Southern Fire

Chapter Two

Telouet's urgent hand shook Kheda out of a dreamless sleep. Fists clenched, he was ready to fight until the warm quilts reminded him he was safe in Janne's bed, his startled wife rousing beside him.

'Is it Sain?' He brushed Telouet's hand away, sitting up and reaching for his trousers. 'The baby?'

Janne yawned. 'What is it?'

'Beacons, my lord.' Telouet stood tense, half crouched in the shadow, one hand on a sword hilt.

'Where from?' Kheda scrubbed a hand over his beard as a surge of concern brought him fully awake. 'How many?'

'From the south. All of them.' Telouet's dark eyes were rimmed with white as he handed Kheda his tunic.

Janne threw aside the quilts, catching up a robe to cover her nakedness. 'Birut!' Her slave was already opening the far door with his shoulder, buckling a silver-studded belt around his mail hauberk. 'Wake Hanyad. He's to take Sain to Rekha's pavilion. I'll go straight to the children.' She turned to look at Kheda. 'Be careful.'

'Where's Rembit?' Kheda pulled his crumpled tunic over his head.

'With Serno.' Telouet followed Kheda out of the pavilion and down the steps to the compound. 'Wait here while I get your armour.'

Every light and brazier had been doused. The warm night was scented with smoke. Kheda saw his smoothfaced steward talking intently with Serno, commander of the compound's guards. Above their heads, armoured men lined the parapet with steel, naked swords gleaming in the moonlight. Archers held bows, black curves in the moonlight, peering out for any target careless enough to betray itself. The boy each archer had in training scurried behind his mentor, loaded with sheaves of arrows with various heads for piercing armour or ripping flesh. Serno nodded, slid the pierced faceplate of his helm down and secured it with a twist of the fastening before turning to climb a ladder to the upper walkway. Rembit went to direct slaves and servants ferrying water casks and chests, some up on to the parapet, others over to Rekha's pavilion.

All's as it should be. You saw every medicine casket had its salves and bandages before you set sail. There'll be water and food to sustain the men if this turns out to be a lengthy vigil. But what are we watching for?

'Father!' Armoured in bronze-studded, purple-dyed leather, Sirket arrived at Kheda's side, eyes uneasy beneath a brow beaded with perspiration.

Kheda glanced at his son and apprehension twisted his stomach.

You could have settled on an adequate body slave for the boy. Then he'd be raised to full manhood, armoured in chain-mail rather than the coat of a thousand nails. Mesil could have that honour now.

As he thought this, Telouet reappeared, dumping his burden on the ground with a wordless exclamation. 'Let's get you armoured, my lord.' He took Kheda's hand and thrust it into the sleeve of a padded jacket.

Kheda shrugged the garment on and reached for his chainmail. Bronze links worked a lattice pattern through mail wrought of links barely bigger than baby Mie's thumbnail. Solid metal plates inset front and back to protect Kheda's vitals were chased with gold that gleamed in the moonlight. Kheda thrust his hands inside and took the weight on his arms before ducking his head to shrug the mail on. The hauberk jingled softly as it slid down his body and Kheda cursed silently as the shifting links plucked hairs from his head.

'Do we have any word from the south? Any messenger birds?' He took the broad belt that Telouet held out, buckling it tight to his hips to relieve the weight of the armour on his shoulders.

'Not yet.' Telouet knelt to secure Kheda's sword belt around his waist.

Sirket bent to pick up Kheda's helm, making sure the cotton lining was smooth before handing it over.

'Go to the bird tower,' Kheda told his son. 'Bring me any word as soon as it arrives.'

Sirket nodded mute obedience and took to his heels. Kheda thrust his gold-ornamented helmet firmly on his head and pulled the dagged chainmail veil forward around his shoulders to secure its front clasp. The pierced faceplate was still locked on its sliding bar above his forehead but, other than that, he was now armoured in steel from head to knee. In the humid heat of the night, sweat immediately started prickling between his shoulder blades.

'My lord?' Telouet proffered leather leggings with their own intricately decorated metal plates to foil blade or arrowhead.

Kheda shook his head. 'I don't need those on the battlements.'

