Northern Storm

Chapter Five

Well, we won’t be overheard, but I wouldn’t call this private, Kheda.’ Risala looked around the deck of the Amigal and then up at the Gossamer Shark towering above the little ship. Dev looked down on them both, stony-faced, from the rail above. ‘What made you change your mind about continuing what we began in the observatory?’ she asked bluntly.

‘I was hardly in the mood for dalliance after an evening sitting between Rekha and Itrac,’ Kheda said ruefully. ‘And besides, as I saw all the shipmasters watching our every move, weighing our every word . . .’ He sighed. ‘I really cannot complicate Itrac’s life by being seen to take another woman. And you were right: you can hardly be my chief spy with everyone knowing you’re my lover.’

‘And if they don’t know?’ Risala looked steadily at him. ‘What then?’

Kheda hesitated.

‘What then?’ the girl asked again. ‘Come on, Kheda, there are no secrets between us. I want to know where I stand. I’ve been waiting for eight days. You didn’t even come to tell me you were launching this expedition the very next morning. I had to hear it from Dev.’ Her tone was reasonable but firm. There was a sign when we read the stars: silverlight shimmering all around the Ruby and the Spear,’ Kheda began slowly, ‘which were opposite the arc of foes, which is where the new-year stars aligned.’

‘I didn’t ask why you decided to launch this expedition so quickly,’ Risala began. ‘Never mind.’ She turned away from Kheda, reaching a hand out towards the little ship’s mast.

‘And there’s this,’ Kheda said abruptly. As Risala turned back, he dug into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a string of tiny shark’s teeth pierced and threaded on a narrow leather thong. ‘When I was taking the omens at the pearl reefs, they caught a shark for me. There was an infant shark inside it. It nearly bit me as I read the entrails.’ He tossed the shark’s teeth necklace over and Risala caught it reflexively. ‘An infant shark alive inside its mother? I’ve never heard of such a thing.’ Risala looked wide-eyed at the talisman for a long, tense moment. ‘The last wild wizard, the one that we had to hunt down, he wore a necklace of shark’s teeth. Is that what you’re thinking of? What do you think such a sign could mean?’

‘I don’t know what I’m thinking,’ Kheda said rather wearily. But yes, I remembered that savage wizard.’ The warmth of his blood on my skin when I caught him and cut his throat from ear to ear. The weight of him in my arms and the stench of his death. Dev tells me to souse such memories in liquor. Is that why the barbarians drink so much, to make killing easier? Don’t they see how that devalues their deeds?

‘After I left Itrac and Rekha, I spent most of that night seeing if Chazen’s forefathers recorded any lore on sharks that might explain such a portent.’ Kheda shook his head. ‘I found nothing to make sense of it. But after what you said about not having fulfilled Shek Kul’s commission, it set me thinking how we need to be free of all these invaders and all their mysteries.’ He looked at her. ‘That applies to you and me as much as to the Chazen domain. We can’t look to our future until we’re free of the past.’ Risala made a noncommittal noise. ‘Then let’s get rid of these last savages as soon as we can. What exactly do you want me to do?’

Kheda looked out across the broad blue channel where the fleet of boats was riding a substantial swell. ‘We know they are still infesting the Snake Bird Islands.’ He gestured towards green tufts of islands barely visible on the horizon. ‘And I very much doubt any would manage to escape the Gossamer Shark’s patrols, even if they didn’t simply drown in these waters. All the same, I want to be certain there is still no sign of any of the vermin lurking in Balaia or Dalao.’ He turned to look at a scatter of long, low islands on the far side of a vast reach of shallows where sea grasses grew thick, placid brown and grey turtles grazing on them. ‘Can you sail around the villages and make doubly sure for me?’ Because I can’t spare any swordsmen for such a duty. Because even if I can’t take you to my bed, I’m torn between wanting you close to me but wanting to keep you out of danger.

Risala looked around the small fleet idling on the waters. ‘I take it there’ll be someone keeping station hereabouts, for me to report to and who will send you a courier?’

Kheda nodded. ‘The Yellow Serpent has earned that privilege.’

‘Then let’s be about it.’ Risala looked up at Dev’s impatient face and smiled sunnily before offering the string of tiny shark’s teeth back to Kheda.

He waved it away. No, you keep it. The one piece of shark lore everyone agrees on is that their teeth are a talisman against drowning or their attack. I want you kept as safe as possible.’ He looked at her and hoped she could see the longing in his eyes.

‘You keep yourself safe, too,’ she said huskily before lifting her fingers to whistle shrilly to the trireme. Now go on and do what you have to do.’ She turned her back on him and went to unlash the little ship’s tiller, to guide the Amigal close to the looming trireme’s stern.

Kheda watched the dangling rope ladder carefully and caught it deftly. He climbed, resolutely not looking behind him.

There should be no secrets between us. Every time I say there aren’t, I wait for the thunderclap or some other sign in a clear sky to set everyone wondering who the liar is and what falsehood has been spoken. Though I haven’t lied. I just haven’t told you all I might. When we have time to ourselves, there’s more I will tell you. Will you be able to explain it to me? In all Rekha’s endless chatter about the Daish domain, how they are thriving, all the children and Sirket most of all, as she gave me message after message from Janne, she made no mention at all of Sain, beyond assuring us in passing that Daish’s erstwhile third wife is prospering in her trades for the domain.

Did Sain truly send no message? Am I dead to her? Or is she so full of hate or sorrow that there was no expressing it? How well did I serve her, in offering her Daish wealth and status in return for alliance with her brother’s domain of Toe, with its sheltered sea lanes to the eastern reaches, beyond Ulla Safar’s fat and grasping hand?

