour me,’ she croaked.
‘You honour yourself, Feather. Be about your business now. Under the song.’
Pilos squatted opposite the still, coiled presence of the eja. She didn’t move, didn’t meet his eyes, didn’t so much as twitch. He was impressed.
‘Can you hear me?’ he asked. Nothing. He tapped the top of her head. More nothing. Was she the one Ilandeh had told him of? Pilos had never met a deaf person – the inability to hear was not tolerated in the Empire, where the song was everything. Such children were offered to the holy Setatmeh with respect. It was a kindness; no one should be without the glory of the song.
Pilos forced her face up to his; she looked down. If she didn’t look at him, she wouldn’t know he was speaking. He let go, frustrated, and then reached out and poked the dog’s flank. The woman’s bound hands came up and clubbed him in the chest. She threw herself off her knees and at him, so that he fell back onto his arse. The dog was snarling through its muzzle and the eja was growling and grunting. Pilos winded her with a punch to take her strength and then kicked at her wounded leg so she shrieked and fell away.
The dog was frantic and Pilos leant over her. ‘Calm the dog or we kill it.’
She spat at him, but didn’t have much saliva to make a proper job at it. Then she licked her lips and put her fingertips between the dog’s eyes and it quietened.
‘You understand me, then,’ he said. ‘You are one they call eja? A hunter and killer of the holy Setatmeh – the Drowned?’ A flicker of nameless emotion in her eyes but she didn’t even shrug. ‘You can write?’ he asked. ‘Or shall I bring someone over here to translate your hand-speech?’
Her eyes cut to his weapons and then the kneeling, captive warriors, back to him. All of them were bound, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. This one wanted blood. ‘Not a good idea,’ he told her softly. ‘The Singer wants to meet you and so we have to ensure your compliance. I will do that by killing your people, one by one, in slow and inventive ways, if you do anything to jeopardise my life or your own. But I will start with your dog.’
She definitely understood that, her breathing ragged. She shook her head.
‘You’ll be good?’ A nod this time. ‘Don’t test me on this, Eja.’
Pilos stood up and strode to the nearest group of captives. ‘I need a Toko who can translate for the eja.’
There was a long silence and then a man began to rise, but another, far older, stilled him and used his shoulder to push himself upright. ‘I am Eja Elder Rix. Eja Xessa is young and inexperienced. I will answer all your questions if you let her sit with the rest of our people. She is of little use compared with me. My knowledge is greater.’
Pilos beckoned and when the old man approached, he stared him out. ‘You are in no position to bargain with me,’ he murmured and snapped his fingers. One of the dog warriors guarding the group stabbed the nearest Toko in the heart. Rix bellowed and struggled as the captives erupted, screams of fear mingling with threats. Pilos held him back, despite his wiry strength.
‘But thank you – I need as many ejab as I can find; you have done me the favour of identifying yourself. Now come and translate for … Xessa, did you say? Come and translate for her, Elder. And know this now,’ he added as Rix ceased his struggles and began instead to pray for the woman dying at their feet. ‘Hush, and listen,’ Pilos commanded, slapping his face. ‘You will not lie or conspire with her; you will translate only what she says and you will not communicate with her yourself in any way. The moment you do, more will die, children included. You will watch her hands and tell me what she says. Nothing more.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Rix demanded.
‘You will understand when you are brought under the song and into glory,’ Pilos said, the treacherous voice in his head wondering if he lied. He shook it away and checked Rix’s bonds, then dragged him over to where Xessa sat, not listening to any more babbling protests.
The plaza was secure, but Pilos was still glad for the eagle honour guard that ringed him and the ejab, half facing in, half facing out. He’d fought too many wars and had too much respect for even defeated enemies to believe for one moment that he was safe. He snorted; there wasn’t anywhere within or without the Empire that High Feather Pilos was safe. Still, no point in taking needless risks. He cut the woman’s bonds and one of the eagles stood behind her with knife and hatchet. Another crouched over the dog.
‘Why kill the holy Setatmeh?’ he asked without preamble.
‘The Drowned—’ Rix began.
‘I am not asking you,’ Pilos said. ‘I am asking her.’
‘I am elder,’ Rix tried.