Telouet scowled but didn't press the point, following Kheda up on to the parapet where one of Serno's men steadied the ladder.

'First things first.' That's what Daish Reik always taught you. That's the wisdom that brought him safely through two invasions of the rainy-season residence. But what peril could be coming from the south?

Kheda looked out to sea. The moons made shimmering damask of the lagoon where the island's fishermen were taking to their boats, cutting tethers in their haste to lose themselves in the night before any disaster fell upon them. Beyond, the great galley was slowly turning along its length, oars cutting luminous trails in the water. As the broad vessel with its single row of oars hurried to abandon the sheltering reef in favour of flight to the north and safety, the longer, leaner shape of a trireme appeared, questing prow and bronze-sheathed ram turned to the south. More would soon be following, that was certain.

Beacons blazed on the closest islet, barely more than a reef itself but ideally placed to see in all directions. Kheda counted the lights. Telouet was right. Every island to the south was reporting some calamity.

What can be happening? All the flames are burning natural gold. So it's calamity but not some identifiable evil to prompt signal fires coloured to an agreed hue. That means it's not invasion, fire or flood, not sudden sickness or some infestation with vermin.

Kheda glanced up at the sky. There was no hint anywhere in the heavens, no shooting stars to scar the night, no unexpected blemish disfiguring either moon.

'Father!' Sirket scrambled awkwardly up the ladder, clutching a handful of little silver cylinders. Telouet grabbed the lad's hand and hauled him bodily up on to the parapet.

Kheda snatched one of the metal tubes and began unscrewing the end caps. 'Telouet, get some light.'

'Not up here, you don't,' the slave rebuked him robustly.

Kheda stared at him for a moment before realising what he had said. 'A dark lantern then. Hurry.' He dropped to his knees, unfurling the fine roll of paper below the shelter of the battlements, squinting to make out the crabbed writing in the moonlight.

Sirket hissed in exasperation as he studied a curling slip. 'This one's from Gelim but it's in cipher.' He reached for another.

Kheda could just make out the words on the paper he held. 'Chazen boats arrive. Men, women, children. They flee unknown disaster.' He looked for the identifier at the end of the perplexing message. It had come from the central message-bird tower on Dekul.

Whatever this cataclysm may be, its ripples are lapping at the southern and westernmost of my domain's islands.

'Father.' Sirket was peering at another message in the grudging light of the dark lantern Telouet had procured from somewhere. 'Chazen Saril has seized the Hyd Rock with five triremes.'

'Why would they do that?' Kheda frowned.

'Chazen Shas made a bid for the pearl reefs east of the Andemid shoals in Daish Reik's day,' Sirket said dubiously.

'Pearl reefs have some value. The Hyd Rock is a barren lump but for a brackish pool fringed with stunted palms. That's why Daish Reik designated it a neutral anchorage for galleys travelling between our two domains,' Kheda reminded him.

'Is it an invasion?' wondered Sirket.

'Not if the whole population is fleeing.' Kheda handed his son the message he had just read. 'There was no word from Chazen while I was away, was there? No hint of a quarrel?'

'No!' Sirket insisted. 'I'd have told you.'

'And they know we could drive their warriors back into the sea without breaking a sweat,' said Telouet robustly.

'Bring that lamp closer.' The next message was unhelpfully smudged and Kheda reached out to raise the dark lantern's smoked glass slide a little.

'Chazen is invaded from the south. They bring wounded and beg sanctuary.' That was from one of the message towers on Nagel, the largest isle in the southern reach of the Daish domain. 'What's south of Chazen?' Kheda wondered aloud, slowly lowering the fragile paper weighted with such ominous words.

'South of Chazen?' Telouet looked at him with surprise.

Sirket shook his head, mystified. 'Nothing but ocean.'

Kheda handed him the message. 'Then what do you make of this?'

'Invaded?' Telouet was peering over the lad's shoulder. 'Then they'd be holding the Hyd Rock to stop whoever it is coming any further north.'

Kheda sorted through the rest of the messages. 'These all tell much the same tale: Chazen domain is beset from the south. We'd better break the coded one, even if all it says is the same. Sirket, get a bucket of embers from the kitchen cook fire. Bring it to the observatory tower.'

