Northern Storm

Chapter Sixteen

It’s coming.’ Kheda watched the fire shrink in on itself in defiance of every natural pattern.

It narrowed and then doubled in height. The solid wall of flame advanced. Trees were silhouetted against it, lilla, tandra and ironwood. Their leaves and branches flared to ash, their blistered trunks vanishing in the scarlet blaze.

Dev glanced over his shoulder to see where they were retreating before returning his sickened gaze to the pursuing fire. ‘It wants me dead,’ he muttered. ‘It looked me in the eye.’

Kheda flicked his gaze up to see the dragon sweeping this way and that across the sky, studying the forest ahead of its fiery barrier. While it’s trying to kill you, it’s not killing anyone else.’ He sucked at a hand scratched by a stray tendril of thorny striol. ‘All we need is to keep one step ahead of it until we know how to kill it.’

We cannot return to any residence, or risk any ship, if your very presence is going to bring down disaster on us. It may not be following your magic, barbarian, but it’s still got your scent somehow. Seventeen days, we’ve managed to evade it so far. How much longer will we be able to, now it’s started burning the forest that covers us?

‘My lord!’ A swordsman appeared at the edge of a gully cut deep into the forest floor. ‘This way!’

The dragon’s menacing bellow of challenge sounded overhead again. The wall of flame picked up speed, turning the forest to charcoal before their startled eyes. It roared towards them.

‘Run!’ Kheda shifted his swords in his sash and raced for the shelter of the gully. Dev followed hard on his heels.

The swordsman was scrambling over rocks of all sizes littered between earthen walls parched and crumbling under the long assault of the dry season. The river that had washed the broken stones down from the island’s heights was barely a chain of mossy puddles lurking beneath feathery ferns, biding its time until the rains should swell it to foaming ferocity once again.

‘This way, my lord.’ The swordsman glanced over his shoulder. ‘There’s a cave and less tinder for the cursed beast to burn around us.’

Mindful of the shattered ground underfoot, Kheda couldn’t resist looking up to see the wall of fire accelerating along the edge of the cleft so fast that it left the sturdier trees barely scorched. He shrank into the shadow of a mossy overhang as the dragon wheeled overhead, peering down. The wall of fire curled around a stand of ironwood trees. The circle contracted, flames rising higher and burning white hot. The ironwood trees burst into blinding flame.

Kheda turned his attention back to getting through the gully without breaking an ankle. Stumbling on a patch of loose shale, he grabbed Dev’s shoulder to save himself. The wizard’s tunic was dry and hot to the touch, while the warlord laboured under the chafing weight of a coarse cotton tunic sodden with sweat.

‘Do you need another dose?’ he hissed urgently, shaking the mage.

Dev plunged on, crushing pungent ferns underfoot.

‘Here, my lord.’ The swordsman disappeared into a dank cavern.

Kheda followed, forcing a rueful smile. ‘That was a little too close for comfort.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ the swordsman replied obediently.

None of the other men pressed against the irregular walls of the cave said anything, mere shadows in the darkness, only their eyes shining as they looked at Kheda.

‘Who’s here?’ The warlord paused for breath, chest heaving, as the men gave their names in muted tones. ‘Where’s Ridu?’

Not back yet,’ said a surly voice from the blacker recesses of the cave.

fs it better to challenge that or let it pass? Which mould just make things worse?

He looked out of the cave entrance. ‘We’ll be safe here—’

Kheda’s next words were lost as the scrubby bushes lining the opposite edge of the gully burst into flames, swaying with the violence of the dragon’s passing. Kheda saw the flash of its pale golden underbelly as its roar of fury shook loose earth from the sides of the crumbling cleft. Dev stood motionless, eyes tight shut, face like carved stone.

The dragon’s roar came again, more distant this time. No one moved or spoke. They waited in the musty darkness and listened to a third roar and a fourth.

Like listening for the thunderclap after the lightning flash in the rainy season, to find out how close the danger might be.

‘Is everyone here but Ridu?’ Kheda asked. He nodded at the ragged murmur of assent. ‘Do we have anything to eat tonight? Have all the villages hereabouts been warned?’

‘We’ve plenty of food,’ one relieved voice assured him.

The next man sounded more dubious. We’ve told the islanders to hide themselves as best they can.’

‘It hasn’t flattened any more villages now that we’ve given each spokesman a bag of jewels to cache somewhere obvious,’ Kheda pointed out.

‘A lot of the villagers are going down to the coast regardless.’ The surly voice spoke again. ‘And taking boats to other islands.’

