Western Shore

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kheda realised he was awake, but this time it was nowhere near dawn. What had woken him? There was no sound to prompt instant alarm and he breathed a little easier.

He could hear the regular rhythm of Naldeth's exhausted sleep and the rasping that was usually a prelude to Velindre's penetrating snores. Then he heard movement: bare feet stealthy on the beaten earth. He opened his eyes and saw only blackness. Rolling onto his side, he raised himself up on one elbow. The darkness was barely relieved by the dying firelight slipping between the twisted sticks that made up the rudimentary walls of the dead mage's hut. A shadow slid across the bands of black and red, moving towards the doorway. It was Risala.

'What is it?' whispered Kheda. The bedding beneath him rustled as he made sure his sword and hacking blade lay ready to hand.

'I don't know,' Risala replied quietly.

Kheda rose and went to stand beside her. 'I thought they had all gone to sleep.'

I wouldn't have allowed myself to sleep otherwise.

'Not everyone.' Risala hugged herself against the chill of the night. The mage's hut was well beyond whatever warmth might still linger around the hearth's embers.

Kheda moved, partly to see more clearly, mostly to stand behind Risala and fold her in his arms. She leaned back against him. Kheda glanced upwards and noted the positions of the stars. 'It's not long till dawn.'

K

'Is there anything in the stars to help us?' Risala queried.

'Not that I can see.' Kheda looked out across the open ground.

We reached that outlying drowned island little more than a handful of days ago. The stars and heavenly jewels have barely moved. How could they possibly reflect this headlong run of startling events?

There was definitely movement out in the shadowy expanse. The savages' huts were blots of denser darkness in the night. The dim red glow lit on figures moving from one hut to another, crouching low. Stifled noises crept across the encampment. It was impossible to see what was going on, with the Lesser Moon still too new to make up for the loss of light now that the Greater Moon was definitely past full.

/ don't need the Diamond riding with the Winged Snake in the arc of death to tell me I must find a way to evade these dragons or die. If the Spear in the arc of travel is telling me I came here to find a fight on my hands, that's hardly a surprise. I don't need the Amethyst to counsel calm and caution, nor the Opal in the same arc of the sky to promise that clear thinking will protect me and mine from the beasts.

All the same, a faint tremor stiffened his spine as stubborn recollection suggested more pertinent conjunctions in the heavenly compass.

The Ruby for friendship and talisman against fire rides with the Bowl that is symbol of sharing in the arc where we look for signs of wider brotherhood as well as with those born of our blood.

But I'd already concluded that these savages and we people of the Archipelago share a common humanity before I looked up at the sky just now. I don't need the Pearl as emblem of fertility combined with the stars of the Vizail Blossom in the arc of home and family to remind me of Itrac so far away.

Why should I cling to a fool's hope that the Pearl might truly be a talisman against dragons of air and water? It's talisman against sharks and I don't see any of those here.

The wizards stirred behind him and Velindre began snoring. Kheda tried to concentrate on the mysterious goings-on around the ramshackle huts. Unbidden thoughts persisted, disconcerting.

It was a shark that took Naldeth 's leg. Time was when I would have spent long hours finding some significance in that. And wondering what new ideas the Topaz might validate as it rode in the arc of self and life with the Canthira Tree, whose seeds must suffer fire to sprout anew. No, this is just weariness distracting me.

Risala stood straighter, her body pressing back against his. 'Look, over there.'

Dark figures were dragging something from a hut. Hurrying, they headed for the thorny barrier. As two began ripping a hole in the spiny weave, the rest shouldered their limp, unresisting burden. It looked uncomfortably like a body, hard to say whether dead or unconscious.

'Stay here.' Kheda reluctantly let her out of his arms and quickly retrieved his scabbarded sword from beside his crude bed. As fast as he dared, he ran across the enclosure, trusting that it was as empty at night as it had been in the day. Nevertheless, by the time he had reached the void in the woven thorns, the dark shapes were through the barricade. Kheda drew his sword with a steely whisper. 'Who's there?'

Not that they'11 understand, but their reactions might tell me something. Are they from this village or interlopers come to wreak havoc in the night?

He took a pace forward, his ready blade shining like blood in the fading light of the embers.

The group halted, indecisive, half-lost against the shadowy backdrop of the thickets of spiny fingers. A

man stepped forward to stand tall in the fragile moonlight. Kheda recognised the scarred spearman. He walked towards Kheda, his expression sad yet implacably resolved. Moonlight silvered wetness on the wild man's arm and on his hand holding a knife of glossy black stone.

Who have they killed and why? Is this justice or revenge? How can I possibly tell? Can I trust this man who's proved himself in battle at my side? Do I have any other choice?

Kheda took a pace backwards and lowered his sword. The spearman nodded slowly and retreated into the darkness. Two other men crept forward, shooting nervous glances at Kheda as they dragged the spiky branches back together, securing the huts' defences. Kheda watched the dim figures disappear utterly into the impenetrable night, faint sounds of movement soon lost among the breeze-stirred rustles of thistly plants.

Where are they going? What are they doing? How could I hope to ask them?

