Western Shore ac-3

by Juliet E. McKenna

  'Can you use your magic to get us back to Chazen?' Kheda shoved the star circle in his pocket. 'You two could stay to try to fathom the mysteries of these dragons and these wild mages and then come to warn us if there's any sign of them taking to the ocean again.'

  And what preparations would we make? What lies would I have to tell my allies to persuade them I'd seen portents foretelling such an attack?

  'Let's see what I can see.' Velindre sounded oddly tense as she poured a little water into her empty palm and summoned up a mossy glow within it.

  Kheda moved to her side. All he could see was a tangled mass of unfamiliar forest. 'Where's Itrac?'

  'Never mind Itrac, that's not even Chazen.' Velindre's brows knotted as she passed her other hand over the uncommunicative puddle of water. The dark-green glow brightened to emerald radiance, obliterating the useless image. The magelight grew brighter in the shadow of Velindre's hand and then dissolved into sickly jade threads

  that wavered like weed in the water. Velindre cursed as the magical tension holding the water together snapped and the liquid dripped through her fingers to vanish into the thirsty ground.

  Naldeth stared at the damp dust with disbelief. 'If she can't hold a scrying together, you don't want her risking your lives with a translocation.'

  Kheda reluctantly set aside any thoughts of an immediate return to Chazen. 'What about just getting us back to the Zaise, so we don't have to skirt round that skull-faced mage or the tree dwellers and their dragon?'

  'I was trying to scry out the Zaise that second time,' the magewoman said bitterly.

  'What's happening?' Naldeth couldn't restrain his curiosity.

  Kheda rounded on him before Velindre could answer. 'Can you try the necessary magics?'

  'Me?' The young wizard stared at the warlord. 'My affinity's with fire and scrying's a water spell, so there's the antipathy—'

  'Don't even try,' Velindre advised tartly. 'With the turmoil in the elements hereabouts, Hearth Master Kalion couldn't see further than those trees.'

  'You don't know—' Naldeth began hotly.

  'Then it seems we're walking back to the Zaise,'1 Risala interrupted with deliberate composure.

  'Indeed.' Kheda took a moment to gather his thoughts.

  This is no time for a quarrel. We can argue when we 're back on the ship— where I'll tell Velindre she's to sail us at least as far east as she needs to be sure of sending me and Risala back home with her magic. We 're not staying here if these mages can't keep us safe with their wizardry.

  The others stood looking expectantly at him.

  'We need shade and cover from unfriendly eyes.' Kheda pointed to the sparse greenery a little way inland.

  'We're far too exposed on this cliff. But we had better stay alert for any sign of those murderous birds or worse.'

  'You and I can do that.' Risala shot a stern glance at the wizards. 'You two keep watch for any dragon or wild mage.'

  'I don't know how much daylight we have left.' Kheda started walking, the sun still uncomfortably hot on his back. 'I'm not sure we'll get back to the Zaise before dark.'

  Risala followed close by his shoulder, her hacking blade held ready. The wizards followed a few paces back, Velindre curbing her long stride to match Naldeth's irregular gait.

  At least this ground is hard enough for him to walk fairly easily.

  Once they had crossed the open expanse of hard-packed ruddy soil, the dusty green proved not to be trees after all but a bizarre blend of thistly bushes and plants that thrust long fingers as thick as a man's arm into the air. They had no branches or side shoots; they were just stems densely covered with spine-tipped leaves that looked more like the scales of some lizard than the skin of any plant.

  'There's cover, if not a lot of shade,' Kheda said bracingly to Risala.

  She looked behind her to be sure the two wizards weren't lagging. 'We can hope no one's fool enough to come in among all these thorns just wearing a few scraps of hide.'

  It was relatively easy to pick a path between the upthrust spikes and the desiccated thistle plants. The only obstacles were intermittent sprawls of pale yellowy-green plants with thick, succulent leaves studded with curling black thorns.

  Kheda kept an eye on the broken line of the cliff edge away to his off hand. The sun sank steadily in the sky, and by the time the western sea took on the golden glow

  that promised sunset, they had reached a stretch of this strange spiny forest where brilliant scarlet blossoms dotted the scaly green stems. Tiny grey birds fluttered around the flowers, together with the largest butterflies Kheda had ever seen, yellow as sulphur.

