Southern Fire

Chapter Fifteen

'Why are we anchoring here?' Risala looked anxiously around.

'Why not?' Dev had forced the Amigal into the narrow inlet as far as possible. The ship's stern was wedged against the muddy bank and stubby knot trees cloaked the fore-deck with their short fat leaves. Dev tossed the lees of his cup of wine into the brackish river, where the red stain slowly dissolved.

'Refill that and I'll break every bottle you've got aboard,' Risala snapped. 'If there are wizards and savages around here, I don't want you drunk!'

'What makes you think you've any say in what I do?' Dev grinned, unrepentant. 'Besides, drunk's probably no bad way to be, if you're going to be tortured by howling wild men.'

Risala chewed her lip. 'Don't think you can scare me off. I'm coming.' Her eyes were determined.

'I'm certainly not leaving you here to go wandering off,' agreed Dev. 'To get caught and betray me to their knives to save your own skin. Besides, if we're taken, you might just be the price of my freedom, sweetness.'

'How do we hide the ship?' Risala turned her back on him and studied the Amigal's mast, sails furled close. 'So we can get away, once we've seen all there is to see?'

'I'll cut some greenery.' Dev was lacing thick-soled leather sandals with sides that pulled up over the top of his foot. 'We cover as much of the deck with it as we can.'

Picking up a heavy-bladed jungle knife, he climbed carefully over the ship's stern. 'Pass me the anchor.'

'Don't make too much noise,' warned Risala, struggling with the heavy weight.

'Keep your own mouth shut in case someone hears you.' Dev calculated how much slack to leave for the tide before wedging the anchor among the knot tree roots. 'Letting your tongue run loose all the time isn't what makes a poet.'

His sneering rebuke silenced her, so he turned to cutting the new shoots sprouting from the swollen bases of the gnarled grey knot trees. Dev was soon sweating freely, forced to summon a whisper of magic to keep the insidious blackflies at bay. He worked rapidly and soon had an armful of the fleshy yellowy-green twigs to dump on the deck.

'We'll want plenty on the bow.' Risala looked apprehensively towards the open end of the inlet. 'In case someone passes by there.'

'As you wish, my lady' Dev bowed, mocking. 'And get a rope fast there while you're at it.' He went back to hacking at the trees. He kept an eye on Risala though and as soon as she was busy securing the fore anchor, her back turned, he brought his hands sharply together. A faint glimmer of dark blue light escaped his interlaced fingers as he jerked his hands apart.

Risala's head snapped round. 'What is it? Why have you stopped?' Her voice was tight with fear.

'Just catching my breath,' replied Dev. 'After doing all the hard work.'

Not rising to his antagonistic tone, Risala knelt to fix the stubborn branches more securely to the Amigal's rails.

Dev closed his eyes the better to concentrate on the magic he was rapidly running around the ship's hull. Invisibility wasn't that hard to work, whatever the whining apprentices at Hadrumal might think, just bringing together the antithetical elements of air and water. That would shield the Amigal from enemy eyes.

'Are you going to sleep?'

'No.' Dev opened his eyes to see Risala looking at him, scratched and dirty hands on her hips. 'See those sandals by the hatch? Put them on and be careful where you walk around here. I'll leave you for the savages if you stick a knot root through your foot or tread on a spinefruit husk.'

'Which way are we going?' Risala didn't argue, dropping to the deck to wriggle her feet into the sandals.

'That way.' Dev pointed west where the ground rose clear of the knot tree thickets and nut palms swayed in the breeze. Jumping back aboard, he fetched a bulging leather water skin from the stern cabin and dumped it by Risala. 'Don't snag it on any branches.'

'This is the right island?' She looked up for reassurance. 'You've been here before?'

'I have,' Dev lied easily. He'd never so much as set foot in this remote reach of Chazen territory but that didn't bother him. He'd been scrying out a safe route in every cup of wine he'd drunk since they'd left Daish waters. 'Get ashore.'

Slinging a leather sack over one shoulder by its braided cord, he watched the thin cotton of Risala's trousers tighten over her rump as she climbed over the stern rail. He'd only use her to buy his way out of trouble if there was nothing else for it, he decided idly. The flasks of liquor and the potent leaves for chewing or burning in the sack would probably be enough. Then he'd be entitled to take her gratitude any way he wanted, if he'd saved her life.

Following Risala, he glanced covertly at the ship from the edge of the knot trees. The magic dappled the water beneath her hull but to the unfriendly eye, the Amigal would just be a random pattern of shadows on the water. Dev grinned. If he irritated Risala enough, wound her dislike of him to a high enough pitch, would she suddenly be unable to see the ship? Then he wondered what one of these savage mages might make of his working. What would he make of theirs? He turned his back on the ship, expression one of anticipation.

'Here's a game trail.' Risala pointed to narrow hoof slots patterning a bare stretch of earth.

'Going in the right direction. Let's take it.' Dev pushed past the girl to follow the damp score through the burgeoning undergrowth. As he pushed aside a creeper-choked branch, it whipped back to catch Risala's face.

'I don't see why I can't have a knife,' she muttered resentfully, swatting leaves from her hair.

'If we run into these savages, a blade makes you a foe to be killed.' Dev sliced away an encroaching lilla frond. 'Unarmed, even a scrawny piece like you is a prize for a commander to enjoy'

Risala shuddered. 'I'd rather die than be taken by a wizard.'

'Keep talking and you can find out if that's an option,' suggested Dev sarcastically.