'Yes, Father.' Visibly confused, the youth nevertheless hurried off without question. Kheda followed him down the ladder.

'If we're going outside the gates, you wear your leggings.' Telouet thrust the heavy leather at him as soon as they set foot on the ground.

'Yes, master.' Kheda pulled the hateful things on with a grimace. The weight of the metal plates dragged at his feet as he followed Telouet towards the small postern gate on the landward side of the compound, his toes uncomfortably confined by the hard leather.

Look on the bright side. You don't have to worry about snakes if you're clumping along like some booted barbarian.

Unhampered by his own leggings, Telouet drew his swords and ran ahead to the knot of swordsmen poised by the postern.

'We're going to the augury tower,' Kheda said tersely. The chief of the guards drew the bolts on the gate and threw it open. His men rushed through, spreading out, ready to meet any threat. Telouet waited, standing between his lord and any unseen danger.

A noise behind turned Kheda's head and he saw Sirket running beside a kitchen servant who was carrying an iron bowl of live coals held tight between two lengths of firewood.

'Stay behind me.' Kheda drew his own sword.

Could this just be some ploy, to throw us all into confusion, to let some killer slip ashore unnoticed? I doubt it, but regardless, no assassin reaches Sirket while I am lord of this domain.

They ran past silent houses, shutters closed, doors swinging, a few fallen garments here and there, a scattering of broken crockery crunching under the guards' heavy-soled sandals. Relief tempered Kheda's apprehension.

Your people are safe, fled to the secret forest gullies and hidden mountain caves where everything they might need waits in sealed pots and metal chests proof against rot and insect.

The night beneath the trees was a lattice of black shadow and white moonlight. The swordsmen fanned out to either side, but met no hidden foe. Telouet scanned the path ahead, armour chinking softly as they ran. Nothing moved in the darkness beyond a few startled night birds, fluttering from swaying bushes. The solid blackness of the observatory soon loomed above them.

'Who goes there?' the tower guard challenged.

'Daish Kheda!' Several swordsmen echoed Telouet's bold declaration.

'Stand forth and be recognised.' The guard lifted a cautious half-shuttered lantern before bowing low.

Kheda sheathed his sword to unlock the door of the tower. 'Telouet, keep watch up above. Sirket, take the fire into the lower room. We are not to be disturbed.' Kheda took the guard's lantern and went in, leaving the doorway to the assembled swordsmen.

A vast circular table dominated the round room at the bottom of the tower. Sirket looked across it to his father, the glow from the embers he was holding casting mysterious shadows up on to his face. 'What do we do now?' His voice was tense, his hands steady.

Kheda smiled encouragement. 'Light the brazier.' He touched a spill to the glowing coals and went to light the lamps set in sconces around the wall. Then he took off his helm and rubbed a grateful hand through his sweaty hair.

As Sirket busied himself with a small iron fire-basket set on a slate plinth below the window, Kheda took a fine gold chain from around his neck and found the key to unlock a tall cupboard recessed into the wall. Inside, narrow boxes of iron wood with looped brass handles were packed tight. Kheda removed one and set it on the table.

Sirket looked up from tipping the live coals on to a bed of charcoal. 'Mesil was saying we should keep the keys to the ciphers inside the compound. An invader could take this tower before attacking us.'

'If invaders ever set foot on one of our residence islands, we abandon every cipher we've ever used and start with a clean sheet of paper.' Kheda unlocked the box. 'I worry about spies more than invaders in the ordinary course of things. Too many people come and go through the compound, even if they have to pass Serno and his men to do it. Up here, it's easier to see someone skulking where he's no business and only you and I hold keys to this place.'

Leafing through papers in the box, he pulled out the single sheet that hid the particular variant of the cipher agreed with the Gelim bird master woven in a cryptic riddle of its own. Kheda quickly translated the simple message. Then he did it again. He took a deep breath and studied every encoded character and its counterpart in turn. The message remained the same.

'Those of Chazen flee magic. They beg for sanctuary or a clean death as you may decree.'

'What does the Gelim message say?'

Kheda looked up from a fruitless attempt to wring a different meaning from the words to see Sirket using a small bellows at the base of the fire-basket. The lad's face was running with sweat.