None of the women who’ve shared my bed seem to relish the memory or to have profited by it. Itrac Chazen doesn’t even want to take the chance. Hadn’t I better wait for some more hopeful portent before embarking on any new liaison?

Especially with Risala. I never felt such longing for a woman before, such fear that I might lose such a jewel.

‘Are we ready to go, my lord?’ Dev reached out a hand and helped Kheda over the Gossamer Shark’s stern rail.

‘We are.’ Kheda nodded to the shipmaster, resolutely ignoring the dull ache of desire for Risala that perversely was slower to fade every time he thought of her. ‘Let’s make for the Snake Bird Islands, Master Mezai.’

‘As you wish, my lord.’ The mariner waved a signal to the rowing master on the oar deck below and folded muscular arms across his sleeveless mantle, a short garment of pale blue patterned with waving sea grasses. The rowers bent over their oars and the sail crew hurried to spread the great expanse of billowing canvas hanging from the square-rigged mast to take advantage of the wind at their stern. Even with this bonus, the rowers still toiled long and hard to cross the dark-blue waters where the shallows fell away into mysterious darkness. His record of these reaches tucked in his lizardskin belt, Shipmaster Mezai stood close to his helmsman, lending his strength to the steering oars as the fierce current sought to drag the heavy vessel off course. Kheda watched astern as the little fleet slewed across the waters, fighting the insistent tug of the seas that would so easily sweep them out to battle the dangers of the open ocean.

We have different battles to fight and I have calculated our voyage carefully to arrive on this day of such ill omen for our enemies. The Greater Moon is dark and rides unseen in the arc of the heavens where our foes might look for signs in their favour, while the Lesser Moon has moved to the arc of alliance where the Mirror Bird spreads its wings in defiance of magic, to reflect the future from the heavens to the earth beneath.

He felt the solid weight of one of Chazen Saril’s star circles in a pocket of his trousers. It was one of the smallest ones, barely the size of his palm, as well as one of the oldest, the engraving on the brass plates worn faint and the metal dull with use.

A good choice for a talisman as I seek to protect this domain, surely? This isn’t a good time for delay, though. A few days and we’ll see one of those curious cascades around the compass that realigns the heavens completely.

‘Time to get your armour on, my lord.’ Dev’s impatient voice brought him promptly back to the prospect of a fight.

If I can’t enjoy the release I long to share with Risala, I can at least work out some of my frustrations with a sword.

By the time Kheda had donned his padded under-tunic and gleaming hauberk, this time remembering his hated plated leggings, the Gossamer Shark was entering the placid turquoise waters between a small reef and an even smaller island. Two fast triremes followed her, with the three additional heavy vessels that made up this armoured flotilla bringing up the rear. A white beach lay like a crescent moon against a thin strip of meagre forest sheltered by the central rise of the island. The long grassy hillock reached from one end to the other, falling away on the far side to a ragged shoreline of broken rocks offering no haven for any vessel.

‘There was only the one village here?’ Kheda surveyed the wretched remnants, now silent and empty among the nut palms and berry bushes. The little settlement still showed all the devastation the invaders had wrought. All but the largest huts had been torn apart by unnatural winds summoned to some savage mage’s service. Unquenchable fire called out of the empty air had burned the sailer granary to ash, now washed by the rains into a black stain between the charred stilts that had held the precious store aloft. Paradoxically among all this destruction, the invaders had built a crude stockade from rough-hewn forest wood. One side of this had been broken down where Daish or Redigal swordsmen had rescued those hapless Chazen islanders who had been thrown inside. The half-hearted attempt at a ditch dug across the open beach was already filling with windblown sand and the sharpened stakes that had been cut to give it teeth were tossed haphazardly at the bottom.

By the time the rains come again, I don’t want to see any such signs of ruined lives and hopes left standing to blight our future. Let that be a test of my leadership, that I did right in taking on this troubled domain. That I did right in bringing barbarian magic to deprive those savages of the magic they relied on, so that we could finally put them to the sword.

‘Do we know for certain there are still savages hiding out here?’ Dev demanded, leaning over the side rail to peer intently into the tangle of vegetation.

‘We hear them in the night, if we anchor off the reef Mezai nodded dourly. ‘Shouting their gibberish. There are screams, sometimes.’

‘You’re sure there are no Chazen islanders left here?’ Kheda demanded.

‘Sure as we can be.’ A frown creased Mezai’s broad face as he rubbed a hand over his sweating head. Some ancestor from the far western reaches had bequeathed him sparse, tight curls that dotted his head like peppercorns.

‘Let’s make quite certain, shall we?’ Dev grinned viciously at the Gossamer Shark’s fighting force now lining the side rails. A full complement for the heavy trireme, drawn from the Beyau’s hopeful warriors, was and eagerly seeking out any sign of their elusive foe. The archers in particular were keen to find a target for their newly forged battle arrows. ‘I don’t imagine they’ll last long against Aldabreshin steel with their fire-hardened pointy sticks,’ the mage continued confidently.

Just how do you expect to learn anything from these savages, even supposing we can capture one alive for you to interrogate? Just how does a wizard go about seeking such answers, anyway? Some torment of sorcery? How do you expect to do that undetected?

Kheda glanced at the barbarian before turning to acknowledge the swordsmen’s commander as he approached the stern platform. ‘Are all your men ready, Arao?’

‘They are,’ the tall warrior confirmed, his face the colour of old bronze in the bright sun. His armour was mismatched and well worn and he moved in it with the ease of long familiarity. His swords were some of the finest Kheda had ever seen.

‘Remind them that these savages might still be rousing themselves with that root pulp they chew,’ Kheda said tersely. ‘If they are, they’ll fight through pain that would ordinarily drop the bravest Archipelagan.’