He pushed on through the branches and clinging vines, the girl following silent close behind. The humid air hung still and hot beneath the trees, broken only by the chirr of insects and the peaceable cries of loals and birds. There was no sign of other blades on the underbrush, so Dev allowed himself to believe this game trail was as little used as it had looked to his scrying spell.

'Watch where you're putting your feet,' he warned Risala curtly. 'Step on a sickle serpent and you'll be dead before you hit the ground.'

The inlet was long lost behind them when Dev, sweat coating his face, turned to Risala and snapped his fingers at the water skin slung over her shoulder. She proffered it and he eased the dryness at the back of his throat with a long drink. 'Drink all you can,' he ordered her. 'Then look for a stream to refill it.'

Despite the lushness of the forest all around, it was a good while later before Risala prodded Dev's shoulder and nodded silently to a rill. He kept watch while she knelt to replenish the water skin, moving off before she had got it settled on her back once again.

After the next stop to quench their thirsts, Dev began to move more cautiously. The trees were bigger now, mostly ironwoods reaching up to form a broad canopy whose shade denied the lesser brush of the forest floor. Logen vines and strangler figs swarmed up the tall trees to reach the distant sunlight. Dev and Risala made their way stealthily from one creeper-hung thicket to the next. As rotted figs squelched beneath his sandals, Dev looked up to see a flock of scarlet and yellow crookbeaks amiably bickering in the treetops. He caught Risala's arm, pointing upwards before pressing his forefinger to his lips. The last thing they needed was those birds scattering like a burst of flying flame, screeching out their alarm.

With the crookbeaks well behind them, Dev stopped and dropped to his hands and knees. The forest ahead looked lighter after the dense shade of the uncut depths and tandra trees were silhouetted against empty sky beyond. Wood rang as it was hammered and voices called out orders. Gasps and cries answered the crack of whips.

Dev crawled slowly forward to lie between two immature spinefruit trees struggling to rise above a robust cluster of sardberry bushes. Risala wriggled into the discreet hollow after him.

'What are they doing?' she wondered in a whisper no louder than a breath.

'Making defences.' Dev kept his voice low, even though a shout would probably have gone unheard in the commotion they saw before them.

They looked out on a village standing at the top of a long fan-shaped bay. The low houses straggled along the line where sand gave way to soil, a scatter of vegetable plots and fowl houses further inland. Crops were trampled, fences broken, only a few damp drifts of feathers to mark the fate of ducks and hens. On the beach, the waters of the bay rippled over an unobstructed, shelving anchorage where fishing boats drifted on long tethers tied to heavy piles driven into the sand. The crude log boats of the invaders were piled haphazard along the high-water mark.

'I wouldn't mind getting a closer look at those logs, to see if I can recognise the wood,' Dev said thoughtfully to Risala. 'If we knew where their trees grew, we might know where these curs came from.'

'They just came right in and attacked.' Risala was gazing at the village where most of the houses had burned to stark charcoal skeletons, now sodden and weeping black stains into the ground. A couple of the storehouses and granaries had been broken down, left looted and empty. The others were packed with plunder, barrels and coffers stacked around them. 'The islanders couldn't have known what was happening to them.'

'These savages don't reckon on being caught like that.' Dev squirmed to bring his leather sack round, rummaging inside for a spyglass. 'Not so stupid as they look, eh?'

A new ditch sliced through the open expanse of beach. What looked like most of the men of the village were being forced to dig it deeper. The invaders, easily identifiable with their dark, painted bodies and their brief leather loincloths, were using spears and whips to drive women and children hauling heavy logs out of the forest beyond the village. Even with their crude stone tools, other wild men were making a competent job of sharpening wooden stakes to line the ditch's inner faces. Only a few narrow stretches were left untouched to give paths through the defences and more savage warriors guarded those with wooden spears at the ready.

'The savages are enslaving the Chazen people?' As Risala spoke, whips cracked to terrify a handful of girls struggling to tie ropes to a heavy log. 'And seizing their lands? Is this what they want from the Archipelago?'

'No way to say. They're destroying more than they're keeping, for one thing.' Dev counted the invaders beneath his breath. 'This ditch could just be temporary, to keep themselves safe from any Chazen islanders they've not rounded up. They might still be planning to sail north as soon as the rains are over.'

'These savages must be fools.' Baffled, Risala looked at Dev. 'Everyone knows you can't enslave a whole population. They always fight back sooner or later. Look what happened in the Fial domain when Lemad Sarkis tried to conquer it. What about Draha Akil's death, when all the barbarian slaves he'd brought for his oil tree plantations rebelled? You never keep too many slaves together, not if you've any sense.'

'I thought you were a poet, not a historian,' Dev murmured absently. 'You and I may know better but I don't suppose those hairy-arsed savages are too worried.' He handed Risala the spyglass. 'Watch those men, those Chazen islanders over by that stack of barrels.'

Risala peered through the bronze eyepiece. 'Do you think they're going to attack him, that wild man?'

'No.' Dev silently worked a brief spell to enhance his own sight and watched the knot of struggling islanders. The nearest savage had his back towards them and the barrels screened the arguing men from any other guards.

As Dev spoke, one of the Chazen men broke free from those trying to restrain him. He ran, feet skidding on ground still wet from the previous night's rains. He didn't attack the nearby invader but ran straight for the ditch, head down, arms pumping at his sides.

'He can't think he can jump it,' gasped Risala.

'That's not what he's trying to do,' said Dev grimly.

