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J ai was glad of the dark of night, and the great cloud bank that covered much of the sky. Their quarry, the Caelite, moved with such speed, there was no time for subtlety in their pursuit.

In truth, with her burden, Winter could hardly keep up, and were it not for her strange senses, they might have lost them in the clouds.

As they flew, Jai looked out to his right, where the lights of the Kidara could be seen in the distance, tantalisingly close. He was glad, at least, that there were as many fires there as he had left behind, and that they still followed his instruction.

Still, he had seen those lights many times on his wanderings, and his focus was to the formation of Caelite ahead.

This was further, already, than Jai had ever flown, and he was glad of the time Winter had had to practise in these last weeks. Since she’d stopped sending her mana to Jai, and spent a few hours circling above the mountain’s mana plume, she had a full core, but Jai kept an eye. With Erica on her back, this journey would be harder too than any she’d faced.

He wished he could speak to Erica, as they flew silent through the mist, his chest dripping with caught condensation. But he knew, even if she could make out his words amid the rushing air around them, it was best to keep quiet, lest the roqs caught wind.

It amazed Jai just how far they could travel at these great heights, without the cloying tug of the grasslands. Already, they had travelled as far as the Kidara might hope to travel in a day.

With each hour, he grew more nervous. He was sure Winter could find her way back home if they lost them, but this far west, he knew the Sabine legion and the Gryphon Guard that accompanied them would be near.

He felt a squeeze of his shoulder, and Erica’s hand extend. Pointing at something, far ahead. At first Jai had thought them more clouds, but they were too dark for that. And there, beneath it. An orange glow, as if the sun had reversed its journey beneath the horizon.

Winter dipped her wings, her keen eyes making out the Caelite’s sudden descent. This was the place. They burst beneath the moonlit cloud bank, the world darkening as they emerged.

And Jai saw it. Fires, smouldering in the grasslands. And a smell, like no other. Blood, burned hair and spilled entrails. The stench of battle, of human suffering.

The Caelite were already settling amid the devastation, their great birds hop-skipping into the air no sooner had their riders leaped from their backs.

This was a battlefield. One that had taken place right in the centre of a Sithian camp. The last remains of the tents still smouldered, the flames’ spread still battling with the stubborn grassland.

Jai did not bother to hide their pursuit now, instructing Winter to head straight for them – this was no secret meeting with their enemy. This was something far worse.

He saw the bodies before they reached the ground. Many had been lost to the grass, where they had escaped the camp and fallen there. But most were in the plaza at its centre. By its size, Jai guessed this was a tribe almost as large as his own. This was a Great Tribe.

They landed amid a massacre, such that Winter took care to alight where the corpses did not cover the ground. The Caelite stood among the bodies too, their fluting language strange in the still air. Their glintlights rushed back and forth, illuminating the devastation.

The Speaker looked at Jai, gripping Eko’s arm as the man began to stride towards them. Eko relented, but his face was dark and troubled. The others, bald and strange though they were, looked much the same, staring with horror.

Jai did not want to look at the dead. But he forced himself to, kneeling and rolling over the body of a young woman. Stab wounds marked her body, blood from the wounds blossoming through the robes of her torso. No slashing wounds. The work of a gladius, chosen weapon of Sabine legionaries. A blade was still clutched in her hand, a small, pathetic thing. She’d never stood a chance.

He could feel the blood pulsing in his ears, the rage building. Winter too was enraged, letting out a low rumble that Jai felt in his chest. Even a sob from Erica, her tears streaming, could not turn his fury to sadness.

‘Who were they?’ Erica breathed.

Jai could see the markings upon the clothing of the wounded, the pale yellow of their robes stained red. Their symbol, a black rose on a yellow field, was stitched upon a crumpled blanket that swaddled an infant, its head stomped into nothingness by legionary boots. Jai knew not the tribe’s name, but he was certain that Feng would. Not that it mattered. These were innocents. His people, even if they weren’t necessarily his tribe.

Then a screech from above. A roq swooped low, letting a figure fall from the clutches of its claws into the pile of corpses. A man. A Sithian.

He cringed away at the sight of the bald strangers, his word obscured by snot and tears.

‘Please, please, please...’

Eko lifted him to his feet.

‘What happened here?’ he growled.

He wore the same yellow robes as the others, but they were muddied and bloodstained. Clearly, he had been hiding in the grass nearby, his movements picked up by the sharp-eyed roq circling above.

The man was clearly still terrified, repeating his mantra, his dangling feet kicking until Eko slapped him.

‘The legion,’ the man whispered, gulping in a sob. ‘We could not outrun them. We were too many. The warriors rode out to face them, buy us time. They... they...’

The man trailed off, and Eko let him fall into a heap, still crying. Jai could not imagine the courage of the warriors to face an army of five thousand, when their own army could not number far more than Jai’s own. But he could imagine the charge, direct at the legion’s lines. The legion’s column folding into a square, the pikes of the triarii hurrying to the front lines. Their sudden, devastating drop as the khiroi neared.

Jai did not understand. How had the legion caught up to a tribe, even a slow-moving great one, when they had been unable to in Leonid’s time? Such that their warriors had been forced to ride out to face their pursuing enemy.

But then, he remembered how the Kidara too had been slow until the tribe’s divide, and how Teji had been forced to abandon many of his belongings, leaving all his citizens vulnerable, to chase Jai down.

It seemed in the new era, many of the tribes had lost their way. For it was clear, what the legion could not easily carry, they burned. And there was a lot to burn. Jai could still see the remains of the dark wood furniture, silken sundry, shards of fine crockery, all smouldering where the fires had burned down to coals.

‘How did they travel?’ the Speaker asked, his voice kinder.

‘Once they caught our trail...’ the man whispered, ‘they could follow in our wake. We’d already beaten down the grass. Their flying beasts, they killed our scouts. We did not know they were so close until it was too late.’

Jai strode closer, picking his way between the bodies, his anger such that he wanted to scream.

‘Do you see what the Sabines do?’ Jai hissed. ‘You heard the man. Their warriors weren’t even here.’

The Speaker ignored him, as did Eko. For they were chattering away in their strange, fluting language, ignoring his presence completely.

But he would not be ignored. Jai reached their huddle, laying a hand on the Speaker’s shoulder.

‘Have you seen enough?’ he snarled. ‘You cowards.’

The Speaker moved so fast, Jai had no time to react. One moment his hand was on the man’s arm, the next he was bent over, his offending arm twisted painfully behind his back, an iron grip upon his neck.

‘Go back, Jai,’ the Speaker said, his voice soft.

‘Cowards,’ Jai spat again, his tears running down his nose, dripping into the dirt.

He strained to free himself, but it was like trying to escape the grasp of an iron statue. Only a threatening rumble from Winter earned his release, the Speaker kicking him back towards Erica and Winter.

‘You can address the Caelite when you are one of us,’ Eko boomed.

He stabbed a finger into the sky, back the way they had come.

‘Return to the mountain,’ he said. ‘On your own or strapped to the claws of my roq.’