‘I remember.’ The warrior cracked the knuckles on his dark-brown hands. ‘I told the lads.’ Kheda saw the swordsmen looking his way and favoured them with a confident, approving smile. He looked for Ridu but couldn’t pick the youth out of the armoured mass.

‘Do we know if there’s water here year round?’ Arao looked to Mezai. ‘If so, we can look for them at the springs.’

‘There’ll still be water here for at least another turn of the Greater Moon,’ Mezai confirmed. They drew closer to the shore and a shiver of anticipation among the Gossamer Shark’s swordsmen sent a rattle of chain mail the length of the boat.

‘We’re not going to learn anything paddling around out here,’ said Dev abruptly. ‘Let’s get ashore and start turning over rocks to see what crawls out.’

‘I’d say they’re hiding in those scrubby trees.’ Arao peered at the meagre forest running around the margin of the little island.

‘Then let’s reclaim this land for Chazen.’ Kheda looked from Arao to Mezai. ‘Signal the Dancing Snake, the Shearsword and the Brittle Crab to land their forces with us. I want the Green Turtle and the Lilla Bat to circle around to the far side and come in as close as the coral allows. We’ll beat our way across the island, dig out any burrows and kill whoever we find. They can fill anyone running out of the trees with arrows, and any of them trying to swim for it on a nut log or some such. They may have made rafts.’

Arao nodded. We don’t want the vermin on the other islands knowing we’re here to put paid to their wickedness any sooner than need be.’

‘My lord.’ Mezai blew lustily on his curled signal horn. The light Green Turtle and the heavy trireme the Lilla Bat immediately wheeled about, each ship showing a curl of white foam like bared teeth along its brass-sheathed ram.

There was absolutely no movement among the ruined dwellings as all four remaining triremes deftly turned stem-on to ground on the shelving white sand. Stern ladders were thrown down from the Dancing Snake and the Shearsword and the warriors slid into the shallow water, swords drawn and fearsome challenge in their shouts. They raced ashore, the twin columns from the two heavy triremes spreading out to line the beach with steel, sunlight bright on their armour. Earl boat’s swordsmen looked to their captain. The captains shared a nod and all began a slow advance up the white sand. They reached the village unchallenged and then stopped.

As the Gossamer Shark’s warriors disembarked to wait in reserve on the water line, Kheda saw a few men prod with their swords at ragged panels of woven palm ripped from huts. Others gathered together in uncertain knots, glancing at their captains for guidance.

Every man as tense as a jungle matia out to kill a cornered snake, confident in its sharp white teeth and thick brindled fur but with no wish to risk a bite all the same. And if you had a matia’s striped tail, you’d be lashing it, wizard.

‘There’s no one to fight,’ said Dev with disgust.

‘There’s something amiss.’ Kheda moved to the ladder, his feet feeling sweaty, cramped and clumsy in his armoured leggings. ‘I’m going ashore. Tell them to shoot anything that looks like a threat.’ Kheda gestured to the archers now clustered along the Brittle Crab’s decks and on the fast trireme’s stern platform, searching the threadbare cover of the trees and bushes in vain for any target.

‘My lord.’ Mezai didn’t dare openly disapprove of Kheda’s decision but his feelings were obvious. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any immediate danger.’ Dev was peering intently at the scene on shore.

As he spoke, one of the Gossamer Shark’s sword captains moved up the beach to a heap of debris and levered a fallen palm panel aside. He recoiled sharply and swords rose on either side of him in a snarl of bright steel.

‘Let’s see what’s what, my lord.’ Dev’s voice was tight with frustration.

Kheda nodded, seeing faces turning towards the poised ships, a few of the swordsmen pushing up the visor plates of their helmets, visibly bemused. ‘Whatever it is looks to be more of a puzzle than a threat.’ Dev was already sliding down the heavy trireme’s stern ladder with alacrity. Kheda hurried after him, the crystal water of the shallows dragging at his thighs. An unmistakable, loathsome scent tainted the lazy breeze as they reached the shore. Sickly sweetness with an underlying rankness twisted Kheda’s stomach and he saw dark smears in the furrowed sand half-concealed by the trampling feet of the swordsmen. So it’s not such a hardship after all to have some leather between your feet and whatever slaughter went on here.

The armoured men parted to let the warlord and his supposed slave pass, seriousness on every face, coloured by confusion.

‘What have you found?’ Kheda demanded of the battle captains.

‘Dead meat,’ said the senior man from the Dancing Snake helplessly.

Kheda frowned. ‘Let me see.’

‘And keep a watch while we do,’ snapped Dev, shooting sharp glances in all directions.

The other captains shouted orders, sending their men to line the forest edge and bar any attack from the paltry trees. The Dancing Snake’s man led Kheda to the pile of rotting palm panels and the scent of decay strengthened.

‘There’s a body?’ Kheda looked from the Dancing Snake’s sword captain to the Gossamer Shark’s Arao, demanding an explanation. ‘Ours or theirs?’

‘Hard to say.’ Arao hooked the corner of the topmost panel with his sword and hauled it aside. Blue-backed flies buzzed with displeasure, scattering to circle around the men’s heads before returning to their enticing discovery. It wasn’t a body—at least, not all of one. There was just a foot, not even with the stump of its ankle attached. Half-buried in the dark, stained sand beside it was most of an aim, raggedly severed half-way between shoulder and elbow.

Kheda sank to his knees to study the remains more closely, trying not to breathe in the putrid smell. In death the skin was a greyish muddy colour, bruised and swollen. In life, it could have been any of the vibrant brown hues that characterised the Chazen people.

Or the dark skin that the invaders hide beneath their paint and mud.

‘I’ve seen shark kills washed up in pieces like that,’ Arao said dubiously.