Sliding his sword back into its scabbard, he walked slowly back to the dead mage's hut. As he passed the black entrances to the rickety huts, he caught the faint gleam of watchful eyes here and there. From one of the wretched dwellings he thought he heard stifled weeping.

Unfriendly silence fell over the enclosure like a pall. There were no sounds of night birds beyond the thorns, or any discreetly foraging animals. The air was cold and the ground beneath his bare feet damp with dew. The acrid taint of the embers in the hearth was overlaid with strange scents from unfamiliar plants. Something scuttling around the stones ringing the fire caught his eye. Long black beetles with twisted feelers scurried over and around the rank remnants of the lizard meat and the broken bones.

A faint breeze fingered his naked shoulders and Kheda felt dreadfully exposed standing all alone beneath the uncaring moons.

Do dragons come out at night?

Shivering, and not just from the pre-dawn chill, he broke into a half-run. Entering the dead mage's hut, he was breathing hard from more than exertion.

'What's going on?' Risala's urgent hands gripped his arms.

He slid his hands around her waist and drew her close. 'I don't know.' His soft words were muffled by her hair. 'It was men from the village, but I don't know what they were doing.'

Risala turned her face up to his. Kheda thought she was going say something, but she changed her mind and kissed him instead. He kissed her back and held her so close that he could feel her hip bones pressing into him. Her breath came faster, with a shudder of urgency as her kisses became more insistent, more demanding. He felt her fingertips digging into his shoulder blades.

Does this mean things are right between us? No, but this isn't a time for words. There are some things that need no words. We still have that understanding.

He matched her fierce kisses. There was a desperation in her passion and he recognised the same need in himself. Still embracing Risala and guiding her backwards, he walked step by slow step towards the rough heap of grass and skins where he had been sleeping. As the exhausted wizards slept on unseen in the darkness, he laid Risala gently down. He heard her wriggle free of her cotton trousers as he unknotted his own drawstring. Kneeling, he slid her tunic up over her stomach and her ribs, kissing her smooth, warm skin. He tarried over the yielding softness of her breasts as her breath came faster beneath his fingers and mouth and her hands roamed around his head and shoulders. Neither of them let slip any sound.

Risala shifted beneath him and Kheda rose above her

for a moment before claiming her lips with his own. Her hands slid up beneath his tunic and her fingers dug into the broad muscles of his back as she guided him to her. Holding tight, she drove him on with insistent hands, her back arching.

Kheda let go all the questions of these violent few days and the puzzles of this malevolent night. He abandoned himself to pure sensation, to the touch of skin on skin, the brush of lips on willing flesh. All his thoughts turned to riding the building swell of ecstasy sweeping them both along until he felt Risala break beneath him. As her body was rocked by waves of bliss transcending time or place, he let loose his own ardour and plunged on into the velvet darkness. Now it was Risala who matched her moves to, his, willing him on. He threw himself into the endless instant where all consciousness was swept away.

Heart pounding, he came back to himself lying with Risala's arms cradling his head to her breasts. He could hear her heartbeat beneath her ribs, gradually slowing. Kissing her soft skin, he tasted salt and felt his sweat slowly mingle with hers. The cool of the night gradually asserted itself over the warmth between them but Kheda didn't want to leave her. Risala made no movement apart from gently stroking his hair.

Velindre exhaled noisily in her sleep and began snoring more loudly than ever. Beneath Kheda, Risala shook with suppressed giggles. He stifled her laughter and his own with a long fond kiss before withdrawing from her embrace. As he adjusted his clothing, Risala slipped back into her trousers. As they lay down together again, Kheda slipped one arm beneath her head and tucked the other around her waist, her thighs resting against his. After a soft kiss in the angle between her neck and shoulder, he gave himself up to the oblivion of dreamless sleep.

She had gone when he awoke. He blinked and realised the daylight outside was once more striping the gloomy interior of the hut. Even in the shade, the night's chill had long since been driven out by the harsh dry heat of this unfriendly land. Outside he could hear muted voices and a strange drumming sound.

Where's my body slave? I'll take a long bath with scented soap before I breakfast. Send word to the kitchens that I fancy honeyed sailer bread stuffed with rustlenuts coated in tarit seed, and just a little fresh goat curd to cut the sweetness.

Kheda sat up on his crude bed, rubbing a hand over his hair and beard and feeling uncomfortably frowsty. His blood-stained trousers repelled him but he had nothing else to wear. Then he saw the lengths of wood that he had bidden the wild men gather the previous day, along with the heaps of grass and lengths of well-cured leather.

Do the task before you.

'You're awake.' Naldeth appeared in the doorway. The blood staining his eyes was beginning to discolour like bruises, but other than that he looked well rested.

'Let's get to work.' Kheda nodded at the grass and the leather strips as he got to his feet and dressed.

'I'm intrigued,' the young mage said dryly. 'Just what is it you have in mind?'

'Where's Risala?' Kheda scanned the scatter of huts as he emerged, blinking, into the punishing sunlight. 'And Velindre?'