Kheda’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom and he picked out a tall, lean man blowing on his hands as if to cool them. ‘Zicre, isn’t it?’

The man froze. ‘Yes, my lord?’ he said warily.

‘If you’re hurt, come into the light where I can take a look,’ Kheda ordered. ‘And where’s my physic chest?’

The men in the cave shuffled themselves awkwardly to let Zicre through and Kheda’s physic chest was passed to the fore.

‘Do we have fresh water?’ Kheda nodded as someone confirmed this. ‘Then let’s all have a drink. We may as well stay here till Ridu gets back. Take a rest while you can. Zicre, let’s see those hands.’

Kheda moved closer to the edge of the cavern as the rest of the men made themselves as comfortable as possible with the ragged assortment of wraps and quilts they had dumped to one side. Zicre joined him and gingerly extended his fingers.

‘What happened here?’ Kheda saw that both hands were red and swollen and a raw burn ran along the outer edge of his sword hand, black grime crusted around the weeping edges.

‘Change in the wind,’ the man grunted. ‘Too close to the fire.’

‘Greenfoot oil will clean it and roseate starflower should help with the healing and keep it from festering.’ Kheda knelt to open his physic coffer, silver bindings tarnished against the ebony.

‘If you say so, my lord.’ Zicre looked past him out into the gully, face expressionless. Like all the men he wore rough cotton clothes smudged with soot and sweat.

At least we all agreed that we didn’t need the burden or noise of armour that wasn’t going to save us in any case, if the dragon caught up with us.

Kheda stood up, tipping glutinous lotion from a small blue bottle on to a scrap of cotton waste. ‘This is going to hurt,’ he warned as he took the man’s hand, holding it tight as he swabbed firmly. ‘But the quicker I do it, the sooner it will be over.’

Zicre hissed and caught his breath. ‘Thank you, my lord,’ he said through gritted teeth.

Kheda turned Zicre’s hand over as he continued with his ruthless cleansing. No real oar calluses. You hadn’t been aboard the Mist Dove long. What did you do before that?’

‘Huntsman, my lord,’ said Zicre tightly, ‘from the western slopes.’

‘Here on Boal?’ Kheda looked up at him as he returned the blue bottle to the chest. ‘On the far side of these mountains?’

Zicre nodded, bracing himself for the touch of the ointment Kheda was uncorking.

‘When all this is over, you must show me your forests.’ Kheda coated the burn thickly with grey salve flecked with pinkish fragments. ‘We’ll hunt together.’

Uwe haven’t been hunted down first,’ Zicre said incautiously. He ducked his head and studied the burn, clenching and unclenching his fist

The low murmur of conversation deeper in the cave halted abruptly.

‘We’ve kept ahead of it so far,’ Kheda said calmly as he replaced the ointment in the physic chest. ‘It’s a more dangerous beast than anything else in these forests, I’ll grant you. Personally, I’d rather be tracked by some rogue jungle cat with a taste for villagers or pursued by a water ox crazed with foaming madness, but it’s still just a beast and we are men. We have our wits and this is the second largest island in the domain, so we have league upon league of forest to hide in. It may be hunting us, but we’re not hook-toothed hogs to blunder off a cliff in terror or spotted deer to just lie down and die of heat prostration.’

But why is it hunting us?’ Zicre burst out.

Kheda checked to be sure the lacquered wooden box with the cracked and smudged wax seal was safe before he closed the physic chest. We were all on the Mist Dove,’ he said carefully.

‘Why did it attack the Mist DoveV demanded someone hidden in the cave. Emboldened, a murmur of assent rose to be lost in the hollow space.

You ‘re the warlord. They look to you for answers. You can’t give them the truth, so are you going to dishonour them by giving them lies?

‘That was the ship that led the fleet.’ Kheda shoved his physic chest backwards and used it as a low stool. He looked into the darkness, meeting the unseen challenge squarely. ‘The beast may even have realised that I was aboard. Zicre, you have loals in these forests, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’ The erstwhile hunter was taken unawares by the question. ‘Black-cloaked ones.’

‘Have you ever seen what happens when one gang decides to take over another gang’s stretch of forest?’ Kheda asked.

Not seen it so much as heard it,’ Zicre said slowly, ‘and found the big males from the gang under attack beaten to bloody pulp and half-eaten.’

‘Loals know to concentrate on killing the strongest leaders among their rivals.’ Kheda shrugged. ‘I think that cursed beast is at least as clever as a loal.’

‘Loals can’t curse us with magic,’ muttered a sullen voice in the darkness.