‘I’ve heard tell of fishermen losing feet to beaked turtles. Could it have just washed up here?’ The Dancing Snake’s man looked at Kheda with more hope than conviction.

‘This hasn’t been in the water,’ Kheda said firmly.

‘How long’s it been here?’ asked Dev.

‘A couple of days.’ Kheda noted the tiny yellowish maggots clustered along the raw surface of the severed foot, fighting blindly to squirm beneath the skin and gorge on the bounty beneath. Flies aren’t fussy feeders. Pearl oysters, human flesh, it’s all the same to them.

Arao swallowed hard and looked down the beach. ‘We’d better find out what else is here.’

‘Yes,’ said Dev absently. He was staring across the beach towards the trees, his eyes distant.

You’re fidgeting as if you’ve got maggots under your toenails. And from the look in your eyes, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you ‘d been pickling your wits with your cursed barbarian liquor.

‘Dev, come with me,’ Kheda said sharply.

‘What?’ Dev looked at the warlord, slow to collect himself.

‘Arao, I want every piece of wreckage or driftwood turned over. I want every stain on this beach dug up. I want every one of those torn apart and anything inside laid bare!’ Kheda was already walking across the sand, pointing this way and that at the derelict huts. Arao reinforced his orders with terse shouts and the warlord turned to Dev as the barbarian caught him up. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Nothing,’ snapped the wizard.

Almost immediately, shouts came from several directions. A man prodding a stain in the sand had found something, as had a group scattering a heap of tide-washed detritus with their swords. One held up a second severed foot on the point of his blade.

‘Do you think we’ve got a pair?’ Dev chuckled, dark eyes shining oddly.

Kheda caught a look of contempt from Arao as the other swordsman overheard.

I know just what you’re thinking: he’s still an ignorant, star-crossed barbarian, even if he does wield Aldabreshin steel in the service of your warlord.

‘What’s over there?’ Kheda looked towards two men investigating the space beneath the raised platform of the mined sailer granary. Whatever they had found was enough to drop one to his knees, vomiting noisily.

‘Let’s see.’ Dev hurried towards them. Scowling, Arao took up the body slave’s station at the warlord’s side.

Kheda had to stop and take a determined swallow to settle his own stomach when he saw that two Shearsword men had dragged the head and shoulders of a man out from beneath the splintered wood. The corpse still had both his arms but that was all. Shattered ribs were ground into a gory mess of torn flesh along with the broken remnants of his shoulder blades. All that remained below that was a short tail of vertebrae clotted with blood and sinew.

‘At least he’s not one of ours, one of Chazen,’ the swordsman who’d managed to retain his breakfast said through clenched teeth.

The dead man was unmistakably an invader. His coarse, wiry hair was caked in coloured mud with small bones and black feathers tipped with scarlet woven into it. Handprints in a thick white paint made a pattern of sorts down each arm.

‘Their leaders decorate themselves like this.’ Kheda used his own sword point to turn one of the broken corpse’s hands. The fingers were torn and scored, vicious wooden splinters sticking out of the dead flesh. ‘But no wizard, I would say.’ He risked a brief questioning glance at Dev.

The barbarian shook his head, bending to peer into the empty gloom beneath the buckled and splintered floorboards of the granary. ‘I’m more interested in what killed him. That’s cursed drastic damage to do with stone knives and wooden clubs.’

‘I can’t see anything like a clean cut.’ Kheda stood up and considered the torn margins of the severed chest. No Archipelagan blade did this.’

‘There’s one of those stone knives over there, my lord,’ the Shearsword man with the stronger stomach volunteered.

Kheda looked where the sharp-eyed warrior was pointing and saw dull black obsidian in the white sand. There was no sign of blood or tissue on the invader’s blade. ‘Why would he throw his weapons away?’

‘Surrendering?’ Dev was still studying the partial corpse, baffled. ‘And then what? There are no swords anywhere. Are we supposing whoever caught the poor bastard held him down and sawed him in half with a sharp bit of broken rock?’

That thought set the hapless Shearsword man who’d made the gruesome find spewing hopelessly again. ‘Go back to your ship.’ Kheda clapped the warrior on one mail-clad shoulder. ‘Get some clean air in your lungs and a little fresh water in your belly. Nothing else, mind, not for a while. You, go with him.’ He nodded to the other swordsman. ‘You’ve acquitted yourselves well enough for today.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ the unafflicted wanior said gratefully, bowing low before shepherding his companion down towards the sea.

‘Arao, go and see what your men are turning up.’ As the warrior walked slowly away, after a last dubious look at Dev, Kheda took a few steps to distance himself from the pungent remnants of the dead savage. He turned to Dev, his voice low and urgent. ‘You’re sure he wasn’t one of their wizards?’

‘What?’ Dev looked vacantly at Kheda for a moment.

No.’ The barbarian shook off his abstraction and laughed briefly. ‘He wouldn’t have been hiding under a granary floor if he had been.’ The barbarian wizard’s face hardened abruptly. ‘Though something very odd has gone on here.’

Before Kheda could ask what he meant, one of the Dancing Snake’s sword captains hailed them from over by the remnants of the invaders’ stockade. Kheda led the way past reluctant swordsmen uncovering more mangled remnants of flesh and bone.

‘You were right to say this is a puzzle, but I still don’t think we’ve enough bits to make more than a couple of people,’ remarked Dev.

Kheda ignored the barbarian as he looked inside the crude wooden circle, one side of it almost completely broken down, the timbers half-buried in the sand.

‘Do you want a head count?’ the Dancing Snaked wanior offered reluctantly.

‘Add up the feet and divide by two?’ Dev suggested with the hint of a grin.