The Chazen man launched himself at the murderous spikes lining the ditch, arms spread, head flinching backwards. Risala clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her gasp of horror. The island women filled the air with full-throated screams. There was a flash, like lightning, and their cries of dismay turned to piercing wails of despair. The man did not fall to his death but hung, impossibly suspended in the empty air by azure bonds of light. He kicked and struggled, arms flailing, captured by the magic.

'You're not the only one would rather die than live under a wizard's rule.' Dev hid a reluctant grin with one hand. No Chazen islander could have seen it but the wizardry coiling through the air after the would-be suicide had been plain enough to him. Invisible enchantment had boiled up around the man after his first few steps. The savage mage, whoever he was, could have caught the islander before anyone even noticed his futile defiance. Of course, mused Dev, letting the man run and then letting everyone see him twisting in the air, frustrated and humiliated, was certainly a valuable lesson for anyone else with thoughts of rebellion. 'Look, there.' He pointed eagerly. 'The one with the lizard-skin cloak.'

An invader stalked out from one of the few remaining houses of the village. The retinue fawning after him looked no different from the other wild men, crudely dressed and splashed with paint. The leader alone wore a long cloak made from the entire skin of a whip lizard. It trailed down his back, clawed feet flapping at his side, the tail scoring a line on the sandy ground behind him. The lower jaw had been cut from the blunt head and he wore the skull like a helmet, the vicious upper fangs curving white against his dark face. His own smile was as white as the whip lizard's teeth and his laughter rang out as the last glimmer of sapphire magelight faded from his hands.

The savages guarding those toiling in the ditch turned to acknowledge the newcomer, falling to their knees in abject obeisance. Seeing their distraction, one islander hurled a baulk of wood at the man in the lizard skin.

The invader raised a casual hand and the heavy timber hung motionless in the air before bursting into flames. Inside an eyeblink, the solid wood was no more than a shadow of ash, blown away on the next gust of wind.

'Is that the wizard?' Risala could only manage a strangled whisper.

'Hush.' Dev was watching intently.

As the savages' mage advanced, his followers joined in his loud amusement, nodding and laughing. The Chazen men cowered in the bottom of the ditch. The women and children slowed to a reluctant shuffle, averting their faces from the man still struggling in the empty air above the murderous stakes.

'What's he going to do?' Risala hissed.

'Leave him there,' Dev shrugged.

'What are we going to do?' There was a quaver in Risala's question.

'See what happens next,' grinned Dev. 'Should make a good few stanzas for this epic of yours.'

Risala gazed balefully at the scene before them, chin resting on her hands. Dev watched the man in the lizard cloak.

Ignoring the islander still imprisoned by magic, the savage mage was moving between the groups of wild men, nodding and gesturing. The invaders bowed low, some dropping to one knee or prostrate before him.

Mages have real power among these people, Dev thought silently. There's none of the scraping and apologising Hadrumal teaches, all restraint and self-denial lest mageborn offend the incapable mundane. Perhaps these savage mageborn banded together and dictated their terms to those that lacked their talents, instead of living on sufferance or being driven out as freaks and menaces.

'What's that?' Risala whispered urgently. She pointed at a vessel that had just rounded the far headland of the long bay, sliding over the water indifferent to wind and wave.

Dev abandoned his speculations. 'Offhand, I'd say it was a boat,' he replied sarcastically. Though it was an uncommon enough craft to warrant a closer look. Four of the invaders' narrow tree trunk hulls had been lashed together and roughly boarded over, a pair of scullers standing at the stern while everyone else sat crowded on the unrailed deck. There was a sizeable contingent of wild men aboard.

'Our friend the Lizard is keen to be first in line,' murmured Dev.

The savage mage was hurrying down from the village, his cloak lashing behind him. His spearmen all turned towards the water and bowed low, those closest to the newly arrived boat prostrating themselves on the sand.

Risala sank low to the ground as the strange vessel grounded in the shallows.

A man sitting cross-legged in the prow stood up. The bright colours of his own long cloak swirled around as he stepped off the crude decking. His feet didn't touch the water. Opening his arms so the cloak flapped like the wings of some enormous bird, he walked through the air on a path woven of magic drawn from both sea and air. The lattice of light veered from green to blue, bright beneath his feet, reaching out ahead of him. He arrived, perfectly composed, on the dry sand just below the newly dug ditch and the bridge of magic faded to a turquoise memory. His retinue splashed hastily through the shallows to gather in an obsequious half circle behind him.

'Is that a magic cloak?' Risala's eyes were huge.

'No, just glory bird feathers.' Dev considered the newcomer in his mantle of gaudy plumage. That spell to get ashore dry-footed was a simple enough trick but Lizardskin was bowing low, his whole body cringing. Feathercloak was capable of far more than that, it would seem.

Feathercloak was nodding, seemingly in approval, and Lizardskin stood upright, clapping his hands together. Brawny savages appeared from one of the larger storehouses carrying chests and a tightly tied sack. Lizardskin's ingratiating gestures plainly invited Feathercloak to help himself from the loot. Feathercloak stood aloof, raising one hand to beckon someone else forward.

'Now who do you suppose this is?' Dev wriggled forward a little on his elbows. A tall savage stalked forward from Feathercloak's followers. He bowed low to his master before looking down on Lizardskin with a supercilious sneer. He wore no cloak but boasted a breastplate of closely tied white bones and more ivory shards were woven into his thick hair.