  'What was that?' Naldeth halted and whirled around, searching the lattice of green pillars casting long shadows across the dry ground. 'I heard footsteps,' he said with complete conviction.

  Kheda strained his ears. In the distance he could hear the sea's ceaseless murmuring. Close at hand, at first the silence seemed utterly complete, as the onset of dusk vanquished the day's breezes. Gradually, he picked out the chirruping of some insect and the idle trills of the tiny grey birds flitting overhead from lofty bloom to lofty bloom, burying their long beaks in the flowers. Red scissor-tailed finches snapped incautious flies out of the air.

  'Perhaps it was some animal,' he said at length.

  'Hunting us?' Risala was still keeping a keen eye to the fore.

  'Perhaps,' Kheda acknowledged readily, 'but we're hardly as defenceless as those savages.' He nodded to Naldeth. 'Draw your blade and keep watch behind us. But don't go rushing into the attack, and don't use magic unless something's about to bite your head off.'

  'Or someone else's.' Naldeth unsheathed his hacking blade and gripped it resolutely.

  Velindre looked up at the vivid evening sky. 'The dragon's still a good way away.'

  'Both of them?' Risala's vigilance ahead wavered for a moment.

  'I'd feel the black dragon coming anywhere close,' Naldeth reassured her. 'Fire and earth are sympathetic elements and given that creature's power—'

  'We can discuss all this when we're safely back at the Zaise? Kheda narrowed his eyes as he thought he saw some movement among the motionless forest of upthrust stems.

  Was that some brush stirred by a breeze or some animal or just my eyes deceiving me?

  He swapped his own hacking blade to his off hand and drew his sword. 'We move as quietly as we can. Sound will carry further than we can see once it gets dark.' He picked up the pace, Risala at his side.

  'How are we going to cross that river in the dark?' she asked in a low tone.

  'Without using magic?' He glanced at her and shrugged. 'I don't know. I don't even know if we'll get that far. It might be better to find some shelter on this side and cross at first light.'

  'That skull-faced mage lives on this side of the river,' she reminded him.

  He grimaced. 'And the black dragon lives on the far side, between us and the Zaise?

  'I take it we're not stopping for food?' Velindre was rummaging in the leather sack she was carrying. She handed Kheda a scrap of salted duck meat wrapped in stale sailer bread.

  He chewed it, finding his mouth too dry for comfort. 'We'll certainly have to look for water before long.'

  'Will you look for omens at first light?' Risala asked with unexpected insistence. 'Please—'

  'Kheda,' Naldeth warned from the rear, 'there's definitely something following us.'

  'Quiet.' Velindre hushed him. 'Listen.'

  A night breeze was rolling down from the hills inland. Faint yet unmistakable, Kheda heard heart-rending sobbing. 'Where is that coming from?' he breathed.

  Velindre raised a hand, magelight no brighter than starshine flickering between her outspread fingers. 'Over

  there.' She pointed inland, not far off the line Kheda was estimating would take them back to the river.

  'Do we head back towards the coast?' Risala looked towards the cliffs that were now a black rampart across the golden horizon.

  A.s
Kheda pondered their options, a scream tore through the silence, raw with anguish. Gooseflesh prickled down the back of the warlord's neck. 'Wait here while I scout ahead,' he ordered.

  'With something creeping along behind us?' Naldeth shook his head. 'Not when you're the one with the sword and the skills to use it.'

  The scream came again. Louder sobbing followed, ripe with panic.

  'You might need more than a sword to deal with whatever or whoever's inflicting those agonies.' As Velindre ilosed her hand on her magic, a pale glow within her lingers showed she had not wholly quenched it.

  Risala looked at Kheda, her eyes dark as the fading light muted everything to colourless shades of grey. 'I don't think we should split up.'

  'Then stay close and stay quiet.' He began picking a eareful path in the direction of the screaming.

  Better to know what the danger might be and avoid it than leave such uncertainty at our backs.