The inside of the stockade was a charnel house. Blood splashed up the inner faces of the crudely split logs, dried black by the hot sun. Black flies clustered on broken limbs and half-crushed heads scattered piecemeal across the torn and sodden earth. Fat, pale maggots writhed where their feasting had been disturbed, squirming in noxious slime pooled in shaded hollows. The stench in the enclosed space was revolting and Kheda retreated hurriedly.

‘Shipmaster Mezai heard screams in the night.’ He turned his back on the carnage. ‘They must have been fighting among themselves.’

‘There can’t be much food on an island like this.’ Dev stared past Kheda at a lifeless head, as if he might read some answer in the clouded, oozing eyes rimmed with greedy flies. ‘Do you suppose they ended up eating each other?’

Kheda saw one of the warriors turn away, face anguished.

You lost someone, family or friend, to the invaders. This reminder of their suffering must be excruciating. He shot the barbarian a quelling look. ‘They may have grievously mistreated the captives they took but there was never any sign of such an obscenity.’

‘They’d have kept prisoners fed and watered if they were going to end up on a spit, even fattened them up, maybe,’ Dev persisted thoughtfully, heedless of Kheda’s glare. ‘Besides, they used to take the elders, all scrawny and tough—’

‘Enough!’ Kheda silenced Dev with a hard slap on the side of his helm with his mailed gauntlet. He didn’t allow anyone, swordsman or barbarian, time to speak before giving new orders with cold determination. ‘Arao, search this isle from end to end and side to side. If there’s anything larger than a palm rat in those trees, I want to see it running scared. If we catch a single living savage, we will find some way of getting answers out of him. In the meantime, bring some sail crew ashore to gather up this carrion. Throw it all in this stockade and pile every other bit of wood on top. I want this vileness burned to ashes!’ He had barely finished speaking before Arao’s lead had the sword captains summoning their men with curt commands, dividing the warriors into troops. As the swordsmen began disappearing into the scrubby forest, swords raised, tense and alert, sail crews from the triremes disembarked and set about the gruesome task of cleansing the beach.

‘Come on, let’s see what’s what.’ Dev headed for the fringe of nut palms, his bald, leathery face uncharacteristically eager.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ snapped Kheda.

The barbarian turned, dark eyes momentarily confused. You want me to scry out these savages here in the open?’

‘I don’t want you doing anything just at present.’ Before Kheda could continue, a shout rang through the trees. Archers aboard the Brittle Crab swung their bows up ready, barbed broad-headed arrows nocked.

‘Shearsword! ShearswordP Two swordsmen supporting a third emerged from the trees, yelling to identify their trireme.

‘Dev, get my physic chest.’ Kheda ran across the soft sand, feet slipping and clumsy in his leggings. ‘What’s happened?’

The two men lowered their companion gently to sit on the ground. The injured man was biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. Kheda saw that something had driven clean through his foot, leather sandal and all, to leave a dark, bloody hole.

‘Deadfall, in the trees,’ the man gasped. ‘Saw that and the trip stick. Didn’t see the stake-pit under the leaves, though.’

Naturally,’ Kheda said wryly.

‘Just where you’d step to avoid the trip for the deadfall,’ spat one of his companions, rearranging the swords shoved askew in his belt by his exertions.

‘Lie flat so that the wound’s higher than your heart.’ Kheda drew his dagger and slit the lattice of laces tying the thick deerhide around the swordsman’s foot. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Pai, my lord.’ Lying back, he gritted his teeth as Kheda carefully peeled back the bloodstained leather. ‘You’ve won yourself light duties for a good few days with this.’ Kheda bent to examine the wound more closely before looking up and raising his voice. ‘Dev! Where’s my physic chest? One of you light me a fire and get some water boiling.’

One of Pai’s companions glanced towards the stockade where a small fire was now taking hold.

No,’ said Kheda sharply. ‘Don’t get an ember from there, light a fresh fire. Let’s not risk ill luck in the wound. We’ll soak the foot in an infusion of blueshadow leaves and then pack the wound with chamaz pulp. It has to heal from the inside first or it’ll fester.’ He felt carefully for the bones of the foot. ‘You’ve not done too much damage, surprisingly enough.’

‘Thank you, my lord,’ stammered Pai, sweat beading his ashen face.

Saving his foot wont do him much good if he dies from the shock of it all. Best give him a few hemp leaves to chew to take the edge off that.

Kheda looked round for Dev and saw the barbarian hurrying back across the sands as more commotion erupted from the forest further down the beach.

“Gossamer Shark! Gossamer Shark!’ Five men were carrying another out from the shadow of the trees, one to each limb and the fifth supporting his head.

‘Keep this held up.’ Kheda handed Pai’s foot to one of the men who had carried him out of the forest and hurried to see what had befallen the new casualty.

‘Spear trap, my lord,’ gasped the swordsman supporting the man’s head.

‘Four stakes to it,’ added one grasping the casualty around a thigh. ‘At belly height.’

‘Knocked him clean off his feet,’ one of the two supporting the wounded man’s shoulders explained. ‘Lay him down.’ Kheda pushed back the man’s chain veil to uncover his face and saw that his skin was grey and clammy. The heartbeat in his neck was rapid and feathery under the warlord’s fingertips. ‘What’s his name?’

Naeir,’ said the other one supporting his shoulders. ‘It was a sapling, bent back sideways, sharpened stakes on the end. We never saw it, not till it hit Naeir,’ he babbled frantically.

‘Did he hit his head as he fell?’ Kneeling, Kheda felt the unconscious man’s abdomen but the chain mail, dirty with fragments of wood and leaves, frustrated his searching hands.

/ can’t tell how badly he’s hurt without getting his armour off But getting it off could make things worse, if he’s bleeding inside. Liver or spleen could be ruptured, even his stomach. Then there ‘11 be no saving him. Dev appeared and set the warlord’s physic chest down beside him. ‘How old was the trap?’ he asked. The men looked at him, uncomprehending.

