Southern Fire

Chapter Four

The colour of this water's more like a river than the sea. It doesn't even have waves, it's so confined in this maze of mud and rock and oh, what I wouldn't give for some clean salt air, instead of this stifling stink.

Kheda hastily suppressed that thought before he inadvertently made any kind of wager with the future. 'Is this a course Cai's ever sailed before?'

'We've neither of us been in these waters.' Jatta shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the gap between two dusty islands lying half south ahead. 'We're well off the usual trade channels.' The shipmaster had his red route book absently clutched in one hand.

Kheda looked past the Scorpion's prow to the stern of Saril's fast trireme, the Horned Fish, a precise two ship's lengths ahead, thanks to Jatta's expert guidance. 'Is it evidence of his good faith, to show us these byways?'

'He has little enough to lose.' Jatta sounded noncommittal. 'I'll warrant heavy triremes will be ready to stare us down, if we try coming this way once he's back in his compound again.'

'You'll be making your notes on these seaways though?' enquired Kheda innocently.

'I'd be remiss in my duty to the Daish domain if I didn't.' Jatta's wicked smile belied his lofty tone. 'And a little skiff on a moonlit night can generally find a quiet channel to slip past a heavy trireme.'

'Which might be useful under some different turn of the heavens,' allowed Kheda.

If not for us, maybe for Sirket in some unforeseen future. Remember what Daish Reik told you at much the same age as he is now. 'Never assume that any situation mill remain as it is, no matter how long it has resisted the twists of fate.' Are we truly going to find ourselves facing magic here, in the face of all expectation?

Jatta turned a serious face to Kheda. 'Have we left our own ships ready to chase off any Chazen ships using this panic as excuse to spy out our seaways?'

'I had the signals sent before we left the Hyd Rock, and explicit orders to Janne Daish.' Kheda glanced back past the Scorpion's sternpost to Atoun's heavy triremes, Saril's two vessels leading them on. 'Besides, if we can win Chazen at least a foothold back in his own domain with a rapid strike, his people will have no choice but to retreat to their own waters.'

'Do we know how many of these invaders hold this place?' Jatta was studying an island just coming into view. It was no great size but boasted the conical peak of a fire mountain rising stark and grey above thickly forested slopes. Knot trees reached down to the water and beyond, the solid ground fringed by swamps of tangled grey roots lapped by sluggish seas.

'According to everything Atoun can determine, only a small force came this far east. Chazen Saril says they will surely be keeping to this one island. It's the only land in this reach with year-round springs of water.'

I sincerely hope the assurances of the Chazen men are trustworthy. Most particularly in reporting no suspicion of magic hereabouts.

'Chazen Saril's helmsman had better know where he's taking us.' Jatta looked at a confused cluster of little islets with disfavour. 'Some of these channels are so narrow and shallow a shoal of real horned fishes would be swimming in single file.'

'There'll be scant landing, from what I hear.' Cai adjusted the Scorpion's course as signal flags fluttered from the Horned Fish's stern platform.

'So once we've killed these invaders, we have only the one beach to guard against any more of them,' Kheda said bracingly.

'That's Atoun's task, killing and guarding.' Seeing the Horned Fish slow, Jatta looked down the gangway and waved to the rowing master. The piper drew out his note and the Scorpion obediently loitered in the strait. Baffled by the tree-smothered islands in all directions, the currents made little headway against the rowers' determination.

Kheda raised a hand in salute as the first of the heavy triremes passed the Scorpion. Atoun, unmistakable on the stern platform, raised his naked sword in salute. One of the Chazen ships passed on their other flank, the shipmaster rising from his seat to sweep a low bow to Kheda. As Kheda inclined his head in recognition, he saw Saril at the stern of the Horned Fish, naked blade in his hand, directing the heavy triremes with urgent gestures as they surged past.

'He's going ashore?' Jatta was astonished.

'It's his domain that's been invaded,' shrugged Kheda, impassive.

'It's not the place of warlords to get themselves killed in skirmishes like common swordsmen,' Telouet growled. 'Hasn't he heard enough poets' laments to know that?'

'I don't suppose many decent poets bother coming this far south,' commented Jatta with faint derision.

'I doubt he'll go ashore. He's got no armour for one thing.' Kheda saluted Chazen Saril who was still wearing the remnants of his bedraggled finery.

The heavy triremes laden with swordsmen passed both the Horned Fish and the Scorpion, leaving the two fast ships blocking the seaway, ready to foil any escape by the unknown invaders.

'You'd have had the sense to find yourself a hauberk, even if I wasn't there to lead you by the hand,' Telouet snorted.

'Keep such thoughts to yourself when Chazen Saril's within earshot,' Kheda remarked mildly. 'Or he really will demand I have you flogged.'

'And refusal would cause such unwelcome offence.' Jatta spared Telouet an irreverent grin.

'There's the landing.' Cai pointed to a stretch of dank grey sand barely visible between the bigger ships.

The Scorpion's archers and swordsmen stood on the bow platform and side decks, alert to any danger from the lesser islets that all but enclosed this anchorage. Here and there a sheer cliff of black rock rose from the shadowed seas but, for the most part, dark green knot trees with their stubby, fleshy leaves came right to the water's edge. There was no sign of movement among the twistud grey branches, and scant breeze cooled the sweat on Kheda's forehead. A scent of decay hung heavy in the air, which hummed with the chirrups of countless, nameless insects.

With rapid strokes, the heavy triremes were turning stern on to the beach, steering oars raised out of harm's way.

'Invaders,' hissed Jatta as they all saw some movement on the sand.

With a rush that drowned out his words, the heavy triremes drove for the shore. They grounded hard, barely still before armoured men poured down the stern ladders, plunging through the waist-deep water, swords drawn. Dark-skinned men erupted from the tree line, howling wordless, meaningless cries.

The hair on Kheda's neck rose. 'They sound like beasts.'

'Let them die like beasts,' said Telouet fervently.

'Indeed.' Kheda heard the savage howling broken by screeches of pain with vengeful satisfaction.