What can you read in my face?

'I'm not sure.' Kheda walked round the table to throw the screw of paper on to the charcoal where it flared into ash.

Such a suspicion cannot be left for another to read, not even my son. Not till it's proved beyond doubt. That Gelim's spokesman ever wrote such a thing, even in cipher, is bad-enough.

Kheda took another deep breath but could still feel the blood pulsing in his throat. 'Let's see what fire and jewels can tell us.' He returned to the cabinet and removed a small box from a top shelf.

'Father?' Faint alarm coloured Sirket's curiosity as he took a highly polished sheet of brass from a hook on the wall and laid it on top of the coals.

'Pay close attention.' Kheda smiled reassurance as he opened the little box to reveal gemstones shining softly in the lamplight. 'This is a divination only to be used on the most serious occasions.' He threw a scatter of uncut jewels on to the warming metal. They rolled and slid, irregular shapes polished to reveal their natural beauty.

'Take heed where they move in relation to the earthly compass and the arcs of the heavens,' Kheda said softly. 'Watch for any change in colour.' He pulled a sheet of paper towards him and took up a reed pen; ink ready to hand on the table.

Sirket glanced involuntarily at the window to check the stars. Kheda didn't look away from the stones. He closed his ears to the low voices outside the door, to the sounds of the night beyond, ignoring the stifling heat of the room.

As the metal grew hotter, the gems began to move. An emerald shifted furtively, edging towards the north. A yellow spinel startled them both by suddenly rolling on to its side where it knocked into an amethyst.

'What does it mean?' Sirket asked breathlessly.

Kheda kept his eyes on the stones, not looking at the notes he was making. A few blots wouldn't alter their meaning. A sapphire was sitting motionless to one side. Was it his imagination or was that blue darkening? A small topaz danced over towards the east. Kheda studied a ruby as it rocked slowly to and fro.

'Go up above and read the sky for me,' he said slowly. 'Read the cardinal square and then draw a triangle from the south.'

That's where the trouble's coming from. Let's see what you make of it.

'As you wish, my father.' Sirket set his jaw and left the room.

Kheda was still watching the gemstones.

Yes, that sapphire is definitely getting darker. That's an ill omen; some powerful man threatens them. The ruby and the emerald together like that speak plainly of evil to the south. It's an evil that spinel, gem of innocence, fears so much it seeks the shelter of the amethyst. So the Daish domain will need trusted allies. But that topaz warns of treachery. Treachery coming from Chazen or betrayal by some carrion lizard like Ulla Safar'i Diamond, carnelian and moonstone are all unhelpfully still and mute.

Kheda scooped the gems back into their box with a fold of reed paper. Finding a square of soft leather in a drawer in the table, he used it to lift the brass plate from the coals and hang it back on its hook.

What now? The sky gave no hint earlier so, realistically, it's unlikely Sirket will see anything new. Reading the flight of Janne's birds is the obvious next step but that will have to wait for dawn. Almost every divination needs daylight, doesn't it? Moonlight's too chancy to use for reading omens when such a potent danger as magic is suspected. Is that significant in itself, that all other means of enquiry are barred to you? Of course it is. You must go and see what's happening for yourself.

Kheda rapidly returned everything to the cabinet and locked it securely. Catching up his helm and crossing to the door, he hailed one of the swordsmen who'd escorted him. 'Tell Serno to signal the Scorpion in to shore.' That was the only ship he would want carrying him south if there was even the possibility this rumour of magic was true. 'Signal them to pick up Atoun.'

As the man ran off, Kheda shouted up the stairwell. 'Telouet! Sirket!'

'My lord?' The slave's voice echoed down from the top of the tower.

'Come down here.' Kheda turned to the remaining guards. 'You three, we need a deer calf. Find a game trail and don't come back till you've got one.'

One of the men he'd designated glanced up to the dark bulk of the mountains, the chainmail fringing his helm jingling. 'The deer won't stir till first light. Will that be soon enough?'

'Bring it to the compound.' Kheda nodded as Telouet appeared on the stairs, Sirket behind him. 'My son will read the entrails.' He glanced up at Sirket and smiled at the youth's startled face. 'You've stood beside me often enough. You can do it. Was there anything new in the sky?'