‘How old was the trap?’ Dev repeated himself with scant patience. ‘Was the wood still green, with leaves on the twigs? Did some sly bastard set it this morning to catch you lot if you came looking for him? Or was it dried out from being rigged there half a season ago?’

‘That’s a good question.’ Kheda looked up at Dev.

As the barbarian opened his mouth to say something more, a sudden storm of shouts and screams swept across the beach. Startled, Kheda was rising to his feet when a brutal buffet of sand-laden air and a deafening roar knocked him to his knees again. Before he could recover his footing or clear his stinging eyes, someone grabbed him by the arm and dragged him, stumbling, across the sands into the dubious shelter of the trap-laden forest. They dropped behind a tangle of sard-berry bushes choked with striol vines.

Kheda spat sand and fragments of things he didn’t want to think about out of his mouth. What—’

‘Look!’ It had been Dev who had dragged him off the beach. Now the barbarian was crawling and twisting through the bottoms of the bushes, his chain mail scorning the striol thorns.

Kheda wriggled after him on elbows and knees, the metal plates in his leggings digging into the backs of his legs. He swallowed hard. ‘What is that?’

Dev looked at him as if he couldn’t believe the question. ‘It’s a dragon, Kheda. You’ve heard of them, I take it, even down in these godforsaken islands?’

The warlord gaped at the wizard. ‘What’s it doing here?’

‘Whatever it chooses,’ Dev answered with strangled sarcasm.

Yes, you asked for that, didn’t you? Kheda lay as flat as he could beneath the inadequate cover of the stunted bushes and gazed at the beach with utter incredulity.

This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. No? Then what’s that? A mist-dream conjured by some barbarian smoke addling everyone’s wits?

Stars above, it’s as big as the Gossamer Shark! The dragon, wherever it had come from, had landed on the widest part of the beach, where the sea swells left the sand untouched. It stood, four massive clawed feet firmly planted and its thick, muscular tail curling around as it folded its awesome wings. A crest of thick scales running down its spine and tail glowed like living flame in the bright sun, culminating in a heavy ridged spike at the tip of its tail. The overlapping scales along its back and haunches were dark red as the bloody heart of a recalcitrant fire—and a formidable defence, that much was obvious. As the colour of its hide lightened down its flanks to an orange-tinted gold, the scales gradually grew smaller. As the creature shifted its stance, the flexible folds of skin between limbs and body stretched and bunched, pale as sunrise in the angle of its hind leg and belly.

It turned its enormous head to look at the triremes now fleeing the beach and lashed its tail, the heavy spike gouging a deep furrow in the sand. All four vessels were rowing frantically for open water, oar blades chopping the sea into a frenzy of foam. The lighter Brittle Crab was already half a length ahead. The dragon dropped its snout towards the water, fine forked tongue flickering out, never quite touching the rising and retreating surf Scales framed its head with a lethal ruff of spines that would baffle any opponent trying to seize it by the neck. Heavy crimson scales armoured its broad, blunt-nosed muzzle, softening to lighter colours in the folds beneath its long jaw. That softer skin didn’t extend far below its head, however. The underside of the long, flexible neck was armoured with more elongated scarlet scales.

After a few moments, it turned away from the water and surveyed the beach, slowly and deliberately. Its eyes glittered like liquid rubies, lit from within by a single spark of feral intelligence. It glanced over at the mined stockade now blazing fiercely. The dragon drew its coppery lips back in a snarl that revealed a single row of long, pointed, pure white teeth. It opened its mouth and hissed; a low, menacing noise, as its red tongue flickered in and out.

Abruptly, it sprang, the colossal power in its hind legs sending it across the beach with barely any need to spread its huge wings. It landed on top of the stockade, crushing the pyre beneath its great feet. Lashing head and tail from side to side, it scattered the fire, snapping at the gouts of flame with a growl deep in its throat. The blaze died instantly to leave black ash and cold cinders. The dragon snuffled at them, sending a flurry of sooty dust into the air.

Movement caught Kheda’s eye. Everyone had fled the beach in utter panic. Two swordsmen burdened with the unconscious Naeir had only managed to reach a knot of young nut palms standing some distance from the sparse margin of the forest. With the dragon apparently occupied, its back towards them, they seized their chance to try for better concealment, Naeir carried awkwardly between them.

The dragon’s head whipped around. It sprang a second time, unfolding the outermost crease of its wings to glide through the air. It landed, sending a tremor through the sand like the aftershock of a distant earthquake. With a bellow like the roaring fury of a forest fire, it swept the nut palms aside with a single sweep of a forelimb. The tree trunks landed half a ship’s length across the beach, snapped into splintered pieces.

The swordsmen dropped Naeir and fell to the sandy ground, curling up in a hopeless attempt to save themselves. The dragon crouched, belly to the sand, cocking its head. The fire in its eyes brightened as it reached out one forefoot, a single claw adroitly extended. Ignoring the other two for the moment, it prodded the unconscious Naeir. Getting no response, it bent its massive head closer while running that single vicious claw down the length of the man’s hauberk.

The grating noise sent a shiver of icy dread down Kheda’s spine. He watched, frozen with honor, as the beast drew back its head to consider the fallen warrior, long neck arcing as it looked at this mystery first from one side and then the other.

It doesn’t know what to make of the armour. It’s like that young matia you saw when you were out hunting with Sirket. It was doing well enough with the little lizards but it hadn’t a clue what to do when its mother brought back that jungle scun-ier. Even when she’d bitten between the shiny orange and black segments to break its back, the youngling hadn’t wanted to risk its pincers as it writhed in its death throes. The dragon bent its head to Naeir’s feet, mouth agape.