'Are they breaking?' Jatta was watching the greater contingent of archers that had been gathered on the Horned Fish. They were sending a storm of arrows across the beach, heavier than a rainy-season squall.

'I can't see.' Kheda ran lightly along the Scorpion's landward-side deck to the bow platform, Telouet at his heels. Kheda's spirits rose at the better view of the carnage ashore. 'It's true,' he marvelled. 'They're only using wooden clubs and spears.'

He pointed as Chazen and Daish blades flashed in the sunlight, cutting down the shrieking savages.

'Which can still crack a skull or skewer a man like a roasting fowl.' Telouet scanned the shore, keeping himself between Kheda and any unseen, unanticipated threat. 'And we don't know they've no slings or arrows of their own. Get behind the bowpost, my lord.'

'They're the ones being skewered.' Doing as Telouet bade him, Kheda nevertheless saw invader after invader fall to ruthless sword blows. The Daish warriors weren't even having to call on the skills honed by years of training, with no armour to foil, no razor-edged blades opposing them, ready to punish any errors of timing. A second wave of yelling men came charging out of the trees but arrows felled half before they joined battle with the steel-clad line of swordsmen now advancing up the beach.

'Let's hope we take back every island as easily as this one,' said Telouet with satisfaction.

'It's not won yet.' Apprehension kept a tight grip on Kheda's guts. 'Let's hope we don't suddenly find ourselves facing magic'

'What's that?' Telouet started at some commotion on the Horned Fish's stern platform, everyone pointing to the shore and shouting.

Kheda's heart missed a beat when he saw what was happening. 'It's Chazen's own islanders!'

'Come out from their sanctuaries,' approved Telouet with a spreading grin. 'They'll want to play their part in taking back their homes from these despoilers.'

'They've got them caught between a storm and a windward shore now.' Kheda shook his head slowly. 'This is a slaughter.'

'Good,' said Telouet robustly.

Fisherman slashed at the savages with boathooks and fishing poles. Those used to tilling the soil swung hoes and rakes. Hunters carried the broad curved blades that they used for hacking through underbrush and tore into the naked backs and legs of these unforeseen foemen. Chazen islanders who'd arrived empty-handed picked up wooden spears fallen from nerveless fingers and thrust them to deadly effect. The clamour on the beach rose to a new pitch of ferocity until Atoun blew a throbbing blast on his horn. A tense hush fell pierced only by groans of agony.

Kheda saw Chazen Saril already beckoning to a row-boat creeping cautiously out from beneath a fringe of swamp trees. 'Telouet, we're going ashore.'

'My lord.' The slave didn't bother trying to argue the point, following his master back to the stern platform.

Chazen Saril waved up at Kheda from the little boat. 'My lord Daish! Let us visit our victory together!'

'Nice of him to share the credit,' muttered Telouet. 'When we brought five times his warriors to the party.'

'Rekha Daish will make him pay what he owes us.' Kheda followed Telouet deftly down the Scorpion's stern ladder to join Chazen Saril in the rowboat.

As they approached the shore, the little vessel nudged aside bodies bobbing in the sluggish wavelets, blood vanishing in the silty water. They looked as if they'd been savaged by wild dogs; arms and bellies ripped open, gashes gaping in ruined faces.

Train your men as the most ferocious swordsmen and your domain will be protected. It will also be more at risk, because all such men want to do is fight, while you doing your duty as their warlord means they seldom get the chance. A ruler's life is full of paradoxes.

Telouet was marvelling at the corpses' scant loincloths and few paltry ornaments of feathers and paint. 'What kind of fool goes into battle naked as a newborn pup?'

Kheda shot him a hard look. 'A man who believes he has something more powerful to rely on than leather and steel.'

'But there was no fire.' Chazen Saril was looking confused. 'There was so much fire, before.'

Eager hands reached out to draw the rowboat high on to the shore so that both warlords could step out on to dry land. Chazen and Daish warriors pressed close, swords still drawn.

'Go, speak to your people.' Kheda caught Saril by the elbow and turned him towards a slightly built man who stood wringing his hands anxiously. 'Find out just what else we might be facing. Telouet, let's see what the wounded have to tell us.'

With his slave close by, Kheda hurried along the shore where the Chazen islanders and those who'd come to rescue them were dispatching fallen wild men with ruthless efficiency.

'Wait,' Kheda commanded curtly as he saw a Daish sword raised above an invader felled by a blow that had left his knees a ruin of white bone in a mess of torn flesh now blackened with flies, his lifeblood soaking into the dry ground.

'It's all very well remembering your training,' Telouet commented to the Daish swordsman. 'But when a man's not wearing a hauberk, why not just run him through?'

'True enough.' The Daish warrior smiled ruefully.

The dying savage thrashed from side to side, scrabbling for some weapon. He tried to throw sand into the Daish men's faces but his strength failed him and his arm fell back. Telouet scowled and planted a heavy foot on the savage's wrist, nodding to the swordsman to do the same.

'Who are you? Do you understand me? Do you know who I am?' Kheda crouched down beside the invader.

'He doesn't look barbarian,' said Telouet, puzzled.

'Not like any northerner, certainly,' agreed Kheda. Though, similar as his features might be to any Chazen or Daish man on the shore, this wild man was taller than most Aldabreshi by half a head, even the coastal people of the largest islands who tended to top hill dwellers by much the same measure. On the other hand, he was darker-skinned than even the people of the remotest heights.

'What's that in his hair?' Telouet prodded cautiously at the man's head with the tip of his sword. Even with his strength visibly failing the man tried to twist away, spitting at the blade.

'Paint of some kind?' Kheda couldn't tell if the savage's hair was inclined to curl like a hill dweller's or fall straighter, more like those with coastal blood, since it was caked solid with some thick red substance. 'Or just mud?'

The man writhed weakly, muttering something with harsh defiance.

'Does that sound like any tongue you've ever heard, any dialect from some distant reach of the Archipelago?' Kheda looked up at Telouet and the Daish swordsman.

'No, my lord.' Both men shook baffled heads.