‘You all survived attack by men with magic last year,’ Kheda shot back. ‘You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t. I don’t call that cursed, to live when so many died. I don’t see any curse on Chazen, not with the best pearl harvest in living memory coming out of the sea. We’ve all survived worse than this dragon.’

‘But what are we going to do, my lord?’ asked someone desperately. ‘Just let it chase us till it’s burned every tree on the island?’

‘If that’s what we must do, to keep it from flying off to burn and devour our homes and families,’ Kheda said harshly. The undercurrent of response in the cave took on a surprised note. ‘And while it’s chasing its tail pursuing us, our other ships and warriors are hunting down the last of the invaders,’ he reminded the mutinous darkness.

And when will they kill whoever has summoned this beast to plague us, tell me that?

T read you the last dispatches from the Gossamer Shark. The remaining invaders are scattered on the barren islets beyond Comi now. We’ll soon rid Chazen of those vermin. Then, as soon as we find out the barbarians’ trick of killing dragons, we’ll be rid of that bane as well, won’t we? The Green Turtle should be back sometime around the breaking of the rains. We just have to keep one step ahead of the beast till then.’ He grinned. ‘And it won’t find these forests so easy to burn when the real storms start, will it?’ The assent from the darkness was more dutiful than convinced.

‘Water, my lord?’ A swordsman stepped out of the shadows offering Kheda a battered wooden cup. He shot a look of covert contempt at Dev. The wizard was lying on the bare earth just inside the cavern entrance, eyes closed, apparently asleep.

‘Thank you.’ Kheda took the cup and drank gratefully.

‘Zicre, can you find somewhere to keep watch for Ridu? I don’t imagine you’ll be able to sleep with that burn. If the rest of us get our heads down we can move on tonight.’ The warlord closed his eyes and leaned back against the water-sculpted wall of the cave. He wasn’t that tired but it seemed wisest to put an end to this dangerous conversation.

You can take your dissenting notions out of here with you, Zicre, and keep them to yourself. To think I wanted Chazen people to learn to speak their minds to me. As my father said, Be careful what you wish for, lest you get it.

Weariness of mind and body surprised Kheda as the urgency that had kept him on his feet since dawn and through all the long days evading the dragon’s pursuit retreated.

Where is Ridu? Is he going to have any news from Itrac? Has she had any news from Risala? What will this mage-woman of Dev’s do whenever she gets here, when she finds out what I’ve done to him? Will she just vanish in a puff of smoke and take whatever knowledge she might have along with her? A hand shaking his shoulder startled Kheda awake. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

/ never meant to sleep. Oh well, no harm done.

‘It’s Ridu, my lord.’ It was Zicre, speaking quietly.

‘I’ll see him outside.’ Kheda rubbed a hand over his beard and glanced at the men dozing further back in the cave. No need to disturb everyone.’

He stepped over Dev, who didn’t appear to have moved since he’d lain down. Ridu was waiting out in the gully, enjoying the shallow breeze funnelled by the earthen walls. Kheda realised that the worst of the day’s heat had passed, not that there would be much evening cool this close to the coming of the rains. ‘My lord.’ The youthful swordsman looked younger than ever stripped of his armour. He held out a small wooden box. ‘The Yellow Serpent was at the rendezvous. It brought dispatches.’

‘Excellent news.’ Kheda breathed a sigh of relief and took the box, sinking down on to a convenient boulder. ‘Sit. Zicre, get him some water, please.’ He cracked the seal on the box and opened it to find several pages of individually folded and sealed reed paper inside. ‘My lady Itrac’s taking every precaution, I see.’ He looked over at Ridu. ‘Are there any stray ships creeping around Chazen waters?’

Ridu shook his head as he drank thirstily, spilling water down his grimy tunic. No, my lord,’ he gasped. ‘Everyone’s terrified of the dragon.’

Kheda looked at the youth thoughtfully for a moment before cracking the seal on Itrac’s note and scanning the contents. ‘All seems well enough on Esabir,’ he mused.

Apart from the fact that we’ve nearly emptied the treasury of gems to save the palm huts and sailer granaries of Boars threadbare hill villages. And we wont be replacing such wealth any time soon, with not so much as a single trading galley venturing into Chazen waters since Janne Daish went home. Is that her doing? Would she need to do anything, with a dragon overflying our sea lanes? At least there’s no other cause for alarm in Itrac’s news.

Kheda refolded the paper and took out a second missive. His heartbeat accelerated as he recognised Risala’s writing on the outside. He tugged at the cord around his neck and pulled the emerald and silver ring that was the key to Shek Kul’s cipher out from beneath his tunic. It was the work of a moment to make sense of the few brief lines of flowing script. He looked up at Ridu with a smile before calling across the gully. ‘Zicre, there’s something of an end in view. Risala, the poet I sent as my envoy to the north, she’s on her way back. She left at the crossing of the moons.’