Then it changed its mind, twisting its maw as if to bite his head. At the last moment, it stopped, long tongue flickering out to run delicately along the brow band of the senseless swordsman’s helm.

That was too much for one of the other cowering warriors. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the forest, prompting a stifled outcry of encouragement from the swordsmen hidden among the trees and brush. This incautious outburst died on a note of despairing horror as the dragon rose and reached out one massive forefoot. The swordsman disappeared beneath it, crushed into oblivion in the sand. The dragon hauled his body back and bent to sniff at it. The ruff of scales around its head flared and its eyes burned hot scarlet as it opened its mouth to hiss on a rising note.

Abandoning the contemplative approach, it seized the armoured corpse between its teeth, head shaking from side to side. The swordsman’s arms and legs flopped loose and rattled against the creature’s scaly jaws. It spat him out with a growl of irritation and smashed its great foot down on him once again. After a moment, it repeated the blow and then stamped down a fourth time before bending to lick delicately at the oozing blood now obscuring the steel of the dead warrior’s hauberk. Lifting its head, it studied the gory mess for a moment, then carefully extended one claw and drove it through the dead man’s neck, pinning the body to the ground. Bending down, it nipped his legs between its vicious teeth with surprising precision, metallic lips drawn back. With a single tug, it ripped the broken torso out of the chain mail, the head left pinned, and devoured it in a single bite. Now that it had the trick of it, dispatching and consuming the other two men was the work of a few moments for the beast.

Bear witness, that’s one of your duties as warlord. Find some way to save the rest of your men, that’s another. What are you going to do?

Kheda wracked his brain helplessly as the dragon finished its appetiser and looked towards the island’s scrub and meagre trees, interest brightening its eyes. It began slowly pacing the length of the beach, long tongue still tasting the air, teeth and lips gruesomely bloodstained. Warlord and wizard froze, hugging the ground, as the beast drew level with them, barely breathing until it had passed, watching its great claws tearing up the indistinct footprints, long tail dragging a line in the sand behind it.

‘I reckon we know what happened to those wild men now.’ Dev’s voice was improbably distant. ‘How do we stop it happening to us?’ whispered Kheda savagely.

‘Can you feel the power that thing carries with it?’ Dev breathed, husky now, almost lustful. ‘What?’ Kheda propped himself on one elbow and stared at the wizard.

‘The magic’ Dev looked at him unseeing, his eyes dark and wandering.

As if he’d been drinking deep of his barbarian liquor and filling his head with their tainted smokes for good measure.

‘What are you talking about?’ Anger seizing him, Kheda shoved at the mage, sending him rolling sideways, unresisting. ‘And keep your voice down.’ He twisted to look hastily in all directions, though there was no one to be seen among the glossy yellowy-green of the leaves.

That doesn’t mean there’s no one else hidden within earshot.

Is this where all your connivances with magic are to be finally unmasked?

Will there be anyone left alive to carry the tale to Itrac or anyone else?

Dev rolled back on to his belly, propping himself up on his elbows and hanging his head, breathing deeply like a man who’d just slaked his passions. ‘The magic, Kheda.’ His voice was a fervent whisper. ‘A dragon is a magical creature; it’s in its very nature. No one knows how or why. I’ve heard tell of their aura, of the wild magic that hangs all around them, but nothing I’ve ever read describes just how potent it is.’ He chuckled, a low, licentious sound.

‘What is it doing here?’ Kheda demanded.

‘There have been mages in Hadrumal who could summon dragons.’ Dev’s face sharpened unpleasantly. ‘Precious few of them and they always kept the mystery mighty close. But even a fool can stumble on a wise man’s secret. Maybe these wild men have managed to find themselves a wizard again.’

‘A wizard who called this monster here?’ Kheda stared at Dev, aghast.

‘Maybe,’ the barbarian mage said slowly. ‘And maybe it got out of hand and ate him along with the rest of his cronies. I don’t see it taking much heed of anyone, do you? Or maybe some bright spark on this scrap of an island has finally had his stones drop far enough for him to feel the magic in his blood.’ Dev scrambled on to his knees, helmet knocking against the twigs of the sard-ben-y bush, dislodging fruit to stain the ground around him. ‘And when he stuck his head above the parapet, there’s some bigger, badder wizard been hiding himself who decided to cut him down to size. Maybe he has the trick of this and sent his new pet out to rid himself of a rival. Or just to fill its belly with anyone who won’t get in line behind him.’

As the wizard talked, rapid words stumbling over each other, he was digging a hollow in the dry, sandy earth with the dagger from his belt, scooping out the loose soil with the other hand. Dropping the blade, he sat back on his heels and tugged up the bottom edge of his chain mail and the thick padded tunic beneath it. Holding back cloth and armour with his forearms, he fumbled with the drawstring of his trousers.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Kheda, revolted, as the wizard exposed himself.

‘Got a water bottle on you?’ snapped Dev. No, I didn’t think so. Me neither. Now listen. That beast’s a dragon born of fire, plain enough from the colour of it, never mind the way it snuffed out that pyre you made of the stockade. Well, I was born to see the elemental fire within things. If someone’s summoned it, I should be able to follow the trail of the spell that summoned it here through a scrying, even if it is in a puddle of my own piss.’ The wizard grimaced as he relieved himself.

Kheda concentrated on watching the dragon, which was now well past them, pausing to sniff at the dead embers of the burned stockade before continuing its measured progress along the curve of the beach. ‘Then we make a run for it through the woods, flag down the Green Turtle and the Lilla Bat, taking our chances in the rocks and surf Dev didn’t sound thrilled at that prospect. His voice strengthened as he continued. ‘Then we work out how to sneak up on this clever bastard without him calling his new playmate down on us.’