'I've never heard the like,' Kheda admitted. 'Nor seen the like.' He stood and looked down at the dying man struggling for breath. His ribs rose and fell beneath a crudely daubed pattern of red and white discoloured with stains and sprays of drying blood. 'All right. Put him out of his misery.'

As Telouet's sword thrust ended the wild man's torment, Kheda looked around the beach. Beneath their raucous paints, the next corpse and a wounded man just beyond looked remarkably similar to the body at his feet. 'Wherever these people come from, they don't get much new blood, do they? They look close as brothers.' Kheda turned from the sight of a ruthless islander smashing the wounded man's skull with an oar shaft. 'What exactly were they using for weapons?'

Telouet bent to strip the body between them. 'That spear's no more than a fire-hardened spike of wood. This took a bit more making though.' He picked up a heavy club of coarse-grained hardwood with sharpened flakes of black stone embedded in it, blood and hair caught among them.

'Do you recognise the wood?' Kheda took the club and turned it this way and that, mystified.

'I can't tell lilla wood from nut palm, my lord. And this must have been what he called a knife.' Telouet pulled a blade of sharpened black stone from a crudely stitched leather scabbard tied to the dead man's brief leather loincloth.

'So how have these people put nigh on an entire domain to flight?' Kheda gave the black stone knife a cursory glance and tossed it down on the sand. 'Atoun!'

'My lord.' The heavyset warrior came running at the summons. Sweat ran in fat drops down his face to disappear into his grizzled beard. There was gore on his leggings and splashed across his sword arm and flies hovered greedily around his bloodied sword.

'What injuries have we suffered?' demanded Kheda.

'Our men took no worse than a few cuts and bruises. A few of Chazen's were caught by surprise, but they're weary and nervous besides,' Atoun allowed grudgingly. 'A couple of the islanders had their skulls split, a few won broken arms for their pains.'

'How did these wild men fight?' Kheda moved to allow two grim-faced islanders to drag the corpse from between them, the body thrown on to an untidy pile of slack limbs and lolling heads.

'Like madmen.' Atoun's grimace mixed bemusement with a degree of unease. 'No armour, weapons no better than a child's plaything and they came at us howling like heat-crazed hounds. Couldn't they see we'd cut them down like sailer stalks?'

'Naked or not, they could still overwhelm us, if they have as many men as stalks in a sailer field.' Kheda walked over to the heap of hated dead and frowned at a corpse with bloody froth gathered around his mouth. 'Gloves please, Telouet.' Pulling them on, he drew his dagger and used it to prise open the dead man's mouth, hooking out a chewed wad of fibrous pulp.

'What's that?' wondered Telouet.

Kheda raised the tip of his knife and sniffed cautiously. 'I don't recognise it but it smells pretty potent. Something to enrage, to dull pain? To drive men to a madness that carries them beyond fear of death?'

'Northern barbarians use drink and intoxicants to raise themselves to bloodlust,' commented Telouet.

'Then perhaps there is no magic, my lord,' said Atoun slowly. 'These apparitions come shrieking out of the night to attack the Chazen islanders, breaking heads and clubbing down anything in their path, throwing firebrands and maybe something like dreamsmokes to muddle their victims. Couldn't this talk of magic just be fear and fancy?'

Kheda shot him a stern glance. 'It wasn't some over-active imagination burned Olkai Chazen nigh to death.'

'But that could have been sticky fire,' said Telouet with cautious hope.

'Find me any scorched potsherd or scrap of naphtha cloth,' Kheda challenged. 'Find me anything needful for making such a weapon. In the meantime, let's see what tale Chazen Saril's people have to tell.'

He crossed the shore in rapid strides to join the other warlord, who was still talking to the village spokesman. 'Chazen Saril, what happened to your people here?'

'Much as befell the rest of us,' replied Saril grimly. 'These wild men came in the middle of the night, with fire bursting out of the empty air to burn the huts and storehouses while dust storms smothered any man of the village who tried to fight back. My people feared magic and fled.'

'We've seen no magic today.' Kheda said carefully. 'How is that?'

'The leader of the savages sailed west the day after their attack here.' Saril gestured vaguely towards the heart of his domain. 'He took most of his forces with him as well. He must have been the wizard.'

Perhaps, but what is it that you are not telling me? What is the secret hiding behind your eyes, Chazen Saril?

Kheda nodded slowly. 'Then we may hope, even if they have magic, there are none too many wizards to spread it around.'

Chazen Saril seized eagerly at this notion. 'Even the northern barbarians of the unbroken lands aren't overrun by their spell casters.'

'So we've taken the first step in reclaiming your domain, honoured lord,' Kheda congratulated Saril with a wide smile. 'You had better see if this island can offer any kind of accommodation appropriate to your dignity.'

'You think I'm staying?' Startled, Saril gaped. 'I didn't intend—'

'You there!' Telouet snapped his ringers at the wide-eyed village spokesman. 'Your lord requires a bath and a change of clothes. See to it!'

'It's time to take some care for appearances,' Kheda said in a low voice as the man scuttled away. 'You want to instil as much confidence in your people as possible when they start gathering here.'

'We will send signals north as soon as possible,' Atoun broke in. 'Make sure all your people know where to come.'

'You need armour,' Telouet added. 'And a personal attendant, my lord.'

'Indeed,' Kheda agreed. 'There must be someone among your swordsmen who can serve for the moment. As and when they arrive, you can choose a new body slave from those of your household who survived.'

'You are abandoning me and mine, Daish Kheda?' Chazen Saril stared belligerently at him. 'After this one paltry fight?'

'Not at all.' Kheda folded his arms and faced the plump man down. 'I am seeing you consolidate this first step to restoring you to your own.'

Saril's expression turned petulant. 'These mud islands scarcely sustain the people who live here. How are they to support the whole population of the domain?'

'I suggest, my lord, that we look to reclaim some more of your territory, to give everyone room to breathe,' Kheda retorted.

'How far is the next sizeable island? Might that make a more defensible position, offer a more fitting residence?' Even with Atoun's tone entirely respectful, there was no getting away from the impoliteness of that question.