Is that any kind of sign? Where were the stars and heavenly jewels when the last fading arc of the Greater Moon was matching the first renascent arc of the Lesser?

He looked up at the blue sky bleaching towards early evening, soiled with the dust of the dry season hanging heavy in the air. It took a distinct effort to picture the arcs of the unseen night sky.

Both moons are talisman against dragons, presumably because, as we now know, the beasts scorn both pearls and opals. I wonder if this magewoman of Dev’s will know why. So it must be a good sign that the Greater Moon was in the arc of life, along with the Mirror Bird that turns aside magic. The Lesser Moon rode in the arc of duty alongside the Horned Fish, another sign of renewal.

Was there anything significant opposite either moon, where the ancient sages said the dragon’s tail trailed? Opposite the Lesser, we had the Amethyst that warns against arrogance and the Canthira Tree that’s reborn through fire in the arc of foes. As it happens, that’s beside the arc of life. So with the Diamond beside the Pearl in the arc of children, along with the Net that offers support for us now and in the future opposite the Greater Moon, we have positive omens in twin opposition across the compass. And the Ruby that’s talisman against fire was shining among the stars of the Spear in the arc of death. ‘The compass of the heavens when she set out must surely presage the dragon’s fate coming from the north.’ He looked from Zicre to Ridu and back again with a broad smile, though he found it strangely difficult to summon up excitement over such signs. The thought of seeing Risala again was enough to drive everything else out of his mind.

That’s what’s really putting the smile on your face.

He looked down at the paper again, reluctant to put away even this insubstantial contact with her.

There must be some way we can escape everyone else’s eyes and find a little peace in each other’s arms. I’m doing my duty by Itrac, aren’t I?

‘My lord.’ Ridu cleared his throat. ‘May I speak freely?’

‘About what?’ Kheda looked up sharply. ‘I mean, yes, but we’ll have some privacy, Zicre.’ He shot a stern glance at the erstwhile hunter.

‘I’ll keep watch over there.’ The lean man shrugged and took himself off down the gully. Kheda looked at Ridu. ‘What is it?’

‘I stopped in the villages for food, as you instructed.’ The young warrior gripped his sword hilts so hard his knuckles whitened. He stared down at the ground. ‘I heard talk’

‘Go on.’ Kheda forced himself to speak calmly. ‘Talk about what?’

‘About the dragon.’ Ridu looked up, face muddy with apprehension. ‘About why it’s hunting us in the hills like this. Every village spokesman is asking his seer and any travelling augur if there are any signs to explain it.’

‘And what do these fortune-tellers say?’ Kheda kept his face pleasantly interested.

Ridu swallowed and glanced towards the cave entrance. ‘They are wondering—just wondering, my lord,’ he qualified hastily, ‘if the beast is hunting your barbarian.’

Kheda froze with shock. Why would it be doing that?’ Blood pulsed in his throat.

Ridu looked at Dev with naked suspicion. ‘It started out hunting down the wild men. They weren’t wizards but they came with them, tainted by their magic. Barbarians live surrounded by magic. They think nothing of it.’

Kheda tried to work out if Zicre was close enough to hear this. Dev’s lived in the Archipelago for more than half his life,’ he lied steadily. ‘He’s not been hunted by a dragon before.’ He regretted those words as soon as they left his mouth.

‘There hasn’t been a dragon to hunt him before,’ Ridu retorted.

Undeniably true.

Kheda pursed his lips. ‘I would need some more definite sign before I wanted to believe such a thing.’

‘The dragon never comes after any of us who go to find food or to carry dispatches,’ Ridu pointed out with growing boldness. ‘Would it be a sign if we sent Dev off alone and waited to see if the beast followed him?’

‘I’ll bear it in mind.’ Kheda realised he had crushed Risala’s letter in his hand. ‘But I won’t do any such thing until we’ve found out what lore the Green Turtle’s brought back from the north.’

‘A lot of the soothsayers are seeing no very hopeful signs that barbarian lore can help us.’ Ridu looked at him, honest doubt in his eyes.

‘We’ll have to wait and see.’ A noise in the scorched trees above the gully made Kheda look up. ‘Zicre, what’s that?’

‘Loals.’ The former huntsman came back down the gully. ‘I suppose that could be a sign of sorts, my lord.’

