'Then Velindre has found some way to convince them to cooperate rather than fight.' Nonetheless, Risala looked uncertain.
'We can ask her once we find her.' Growing concern was rapidly quelling Naldeth's good humour. He swung himself over the rail and hurried to the bank.
Kheda noted which spearmen looked agog at the wizard's metal leg. He gestured to Risala to go on ahead, keeping one hand on his sword hilt as he brought up the rear.
The spearmen had trampled a broad path down to the river. They retraced their steps along it, noisily beating the stubborn tussocks with their spears and stamping down already crushed blades of the razor-sharp grass.
Kheda looked around in hopes of finding the scarred spearman or the stooped hunter. Neither wild man was anywhere to be seen. He recognised some faces, and registered all too clearly the beseeching glances that slid his way.
Whatever this trouble is, they're hoping I'll take their side.
Kheda hurried after Risala, who was walking as fast as she could to keep up with Naldeth. The joints and rivets of the wizard's metal leg glowed with scarlet fire. As the grasses thinned, they reached a line of straggling nut trees cut off from the main sprawl of the forest by a stony slope. Wild men were busy dragging fallen wood to add to a long fire that was the source of the smoke they had seen.
Just as Kheda realised this was familiar ground approached from an unfamiliar direction, Risala pointed to a shallow cluster of rocks. 'That's the cave we hid in, the one with the paintings.'
'There's Velindre.' Naldeth nodded at the magewoman, profoundly relieved. 'She's not hurt.'
Velindre was sitting on the bare earth hugging her knees some distance below the entrance to the cave. He recognised the scarred spearman standing some distance away, ringed by a band of warriors whom he identified as having come from the village across the river.
'What do you suppose they've done?' Risala wondered.
Kheda saw the wild men who'd met them at the river spread out to join the warriors on the far side of the cave or those gathering firewood, demonstrably disassociating themselves from the scarred spearman and his band. The shunned men hadn't a spear or a club between them. He caught an ominous breath of sickly putrefaction.
'Velindre!' Naldeth called out as the magewoman got slowly to her feet. 'Are you all right?'
'Yes,' she answered wearily, 'but there's something you have to see.' Her face was tearstained, her eyes red-rimmed. 'You remember I said there was something strange in these woods, something elemental gone all awry?'
The scent of decay grew stronger and Kheda's stomach roiled. 'What is it?'
'You can see all you need to from here.' Velindre approached the cave's entrance with visible reluctance.
Naldeth pushed past her. 'There's magical—' He recoiled, retching.
Kheda looked into the cave to see a tangle of bloodied corpses. The only movement was the crawling of black flies. Dark clots of insects shifted like shadows across the bodies. More clung to the cave's walls where gouts of blood utterly obscured the delicate paintings. It was difficult to estimate the numbers of dead, but it was all too easy to see the slender legs of women among the confusion of limbs. Children's hands stuck out from the crush as if they were scrabbling at the cave walls.
Risala gasped with horror, pressing her hands to her face.
'This is what they were doing in the night.' Kheda didn't even realise he was speaking aloud.
'You knew about this?' Furious, Velindre berated the warlord. 'You did nothing?'
'I knew something was happening.' Kheda glared accusingly at the scarred spearman and the other weaponless warriors. 'I didn't know what—' His rage strangled any further words.
Tears stood in Risala's eyes. 'Why were these people killed?'
'Because they were mageborn.' Naldeth spat vomit into the dust. 'Every last one of them.'
'You wanted these people to free themselves from magical tyranny.' Kheda regretted the words as soon as he spoke. He made no move to defend himself as Naldeth's fist smashed into his cheek. He staggered backwards, struggling not to fall over. The mage came after him, ready to hit him again.
'I didn't know what they were doing!' Kheda shouted. 'How could I? I couldn't ask any of them!' He waved a hand at the scarred spearman and his band. 'Don't you think I would have stopped them if I'd known?'
'You Archipelagans think all wizards are better off dead,' snarled Naldeth. He turned on the motionless warriors, brandishing a handful of scarlet fire. The pyre roared with shocking intensity.
'I know better than that now.' Kheda took a step forward to place himself between the irate wizard and the wild warriors. 'And you know better than this.'