So why aren't you indignant and demanding I chastise my impertinent underling? Why are you just chewing your lip and looking shifty, my lord of Chazen?

'Leave us.' Kheda waved Atoun and Telouet away with a curt hand and both men reluctantly retreated a short distance. 'Whatever you tell us of your domain's resources, whatever we learn of your seaways, Chazen Saril, I swear to you that I will not look to take undue advantage in our future dealings. Take whatever augury you like, to see my good faith on this.'

'With the miasma of magic all around us? What divination do you imagine will hold true? Oh I trust you; that's not my concern. The thing is, the next island we'd need to take, to be sure of holding this one—' Saril tugged at his tangled beard, not meeting Kheda's eyes.

'It holds some secret?' Kheda tried to be patient with the man.

'It holds my brothers,' snapped Saril abruptly.

'Oh.' Kheda kept his voice carefully neutral. 'And it's vital that we hold it? If we're to keep the invaders at bay in this reach of the domain?'

'Yes.' With another of his quicksilver changes of mood, Saril heaved a defeated sigh and caught up a broken spear shaft. He sketched a rough map in the sand. 'See how the currents run? If we hold that island, we can deny these invaders the rest of this reach.'

As long as they don't have magic to carry them over the waters heedless of such things.

Kheda nodded slowly. 'Do you know if the invaders have taken it?'

Saril flung the broken spear shaft away into the trees. 'It's all but certain.'

'Perhaps these invaders merely see the island's strategic value.' Kheda hesitated before continuing. 'Or is it possible that they have some deeper purpose in taking it? Could they know what they would find there?'

'Much good it will do them, even if this is all some insane pretence to cover up an attempt to cast me from my domain.' Chazen Saril's voice was hard and bitter. 'My father may have held back from killing my brothers outright but he decreed they should be gelded and blinded, their tongues slit. There were four. One killed himself soon after. Another died when an attack of break-bone fever turned to bleeding sickness in the rains three years since. Two remain.' Saril's eyes bored into Kheda's, searching for any reaction. 'Nameless.'

'Are these nameless housed separately or together?' Kheda asked dispassionately.

'They're held together, in a compound in the centre of the island.' Saril knelt to find a seashell. His hand hovered over the map scrawled in the sand before stabbing it with the white spiral. 'I believe you owe me a secret in turn. What does the Daish domain do with its surplus sons?'

'I will only speak for my father.' Kheda wasn't about to give away anything more than he had learned. 'Daish Reik's final decree offered my younger brothers the choice of death, or of castration and passing into my hands as zamorin slaves.'

'What did they choose?' demanded Saril.

'That is none of your concern.' It might be an open secret among Kheda's household that Rembit had been born of Daish Reik and his second wife Inril but everyone knew to keep their mouths shut. 'Your concern is retaking your domain from whoever these people are, spell casters from some unknown land or mere counterfeits, intent on setting up one of your crippled brothers as figurehead in your place.'

'I must consider what to do for the best before we make any more voyages.' Saril shook his head stubbornly. 'We must see to the dead here first. Their crimes warrant burning but that would make this beach a place of ill omen and this island has no other landing.'

And you could spin out such debates with yourself and your people to lose us any benefit accrued from the battle we've just won.

'Atoun!' Kheda snapped impatient fingers to summon his commander. Telouet came too. 'This is the next island we must take.' Kheda pointed at the map drawn in the sand. 'Ask the Chazen shipmasters for only such waymarks and warnings of currents as we will need to reach it safely'

'Do we know what forces to expect?' Atoun studied the map and pointed at the bleached white shell. 'Is that some stronghold?'

'A retreat for some afflicted unfortunates of the warlord's family,' Kheda said blandly. 'They do not suffer from anything contagious.'

Just the hereditary affliction of being born a son to a ruling lord.

'My lord Chazen Saril—'

Kheda turned ready to quell any ill-timed curiosity from Telouet but the slave was thinking about something else. 'We should be on our way to this next island before any burning of the dead. We don't want to raise an alarm for whoever awaits us with a column of smoke.'

'I don't know where we can burn them,' said Chazen Saril obstinately. 'Not so late in the dry season. We could set the whole island alight. I shall have to take time to consider this carefully.'

Kheda looked at the bodies piled up in ungainly heaps 'Have them taken to the mountaintop and thrown into the crater. They burn and your island is purified at one and the same time.'

Chazen Saril opened his mouth to protest but Telouet forestalled him.

'As you command, my lord.' The slave bowed low and turned to shout orders at the village spokesman.

'I'll be sure the ships are ready to depart.' Atoun's bow was more perfunctory, his mind already on the next assault.

'You lay a heavy burden on my people, Daish Kheda,' cried Saril angrily, jowls quivering. 'Hauling this many dead all the way up to the peak. You don't think this risks binding these invaders to this island? You don't fear the malice that brought these people here will now pour molten rock down on these defenceless forests? But now you've given your orders,' he concluded with grim satisfaction, 'I will not humiliate you by countermanding them. We will just have to wait, and for my own requirements to be met. I was about to set these people to setting up watch posts and fuelling beacons, so we might at least know if our retreat is cut off, when we set about this next conquest of yours.'

'I must consult with Jatta.' Kheda bit his tongue and walked away without ceremony.

Actually, Chazen Saril has a point there. It wasn't the most sensible thing to suggest, that the dead be thrown into the fire crater. 'Never make decisions in the heat of anger or the chill of shock.' Daish Reik is proved wiser than you yet again. Are you wise enough to meet this challenge? You may be wiser than Chazen Saril but that's not saying a great deal. Do you remember him being so prone to switching between fear and folly? What are you risking, for the Daish domain, fighting alongside a man ill prepared to meet the demands upon him?

As he crossed the beach, Telouet caught up with him. 'What now?

Kheda's pace didn't slacken. 'We drive these savages from this next island. The sooner we hand Chazen Saril a territory he has some chance of holding, the sooner we return home and ensure all his people go back to demand his protection. Summon a boat.'