Kheda decided to ignore the insolence and watched the black-furred creatures picking their way along the edge of the gully, chittering with what sounded like displeasure at the ash stirred up by their steps. At this distance, when they stood upright to see their path more clearly, the animals looked oddly human, only betrayed by their strange rocking gait. The group paused some distance downwind above one of the larger pools left by the subdued river.

The biggest loal looked suspiciously at the three motionless men and barked a challenge, lips curling back to better display its impressively pointed eyeteeth. Its dark eyes were whiteless, shining points of light above its long, black-furred muzzle. It sprang down into the gully, poised on all fours, long tail lashing as it sniffed the air and barked ^again

‘Are they always this bold?’ Kheda asked quietly.

‘One that size is entitled to be bold, my lord,’ Zicre replied with a grin, tension momentarily leaving his lean face. ‘He could rip your arm off and club you senseless with it.’

‘Let’s allow him and his family their evening drink, then,’ said Kheda dryly. ‘You go and get something to eat. I’ll be a moment or so.’

The biggest loal watched warily as the two men picked their way carefully over to the cave. Sniffing the air again, it sneezed, scrubbing at its muzzle with its strangely human hands. Evidently deciding that Kheda was no immediate threat, it turned to chitter up to the rest of the group who climbed cautiously down into the gully. The half-grown infants released their grip on their mothers’ fur to drop down and lap at the puddles. Kheda watched with amusement as the first ones to quench their thirst began flicking mud at each other while the adults turned to foraging under stones for grubs and worms.

They all froze with barks of alarm and Kheda jumped. Then he realised that all the loals were looking at Dev who had got up from his uncomfortable bed across the cave entrance. He glanced incuriously at the creatures and walked over to join Kheda on his boulder.

‘So you’re going to throw me to the dragon if Yelindre doesn’t come up with the goods?’ he asked with something of his old combativeness.

‘What else was I supposed to say?’ Kheda hissed. ‘I won’t let it come to that. I owe you better and you know it.’

‘I’m not sure I’d mind if it did catch up with me.’ Dev hung his head, hands dangling loose between his knees. ‘I sure as curses don’t want to live like this much longer.’

‘You put it behind you before,’ Kheda began cautiously.

‘T .ast time you gave me half a pinch of that cursed powder in a bottle of wine and that stifled my wizardry for a day or so,’ spat Dev furiously. ‘It feels as if you’ve poisoned every mageborn instinct in me this time. You might as well have cut off my stones and made a real zamorin of me.’

‘It’s keeping you alive,’ countered Kheda resolutely.

‘I’m starting to think I’d rather be dead,’ Dev muttered with passion. ‘You’ve no idea what this is like.’ I had no idea it would make you this vulnerable and wretched.

No,’ Kheda agreed with reluctant pity. ‘I’m still sorry for it, though I’d do it again ‘

‘So the dragon couldn’t eat your handy decoy.’ Dev’s face twisted with bitterness.

‘I wanted to save your life. I didn’t know it would still be able to follow you. At least it has no more than a vague idea where you are now.’ Kheda went to unfold Risala’s letter. ‘You just have to keep taking the drug until Velindre gets here. It shouldn’t be too much longer—’

‘What happens then?’ Dev sat upright, horror on his drawn, dirty face. ‘What happens when the dragon gets a sniff of Velindre’s power?’

‘I don’t know.’ Kheda looked to make sure there were no curious faces at the cave mouth. But she’ll surely be a far more tempting morsel than Dev in this sorry state.

‘I won’t be able to do a thing to save her.’ Dev stared at him, distraught.

‘Risala says she has the secrets we need.’ Kheda raised the crumpled paper slowly. ‘Won’t she be able to save herself?’

Won’t she be able to save both of them, and the boat they’re on and all its crew? What will the domain make of the dragon destroying the vessel I’ve been telling everyone all our hopes are riding in?

‘My lord.’ Ridu appeared at the mouth of the cave, cold baked fish wrapped in lilla leaves in his hands. ‘You must eat, both of you.’

Kheda nodded and got to his feet. ‘You have to try, Dev,’ he insisted in an undertone.

‘I don’t see much point,’ muttered the mage miserably. ‘I probably won’t keep it down.’

‘There must be crush-root growing somewhere.’ Kheda looked at Dev with growing concern. ‘That could help.’ He caught Dev’s arm as the wizard stumbled over a rock. The sharp sound startled the loals. The whole group fled in moments, leaving nothing behind but damp overturned rocks and the echo of their shrill cries.

What kind of a sign might that be? I don’t know and I’m starting to think I don’t really care.

He took more of the wizard’s weight on his arm and they made their way to the darkness of the cave.