‘Second Flight Beyt,’ Pilos said. ‘Kill another. Rix here needs to understand I am a man of my word.’ He glared at Rix, pinning him in place when the other man would have protested some more. ‘I hope you understand now,’ he murmured when another Toko was dying. There were still screams and shouts, but it settled much faster this time, the captives huddling low and avoiding eye contact, only quiet sobbing and muttered prayers and the stink of fear drifting from them. ‘One word that is not related to the questions I ask this woman and one of your people dies.’
It was wasteful, but the Melody needed to establish dominance – it was the only way to safely transport large numbers of prisoners with minimal guards. Once the captives understood the cost of defiance, they’d fall into line. They always did, no matter how much they blustered beforehand about how they wouldn’t surrender.
‘Why do you kill the holy Setatmeh?’ he asked Xessa again. He watched the incomprehensible gestures and expressions.
‘Because they are predators who kill us,’ Rix said in a monotone. ‘They take young and old, shamans and farmers, warriors and artisans. They are monsters who must be destroyed.’
‘They are gods,’ Pilos said. Neither responded. ‘Do you understand that?’
‘I understand you believe that,’ Rix translated. ‘You revere them because you are afraid of them. That does not make them gods. They destroy the balance, taking more than they need, just as you do.’ Rix paused and looked hard at Xessa. ‘They kill for fun as you do. You are all cursed.’
Unease stroked cold fingers down Pilos’s back. ‘What do you know of curses?’
Xessa smiled and it had nothing of warmth in it. ‘I know our lives are bound together,’ Rix said as she signed. ‘I know my life has been preserved so that I might end yours. I know I will laugh when I do so.’
Pilos didn’t let himself react. He held his hands still, away from his charms and amulets, and he donned a mask of polite amusement. ‘I look forward to the attempt,’ he said lightly and saw only cool acknowledgement in the ejab face. ‘She toys with your life as well as her own, Elder,’ he said.
‘She is young and she is angry,’ Rix said. ‘She thinks she still has some power here. Some sort of control.’
Pilos gnawed at his lip and then nodded. ‘I see you, at least, understand better. You are to meet with the great Singer himself at the heart of our Empire,’ he added abruptly, looking back at the woman. ‘He will decide your fate. It is his will.’
‘No. My death is at my will, not yours,’ Rix said for her. ‘You cannot prevent that, no matter what you do. I do not submit myself to your authority.’
‘You already have,’ Pilos said. By the song, she overflowed with misplaced confidence. If she displayed such in front of the Singer, the holy lord would likely tear her apart with his bare hands. It’s his favourite pastime these days, after all …
But the High Feather found himself grinning nonetheless. ‘You would make a fine warrior in the Melody were it not for your limitations.’
‘I have no limitations,’ Rix said and there was a hint of pride in his tone that matched Xessa’s expression. Pilos waved away the comment. ‘It is easy to die, High Feather Pilos, and when I do, Malel will accept my spirit for rebirth. But I will not die before I have tasted your life on my tongue.’
‘And if I cut off your hands so you can neither fight nor die nor speak?’ Pilos asked; her certainty pricked at him. ‘How will you kill me then?’
‘Why do you want me alive?’ she asked instead.
Pilos had no wish to debate with her, but what was the harm? ‘I don’t, particularly, though every slave is valuable. The Singer wants to meet the frog-lickers. He wants to understand where such ignorance could come from. Everything I do is in his name, for the glory of the Empire. You will understand one day, though I grieve to think that you will never hear the majesty of the song. You will never truly understand what it is your people have been given.’
In the end it was Rix who broke. Perhaps Xessa took the threat against her dog’s life too seriously; perhaps the elder didn’t take the threat against his people seriously enough. Either way, Pilos had known it would happen eventually. The elder lunged for him, hands slamming into his chest and sending him over onto his back, then hooking into claws to take out his eyes. The eagle guarding Xessa wrapped his arm around her throat and hauled backwards, readying a knife to plunge into her stomach. The eagle guarding the woman’s dog threw himself at the elder and knocked him off Pilos, then dropped his knee between the old man’s shoulder blades and jammed him into the stone.
‘Stop!’ Pilos ordered with a wheeze. He got up and retrieved his club, studied Xessa for a long moment, and then slammed it into the knee that was swollen against her leggings. She screamed and curled into herself, hands clutching the limb. She wouldn’t understand why he’d done it, but Rix did. Oh yes.
Pilos bent close to him. ‘And now more of your people die,’ he said with genuine regret. ‘And you go to the Singer anyway.’