Kheda stood aloof as Telouet hailed a skiff. Once aboard the Scorpion, Kheda claimed the shipmaster's seat to take the weight of the armour off his weary feet. Closing his eyes, he strove to calm himself, recalling the subtle exercises to relax his shoulders and back, arms and legs that Daish Reik's ever-faithful body slave Gaffin had taught him.

What was it he told you? 'Not as good as sleep, but good enough when there's no chance of sleep.' What else would he be telling you, him or Daish Reik? That you being irritated with Saril will only benefit your foes? Let the Chazen warlord see to his domains concerns. You address your own.

Some indeterminate time later, Kheda heard the shipmaster's step on the deck. He spoke without opening his eyes. 'Jatta, have we been given all the water we need? Are the men fed? We don't want to go into a fight and find half of them disabled by cramps.'

'It's all in hand, my lord,' Jatta assured him. 'And something's put a goad into Chazen Saril,' he added with some surprise.

Kheda opened his eyes at that.

'He's probably afraid we'll leave without him,' Telouet mocked. He handed Kheda a cup of water, sweet with a hint of purple berries. 'At least someone's found him some armour.'

Kheda saw Saril now wore a chainmail shirt and helm. The silver-chased helm didn't match the copper-ornamented plates of the hauberk but at least he looked a little more like a warlord. 'Where's Atoun? How soon will we be ready to sail?'

'The more delay, the more we lose any element of surprise,' agreed Telouet.

'We shouldn't be too much longer,' Jatta said comfortably.

The shipmaster's confidence was justified. The sun hadn't traversed much more of the heavenly compass by the time the modest fleet set their oars in the water with a determined crash. Kheda was still pacing the Scorpion's side decks through sheer impatience though.

'Come back to the stern, my lord.' Telouet spoke over the urgent note of the piper. 'We won't get there any faster if we have to stop and fish you out of the sea.'

The Scorpion's swordsmen and archers keeping watch on the trireme's upper level studiously avoided Kheda's eye.

'True enough.' Kheda walked carefully back down the length of the speeding ship, curbing a desire to signal the rowing master to order an ever-faster stroke.

If they spend the last of their strength now, they'll have nothing left to get you back to Daish waters, when the time comes to leave Chazen Saril to face whatever it is that's plaguing his domain. When the time comes to make sure the Daish islands are prepared to fight any such assault, be it magic or just drug-addled wild men.

The waters opened out into a major channel and the close-gathered fleet broke free of the islands tangled in their matted swamps and knot trees. The next islands were little more than scrub-covered hummocks in the distance, fringed with white sand behind crooked walls of coral. A fresh breeze blew away the last of the muddy smell that hung around the Scorpion.

Kheda and Telouet sat in the shelter of the sternposts, silent as the shipmaster and helmsman guided the long, lithe ship away from the vicious teeth of the reefs, the Horned Fish barely staying ahead of them. They soon passed the chain of barren islets and a larger stretch of land appeared ahead of them.

'That's it.' Kheda rose to his feet.

Telouet raised a signal flag on the sternpost and the heavy triremes fanned out either side of the lighter vessels carrying the two warlords. The rowing master walked the length of the gangway, lavish with his praise for the rowers. The bow master and the sail crew waited in the prow, ready to back the Scorpion's swordsmen and archers, alert for any enemy that might appear.

The Scorpion rounded a blunt-nosed headland to find a shallow cove protected by a sizeable reef breaking the sea into white foam. Pale sand gave way to short dusty grass dotted with tall nut palms. Their grey trunks rose in graceful sweeps, fringed fronds bleached yellow by the season waving in the breeze, their rustling echoing the susurration of the sea. Well spaced and with no brush to speak of beneath them, the trees offered nothing by way of cover to any lurking enemy.

'This is the landing the Horned Fish's shipmaster told me to make for,' Jatta told Kheda.

'Let's hope this is as easy a fight as the last one,' Telouet murmured fervently, one hand on a sword hilt.

'Can you see any movement?' Kheda took an unconscious pace forward.

'Nothing.' Telouet shook his head as he reached out to restrain his master with an arm across his chest.

'Perhaps the invaders never came here?' said Jatta dubiously.

Kheda shot him a sceptical glance. 'You'd pass up a clean, open island like this in favour of those stinking mires?'

'All depends what you're used to.' Jatta shrugged.

'What are these wild men used to?' Kheda wondered aloud. 'How will we ever know, if we cannot question any captives?

'Who needs to know?' Telouet was still watching the shore, trying to see beyond the palm trees into the darker green forest behind. 'All they need to know is they're not welcome here and we can tell them that plain enough without words.'

Cai and the heavy trireme helmsmen were making a cautious approach to avoid the merciless reef. Atoun and all the warriors waited impatiently, sliding down the stern ladders as soon as the ships reached the sheltered shallows, splashing through crystal-clear waters on to the brilliant sand, staying close together, swords at the ready. Archers on the side decks of the triremes stood alert to return a killing storm of barbed arrows for so much as a thrown stone.

No missiles appeared. No enemy appeared. The only sounds to rise above the crashing of the surf were the cheerful squawks of crookbeaks foraging among the palms. Atoun signalled this way and that. The warriors broke from their defensive knots and spread out. As they approached the gently curving trees, Kheda was irresistibly reminded of beaters on the hunt, flushing out forest deer and ground fowl that he and Sirket might down with swift arrows, while Rekha and Janne flew their proud hawks at lesser birds fleeing on the wing.

'Doesn't look as if there'll be much sport today,' he remarked to Telouet as Atoun raised a sheathed sword to indicate there was no more foe to be fought.

'Chazen Saril's keen to go ashore again.' Telouet pointed to the Horned Fish, which was approaching the shallows, Saril standing in the prow.

Keen to learn the fate of those who'd once been his brothers? Or looking to remove them once and for all from the domain's accounts?

Kheda considered his options. 'Let's join him. This domain has no great tradition of warfare so I'm not confident he's capable of meeting an unexpected enemy.'