'What sort of bones are those?' Risala swallowed hard. 'Do you suppose they eat—'

'Who cares?' Dev dismissed the question as the bone-decorated savage knelt down to open a coffer. He held something up to Feathercloak, who shrugged and shook his head. The Bone Wearer tossed it away. The warm colours of turtleshell showed dark against the sand, rimmed with gold bright even under the dull skies. Whatever the Bone Wearer found next satisfied Feathercloak, who summoned another underling to take it, a man distinguished by a necklace of shark teeth. As the Bone Wearer opened the sack, he offered up a handful of something to Feathercloak. At the shake of his master's head, he tossed the pearls aside, the gleaming drops hitting the sand like priceless rain.

Risala watched baffled as more beautifully crafted pieces in turtleshell and nacre were tossed aside like so much rubbish. 'If they scorn such wealth, what do they want?'

'They're finding something worth stealing,' Dev disagreed. Whatever the Bone Wearer was showing Feathercloak now plainly won his approval, and was handed over to the underling.

By the time Feathercloak had examined all the booty, he'd taken no more than a chest full. The underling carried it down the beach while Lizardskin clapped his hands sharply together. More of his own retinue appeared from the trees, dragging a weeping column of men and women. Most were grey-haired, all were stumbling with shock and weariness, clothes creased and dirty. Their hands were tied and a heavy leather rope had been plaited around their necks to link them together. The only younger man was a youth with a twisted foot, struggling to use his crutch, dark weals on his naked back showing the price he'd paid for failure to keep up. Savages walked on either side of the shambling line, whips trailing negligently in the sand.

'No warlord would treat a domain's elders like this.' Risala was appalled.

'Can't see them having much value as slaves.' Dev thought for a moment. 'Hostages, do you suppose? If this lot don't do as they're bid, grandma gets a club to the back of the head?'

Feathercloak and Lizardskin looked to be saying their farewells. Dev burned with frustration. 'If we're going to learn anything of value about these people, we have to know who their leaders are,' he commented to Risala. 'I'd say Feathercloak's higher up the pecking order than Lizardskin. We have to find a way to follow him.'

'That one's seen that man over the ditch.' She pointed with a shaking finger.

Dev watched the Bone Wearer stride arrogantly across the beach to look up at the hapless islander still hanging, despairingly, over the sharpened stakes. The Bone Wearer raised a hand, blue light streamed from it and the man fell with a scream of pure terror.

He still didn't find his longed-for death on the vicious splintered wood. A blast of azure power from Lizardskin shoved the islander sideways through the air, to leave him sprawled, motionless, on the sand. The Bone Wearer's head snapped round and he shouted at Lizardskin before going over to the islander and kicking him. The Chazen man didn't react and the Bone Wearer examined him more closely. He stood up, one hand knotted in the islander's hair, shaking the body to display a plainly broken neck, laughing derisively at Lizardskin.

Lizardskin shut his mouth with a slap of blue mage-light across the face. The Bone Wearer was knocked clean off his feet, breastplate clattering, and several white shards falling from his hair. Scrambling on to his knees, he swept a hand towards Lizardskin and ochre light surged through the sand. Lizardskin disappeared in a whirling cloud of dust shot through with amber flashes. The Bone Wearer got to his feet and laughed.

'What are they doing?' quavered Risala.

'Duelling,' Dev said with slow fascination.

The Bone Wearer stopped laughing, looking down, face twisted with fury and rapid thought. The sand around his feet was glowing with a dark, mossy light and he was sinking into it. Knee deep inside a few breaths, he thrust his hands downward and the greenish radiance fled. As it did, the storm of sand around Lizardskin exploded to reveal the panting mage within scored with countless gashes. He flung a handful of raw blue light at the Bone Wearer, which bowled across the sand scooping up razor-edged shell fragments. Some rattled against the other mage's breastplate, more cut deep into his naked arms and legs. The Bone Wearer swept his hands around like a man brushing away flies and the blue light vanished. He brushed sweat from his forehead, glaring at Lizardskin.

'Is it over?' Risala asked hopefully.

'They don't think so.' Dev nodded at the savages all prudently retreating, some to the shelter of the ditch along with the captive islanders or back towards the boat in the shallows. The only person unperturbed was Feathercloak. He stood, arms folded inside his bright mantle, head slightly inclined with a nimbus of protective magic shimmering around him.

Lizardskin walked around the Bone Wearer in a slow circle, one hand raised, palm outwards and fingers spread. The Bone Wearer pivoted where he stood, always keeping Lizardskin in view. He held his hands in front of his breastplate, palms pressed together. Greenish light dripped from Lizardskin's hand and vanished into the ground. Mist began gathering around the Bone Wearer's feet, dense and white. The Bone Wearer laughed and swept the nascent fog away with gusts of sapphire-tinted breeze.

The mist cleared but the sand beneath the Bone Wearer's feet wasn't mossy with magic summoned from water but suffused with an amber light that suddenly glowed bronze. The Bone Wearer screamed as he found himself up to his ankles in furnace heat. He lashed at the ground with his azure magic, sending gouts of molten sand glittering through the air, trailing spider's-web tendrils of glass. The searing missiles skittered across the sand, some scoring deep wounds in Lizardskin's legs, but the wild mage didn't falter, hate-filled eyes fixed on the Bone Wearer.

A column of flame erupted from the sand encircling the Bone Wearer. The fire roared, choking off his agonised scream, brightening to a white heat inside a few breaths. Abruptly as it had arisen, the blaze disappeared, leaving only a slowly twisting pillar of pale grey ash sinking to the sand. The mage in the lizard-skin cloak fell to his hands and knees, his eyes turned apprehensively to Feathercloak.

The savage wizard in the bright feathers walked slowly over to the pitiful heap of ash. Crouching, he took up a handful, letting it sift through his fingers. There wasn't so much as a splinter of bone left. He laughed, the ringing sound shocking in the frozen silence. Walking over towards Lizardskin, he offered the younger mage his hand. Lizardskin took it, rising stiffly to his feet, pride struggling through the pain of his burns.