'Risala's making sure we all get a share of breakfast.' Naldeth pointed towards the hearth circle where the wild women were clustered.

Kheda saw they were raising sturdy sticks to pound down on something, making the muffled thumping sound he had noted. 'Where's Velindre?'

'Keeping watch for dragons,' Naldeth said succinctly.

'And as far as I can tell, the wild men have sent scouts to stand sentry by the river.'

'I take it she's recovered from yesterday.' Kheda saw the magewoman's golden hair, bright in the sunlight beyond the crude huts. She was standing still as a statue, her face turned to the sky, her eyes closed, her hands hanging loosely at her sides. 'She's not scrying?'

'We don't want to draw any dragon with magic, not just yet. We're not complete fools.' Naldeth's words were mild enough.

Kheda couldn't help gazing up at the cloudless blue. 'Can she alert us to any dragon approaching? Or just those of the sky?'

'She'll sense a dragon riding the air at the greatest distance and probably one manipulating water not far short of that.' Naldeth looked contemplatively at Velindre. 'But she'll know if the black dragon comes anywhere near.'

'Are you ready to tackle the creature and its mage, if we go across the river?' Kheda asked the youthful wizard.

Which is another task there's no benefit in delaying.

Naldeth squared his shoulders defiantly. 'Velindre and I have discussed how to stifle his magic rather than killing him outright.'

'As long as he's not killing our people, do as you see fit.' Kheda saw Risala emerge from the knot of women by the hearth. As they parted to let her pass, he saw they were pounding something in the hollow curve of an old tree trunk.

'What do you suppose is for breakfast today?' the mage wondered.

Risala was carrying crude bowls salvaged from old, cracked gourds. As she smiled at Kheda, reserve nevertheless shadowed her eyes.

So there's still distance between us, despite the closeness of last night. How can I put things right? I'm not going to lie to you and tell you the omens predict our safe return to Chazen, with our lives going back to the way they were.

He saw the bowls were full of the fluffy white pulp they had eaten before. 'Just what is this?'

Risala shrugged. 'They're beating it out of shoots that they cut from the bases of those spiny finger trees.'

Kheda wished for a spoon as he ate with his dirty fingers.

What wouldn 't I give for that bath I was dreaming of? We had better find some way of washing before we all fall ill with some filth-borne disease.

'There are a lot more spearmen here this morning.' Risala looked discreetly around the enclosure. 'They've been coming in since first light, with their women and children.'

Kheda had already noted the increased numbers sitting around the ashy circle of the central hearth. 'It looks as if they intend to stay.' A group of men was breaking holes in the hard dry earth with the points of their wooden spears. Youths and young women stood ready with rough lattices of twisted tree branch and arms full of freshly cut fronds. 'Do you think we can persuade them to fight?'

'The more spears we have to call on, the better,' Naldeth said reluctantly. 'We have to get that ruby egg from the Zaise. Nexus magic is our only hope of driving away that black dragon.'

'Or any other beast that flies over and sees so much prey for the taking.' Risala looked up apprehensively.

Kheda felt the weight of the task before him descend on his shoulders. 'Then let's get these people ready to fight with some new tricks that will hopefully send more of the cave dwellers and tree dwellers running than will be willing to stand and fight.' He scraped up the last of the fluffy pulp and handed the rough bowl back to Risala.

'What tricks?' Naldeth followed the warlord back into the dead mage's hut.

'The cave dwellers aren't between us and the Zaise? Risala protested.

'No,' Kheda agreed regretfully as he sorted through the most promising lengths of wood. 'But if they owe fealty to that mage over the river, they'll stab us in the back if we don't take them out of the balance. I told you, we've started a war here, whether these people realise that or not. The quickest way to end a war is to wage it without mercy.' He found a suitable length of worn leather and gathered up a handful of long, dry grasses.

'Which is what these people did in Chazen,' Naldeth said pointedly as they returned to the bright day outside. 'Are you sure you aren't taking revenge?'

'No.' Kheda sat down and drew his belt knife.

Risala sat a little distance away. 'No, you're not taking revenge, or no, you're not sure?'

'Weren't the people who came to Chazen just fleeing that drowned island?' Naldeth looked troubled.

'Perhaps, but they attacked first rather than trying to sue peaceably for sanctuary. And whoever they were, they were driven on by their wizards, who showed no one any mercy. This battle should free the cave dwellers from such tyranny.' Kheda began stripping the bark from the curved branch with deft knifestrokes. 'Risala, can you cut me some thong from those hide strips, please?'

'What are you making?' Naldeth watched him work, mystified.

'A bow.' Kheda worked his way around an irregularity in the wood.

Naldeth looked at him open-mouthed 'You can't be thinking you can teach these people archery in half a day?'

'They don't need to shoot the topknot off a palm pigeon.' Kheda looked down the length of the crude bow

stave and resumed shaping it. 'A shower of arrows against people not expecting them doesn't need to be aimed. Now, can you summon water or do I need Velindre to do that?'

'I can summon water, but there's not much more I can do with that element,' Naldeth admitted. 'Not hereabouts anyway.'