'The triune reading showed nothing at all.' Sirket all but spat his frustration. 'The Canthira Tree's in the arc of fear and foe but there's nothing else there to hint at what we might be wise to fear. The Spear rides in the arc of death and passion but there's no heavenly jewel anywhere close, nothing to give any hints as to where to concentrate our own strength or what violence our enemies might be threatening us with.'

Is that absence significant in itself? All our divinations tie us to the threads of past and future, as we discern patterns in the events that have brought us to this present and chart their unseen unfolding for our better guidance. There's no force disturbs the natural order of such things so completely as the foulness of magic.

Aware that everyone was watching him closely, Kheda smiled, unhurried. 'We're done here. Get rid of the fire and lock up, Sirket. You three, escort my son to the compound when he's ready' He turned and began walking down the path to the compound, Telouet at his side.

'Why does Sirket have to read the deer calf's entrails?' demanded Telouet.

'Because we're taking a ship to the south.' Kheda walked rapidly on feet unpleasantly moist in the muffling leather of his leggings. He could feel the clothes beneath his armour soaked in sweat.

'Is that what that message asked you to do?' Telouet asked warily.

'I read some complex omens in this.' Kheda's tone dared the slave to challenge his evasion. He halted at a fork in the path. 'I'm going straight down to the beach to wait for the Scorpion. Fetch me a few clothes, nothing too elaborate. Tell Janne and Rekha I'll send a message bird as soon as I have news.'

Telouet stood stubbornly still. 'My lady Janne won't like the idea of you heading south without a clearer idea of the perils there.'

'Then you can be grateful that she's not a woman like Chay Ulla who takes a lash to any passing slave if something displeases her.' Kheda grinned at Telouet.

The slave didn't smile back. 'She'll slap your face for you when we get back, if she thinks you deserve it.'

'Not for the first time,' agreed Kheda wryly. 'Which is why I'm going to be waiting on the beach while she's securely locked in the compound.'

Telouet shut his mouth on further protest and turned on his heel. Kheda took the other path and soon reached the beach. The hurrying feet of fishermen racing for their boats had churned the fine white sand. There was no one to be seen now; even the little lamps above the hanging nets had been doused. Kheda walked slowly along the strand, looking for anything unusual cast up on the shore, any sign of unseasonal activity by the crabs or the other denizens of the lagoon.

All that was, all that is and all that shall be are indivisible. We dwell in the present but everything we see, we see in the invisible light of what has gone before. The future can be illuminated by that radiance if we see how it is struck from the facets of nature. We must learn to see every separate sign and interpret its meaning for the whole.'

They had been standing on this very beach when his father had spoken those words. Daish Reik had heaved a large stone high above his head before hurling it into the air. All the children had cheered as it crashed into the water.

'You think that stone is gone? Not at all; you just cannot see it sunk in the sand. But you can see the sand clouding the water. You can see the ripples running across the lagoon. Look at those ripples. Those tell you that net frame over there will soon be shaken. If it's not anchored safely, it might even drift loose. If you realise that in time, you might be able to pull in the nets, strengthen the knots, shelter it with a skiff in the water.'

'But how would we know what to do for the best?' Kheda remembered asking.

His father had tousled his hair. 'That's a lesson for another day.'

Have you learned your lessons well, now that everyone's fate depends on how you judge these ripples spreading up from the Chazen domain? Is your father trying to tell you something through that memory? What would Daish Reik have done? That's no puzzle. He'd have gathered all the information he could and then acted more quickly than anyone was expecting.

Khedq looked0out over the lagoon to see the ¼em>ScorôionIs there an omen there? The scorpion foretells chastisement, bitter retribution for arrogance. It's certainly my duty to punish anyone who'd bring the foulness of magic into my domain.

He watched a small boat emerge from the trireme's shadow and row for the shore.

'My lord.' Telouet came running on to the beach just as the little boat grounded in the shallows. 'My lady Janne is most unhappy about this.' He let a securely tied pack slide to the ground.

'My lady Janne does not make such decisions for the domain,' said Kheda tersely.