Feathercloak summoned the underling who'd been entrusted with the coffer of acceptable loot. After a brief exchange, Lizardskin clapped a hand on the underling's shoulder and turned him around to face the people on the beach, his gesture eloquent. The invaders' bows to their new leader were immediate and fervent, followed by cheering and clapping, some drumming on the hard ground with their spears. Those who'd come with Feathercloak joined in the celebration, welcoming Lizardskin with laughter and smiles.

'You'd think he'd treated them all to a feast instead of burned a man to death with magic,' muttered Risala, revolted.

Lizardskin basked in the applause for a few moments before prostrating himself before Feathercloak in abject obeisance. Feathercloak nodded, content, and threw a shimmer of light across Lizardskin's prone body. The lesser wizard scrambled to his feet, the raw, sand-encrusted burns that had disfigured his legs entirely vanished.

'That's a good trick if you can do it,' murmured Dev, forgetting himself.

Fortunately, Risala was still transfixed by the scene before her. She jumped as a whip cracked. Spurred into action, the savages punished the bound column of aged islanders for sinking to their knees with brutal kicks and harsh blows. Feathercloak ignored all this, returning to his boat. He didn't bother with his bridge of patterned light, simply sweeping his mantle around himself and taking one long step to travel through the air and arrive dry-footed on the rough deck. Lizardskin splashed through the sea to join him, clutching the precious coffer of carefully selected plunder to his chest.

'Come on.' Dev retreated rapidly on his hands and knees.

'Where to?' Risala's voice shook as she wriggled backwards.

'They're walking that column of captives along the beach.' Dev kept a careful eye out through the veil of leaves as he began walking towards the shoreline. 'I want to see where they're heading.'

'Why do we want to do that?' Risala stopped, stubborn-faced.

Dev raised his eyebrows. 'Your epic wants a middle and an end as well as a beginning. Folk'll be throwing rotten fruit at you if you can't tell them where the invaders took those prisoners.' He jerked his head towards the beach where the captives were struggling to give as wide a berth as possible to the twisted pavement of glass where the bone-decorated mage had died. 'Where are they taking that loot? I deal in information, girlie, I've told you that. I'll get all the answers I can before sailing north again.'

'We'll neither of us be going north if we're dead and burned to ashes,' protested Risala.

'Go back to the Amigal then.' Dev shrugged. 'I might even come back for you, if I don't just steal another boat.'

'You would too, wouldn't you?' Risala took a reluctant step forward.

'You don't want to bet that I won't.' Dev's smile didn't reach his eyes. 'Come on.'

He led her through the brush at the edge of the forest that cloaked the headland reaching out into the sea. The finger of land narrowed to a tangle of knot trees and Dev began pushing his way through the fleshy leaves towards the water.

'What are you doing?' Risala was shrill with apprehension.

'Stealing a boat.' Dev unsheathed his broad jungle knife. 'Hold this. Get it wet and I'll trade you to a flesh peddler first chance I get.' He handed her the sack of liquor and dream smokes before wading cautiously into the shallows. Ducking down so only his head and knife were visible, he half waded, half swam towards a handful of the little boats Chazen islanders used to tend their floating net frames bobbing at the furthest end of a long rope tethered to the distant shore. Breathing easier once he was in amongst the concealing hulls, sawing through the plaited leather was the work of a moment. A breath of magic gave Dev a boost out of the water and he lay inside the shallow boat, straining to hear any shout of alarm from the shore.

None came. Dev grabbed a paddle, backing the little vessel towards Risala. 'Get in. Careful!' He glowered at her as she almost tipped the boat over.

'Sorry.' She clutched the sides with white knuckles.

Dev threw a paddle at her. 'Set to work.'

Risala knelt, and dug the paddle into the water. She kept glancing towards the distant shore, her strokes going awry.

'Keep your eyes to the front.' Dev wrenched at his own paddle to correct their course.

'But what if they see us?' Risala looked from the beach where the savages were resuming the work on the ditch with shouts and whips to the far side of the bay where the feather-cloaked mage's double-hulled vessel was lazily keeping pace with the captives being driven along the shore.

'We keep well back and they'll just think we're one of their own boats out on some errand,' Dev said scornfully. 'They won't see a difference at this distance.'

Risala opened her mouth to object, then closed it again, resuming her erratic paddling.

Dev made a few sweeping strokes, just enough to maintain the water magic he was using to drive the frail little boat along. He decided on burnishing the air with fire to turn aside any invader's gaze straying in their direction, not the easiest of tasks with the water ceaselessly swirling beneath him and disrupting the elemental heat.

As they cautiously pursued the savages, he considered what he had seen on the beach. The Bone Wearer had been caught unawares with his hands full of enchanted air, too slow to throw it aside for the water that might have saved him when he found himself unexpectedly assaulted with fire. No loss that the fool was dead; there was nothing he could have taught Dev by the looks of it.

Nothing like that duel could ever happen in Hadrumal though. Master mages were always alert for any apprentice tempted to try his newly governed powers in some trial of strength. Such contests were stopped before they could start wherever possible and the consequences of discovery left everyone involved regretting they'd ever entertained the idea.

Cooperation is the only salvation for wizardry. Dev recalled the precept endlessly dinned into every prentice mage's head. The mundane world does not understand wizardry and what it does not understand, it fears. The solitary mage who does not restrain his powers will always fall eventually to the violence of a frightened mob. Dev's lip curled. The wizards of Hadrumal should try living his life for a season. Aldabreshin hatred of magic went far beyond anything felt by the princes and peoples of the mainland.