Kheda looked up as the relentless pounding of the women's staves in the hollow tree slowed and faltered. Heads were turning all across the enclosure as the savages realised he was doing something. 'Can you find me a bone splinter that will make a decent needle? About as long as your smallest finger.'

'You'll be lucky to get a handful of shots out of that before it breaks,' Risala remarked as she tossed him a skein of thin leather strips.

'We don't have time to go hunting for decent wood or to craft proper bows.' Kheda used his dagger to scrape damp pith from the newly peeled wood and then carefully gouged deep notches in each end of the wood. 'We can hope that that mage in the beaded cloak is taking some time to try to fathom our presence here, but don't forget, he's hardly exerted himself as much as Velindre or Naldeth. We have to be ready for him and his followers to make another attack.'

Men were drifting towards them now, some with children hiding behind their legs while older boys came scampering ahead with lively curiosity. As Naldeth searched among the bones in the hearth, the women gathered round him, speculating audibly.

'Risala, do you think you could persuade these women to make us some strings?' Kheda cut a long strip, three fingers wide, from one of the hides offered the night before and used the tip of his dagger to pierce holes along both edges. 'And lend us a bowl, to soak the leather in?'

'I can try.' Risala teased some fibres from the discarded

strips of bark. As she walked over to the village women, she began twisting them into two thin spirals. When she had a finger's length, she wound them together against themselves, so each one stopped the other from unravelling. The women clicked their tongues and smiled as they recognised what she was doing. As Risala touched the cords holding a gourd on one woman's shoulder, her expression beseeching, the women nodded readily.

'Well done,' Naldeth commented as she and he both returned together.

'It's hardly magecraft.' Risala was amused despite herself. She handed Kheda a shallow vessel roughly fashioned from a piece of hollowed log.

'Will this serve as a needle?' Naldeth diffidently proffered a sharp shard of bone unmistakably shaped and pierced by magic.

Did you learn how to do that from that black dragon '$ magic?

'I should think so. Can you fill this with water for me?' Kheda indicated the shallow trough.

As Naldeth nodded and steam gathered in the hollow of the wood to condense into shining droplets, the considerable crowd now gathered around them murmured, openly inquisitive. The wild men and women watched intently as Kheda laid the leather strip in the water to darken.

Patience. More haste makes for less speed.

As soon as he judged the leather was wet enough, he took it out and stretched it as best he could. Laying it down, he carefully arranged a dense layer of long, dry grass in the centre and put the bow stave precisely in the middle. Kneeling, he threaded a length of leather thong through the eye of the bone needle and bent over the bow stave to begin sewing the leather tightly around the wood and grass. 'It should dry fast enough

in this heat,' he commented, 'so the leather will shrink still tighter.'

'It'll dry still faster and tighter if you let me do it with my magic,' Naldeth pointed out, somewhat exasperated.

'That's true enough.' Kheda looked up apologetically from his awkward task. 'Risala, do you think you can persuade these folk to find me some thin, straight sticks?'

'I can try.' She tossed him the coil of stout string that one of the women had just given her. She smiled briefly at Kheda and he felt memory of the night's passion twist deep in his stomach. He would have held her gaze longer but she turned away to her new task.

A few children followed at a respectful distance as Risala began searching the closest length of the thorn barrier for suitable twigs. The rest of the men and women continued to watch Kheda as he laboriously completed the finger-cramping task of sewing the leather tightly around the curved wood, compressing the grass inside. From time to time he tried to look around the enclosure but there were too many people moving about for him to get a clear sight of Velindre.

Kheda handed the stave in its case of damp leather to Naldeth. 'Very well then, Master Mage, dry that out for me.' He addressed himself to measuring a length of cord for a bowstring and tying tight loops in each end.

Naldeth took the bow stave, which immediately began steaming gently. Soon the darkness was fading fast from the leather. The savages murmured among themselves again and most took a pace or two back.

'Will these do?' Risala returned with a handful of long, whippy sticks.

Kheda nodded as he took the bow stave back from the young mage. 'Naldeth, help her, if you please. Strip off the bark and make me some arrows, about this long.' He indicated the standard shaft length reaching from his

fingertips to his breastbone. 'Put a point on one end and a notch in the other.'

'I know I said I'm no hunter,' Naldeth complained mildly, 'but I have seen an arrow before.'

'How are you planning on fletching and barbing them?' Risala asked.

'Let's see what our new allies can offer us.' Kheda watched the wild spearmen edge closer to see more clearly as Naldeth took up one of the sticks. Some were intent on the dagger itself, others on the blade's action on the wood. As soon as the young mage set the first peeled wand down, one of the older hunters, bolder than the rest, immediately picked it up. He was short and stooped with some old, ill-healed injury twisting his back, his face wizened and his hair a thin grey fuzz on his fleshless skull. After studying it, he shrugged at his companions; their puzzlement was equally plain.

The whole circle of watchers took a pace backwards as Kheda stood up. He settled one loop of the string into the notch he had cut in one end of the improvised bow stave, tugging at it till the cord bit deep into the leather. Flipping the wood over, he braced the lower end against his foot and slowly leaned on the top, gradually bending it sufficiently to accept the second loop of the bowstring. His shoulder muscles protesting, he gently released the pressure until the string alone held the leather-encased wood in a new smooth curve.