Jatta had already given the rowing master the word and the rowers began turning the Scorpion stern on to the shore.

'My lord.' Telouet went down the ladder first to hold it firm for his master. Kheda hurried down the rope rungs and they waded ashore. Kheda saw his own well-hidden curiosity openly reflected in Telouet's expression.

'You are welcome to my shores.' Saril greeted him on the beach with an incredulous grin at odds with his formal words.

'I thank you for that grace.' Kheda was looking around as he gave the customary reply 'Atoun, is there no sign of these savages?'

'None.' The warrior shook his head.

'Perhaps they never came here after all,' suggested Saril with sudden hope.

'Perhaps they've come, got what they wanted and left.' Kheda fixed Saril with a meaningful look. 'We should visit this residence you keep here.'

'Very well.' Saril chewed his lower lip reluctantly. 'With just a small escort though.'

'Atoun, pick me a few good men to go looking inland,' Kheda ordered his commander. 'In the meantime, leave a solid guard for the ships and have the rest search the shoreline in both directions. Anyone who finds so much as a wild man's footprint is to raise a horn call.'

'If we're going inland, I'll scout out the path myself,' Atoun told him robustly. 'You wait here with Telouet and follow on when I tell you, my lord.'

'As you wish,' said Kheda mildly.

'You allow your people a great deal of latitude,' observed Chazen Saril, looking with disfavour at Atoun's back.

'As long as they earn it by doing their duty in exemplary fashion.' Kheda waited patiently as Atoun allotted tasks to his warriors to his satisfaction and then gathered a small detachment around himself, running along a path no more than a dry score in the turf beneath the nut palms, disappearing over a rise some little way inland.

Handpicked swordsmen came to ring Kheda and Saril, looking to Telouet for their orders.

'When we get the signal, lads,' he told them easily.

As he spoke, Atoun's familiar whistle floated up on the breeze and Kheda looked at Telouet. 'Well?'

'Everyone keep your eyes skinned or I'll peel your eyelids back with my belt knife.' With the other swordsmen on all sides, Telouet walked a few paces ahead of the two warlords, swords drawn, his face hard and dangerous.

'I haven't seen my brothers, not since—' Saril broke off, drawing the sword he'd got from somewhere. Sunlight wavered on the blade.

'You cannot blame yourself for being eldest born.' Kheda hefted his own weapon, settling it in his hand. 'And if your brothers suspected what Chazen Shas had planned, they could have fled when he lay on his deathbed.'

'They all suspected the old snake had other plans for me.' Saril surprised him with a sour bark of laughter. 'Oldest living child of the name inherits but my grandfather made sure Chazen Shas took up his sword with a deathbed decree that his body slave execute the old snake's elder brother and sisters.'

'You thought your father might do the same?' Kheda asked with a qualm.

So much for envying Saril his undemanding life.

'I've no idea,' said Saril grimly. 'As soon as I knew for certain that the old snake was truly dying, I poisoned his slave's next meal and forbade anyone else to attend him.'

And then did you hasten the end of a man whose stars were already marked for death?

Kheda couldn't ask that so concentrated on the path ahead. Beyond the rise, the brush began to thicken, palms left behind on the shore, the path curling between stands of tandra trees. The litter of last season's seedpods lay undisturbed in silky drifts of white fibres, the only footprints those of the hook-toothed hogs who had torn the pods apart in search of the dark oily seeds. Away from the shore's breezes, the air was hot and stifling with the scent of the forest. Kheda wiped sweat from his face. 'It doesn't look as if anyone's been through here recently.'

'Unless they were careful not to leave a trace, looking to surprise us.' At Telouet's nod, the warriors on either side began cutting down the undergrowth, startling beetles and crickets into whirring flight from the berry bushes. Birds overhead shrieked their indignation and bounced from fig trees and ironwood saplings whose buttress roots already promised the might of their full growth. A few broken stumps showed where such giants had fallen, letting bright sunlight into the dappled shadows to the delight of dancing sapphire butterflies.

No one comes here, not even to harvest such valuable timber? Surely someone would be making sure these despoiled and discarded men were still secure, or better yet, safely dead of natural causes that would not threaten the peace of the domain.

'Whip lizard!' A startled shout came from one of Atoun's men up ahead and everyone stopped. The swordsmen who'd been cutting down the undergrowth on either side quickly drew back to surround Kheda and Chazen Saril.

'Remember,' warned Telouet, dropping the point of his blade to foil anything rushing in at knee level. 'Even a half-grown whip lizard can knock your clean off your feet.

'And their bite festers worse than any other.' Kheda looked from side to side as they advanced, more slowly this time.

'There!' Saril's sword shot out to point at a grey scaly back brushing feathery leaves aside, stirring the heady scent of perfume bark. 'But there were no whip lizards here,' he said, puzzled.

'They can swim, you know.' Kheda took a firm grip on his own weapon. 'There, by that red cane!'

This time the lizard was plain for all to see, standing arrogantly on the path. Body as long as a man's, it squatted low on four stumpy legs, loose belly skin rumpled like a dirty sack. Plate-like scales on its back met in ridges that ran from the blunt snout over its head and all the way to the end of a heavy tail almost as long again as its body. It hissed at them, forked tongue flickering over teeth like stained knives, yellow and pink skin inside its mouth startling against the mottled brown of its leathery hide.

'Ware behind!' Telouet shouted.

Kheda turned to see another scaly beast scurry across the path. When he looked back to the front, the one by the red cane had disappeared. 'We go on,' he nodded to Telouet. 'All of you, be ready to get out of the way if one of them tries rushing us.'

'They're wary of swords for the most part but they'll mob a downed man,' Telouet confirmed grimly.

'We could just go back to the beach.' Saril was trying to see where the one to their rear had gone.

Kheda turned him with a rough hand. 'Don't you want to know if you're going to be facing some rival for your sword this time next year?'

It wouldn't be the first time conspirators within a warlord's own compound encompassed his death and then handily produced a child allegedly born to some hapless brother who'd been literally cut out of the succession by being made zamonn.