Telouet didn't relent. 'Why can't we wait for couriers to bring clear news? Chazen Saril will surely be sending an emissary. He cannot want war with us.' He thrust a water skin at Kheda. 'Drink, my lord.'

Kheda considered his reply as he gratefully quenched his thirst. 'The Gelim headman says they're fleeing magic,' he told Telouet simply. 'I have to see for myself and quickly'

Telouet stood silent, mouth half open, then abruptly snatched up the pack and strode to the water's edge. 'Right, you sluggards, put your backs into it! Let's get aboard.'

It won't do to vent your feelings on hapless oarsmen, however much you envy Telouet that release. Daish Reik taught you better than that.

Kheda climbed into the little rowing boat. Besides, his slave's disrespect was enough to spur the rowers to carry them to the waiting trireme with impressive speed. Once aboard, he hurried to the stern platform.

'My lord.' The shipmaster was waiting in front of the twin tillers that governed the pair of great stern oars guiding the lean ship's course.

'Jatta, set a course for Nagel,' Kheda ordered tersely.

'Nagel?' The commander of the domain's swordsmen stood beside the shipmaster, newly arrived himself from one of the heavy triremes now visible just beyond the surf-crested reef that guarded the island's anchorage.

'Later, Atoun.' Kheda interrupted the heavyset warrior with an apologetic wave. Atoun fell silent, dark eyes alert beneath thick brows still black as jet for all his wiry hair and beard were greying. His muscles were still as hard as any man's twenty years his junior. Of an age with Janne, his experience had proved invaluable to the domain time and again. His presence reassured Kheda until he wondered how the warrior would react to an assault by magic.

'Let's be about it!' The tall shipmaster in his long robe snapped his fingers at the helmsman waiting in his seat set just forward of the upswept curve of the sternposts.

He waved to the rowing master waiting down in the gangway running the length of the ship, a black gash separating the two halves of the upper deck that hid the three ranks of rowers below. At the rowing master's command, the piper sitting amidships sounded the warning note that brought every oar up and ready. At the cane flute's next sound, every blade crashed into the water and Kheda felt the vessel surge beneath him.

'My lord.' Telouet appeared at Kheda's side with a small wicker cage.

'Thank you.' Kheda took it and descended the steep stair down to the gangway, walking rapidly forward to the steps leading up to the bow platform. As he skirted the piper sitting on the wooden block where the mast could be stepped, toiling oarsmen glanced sideways as their lord passed, their eyes a curious gleam beneath the shadow of the deck.

Kheda paused to smile at the rowing master who was as always roving up and down the gangway. 'I want to reach Nagel by dawn.'

'We'll do it in one pull, won't we, boys?' The rowing master smiled encouragement at the oarsmen as the piper signalled a slightly faster rate with his flute.

The ten men of the sail crew waited calmly beneath the shelter of the bow platform, ready to rig the mast or take a turn at an oar. The bow master bowed a dutiful head to Kheda as he took the steps up to the platform narrowing to the vessel's sharp beak. Up above, the vessel's guard of ten swordsmen sat patiently on the unrailed side decks, scanning the sea in all directions. The four archers were gathered on the bow platform for a brief discussion before separating to keep watch on either side at prow and stern. Each carried a full quiver of arrows for all potential enemies and signalling besides.

Opening the little wicker cage, Kheda caught the augury dove within with a careful hand. The little white bird blinked with confusion but rested calmly enough as he drew it out and threw it high into the air.

Where will it fly? Will it condemn this voyage before it's even started?

The dove wheeled above his head, fluttering awkwardly, bemused by the darkness. Then it dipped abruptly down and headed straight back to the cages stowed in the carpenter's domain beneath the stern platform. Kheda heard the rearmost rowers chuckling.

The rowing master came forward, looking up from the lower gangway with a broad grin. 'It wants to be let back into the cage with the rest of them.'

'No help there then,' muttered Telouet.

'A sign that we should reserve judgement,' Kheda said firmly, descending the steps and striding back down the length of the trireme.

Atoun was waiting impatiently on the stern platform. 'What's happening in Nagel that we need to make a night voyage?' He glanced out to sea where the heavy triremes with the best of the domain's warriors were waiting. The Scorpion was both narrower and shorter, a fast trireme designed for ramming, not for carrying or landing a fighting force.