'But why did they do this?' Risala gazed into the charnel cave, a tear trickling down her face.
'They did it to please us.' Velindre's voice was thick with loathing. 'You should have seen their smiles when I came here. I think Kheda's right — they're looking to rid themselves of all their wizards. And all because we killed their mages and drove the dragons away instead of pandering to the beasts and using their power to assert our own domination over these wretches.'
'You think that's what we should have done?' Aghast, Naldeth let his hand fall and the scarlet fire flickered out, the flames of the pyre dying back.
'No.' Velindre turned her back on the stinking cavern, scrubbing fresh tears from her eyes. 'I don't know what else we could have done. But we don't know what we've started here, and we sure as curses don't know how to stop it. We can't even talk to these people!'
'At least we have shown them that not all wizards are necessarily tyrants.' Kheda tried to keep the despair he felt out of his voice.
'What good will that do? Who have we shown this marvellous revelation? A couple of hundred of however many thousands live on this accursed rock?' Velindre retorted with angry dejection. 'And they think the best
way to please us is to slaughter these innocents. What good are we doing here? I should have listened to you, Naldeth. We should go back to Hadrumal and lay this all before the Council.'
'If we leave, all this will have been for nothing,' Kheda objected. 'All these people will be crushed under the heel of the first wild wizard to learn there's land and dragon fodder here for the taking.'
'Who made you their warlord?' Velindre snapped.
'You were the one lecturing me about responsibility,' countered Kheda.
He fell silent as a spearman he recognised from the village slowly approached. He was holding the hacking blade that Kheda had given the scarred spearman. He offered it to Kheda. As the warlord took the weapon, still bemused, the scarred spearman took a few paces away from his companions. He dropped to his knees and raised his chin, leaning back to offer his naked throat to Kheda. A nerve twitched in his cheek as he screwed his eyes tight shut in anticipation of the killing blow.
'I can't do this,' Kheda said helplessly. 'I can't condemn a man when I don't know what he's done.'
'You know what he's done.' But Velindre wasn't condemning the man either. 'He just didn't think it was a crime until he saw my reaction.'
Kheda swallowed. 'They can be the ones to drag out the bodies and give them to the fire—'
'Be quiet.' Naldeth's soft words nevertheless commanded everyone's attention.
'Where is it?' Risala's voice was harsh with dread.
Behind the scatter of rocks where the cave entrance lay, the forest sloped upwards. Grouped in sparse clusters, the nut trees cast meagre shadows on the dry earth. Kheda saw a golden glint in a patch of darkness blink out and
reappear. Now that he saw it was an eye, he could see the rest of the earth dragon's head. The random shadows beneath the trees ran together or melted away as the ground shifted and blurred. The beast appeared fully, crouched between two thickets, its belly pressed to the dusty soil. It moved one forefoot, extending steely claws to crush a sapling with purposeful menace.
'I can't drive it away without the ruby closer to hand,' Naldeth said ev
enly.
'Where is it?' Unblinking, Velindre was watching the dragon.
'On the Zaise.' Out of the corner of his eye, Kheda could see the wild men frozen with fear.
'We'll never get to the ship before the beast attacks,' Risala whispered.
'That depends on what it's here for.' Kheda swallowed sour revulsion. 'Do you suppose it's come to eat those dead in the cave?'
'No.' Naldeth's voice echoed as if he were hidden deep in a cavern. 'It's come for me.'
Kheda forced his eyes away from the dragon to look at the wizard. Naldeth's leg was melting again, the liquid metal rippling. The mage staggered and the stony soil around him glowed with ochre magic. The limb re-formed, misshapen and discoloured.
'It knows I killed that wild wizard in the beaded cloak. It didn't come to help him because it wanted to see what I would do to him.' The magelight still suffused the patch of ground where Naldeth stood. 'And I didn't yield to it before, so that makes me a rival. It's come to kill me.'
'It's come to kill us both,' Velindre said thoughtfully. 'I really don't think it liked my snowstorm.'
Kheda saw the magewoman was standing precariously astride a cleft that had opened noiselessly between her feet.