So far, so good. It hasn't snapped at the first test. Risala can call that an omen if she wants to.

Kheda gave the string a tentative pull. The bow was stiff and the leather creaked but he couldn't feel any hint of the wood within cracking. 'Naldeth, some arrows please.'

The wizard complied. 'They're not very good, I'm afraid.'

'As long as they're good enough to show these people

what we're doing.' Kheda moved to get a clear view across the upper end of the enclosure. There was plenty of space past the dead mage's hut where the skins of the lizards that had been slain the day before yesterday were drying stretched on stoutly lashed frameworks of wood. Drawing the crude bow in one fluid action, Kheda loosed the blunt, featherless shaft. It shot across the emptiness and vanished over one of the skins to be lost in the thorn barricade.

A murmur of surprise ran around the gathering. Before it ran its course, Kheda loosed a second rough shaft and this time he hit the lizard skin almost dead centre, the arrow bouncing off. Unmistakable interest lit the hunters' faces.

Naldeth rolled the next arrow between his fingers and the sappy point darkened and hardened. 'Why do you suppose none of them have ever contrived a bow?'

Kheda shot again and this time the arrow pierced the lizard hide to hang there quivering. 'I don't imagine their life offers much leisure for sitting and thinking.' He had to speak up to be heard over the hum of excitement all around.

Risala was still stripping bark from the thin sticks. 'And I don't see many elders around to turn their experiences into new ideas.'

'Do you imagine those wild mages let anyone showing more than usual intelligence live for long?' Kheda picked up another arrow. 'Tyrants like Ulla Safar soon cut down anyone with the wit to be a threat.'

'They certainly seem to like this idea—' Naldeth broke off as the stooping spearman who'd been the first to pick up a rough arrow tugged at his arm. 'What does he want?'

The wild man pointed over towards the ash-filled hearth and then tapped Naldeth's empty hand. He repeated the gesture a second time and then a third, looking a little frustrated at the mage's slowness.

'He wants you to light the fire.' Kheda's spirits rose.

If they can make themselves understood, surely so can we.

He shot again and missed the lizard skin, the arrow gouging a shallow groove in the dust. The crowd didn't care, their voices growing louder, edged with excitement. More savages came to see what was afoot.

'Be careful,' Risala said sharply as the mage held his hand up and a scarlet flame danced on his upturned palm. 'We don't want to draw any dragons.'

'A spark like this is lost in the confluence of elements around here, believe me.' Naldeth dropped the flame onto the ground and bent to pile the detritus from the bow-making on it. The red magelight shivered and turned to the comforting yellow of natural fire.

The stooped hunter glanced over his shoulder, wrinkled face expressive. Several of those behind him made encouraging sounds. The stooped hunter drew a deep breath and crouched down on his heels to hold the peeled stick out over the little fire. His hand was shaking so much that the wood wavered wildly in and out of the flickering flames. Grinning, Naldeth hunkered down and steadied the other end with his free hand. The hunter licked his lips nervously as he watched the wood intently. As the moisture that had lurked underneath the bark was drawn out of the wood, he snatched it back and deftly ran it through his leathery fingers. His hands steadier, he returned it to the flame. After a few such passes he was satisfied and, smiling shyly, he handed the arrow to Kheda.

'They know enough to understand that a straight shaft flies faster and truer.' Kheda rolled the blunt arrow between his fingers and looked down its length.

'It'll fly better still for some fletching—' Risala caught her breath on a recollection. 'And I know where to find some feathers.'

As she hurried into the dead mage's hut, Kheda loosed the newly straightened shaft at the lizard skin. It flew noticeably better than the first ones he had shot, striking the hard scales of the lizard's spine with a sharp snap. The stooped hunter shared a gleeful grin with his companions. Three of them set diligently to work straightening more sticks and two more sat to peel bark from the rest with their black-stone knives. One kept casting envious glances at Naldeth's dagger.

'Now we set these people making as many bows as they can before we find ourselves under attack.' Kheda watched Risala approaching with a twist of hide in one hand. 'What have you got there?'

'Feathers from those women.' She untwisted the soft leather to reveal a handful of vivid orange plumes.

A new sound ran through the crowd, this time of considerable disquiet.

'Is that wise?' Naldeth shared their unease. 'We've no real idea what the significance of such adornments might be, beyond marking out the mageborn. What will they make of us using such tokens like this?'

'I don't know.' Kheda set the bow down and took a feather from Risala. It had come from the wing of some as yet unseen, sizeable bird. 'But how else can we show them what we need?'

And we'll be showing them that such tokens have no meaning for us, no power in themselves, no more than the meaningless patterns we Aldabreshi men draw in the sky to comfort ourselves.

Using his dagger, he carefully stripped one side from the central quill and cut it into an arrow flight. He glanced at Risala. 'May I have some bark fibres, please.'