  He halted when he reached an unexpectedly wide sandy track. There was no doubting that this path had been trodden by countless men over many years. Kheda crouched low in the meagre shadow of a cluster of spiky plants and Risala and the two wizards followed suit. Beyond the open swathe of ground that had been cleared of even the smallest thistly plant, a crude barrier had been woven from thorny stems pulled down and lashed together with cords of twisted grass. The yellow-green fleshy plants grew thickly inside the fence.

  Another shriek ripped the silence apart. A hubbub of pleading sounded shockingly close before it was cut short by a commanding shout.

  No animal is inflicting these agonies, then, or at least, not a four-legged one. Isn 't that all we need to know?

  Kheda glanced at Velindre. 'Is that sky dragon anywhere close?'

  She shook her head, mute.

  Naldeth was peering back into the gloom behind them. 'Whatever's following us has no magic, I'm sure of that much.'

  'We know what brutalities these savages are capable of.' Kheda looked at Risala. 'We don't need to see it again and we might still get to the river before we lose all the light if we keep moving.'

  'But there's someone with magic out there.' Velindre pointed in the direction of the frantic weeping that was still tearing at their ears.

  'That skull-faced mage or his women?' Kheda looked along the cleared path and tried to judge if it curved away from the sounds of torment.

  That sky dragon wasn 't the only one humiliated. Many a man would look to share such mortification around to take the sting out of it.

  'Let's get well away before he feels a wizard's presence out here and comes looking for a fight.' Risala stood up in the same movement as Kheda.

  Naldeth rose more slowly, gripping his hacking blade with both hands. The last rays of the sinking sun burnished his steel leg. 'So we let whoever is screaming just go on screaming until they die of it?'

  'Give me one good reason why we should risk the same fate,' Kheda said curtly.

  'A wizard is doing that.' Naldeth looked at Velindre. 'We came here to stop their abuses of magic'

  'A wizard with all the aura of a dragon to draw on,' she pointed out, not unsympathetic. 'How do we fight that?'

  'It's not our concern,' Risala said roughly. 'They're savages. And your magic wasn't working as you wished earlier. Do you want to confront some wild mage and find yourself powerless?'

  Naldeth stared at her, outraged yet unable to find the words to answer her.

  'We came here to learn what this place means for Aldabreshi and mages alike.' Kheda forestalled him, voice low and forceful. 'Which means we must pick any fights carefully, when we've worked out as much of this puzzle as possible.'

  Somewhere across the tangled barrier of spiny stems, ragged cheers were now drowning out the fading lamentation. Naldeth looked at Kheda, his mild face hard. 'I'm not sailing away until I know exactly what uses magic is being put to here.'

  'We'll discuss it when we're back on the Zaise? Kheda stepped out onto the open path and set a rapid pace towards the river. Disconcertingly, the land sloped upwards and the curious forest of upthrust stems and thistly plants fell back to leave a dry plateau dotted with the strangest trees Kheda had ever seen. Their squat brown trunks were three or four times the height of a man yet ten men would be hard pressed to link hands around the largest of them. Each was crowned with an incongruously small tangle of knotted branches twisted into fantastical shapes and topped with tousled twigs.

  'Watch your step.' Kheda noticed hummocks dotting the bare sand that were too regular to be the work of wind or rain. 'Something's been digging here.'

  He slowed to move cautiously from the cover of one massive trunk to the next, doing his best to look in all

  directions as tension pricked between his shoulder blades.

  We 're far too exposed.

  'There's the river plain.' Risala pointed to a pallor beyond the edge of the open plateau and they heard the soft, welcome rustle of grasses.

  Kheda realised they were on the bluff of high ground that reached out into the valley. The barren slope that the skull-faced mage had descended must be somewhere ahead.

  A scream ripped through the dusk behind them, closer than the sounds of torment they had been trying to leave behind. Running footsteps slapped the hard-baked earth.

  Kheda pressed his back against the swollen tree and cursed the thing for having no branches low enough that they might at least try to climb and hide out of sight. The Greater Moon was rising, now at its full and casting cold, unwelcome light on the events unfolding below. He slid down to crouch in the barrel-like tree's shadow.

  Risala and I might escape notice but the wizards' pale skins and Velindre's yellow hair will show up like candles in the night.

  He looked around to urge the mages to hide behind the tree. They weren't there.