These wild men didn't seem scared of magic. Their wizards were revered and quite plainly in command. They weren't frightened of using their magic either, not even on each other. Dev gazed into the distance where the many-hulled boat was rounding a spur of sandy beach; the mage's cloak of feathers a bright splash of colour. What could such unrestrained, unashamed magic do for him, back on the mainland, back in Hadrumal?

'It's starting to rain.' Risala shivered as dark spots pattered down on her threadbare tunic.

'You're not made of sand,' said Dev absently. 'You won't get washed away'

A glitter of unearthly blue ahead caught his eye and he abandoned the spell sweeping beneath their hull in order to sharpen his vision. The clouds over the invaders' vessel were pouring a deluge down on Feathercloak and his minions. Not so much as a wisp of the wizard's borrowed plumage was getting wet. The water veered away, streaming into the sea and leaving the boat untouched. Those plodding along the shore were getting soaked, tunics and wraps clinging to the elderly prisoners, sodden dresses and trews hampering their stumbling steps. Their captors strode on unbothered, rain running down their naked skins, smearing their body paint.

'We're in a current or a tide race or something.' Risala hauled on her paddle in alarm but the boat continued to slow.

'Pull to the other side.' Dev suited his actions to his words. As soon as Risala turned her back, he hastily summoned up some magic to send them gliding smoothly through the water once more. In the meantime, the mage in his cloak of feathers had disappeared, his many-hulled boat rounding a rocky point as the column of captives disappeared into the forest.

Dev took a deep breath. Working so many spells was starting to get tiring. That was the other way magic could kill a wizard according to the precepts of Hadrumal. Any mage with ambitions to rule the world would die of exhaustion before he came anywhere close. So they said. Feathercloak didn't look at all wearied to Dev. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on driving the shallow boat past the stony hummocks of the point ahead.

'Oh, Dev.' Risala's paddle trailed uselessly in the water.

The rockier coast here embraced a deeper bay fringed with blue-green corals. A small village had dwelt happily among the nut palms swaying above the white sandy beach where scrubby berry bushes and tandra trees had been cut back for a neat array of vegetable gardens and sailer plots.

This contented order was barely visible behind the massive encampment now sprawling over the beach. Saplings still green with stubs of branches and leaves were driven into the sandy ground and lashed together with plaited vines to form wide corrals. Between these crude prisons, sacks and barrels were piled higher than a man's head, haphazardly roofed with palm fronds against the rains.

'That's enough cargo to fill a fleet of galleys,' Dev concluded with interest. 'Even when our pal in the feathers is being so picky'

'Dev, there are hundreds of them.' Risala gripped her paddle in consternation.

Countless savages took advantage of such shelter as the piles of loot afforded, most in idle relaxation, a few tending reluctant fires. A roar of welcome echoed around the bay as Feathercloak's boat was spotted. It glided serenely into shore, the rainbow haze around it sparkling with arrogant contempt for the persistent rain.

'What now?' Risala demanded. 'If they see us, we're dead or worse.'

'Back behind the headland.' Dev began backing furiously with his paddle. 'We can watch from there.'

Risala needed no urging. They wheeled the shallow little boat around and put the rocky rise between themselves and the horde of invaders. Half lifting, half dragging, they got the boat clear of the lapping seas. Crawling cautiously up the slope on hand and knees, they edged between the jumble of weathered rocks.

Risala looked along the shore to the point where the column of captives had disappeared into the trees. 'This must be where they're taking those poor prisoners. Do you know where we are, exactly, if we're to tell Chazen Saril where to come to rescue them?'

Dev nodded. 'Keep your head down.'

'What can you see?' Risala cowered beneath a rounded overhang where wind-blown lilla leaves and tandra fluff mingled with the sand.

'Give me the spyglass.' Crouched behind a flat table of rock, Dev stretched out a demanding hand. Risala hesitated then handed it over.

'You're right; those prisoners are arriving.' Dev paused to wipe wind-driven raindrops from the glass. 'They're being put into one of those stockades. There are people already there, lots of them,' he added with some surprise. 'All elders and incapables.'

Risala was perplexed. 'Slaves should be young and healthy, if they're to be worth their food and shelter.'

'These people don't seem concerned to keep their captives fit for anything much.' Dev watched the men releasing the newly arrived prisoners. Not a few fell, helpless to avoid merciless kicks. He saw one beaten to stillness before being tossed inside the crude corral.

Risala swallowed audibly. 'You don't suppose they're going to eat them, do you?'

Dev opened his mouth to scorn the notion but shut it again. 'They'd make for cursed tough eating, after a lifetime hoeing sailer plots and hauling fishing nets.'

'What else can you see?' demanded Risala hurriedly. 'How soon can we leave?'

'Feathercloak's taking his chest ashore.' Dev twisted the ring of the spyglass to get a clearer view. 'Young Lizardskin's along to carry it. Now who do you suppose they're going to give it to?'

'Their leader?' Risala suggested, tense. 'The man Chazen Saril will need to kill?'

'For a poet you seem very interested in strategy.' Dev didn't take his eye away from the spyglass 'Well now, who's this?'

'Who?' Frustration brought Risala on to her knees before caution forced her back again.

'Feathercloak and Lizardskin are on their faces before him, so he must be important. He looks much the same as the rest, tall, skinny, hair all stuck together with coloured paint. But he's wearing an incredible cloak.' Dev leaned forward in an unconscious effort to see more clearly.