As she handed them to him, Kheda gave her the arrow shaft to hold. Lacking any kind of glue, he could only lick a finger and stick the strips of feather on with spittle. That

was good enough to hold them as he began carefully tying the feather tightly to the wood, splitting the black-tipped orange barbs apart with the hair-thin binding. As he worked, an apprehensive murmur passed among the wild men and women. Here and there an emotional voice rose and was hastily hushed.

'What do you suppose they are saying?' Risala kept her face impassive.

'Does it matter?' Kheda tied off the bark fibres as solidly as he could and smoothed the fractured feather to a sleek smoothness once again. Looking down for the bow, he saw several of the older hunters were squatting beside it, stroking tentative fingers along the leather-bound wood and the taut string. Kheda grinned at them as he bent to retrieve the weapon.

'I could make some steel arrowheads if we can find something like ironstone.' Naldeth looked thoughtfully around.

'Which would use a lot more magic and might well catch a dragon's curiosity,' Risala said instantly.

Kheda carefully bent the bow, drawing the newly fletched arrow to his chin. 'Let's see what these people can come up with.' He let fly and the shaft soared over the lizard skin to clear the thorn barricade entirely and vanish into the distant thistly plants. The gathering hummed with excitement.

Perhaps they think there's magic in the feathers to make the arrow fly more true.

Kheda turned to the stooped hunter and offered him the bow. Everyone else immediately fell silent.

The stooped hunter licked his lips, blinking rapidly. His hands shook as he picked up a naked arrow. He mimicked Kheda's action in drawing the bow but lowered it awkwardly without loosing the unfletched shaft. Taking a deep breath he drew a second time and shot. The shaft

flew across the enclosure to fall short of the lizard skin. The hunter looked at Kheda, plainly chagrined.

Kheda grinned back and nodded emphatic approval, pleased to see the man's face clearing. 'I think they've got the idea.'

Several of the other hunters shuffled closer, patently eager to try this new weapon themselves.

Naldeth looked at them with amusement. 'Where did you learn to make bows like that, Kheda?'

'My father taught me and my brothers,' the warlord said with a pang. 'He said we never knew when we might find ourselves without the trappings of privilege, so we needed to know how to keep ourselves alive with no more than a sharp knife and sharper wits.'

'A man of some forethought,' Naldeth said approvingly.

'Or one who foresaw you'd have need of such knowledge.' Risala challenged Kheda with a brief glance.

'Can you both help them make more bows, while I see if we can fashion any kind of arrowheads?' Kheda went back to the dead mage's hut. The wild men and women followed readily enough, though none would go inside. Kheda passed out handfuls of wood, leather and grass. Risala immediately had to stop the eager hunters layering them together without soaking the leather first. The women laughed as they sat in a loose circle, twisting fresh lengths of cord from the grasses they had commandeered.

Finally convinced she had made her meaning clear, Risala sat back on her heels and glanced up at Kheda as she wiped sweat from her forehead. 'These people may lack knowledge but they don't lack wits or dexterity.'

'No,' Kheda agreed. 'Naldeth, can you make us some more of those bone needles without catching a dragon's attention, please?'

'Oh yes.' Naldeth hurried off towards the hearth with a few curious savages trailing after him.

Kheda turned to the stooped hunter and, drawing his own dagger from its sheath, he tapped it with one finger before tapping his own chest. Sheathing the steel, he tapped the hunter's bony breastbone and held out his empty hand expectantly.

Curiosity flickered across the man's brow as he delved in the folds of his ancient, stained loincloth to retrieve his crude knife of black stone. Seeing the fineness of the edge, Kheda couldn't resist trying it on the dark hairs dusting his forearm. The razor-sharp stone shaved his skin clean. He nodded his approval, then, raising his elbows and shrugging his shoulders, he mimicked trying to break the tip off the end. The hunter reached involuntarily for the knife before he realised Kheda wasn't actually damaging it. He frowned, trying to understand.

Kheda reached down and picked up a rough arrow shaft, holding the black-stone knife to it so that the tip jutted over the end of the wood. The hunter's face cleared and he nodded rapidly. Clapping his hands, he barked brisk instructions to someone at the back of the crowd.

'Let's hope they've got that idea.' Beyond the old men huddled round the stooped hunter, Kheda watched two men each carrying a bundle of spears rounding up a gaggle of lads. One waved an arrow shaft, self-evidently explaining what they would be seeking. With the hunters vigilant for any threat, they disappeared out beyond the thorn barrier. 'Now what I need is a good big gourd and a long forked stick.'

'What for?' Naldeth returned with a handful of long bone splinters pierced with smooth holes. Risala took them from him and set to work instructing the eager bow makers.

'Snakes.' Kheda frowned. 'How do you suppose we might identify the most venomous?'

'What do you want venomous snakes for?' Naldeth asked with misgiving.

'Are you any kind of shot with a bow?' Kheda watched the stooped hunter summon a few of his particular cronies and loftily allow them to try their hand with the first bow. One hit the lizard skin, to mingled envy and admiration.

'No,' said Naldeth tartly. 'I've generally found magic more effective.'