  Risala looked at him, white rimming her eyes. 'They just disappeared.'

  The running feet reached the open expanse of the trees. Kheda crouched still lower, Risala on hands and knees beside him.

  The fugitive was a girl on the brink of womanhood, long-legged and slender, wearing a scanty hide wrap. She dodged between the barrel trees, jumping over the treacherous hummocks. Threatening shouts pursued her. Men appeared and one flung a wooden spear. Narrowly missing the girl, it went skidding across the unyielding earth, Coming perilously close to Kheda and Risala.

  The girl fell headlong as if she had been poleaxed, not even putting out a hand to save herself. But she wasn't insensible. Kheda could see her struggling against invisible bonds.

  Struck down by magic.

  Whatever bound her was tightening. Her struggles grew more frantic and at the same time weaker. He could see her mouth opening, the cords of her throat taut as she screamed. No sound escaped whatever foul wizardry entangled her.

  Her pursuers came clpser and no such spell muted their jeering. Some carried stone-studded clubs and Kheda braced himself to see the unfortunate girl's brains dashed out. He felt Risala pressing close to his side.

  To Kheda's surprise, the pursuers didn't touch the girl. After venting their scorn iwith unintelligible insults, they withdrew. The wizard With the cloak of blue feathers walked slowly through the mob of them, his women in faithful attendance two paces behind. The skull that formed the mage's mask shone red in the light of the handfuls of flame that his feather-crowned women held aloft, making black pits of the empty eye sockets. Turning, the wild mage said something, and Kheda saw that more people were being brought to witness whatever was planned for the girl.

  Bold and arrogant, the wild warriors of the wizard's retinue forced the reluctant onlookers forward with clubs and their spears of fire-hardened wood. They sneered as their shoves provoked whimpers of distress from the hapless savages clad in scraps of animal hide. Women cowered, bare shoulders hunched, some seeking to protect their children in a vain embrace. One man pressed his hands to his face, trying to stifle his weeping. Tears spilled through his fingers, shining like blood in the unnatural red light of the ma
gefire.

  The girl had given up her helpless struggles. Dust swirled around her as she was lifted up by invisible strings, the skull-faced mage extending his hand to guide his spell. She hung in the air, her arms and legs limp and dangling, her head twisting this way and that in anguish. The wild mage flicked his hand and a waft of blue radiance tore her hide wrap away, revealing her undernourished nakedness. Two of the burly spearmen closest to the wizard let their weapons fall to the ground, eager anticipation on their faces. Now the skull-faced mage let the girl's hysterical sobbing be heard, stirring answering anguish among the onlookers. One of the warriors who was already unknotting his loincloth gave the nearest savage a back-handed slap to the face, chuckling as he did so.

  The brute's laughter broke off as he looked down. A tree root had twisted up out of the bare earth and knotted itself around his ankle. As he looked up, mouth open in a surprised shout, a second wiry root snaked around his other leg, reaching up to his muscular thigh. With a snapping sound, more roots sprang up to tie all the girl's would-be assailants solidly to the ground. Blood dripped dark onto the pale sandy soil as merciless tendrils gouged into bare skin.

  The skull-faced mage shouted angrily, the dead creature's horns lowered as his head whipped from side to side. A quivering hedge of roots surrounded him, barely held at bay by the sapphire fire flowing from his outstretched hand. The women with their crowns of feathers huddled behind him, holding their balls of scarlet magelight close to their chests.

  The unarmed savages melted rapidly away with wails of distress and confusion. The skull-faced mage bellowed with outrage and flung one hand above his head. A spiteful wind flung sharp grit in the eyes of those trying to flee.

  Here and there, a discarded spear sprang up of its own volition to belabour their unprotected backs.

  The cordon of wriggling roots immediately drew tighter around the wild mage. Grit and weapons alike fell to the ground. This time he had to thrust out both hands to hold the squirming tendrils just beyond arm's reach.

  The girl fell to the ground, landing hard, a last moan jolted out of her. Two men ran to snatch her up. Flinging her arms over their shoulders, they hauled her away. Cringing as the skull-masked mage screamed his fury, nevertheless they didn't stop and vanished into the night.