'How so?' Risala tried in vain to see what he meant but they were too far away.

'It's scales, like our friend in the lizard skin but there's just no comparison,' Dev breathed. 'It's red and polished or lacquered or something, it must be, to shine like that.'

Risala looked at the unbroken blanket of cloud up above. 'How can it be shining with no sun?'

Dev realised the ruby sheen on the rippling hide was magelight. The cloak was a full half circle cut from the belly skin of some massive beast, soft carnelian scales a finger's length or so. Dev swallowed the lump of disbelief in his throat. 'I think it's dragon hide.'

The new mage walked slowly towards Feathercloak and Lizardskin, who were still prostrate, hands outstretched. Rain falling anywhere near vanished into steam suffused with raw elemental fire.

'It can't be,' Risala objected. 'You only find dragons in poems.'

'And the frozen mountains of the unbroken lands,' countered Dev. 'I still say it's dragon hide. Hush, he's looking in the chest.'

'Can you see what they brought him?' Risala edged closer.

'No.' Dev shook his head in disgust and thrust the spyglass at her. 'You try, if you're so keen to see.'

A little confused, Risala nevertheless took the spyglass and turned it eagerly on the encampment on the shore. Dev looked for a puddle. All this rain had to be good for something. A hollow in a rock shone with moisture and Dev shuffled unobtrusively over for a clear view of the water's surface.

'See anything?' he demanded of Risala.

'No, not yet,' she said slowly.

'Try harder,' he told her curtly. He concentrated all his elemental affinity on the water, suppressing every hint of magelight in the scrying. An image floated on the surface like an instant of reflection caught in a sloshing cup and vanished. Dev took a deep breath.

'Fire!' Risala started so violently that she knocked Dev's arm. 'A flash like flames anyway. Some magic, or something.' She cowered as low behind the rock as she could without losing sight of the distant beach.

Ready to mock Risala for panicking at a newly lit cook fire, Dev's sarcasm died on his tongue with a taste like old ashes. In the mirror of the watery hollow, he saw the mage in the dragon hide raise his arms, the ruby iridescence of the cloak growing ever brighter. Magelight flickered in scarlet flames around his upturned hands. Even at this distance, the untamed power buffeted Dev's wizard senses. He gasped as he felt that power sent questing out over land and sea.

'Run!' He sprang to his feet and raced for the little boat. He didn't wait to answer Risala's incoherent questions, barely slowing as a stone sliding away beneath his feet wrenched at his ankle and he barked his shin on a vicious outcrop.

The boulder Dev had rested his elbows on exploded. Gobbets of molten rock shot overhead to fall hissing into the sea or splinter the stones as they landed. The ground shifted and buckled and Dev looked back to see a burning crack gaping where they had crouched on the headland. As he watched, a bright arrowhead of blazing magelight cut rapidly through the ground towards him, a fiery fissure widening behind it.

Risala whimpered frantically as she hauled at the little boat. Dev seized the nearest handhold. Between them they threw the shallow craft into the water, setting it rocking perilously as they leaped inside.

'Put your back into it,' rasped Dev. He thrust them off from a rock with his own paddle.

The magical rift pursuing them reached the water's edge and halted in a cloud of steam. Dev caught his breath on an instant of relief before the sea all around their boat began to seethe and bubble.

Risala snatched her paddle out of the water. 'We're going to be boiled alive,' she wailed.

Dev threw his paddle away and thrust his hands forward, emerald magelight swirling around them. Ignoring Risala's horror-struck face, he gripped the sides of the boat. The green radiance crawled outwards to form a lattice over the surface of the wood. As his magic touched the water, Dev realised there wasn't any fire magic beneath their hull. The water wasn't boiling; something was stirring it up. A roiling confusion of earth and water enchantments was rising beneath them.

Risala screamed as a glaucous grey tentacle slapped across the boat in front of her. Another came up on her other side and the two began twining together. She hammered at the writhing knot with her paddle blade but more tendrils came to join it. 'Dev!' Her panic rose to a tearing shriek as more tentacles poured over the side of the boat and began curling around her legs. Thick slime glistened on her feet, pooling in the bottom of the boat. She wrenched at a slippery grey feeler trying to coil around her wrist, freeing herself with an audible ripping sound. Livid sucker marks marred her skin.

Dev sat motionless, feeling this enchantment, whatever it was, leeching the magic from his own working, sucking at the elemental power he had summoned from the water. This unknown sorcery wasn't only leaving him powerless, it was using the stolen magic to feed the abomination attacking them. He looked over the side of the boat into the foaming sea where countless pallid, boneless limbs were emerging from the depths. Wherever the blind greedy fingers touched his magic, the green light faded to nothingness. Thrusting his hands to the air he summoned the fire that had always been the foundation of his power, flames dancing on his palms. A moment later, the scarlet light vanished, mercilessly snuffed.

A cracking sound silenced Risala's frantic screams. The little boat shuddered as the soft tentacles suddenly stuck fast to the solid wood. They pulled and cracks appeared between Dev's feet. Sea water flooded the narrow hull, trails of slime floating free.

'Give me your hand!' As Dev reached for Risala, the tentacles quivered and ripped the boat to splinters with a mighty convulsion. He fell into the water, struggling to keep his head out of the spume and slime, lashing out at the loathsome touch of the grey tendrils on his arms and legs. Risala's despairing sob ended in a gurgle as something pulled her below the waves.