'Then it'll just be me and Risala with poisoned arrows.' Kheda challenged the distaste on the young mage's face. 'You don't think the cave dwellers and the tree dwellers will flee all the faster from the arrows if they see their strongest hunters dropping dead when they're hit?' He saw that the savages were readily understanding Risala as she showed them how to sew the damp leather tightly around the wooden staves. Eager hands reached for the bone needles. 'I don't want to kill any more of these people than we have to, Naldeth, and the best way to ensure that is to kill off anyone we can identify as a leader as early as we can. The sooner the battle ends, the fewer will die.'

The wizard sighed. 'I suppose I'm still not used to Aldabreshin ways of waging war.'

'I told you, we wage war hard because that's the way to keep wars short.' Kheda found the disdain in Naldeth's face was rousing his anger. 'Every warlord knows that the most effective defence is relentless aggression. That doesn't mean we relish it. And we find that knowing that no quarter will be given to them does tend to discourage hotheads from starting a fight in the first place.'

'These people don't know that,' Naldeth objected.

'Then they'll learn and I imagine they'll learn fast.' Now that he had allowed himself to vent his temper, Kheda found he was disinclined to stop. 'So I'll crush the heads of this land's venomous snakes to make poisons for my arrows, and if I had time and the right herbs, I'd bury the corpses in a jar to ferment with the venoms, to make a paste ten times more deadly than the snake's own bite.

I'd show these people how to make scorpion pots to throw at their enemies, if they had clay, if I had the words to make them understand me and I knew which of this land's crawlers had the most lethal sting. When we retake the Zaise, you can have your ruby egg to work your magic and drive off the dragon while I'll take those barrels of naphtha and ground oil and that sulphur and resin and make sticky fire, just like we do in the Archipelago. That should show those tree dwellers across the river that these people are a force to be reckoned with, without a wizard to hide behind or a dragon to feed with their dead.'

'You think you have the right to show them such things?' Naldeth wasn't about to yield. 'All principles of warfare agreed in the north condemn sticky fire or any weapon like it as utterly immoral. Quite apart from anything else, such stuffs are hideously dangerous for friend and foe alike.'

'You expect me to believe that none of your barbarian war-captains has ever succumbed to temptation?' scoffed Kheda.

'There are cases recorded,' Naldeth admitted readily enough, 'mostly detailing how whoever was using the vile stuff was attacked by every other local army, including those he thought were his allies.'

Risala looked up from helping with the bow-making to interrupt the mage. 'Velindre says that's less from fear of the sticky fire and more because the only safe way to use such stuff is to have a wizard on hand. And any barbarian war-captain suspected of drawing magic into a battle can expect to have his throat slit by his own men before his enemies can reach him to do it.'

'I'd be inclined to agree that's a wise precaution,' Kheda said dryly.

'No wizard with any conscience would ever use his magic in a war.' Naldeth flushed with growing anger.

'Yet you'll give these people sticky fire to use against their enemies. What else are you thinking of? Poisoned smokes? I've heard tell of Archipelagan battles where warlords have used those and killed off half their own men.'

'The fate of friend and foe alike would be considered an omen,' Risala said tightly. 'Token of the rightness of that warlord's course or proof that he was in grievous error.'

'Do these portents absolve you of every responsibility?' cried Naldeth.

'A warlord would only ever use poisoned smokes as a very last resort, and he'd study the winds and weather carefully beforehand.' Kheda realised the wild men and women had stopped working on the sticks and leather and cord and were watching this heated exchange with bemused incomprehension. He tried for a reassuring smile to encourage them back to their labours.

'Where will this stop?' Naldeth demanded passionately. 'Where will you stop, assuming we subdue the tree dwellers and those people in the caves?'

'You're finally starting to think this through.' Kheda congratulated the mage acerbically. 'There's every chance we'll have to take the fight to whatever wild men live beyond this valley, to their wizard, and to their dragon. I hope this nexus magic you and Velindre plan on working with that ruby is going to be all you claim.'

'We'll be using that to drive off dragons, not to kill people,' Naldeth said wrathfully.

'And I'll show these people how to make a better means to do the killing that must be done, so you can keep your hands and conscience clean—' Kheda broke off as he saw the scarred spearman approaching with a couple of the oldest wild men he'd yet seen. He smiled and nodded and beckoned the three of them to approach.

The old men muttered among themselves as they came closer and settled themselves stiffly on the ground. Unfolding the hides they were carrying, they revealed lumps of shiny black stone and a surprising array of pieces of bone and wood. The oldest man, with ash-white hair, began breaking delicate flakes off the ungainly stones with a bulbous knuckle of bone. His neighbour picked one up and, peering close, knocked infinitesimal slivers from it with another stone, his tongue caught between toothless gums as he concentrated. Faster than Kheda would have expected, he held up a leaf of stone, sharp edges finely translucent in the sunlight.

The warlord tested the edge with a cautious finger to find it was as sharp as any steel. 'That will make a fine arrowhead.' He smiled at the old men and hoped his tone conveyed his approval.