The gap opened wider. A few moments more and she would lose her balance. Suddenly clenching her fists on her breastbone, Velindre drew up slatey-blue magelight from the depths to crisscross the void. She sprang backwards, traversing an impossible distance, further than a wild man could launch a spear. Landing painfully on her rump, she stretched both hands out before her to ward off the black dragon's magic. The rift in the ground snaked towards her, fast as a whip. Sapphire fire burned around her fingers as she shuffled backwards, shooting through the air to strengthen the magelight webbed across the cleft. The thrusting point of the rift slowed and stopped just short of her scrambling feet.
'Is there anything we can do?' Kheda gripped sword hilt and hacking blade.
The dragon fixed him with its burning amber gaze and opened its black maw to hiss at him. Its black tongue tasted the air before licking around its shiny metallic teeth. Kheda's sword and the hacking blade melted like wax, the steel dripping to the ground in useless gobbets.
The wild men broke and ran, village spearmen and cave dwellers alike, whimpers of terror escaping them as they fled in all directions. The scarred spearman and his band made a dash into the nut trees, skidding and slipping on the dusty slope.
A low detonation sent shivers through the woods. The dry air was rent in the next heartbeat by agonised screams. Kheda felt a furnace breath on the back of his neck. The menace of the earth dragon notwithstanding, he turned to look. The fire lit to burn the dead had run in all directions and the grassy plain was ablaze. The wild warriors who had fled that way were not merely caught in the conflagration. The burning tussocks were coiling around their arms and legs, pinioning them with crimson fire. Kheda choked as the sickly scent of roasting flesh joined
the vile smell of smouldering hair and leather to overwhelm the innocent odour of burning grass.
A second dragon came stalking through the inferno. Its head was broad and blunt, armoured with dull maroon scales, ruby eyes lit with pinpoints of white-hot flame, red tongue flickering over teeth as long as swords and shining like polished copper. It stooped to snatch a burning corpse from the blazing ground and reared up, its forefeet lifting from the ground. The paler golden scales of its throat and chest bulged as it devoured the blackened carcass in a few swift bites. As the dragon dropped back to stand on all four feet, the ground trembled. The beast roared, showing dark rags of flesh clinging to its burnished teeth. Smoke and flames behind it swept to and fro as it lashed its spiked tail.
We're dead. We're all dead. That's bigger than the red dragon that came to plague Chazen and that beast was as long as a trireme. That black dragon knew enough to go and look for an ally, when it realised it had two wizards to fight. What was it Naldeth said? Fire and earth are sympathetic? And what a prize that ruby egg will make for this new beast.
White light closed in all around him and sucked the air from his lungs. Swept off his feet, Kheda was chilled to the marrow of his bones. He opened his mouth and his teeth ached with the cold. His lips and tongue were numbed and useless before he could attempt to speak. Then the white fire vanished and he fell hard onto the deck of the Zaise. He barely felt the impact on his frozen hands and knees.
'Risala?' he grated.
'Here,' she gasped.
Kheda sat back on his heels, rubbing frantically at his eyes. He found frost crystals riming his brows. Risala's dark hair was misted with icy vapour as she lay sprawled on the planks.
'The egg?' Velindre's frozen tunic crackled as she whirled around.
'In the stern cabin.' Naldeth was already tugging at the door. The warped joints in his metal leg split, the brittle steel fracturing. He cursed and clutched at his thigh. Ruddy magic flowed from his fingers, mending the metal with ugly bulbous seams.
'You two watch for the dragons.' Kheda ran, Risala close behind him. Throwing open the door, they seized the sacking and dragged the ruby out onto the deck. Sunlight sparkled in the cracks patterning the dulled surface.
The fire dragon came gliding across the burning grassland on massive wings, maroon bones dark against the red-gold membranes. It had barely taken flight, simply springing into the air to cross the scorched expanse. It roared, first with rage and then with challenge as it landed, throwing up a cloud of ash and cinders. The embers brightened with new fire and spun upwards. As the dragon swept its head around, the incandescent storm shot through the air towards the Zaise.
Naldeth threw up a commanding hand and the fiery cloud stopped dead. Velindre added sapphire skeins of magelight winding all around it. Her magic flared white before turning scarlet and evaporating into nothing. The crimson dragon roared with triumph. The burning hail edged over the river between the Zaise and the bank. The water all around the ship steamed and fled, leaving moist brown mud that instantly parched to cracked earth.