‘And gut him like a fish.’ Kheda finished the sentence for the wizard.

But why would any wizard capable of summoning a dragon use it against his own people? Wouldn’t he simply set the beast about finishing the destruction these foul invaders began last year?

Dev didn’t answer. Kheda looked around to see green magic filling the puddle of urine, darkening as the liquid slowly seeped away into the dry earth. He looked about hastily for any condemning eyes before returning his gaze to the wizard. Well?’

A sheet of emerald flame erupted from the damp hollow, sending Dev recoiling backwards, hands clapped to his face, muffling a guttural cry of pain. Flames crackled in the air around him, translucent green paling to a sickly yellow before strengthening to a vivid gold and then darkening to ferocious orange.

‘Dev!’ Kheda was on his hands and knees, ready to go to the barbarian’s aid, when he realised that the flames had no source, no fuel. The mage’s clothes weren’t burning beneath his chain mail, nor were the leaves and twigs of the tangled underbrush. It was as if the very air was ablaze, wrapping the wizard in fire.

Is it illusion? Dev told me of such things. No, his hands are blistering. It has to be fire—but magical fire. How can I quench it? What will its touch do to me?

All the same, Kheda scooped a double handful of the loose sand from Dev’s digging in his cupped palms, instinct driving him to quell the fire. Then movement on the beach held the warlord motionless. The dragon had whirled around and was running back along the sand in their direction. Before it had looked almost clumsy with its heavy plodding gait. Now it was racing like a hunting hound, long body at full stretch, head outthrust on its sinuous neck, tail straight as an arrow behind it.

It’s heading this way! What is it after? The magical fire? It must be!

Kheda threw himself on the wizard, knocking Dev awkwardly on to his back, his legs twisted beneath him. Straddling the barbarian, he tore Dev’s hands apart, seeing his face beneath scorched and burned as if the mage had stood too close to a fire when a resin-filled log ignited. The blisters on Dev’s hands burst beneath Kheda’s grip, the flesh slick and raw. Kheda felt the impossible flames fasten on to his own hands, crawling up his arms, the fine black hairs curling and disappearing, the skin reddening and growing sore.

‘Dev!’ Kheda yelled. ‘Stop it!’

But the barbarian had his eyes screwed tight shut. His whole body was tense beneath Kheda, shuddering like a man in a fever. The flames burned ever brighter, ever hotter, and the roar of the dragon filled Kheda’s ears. He let go of Dev’s hands. They fell loosely on to the wizard’s chest. Kheda braced himself with one hand on the wizard’s breastbone and reached for his dagger with the other.

If the beast is seeking Dev’s fire, his death will put an end to that.

Better yet, cut his throat. You can tell anyone who saw the fire it was the dragons work. There’ll be no one to gainsay you.

Yes, but who’s going to save all of us here, never mind Risala, Itrac and all of Chazen, from this new magic if Dev’s dead?

Kheda let the weapon fall and wrapped his bare hands around the wizard’s throat. He gripped, hard, the knuckles of his forefingers digging into Dev’s lined, sun-toughened neck just behind the angle of his jaw. Dev went limp beneath him and the flames vanished in the blink of an eye. Kheda looked around—tense, poised on his knees—to see where the dragon was and what it was doing.

It had stopped dead, scouring up a rut in the sand with the violence of its halt. Head swinging from side to side, its tongue continued that ceaseless flickering in the air. Its eyes shone with a crimson fire, searching the forest’s edge. The blood hammered in Kheda’s head, inheld breath a choking fire in his chest, hands and forearms scorched and sore.

The dragon continued to look from side to side, gaze sliding over the bushes that concealed the two men. All at once it sprang upwards, vast wings unfolding and beating against the air with a deafening clap. As it soared overhead, Kheda looked up to see the dark lines of the creature’s bones through the leathery wing membrane when its flight momentarily blotted out the sun. Impossibly swift, it rose through the sky and disappeared over the hillock of the island.

Dev stirred beneath him, throwing Kheda off with a convulsive heave of his hips as he coughed. ‘Good thinking,’ he commented grudgingly as he rubbed at his neck with clumsy fingertips.

Kheda got to his feet, peering up through the sparse trees to search the fragmented clouds for any sign of the dragon. ‘Is it coming back? Where’s it gone?’

After the ships? Would it attack a trireme? What about a lesser boat? Risala, where are you? ‘I’m not inclined to try finding out,’ rasped Dev, now sitting up. Not with magic, anyway.’ A rustle in the bushes startled Kheda. It was three swordsmen, muddy-faced with tenor.

‘Go and gather everyone together,’ the warlord barked. ‘Stay under cover as best you can. As soon as we’re all together, we’ll head for the far side of the island, to see if we can signal to the Green Turtle and the Lilla Bat. Don’t forget to keep your eyes open for those cursed traps,’ he added.

The three of them just stood there, slack-jawed and uncomprehending.

‘Go on!’ Kheda urged.

His commanding tone reminding them of their duty, they turned and disappeared into the trees. Kheda heard other voices behind him, those who’d fled into the trees making themselves known now that his carrying words had put new heart into them. Twigs and leaves cracked and rustled as people began pushing their way towards him.

Kneeling to retrieve his fallen dagger, Kheda pushed his head close by Dev’s. ‘Your magic got away from you, mage. That happens again with anyone else at hand to see it and we’re both dead—and not just because it looks as if the dragon can sniff out your fires. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just kill you and have done. You said wizards can summon those beasts. What else do you know about these evils? Quickly, before anyone else might hear!’

‘I’m sonny, my lord, but I know precious little about dragons,’ said Dev sourly. He paused to blow on the backs of his raw and weeping hands to cool the pain. ‘But I do know someone who knows a cursed sight more than most.’