'Lizard!' Telouet hacked at a massive beast charging across in front of him. Honed sharp enough to slice through falling silk, his sword bit deep into the lizard's back.

Ahead, a frantic horn call sounded from Atoun's scouts. Brassy blasts from the troops who'd gone to search the shore answered but to his horror Kheda realised these weren't promises of hurrying aid but new alarms being raised. Atoun's men came running back down the path, crashing through the undergrowth. They had nearly joined Kheda's men when whip lizards appeared on all sides, blocking the path, hissing and rearing up on their short rear legs.

'I didn't know they could do that,' gaped Saril.

'They can't,' protested Kheda.

Then he realised the animal's legs were lengthening, straightening, the tail behind narrowing. The beast was now standing like a man. The lizard's forelegs grew and twisted, thick black claws curved like a hawk's beak spread out into a lethal fan. Its head rolled on its shoulders as some convulsion racked the beast.

When it straightened up, Kheda saw a deadly intelligence in the inky eyes. 'Atoun!'

Too late. As the astounded warrior stared at the apparition before him, the lizard slashed at his face, claws ripping away half his cheek. Atoun screamed and Kheda ran forward, sword raised. The lizard seized Atoun by the shoulders, savaging him, foul maw closed on his face, muffling his agonised cries, growling deep in its bestial throat. Sword forgotten, Atoun's gloved hands raked ineffectually at its harsh hide.

More of the hideously changed lizards erupted from the undergrowth, knocking down Chazen and Daish swordsmen alike, brutally savaging the fallen. Kheda hacked at the one crushing Atoun's skull; the warrior's struggles in the monster's repugnant embrace growing feeble. His sword glanced off the animal. Cursing, he swung again but though his eyes told him the blow was true, the blade hit nothing but empty air. Both hands on his sword hilt, Kheda put all his strength into a stroke that should have sliced the monster in half. The weapon skidded away from the beast's shoulder like a blunted blade glancing off armour. Then Kheda saw a shimmer around the animal, like heat haze rising from sun-scorched sand.

'My lord!' Telouet sprang forward to intercept a lesser lizard intent on seizing Kheda from the side. The beast backed away from Telouet's twin blades, hissing all the while, circling for any chance to attack.

The lizard that had killed Atoun whirled around, tossing back its head and gulping down the ragged mouthful it had torn from his face.

'Back to the beach, my lord!' As the monstrous beast threw Atoun's limp body full at Kheda in a spray of blood and grey matter, Telouet stepped forward to sweep the corpse aside with his swords. The lizard came on, clawed feet digging into the blood-soaked leaves, vicious talons questing forward.

'Quick as we can.' Kheda retreated. 'Stay together, back to back.'

A scream behind him scored his nerves like the scrape of metal on marble.

'They're between us and the shore!' Saril's voice cracked with consternation and Kheda smelt the acrid heat of piss as fear got the better of someone's bladder.

'Telouet?' He was still watching the lizard smeared with Atoun's lifeblood, slowly advancing towards him, blunt head swinging this way and that. 'Has anyone drawn blood from these nightmares?'

'Before they changed. Not now they're walking,' Telouet snarled with frustration.

Kheda threatened the lizard stalking him with his sword. It recoiled a little, swaying head wary. 'They don't seem to have realised that and they look none too keen to have their precious hides sliced up. I think, if we all keep our heads, we'll get to the beach.' Behind him someone was weeping ragged tears of sheer terror. 'We don't turn our backs, we don't run or they'll be on us in a heartbeat. Shoulder to shoulder, keep your swords ready. If they get in among us we're all dead.'

Everyone began moving, huddling close.

'That's right,' Kheda approved. 'A steady pace will get us there soon enough.'

'No!' One of the Chazen men suddenly broke; shoving those either side of him away, stride lengthening as he ran for the shore.

Two lizards sprang on him, then a third, crushing him beneath their weight with an audible crack of ribs. One monster bent over the struggling swordsman, forefeet planted on his chest, snarling defiance at the other lizards. One retreated but only far enough to seize a booted foot in its vicious jaws, teeth slicing through the leather, blood oozing through the holes. The other used clumsy claws to lift the screaming man's hand to its gaping mouth, fastening on his forearm, heedless of his armoured vambraces. The first lizard hissed its outrage but both ignored it, biting down and backing away, heads twisting and pulling until the swordsman's shoulder and hip joints gave way with a crack even louder than his unbearable, inhuman shrieking. Kheda's stomach heaved.

'Faster. Let's get past them while they're distracted.'

The three lizards pulled the Chazen man out of his armour in broken bits, tearing him into gobbets of flesh and bone, feasting with repellent crunching noises.

Kheda glanced back to see the lizard that had killed Atoun still following them, eyes flickering from the men to the bright swords that the animal it had once been had feared.

How long before you decide you're not that animal any more?

'We're nearly at the shore.'

As Telouet spoke, Kheda realised the dense canopy of the forest was giving way to the lighter airiness of the palm groves. He didn't dare look away from the predatory lizard relentlessly pursuing him. 'Saril! What's happening on the beach? Have the boats been attacked here? Is there any sign of the other scouting parties?'

'There's a lot of wounded,' yelled Saril. 'But I don't think the boats have taken any damage. I can't see any fighting.'

'Mind your step,' Telouet warned.

Kheda glanced down to see white sands encroaching on the turf. He looked up again instantly to see where the horrible lizard might be. To his astonished relief, he saw the monster halt, the other hideous lizards spreading out along the fringes of the underbrush. 'Telouet,' he said warily. 'I don't think they're going to leave the trees.'

'Let's not die on account of a wrong guess, my lord.' Telouet and the Daish swordsmen stayed close around him.

Saril couldn't resist the lure of the Horned Fish't promise of sanctuary. 'Chazen, with me!' He ran towards the trireme, loose chainmail jingling, and ill-fitting helm tumbling to the sand.

'Scum-sucking fool!' spat Telouet.

'Let's look to our own skins.' Kheda tensed but the lizards did not pursue the fleeing men, melting away into the shadowy depths of the forest instead.