'I can't hold it much longer,' Naldeth warned, uncannily calm.
'Let's see if this works.' The magewoman narrowed her eyes and azure magelight dripped from her hands to flow across the ship's deck and drip through the scuppers.
With a bubbling rush, the muddy waters returned from upstream and down. Meeting in a surge of dirty foam, the river leapt up to slap at the burning cloud. The fire glowed with jade light and exploded. Blazing embers flew in all directions to hiss and die in the river or clatter dull and devoid of magic against the Zaise's deck and sides.
Kheda dodged the searing fragments as the crimson dragon spread its awesome wings and sprang. A wall of emerald magelight shot upwards from the river to surround the boat, reaching as high as the top of the masts. The dragon bellowed and soared more steeply upwards, clawed feet abruptly drawn tight to its underside where before it had been reaching out with its lethal talons. The ridged spike that tipped its broad tail brushed against the curtain of green wizardry. The dragon roared with pain and anger as it rolled backwards through the air, a dark stain marring its tail.
Kheda felt the planking rise and fall beneath his feet as the whole river shivered. A bulge of water swept down from upstream and his heart missed a beat. 'Naldeth!'
'Wait.' The wizard was standing over the ruby egg, bent with both hands pressed to its sides. Scarlet fire suffused it. The sacking and ropes were crumbling to ash and a scorch mark was spreading across the deck. Naldeth gazed into the gemstone, utterly absorbed in the spark building at its heart.
Are we going to lose him the same way we lost Dev? Where do I hide now? Where do any of us run to? We should never have come here. We should never have stayed.
'Naldeth, look in the water!' Kheda yelled desperately.
The black dragon's head broached the silty surface. Muddy ooze outlined the scales of its back as the rest of the beast emerged. It crouched in the middle of the river channel, the opaque water lapping around its belly, h
iding
its legs and feet. It thrashed its long tail and dark magic boiled up from the depths, threading steely radiance through the water. Tendrils reached for the Zaise, knotting and swelling, brightening to a putrid grey-green. The first touched the hull and the planking cracked. The dragon hissed with malicious satisfaction.
Velindre grabbed the ship's rail with both hands. The curtain of emerald magic slid down through the air to soak into the wood, making the ship shine as brightly as new leaves. The river gurgled protestingly. The Zaise lurched and tilted.
'Are we sinking?' demanded Kheda.
'Not if I can help it,' Velindre grunted through gritted teeth.
The red dragon landed back on the bank with a resounding thud. It roared with fiery rage and flames sprang up from the dead ashes all along the grasslands. Like a shower of spears, flames appeared in the air, flung straight at the Zaise's masts. Ropes flared into lines of scarlet fire. The spars smouldered and molten pitch dripped onto the decking. The fire dragon took a pace forwards, the undercut edge of the bank crumbling beneath its weight. It stretched out its massive head and breathed a snapping coil of fire towards the ship.
'Oh no you don't.' Naldeth's head jerked up from his rapt contemplation of the ruby egg. Unseen wind tousled his brown hair before sweeping across the river to blow the red dragon's fire back into its face. The creature recoiled, spitting furiously. Naldeth raised a hand and a golden haze floated up from his fingers towards the Zaise's masts where scarlet flames crackled gleefully as they gnawed on blackened wood. The foggy yellow magelight glowed and smothered the dragon's fires.
'Kheda! Remember the cargo!' Risala had found a bucket somewhere and hurried to toss it over the rail.
Kheda saw that the sailcloth covers held down by the battens nailed over the deck hatches were burning.
Before he could move, Risala screamed and tried to let go of her rope. It struck back like a snake, tying itself around her wrists and wrenching her forward.
Kheda ran to her, drawing his dagger to cut the rope. The blade struck the cable with a dull thud and the steel dented. Catching Risala around the waist, he braced his feet against the side of the ship and hacked at the rope. Every stroke notched the edge of his knife but the transmuted hemp began splintering. Risala's face twisted with pain, her hands bloodless, the vicious binding biting deep into her forearms. Just when Kheda thought the ruined dagger was going to break clean in two, the rope snapped and they both fell backwards. The bucket plummeted downwards to strike the water with an odd clunk instead of a splash.
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