'And this looks like some kind of resin to stick them to the shafts.' Risala was peering into a gourd that the scarred spearman had pressed into her hands. She looked around with a half-smile. 'If we can only persuade the best men with a sling to bring down some birds, we'll have everything we need.'

Naldeth was still brooding darkly on Kheda's forceful words. 'Where does this stop? What happens once we've driven off whatever dragon lives beyond the tree dwellers and subdued those people and their mage?'

'Initially, we wait and see if driving them offsets them fighting whoever lies beyond their far borders.' Kheda pulled both his sword and his hacking blade from his double-looped sword belt and sat down not far from the old men diligently chipping at their lumps and flakes of stone. Unsheathing the wide hacking blade, he slipped a whetstone from a little pocket sewn into the scabbard and ran it firmly down the edge.

'You want this war to spread still further?' Naldeth

wasn't giving up. 'I thought we were trying to improve the lot of these wretches.'

'In the longer term, I hope we shall.' Kheda concentrated on renewing the edge on the sturdy steel. 'In the short term, I'll settle for just not getting killed.'

Naldeth stared at the warlord. 'But where does this end?' he persisted.

Risala's gaze slid to Kheda, her expression unfathomable.

'Ultimately?' He concentrated on polishing out a shallow nick in the edge of the steel. 'I imagine we'll have peace when you've put all the dragons to flight and we've driven any remaining wizards off the edge of this island and any wild men who choose to stand against us rather than surrender are dead.'

Or when we have simply died through some mischance or fallen victim to a mage or a dragon's malice.

'You really mean that, don't you?' The young mage was incredulous.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kheda noticed the wild men and women growing increasingly restive, concerned at the wizard's agitation.

'You talk as if we have a choice. We don't.' He strove to sound unemotional. 'Either we take the battle to the tree dwellers and their wizard and his dragon or we wait for them to attack us. I prefer to fight on my own terms. I told you - this is a war now. Wars are very difficult to stop.' It was a challenge to hide both his sympathy for Naldeth's dismay and his irritation at the youth's naivety. 'This is why we bloodthirsty Aldabreshi so rarely start wars and in fact do all we can to avoid them, whatever your barbarian storytellers may say of us. Aldabreshin philosophers liken war to wildfire in a forest. Remember, we have no mages to curb such things.' He paused to lay down the hacking blade and drew his sword. 'It won't be safe to stop until we have imposed our new order on

every last valley and cave redoubi. At least here we're dealing with just one island, even if it is larger than any in the Archipelago.' He swept the whetstone along the sword's curved edge. 'Though this whole debate will be irrelevant if you and Velindre can't keep the dragons from adding to the carnage. I suggest you concentrate on that particular task.'

Naldeth stared at him. 'How can you be so calm about this?'

Kheda shot him a stern look. 'It helps to remind myself that if battles are raging here, wild men and dragons can't be plundering the Archipelago.'

He glanced at Risala and saw that she at least understood that grim consolation.

'Is this all because you dislike magic so?' Naldeth demanded. 'Are you setting out on some quest to rid this place of wizardry, like the Archipelago?'

'Don't be a fool.' Risala's interruption was as unexpected as her scorn was withering. 'Weren't you the one decrying the perversion of magic governing the way these people live? Besides, we wouldn't even be here if you had left that skull-faced mage well alone and we'd got back to the Zaise without being dragged into these people's travails. Just remember, Naldeth, you're the one who started this.'

The mage was as shocked as if she had physically struck him. He stared at her, his face colouring beneath his tan as if he had been slapped. Jaw clenched beneath his beard, he got to his feet with all the dignity he could muster, hampered as he was by his metal leg. Without a word, he turned his back and walked away towards Velindre. She was still standing looking up at the sky, apparently wholly oblivious to the activity on every side, and to the furious row that had been echoing across the enclosure.

Risala drew her own dagger, pulling a fine finger of whetstone from a slit in the sheath. 'How long do you suppose it will take to clear this whole island of wizards and dragons?'

'I have no idea,' Kheda admitted with a qualm of his own. 'But what other choice do we have?'

Risala didn't look up. 'We could take the Zaise and sail for home and leave these people to their fate.'

'And wait for some new plague of savages and dragons to appear on our western horizon?' Kheda sighed. 'Besides, I don't believe these people deserve this life, do you? I don't think they'd be so very different from us if they could be free from the thrall of magic and dragons. Do you?'

'No, I suppose not.' Risala began sharpening her own blade. 'But why must all this be our responsibility?'

Do you want me to lie to you? Do you want me to justify bringing you into such danger with some invented portent? Forgive me, my love, but I can't do that.

'Because we're here,' Kheda said simply. 'And even if Naldeth did start this particular crisis, we all chose to come on this voyage. We all bear a measure of responsibility.'

'And everything you've ever been taught as a warlord won't let you walk away from what you see as your duty.' There was just a hint of despair in Risala's voice. 'Do you think we'll ever get home?'

'If we possibly can,' Kheda said resolutely.

They sat in silence amid the growing bustle until Kheda stood up and sheathed his newly sharpened blades. Leaving Risala still doggedly polishing her dagger, he went in search of a gourd and stick to catch snakes with.