'My lord Daish!' Confused cries of welcome and appeal broke out behind Kheda.

'Telouet, keep an eye out for those creatures.' He turned to see the other swordsmen who'd been sent to reconnoitre the shore gathered around the beached triremes. Many were wounded, some were almost certainly dead, lying still where their frantic comrades had laid them down only to find their efforts had gone for naught.

Chazen men clustered around their warlord. Saril slowed to a reluctant halt.

'What happened?' Kheda demanded of one of Atoun's trusted seconds.

Breathless, the man was standing half bent, hands on his thighs. 'It was birds, only not birds,' he gasped, muddy grey with shock. 'Birds as big as men, walking like men—'

'Yora hawks?' Kheda shook his head in disbelief.

The only place any man living sees a Yora hawk is in the constellation that bears its name! But why not? If magic has come to these islands, why not massive birds not seen for countless generations? Can wizards piece them back together from their scattered bones, put meat back into the great broken eggs that children amuse themselves finding?

'No, my lord.' The swordsman got a grip on himself. 'Cinnamon cranes but grown huge, big enough to kick a man down and then rip out his eyes with their beaks.'

'It was raider crabs down there.' Another warrior pointed down the beach with a shaking, bloodied hand. His voice rose perilously close to panic. 'Big as hounds, breaking swords in their claws, cutting off feet clean through leather.'

'It's magic, plain enough.' Telouet looked shaken.

'Well, we all know what to do about that, don't we?' Kheda's pronouncement won him a moment of stunned silence. He continued before anyone else could speak. 'We burn this island. We set fires all along the shore and ring this foulness in flames. Back to the boats!'

As the grateful men splashed their way to safety, Saril blocked Kheda's path. 'What do you think you are doing, giving such an order!'

'Chazen Saril, your domain is afflicted with sorcery!' Kheda stared at him. 'We will burn this place together or I will leave you to your fate!'

'You have to give me sanctuary, me and mine.' Saril was wringing his hands helplessly. 'My domain is lost!'

Kheda barely restrained himself from slapping the man's fat face. 'It is not lost till you give in and I will not let you do that, you spineless worm, not for Olkai's sake, not for the sake of all who look to you, and all who look to me to keep some bulwark between Daish and this evil. I will see you safely back to those swamp islands and you can hold them or die at the hands of my swordsmen if you flee north.'

'We cannot fight these sorceries,' wailed Saril.

'Don't fight, just endure.' Kheda seized his shoulders in merciless hands and shook him bodily. 'Dig yourself a hole in the hills and hide in it if you must. I will rally the domains of the whole southern Archipelago; we are all threatened by this evil. We will bring you aid and see these invaders driven out, whatever their magics. You must do your part. Rally your people; find out exactly where these invaders have landed, where they are gathered in strength, most of all where their wizards may be. Send word as soon and as often as you have it!' Shoving the other warlord aside, he splashed through the shallows to the Scorpion's ladders.

Jatta peered down from the stern platform, face twisted with bemused concern. 'Where's Atoun?'

Kheda hauled himself aboard. 'Dead. Get us a little way off shore and then signal our ships to break out their sticky fire. This place is rotten with magic and I want it well alight before Chazen Saril can argue the point. We circle this island and set fires wherever we can—'

He broke off as a blazing sphere arced through the air, bright even in the full light of day. Someone aboard one of the heavy triremes hadn't waited for orders. The urn of burning, clinging paste shattered against the base of a palm tree, flames spattering in all directions, setting the dry and dusty fronds of neighbouring trees alight in an instant. Cheers rose from all the ships, even the Horned Fish where Saril was gesturing at Kheda in fruitless objection. As the Scorpion's sail crew and her contingent of swordsmen worked to rig their own catapult on the bow platform, a second blistering missile went hurtling ashore from the heavy trireme, followed by another and another.

Jatta studied the incipient inferno. 'The winds should work in our favour.'

'Let's call that a good omen, then,' said Kheda grimly.

'Let's just hope the rains hold off.' Telouet looked to the south and east. The strain in his face lessened a little as he saw the blue horizon was still clear of the dark lines of rainy-season clouds.

Kheda watched the fire spreading deeper into the island and consuming the brush and trees parched to tinder by the long dry season with startling alacrity.

Let those unnatural monsters choke on the smoke. Let them burn alive and suffer ten times the agonies they inflicted on Atoun and the others.

Despite the intense heat, shivers racked him, sweat chill on his body, taking him quite by surprise.

'My lord.' Telouet was at his side, a bottle in one hand. 'Drink something.'

Kheda gulped the sweet juice gratefully and the moment passed.

'Was that magic, my lord?' asked Jatta warily. 'What the men were saying?'

'What else could it be?' Kheda shook his head.

'What do we do now?' Jatta's voice was tight with urgent apprehension.

'We see Chazen Saril back safe to that island with the fire mountain where we proved these invaders can die like every other man,' Kheda replied firmly. He managed a curt laugh. 'Or die more easily than most, certainly quicker than anyone with the wit to put a mail shirt over his guts. It is for Chazen Saril to hold that and we'll send every Chazen man back to join their lord or they'll die at Daish hands. I mean it. That should slow the advance of these invaders.' He hesitated for a moment before continuing. 'We'll offer their women and children some limited sanctuary though; we can't send them to face such abominations. Then we send out messenger birds.' He lifted his voice, so that everyone close by could hear him, rowing master, ship's swordsmen and archers. 'We send courier ships, beacons, curse it, signal arrows if we have to. We raise the alarm right across the Archipelago. Once Ritsem, Ulla and Redigal know what's happening down here, they will fight with us. No matter how many men these savages can summon, no matter what their wizards' magics, they cannot withstand such might brought to bear against them.'

'As you command, my lord!' Telouet's roar prompted a muted cheer of agreement.

Kheda smiled confidently to hide his own reservations.

And just how are you going to get the domains to fight side by side, when such an alliance has never so much been mooted, never mind sealed? Even if you can do such a thing, just what are you going to do against magic that can make monsters out of the very birds and beasts around you?