Dev kicked out madly at the smooth slipperiness curling around his feet, pushing in all directions to keep from being entangled. Taking a breath as best he could, he dived down, fighting his way through the water. The treacherous tendrils slid away before curling back to try winding around his arms. His fist hit something solid. He grabbed for it. Not wood, nor sea monster, it was firm yet flesh. It had to be Risala. Inheld breath burning in his chest, Dev looked upwards and turned every inborn instinct of magic within him to the sky.

They hit the deck of the Amigal with a thud that left him gasping. Risala sprawled beside him, her face invisible beneath the clinging mass of her sodden hair. Dev dragged himself to his knees and rolled the girl over on to her front, scraping the hair away.

'Breathe, curse you,' he rasped. Seizing her around the waist, he raised her hips. A spasm of coughing racked her and she began vomiting water and slime. Dev used one of the mast ropes to haul himself upright. This was no time for subtlety. He scattered the branches that had hidden the little ship with sweeps of sapphire magic, all the while hurrying to rig the sail.

'Help me,' he snarled at Risala. 'Otherwise we're both dead. Get the anchors aboard.'

Dragging herself to her feet, she half climbed, half fell over the rail, ashen-faced and her wide eyes bloodshot. She stumbled along the muddy bank, dragging the anchors with the last of her strength. Dev set the sail flapping loosely around the mast. The wind that had brought them to this inlet blew steadily onshore.

'Take the tiller,' Dev ordered, scooping up the anchors with a flurry of azure light.

Risala shied away from it with a fearful inarticulate cry.

'Get aboard and steer the cursed boat.' He glared at her.

Risala stood, frozen for an endless moment before scrambling over the rail, whimpering with terror as she gripped the tiller as if that alone could save her.

Dev turned his attention to filling the sail with a breeze strong enough to drive the Amigal out of its hiding place. He reached for the water beneath the hull but it slipped away from him, cold and unresponsive. Water magic was entirely beyond him, antithetical to the elemental fire where his inborn affinity lay.

The Amigal lurched and shuddered her way out into open water. Risala hauled this way and that on the tiller, staring panic-stricken in all directions.

Dev sank to the deck, back against the mast, legs outstretched in front of him, face to the prow. He realised with distant surprise that his feet and ankles were ringed with sucker marks. 'I'll get us as far as I can,' he said, not looking back. 'Then it'll be up to you. Try and get us to the Daish domain at very least. I'll have to sleep.' Exhaustion so deep his very bones ached threatened to overwhelm him. He fought it, looking up into the billows of the sail, concentrating on summoning the wind to carry them forward against the natural currents of the air.

'What did you do?' choked Risala from the stern.

'Translocation,' he answered hoarsely. A particularly draining spell, granted, but even allowing for the other magic he'd been working, it shouldn't have left him this enfeebled.

'You're a wizard as well.' Risala's voice shook with loathing.

'You want me to throw you back to wrestle that monster?' snarled Dev.

'I won't sail with a wizard.' The girl's voice was harsh with fright.

'Suit yourself.' Dev knotted his fingers tight together, welcoming the pain as it quelled the trembling in his hands. 'Don't think of betraying me to anyone though. Any warlord looking to skin me will want me to talk first. I'll happily oblige if it means your death along with mine. Enough people have seen you with me this last run of the moons. I'll say you're my apprentice, that you sought me out to learn all the magic you could. You'll be hunted from one end of the Archipelago to the other.' Speaking was such an effort he abandoned it, turning what little vigour remained to him to the enchanted breeze, to carrying them away from that murderous wizard in his dragon-hide cloak.

'It was all lies, wasn't it? I asked you and you lied to me. The way you claimed to know all the currents, all the wind patterns, all your boasts about the secrets of sailing south into the face of the rains? It was just magic, wasn't it? What else have you done?' Risala's questions came in ragged gasps. 'What other magic have you worked to taint innocent people and places? What are you seeking in these reaches? Are you working for some barbarian king or has some warlord betrayed his birthright to turn your evil to his advantage?'

Dev ignored her. As the Amigal escaped the windward shore, Risala steered desperately to catch the natural breezes. The full-bellied sail pushed the little ship faster through the water. Dev realised belatedly it had stopped raining.

'I suppose I should thank you for saving me.' Risala forced the words out eventually.

'That wasn't about saving you.' There was an edge of hysteria in Dev's mockery. 'That was not letting him win.'

When he woke, he was lying in darkness on the floor of the aft cabin, the canvas of his hammock loosely draped over him. After a moment of stiff shock, he relaxed, propping himself up one elbow. The ship rocked with the gentle motion of a sheltered anchorage and he realised he could feel the sea streaming slowly along the hull with his usual wizard senses. He had recovered that much magic.

'Risala?' There was no reply. Reaching out with his inborn talent for fire, he lit the lamp hanging from the beam above him. Tossing the canvas aside, Dev got slowly and painfully to his feet. They were still sore where the obscene tentacles had fastened around them, the marks livid and puffy.

'Risala?' He realised her pathetic belongings were gone. Taking the lantern from its hook, he hobbled into the main hold and along the fore cabin. Everything was as it should be. At least the bitch hadn't robbed him, though the loss of the sack he'd taken ashore was a heavy blow to bear, he thought sourly.

Climbing the ladder and throwing open the hatch took more effort than Dev liked, but once on deck he breathed more easily. The Amigal was securely anchored by one of the Daish domain's lesser trading islets, deserted now as it had been on their voyage south.

Dev nodded with grudging admiration. He wouldn't have thought Risala had it in her to find the way back to the place. He looked at the empty white sand, gilded with the last gleam of sunset, and wondered where the girl had gone.