'Chazen boats are coming ashore in some number,' Kheda explained. 'Bringing men, women and children. I want to know why.'

'It's no invasion, not at this season,' said Atoun with a decisive shake of his square-jawed head. 'Chazen Saril might be a fool but his warriors wouldn't follow him into a campaign that would bog down in the rains before it was halfway done.'

'It seems the Chazen people are fleeing some calamity,' Kheda said carefully. 'It seems to be coming from the south.'

'There must be some confusion. There's nothing to the south of Chazen.' The shipmaster Jatta moved to join them, a head taller than all three other men. 'I've heard Moni Redigal would dearly love some turtle shell trade of her own,' he added. Atoun wore his hair and beard cropped close as befitted a fighting man but Jatta favoured narrow braids for both in the manner of elder islanders and village spokesmen.

'She can go on wanting,' Telouet said robustly. 'Redigal Coron would never launch an invasion just to please her.'

'Chazen Saril doesn't have an heir of age of discretion,' Kheda remarked thoughtfully.

'Which always makes a domain vulnerable,' nodded Atoun.

'A domain that's worth having.' Jatta pursed sceptical lips. 'What's Chazen got that anyone would want so badly?'

'Turtle shell and a few paltry pearl reefs?' Telouet wondered derisively. 'Shark skins and whatever whalebone they find washed up on their beaches?'

Kheda was considering a different aspect of the puzzle. 'Even if Redigal Coron, or should I say his faithful advisers—' The other men laughed. 'If Redigal ships were attacking Chazen, they've got a straight course down from their own waters. They hold sizeable islands due north. Why would they be sailing all the way round the domain and attacking from the south?'

'They'd have to swing out so wide into the open ocean. That's insane.' Jatta shook his head decisively. 'With the rains due any time after the dark of the Greater Moon.'

'You find this as much of a puzzle as I do.' Kheda nodded briskly to Atoun and Jatta. 'Let's hope we find some answers on Nagel. Signal the heavy triremes to follow at their best speed.'

As Jatta relayed the message down to the rowing master who passed it forward to the bow master, Atoun yawned.

'I'll get some rest, with your permission, my lord.'

'Of course.'

As Atoun lumbered heavily down the steps to settle himself in the cramped stern stowage with the messenger birds and the ship's carpenter, the penetrating note of the signal horn sounded out from the prow. Kheda turned to look past the upswept stern timbers that carried the runs of close-fitted planking up into a curved wall. The heavy triremes were forming up to follow the Scorpion.

'Let's see if they can keep up,' grinned Jatta as he settled himself into his own chair, raised just behind the helmsman's seat. The helmsman leaned forward, gripping the twin steering oars in capable hands.

Kheda slipped past Jatta to the small area of stern deck behind the shipmaster's chair, pretty much the only place to sit on the Scorpion's upper level where a man could risk sleep without the immediate danger of rolling off the side of the vessel. No fast trireme tolerated the extra weight of rails.

'You're not warning them of what you suspect?' Telouet asked quietly. Unbuckling the leather strap of his bundle, he unrolled the outermost layer. It was a blanket. 'Here, it'll get colder than you expect.'

'There's been no word that the evil Chazen's people are fleeing has arrived on our shores.' Kheda glanced at Jatta's back as the shipmaster settled himself in his seat but the man's whole attention was on the vista beyond the narrow prow of his ship. 'I don't want to raise unnecessary fears.' He set his jaw. 'This could just be hysteria fired by rumour, maybe even a deliberate falsehood spread by whoever's attacking Chazen.'

'In their determination to claim a slew of sandy rocks that only a turtle could love,' muttered Telouet sarcastically. He took a second blanket for himself and hunched, glowering, beside Kheda.

And if it's not falsehood, if there's some appalling truth in this, then we do all we can to stop whoever might be wielding magic in these reaches, in spite of every warlord's laws and judgements. If it takes every man's life to stop it spreading into the Daish domain, that's a worthwhile trade of our blood.

Kheda shivered involuntarily in the cooling breeze garnered by the speeding ship. The dark isles of his domain slid past in the silver sea. No lights showed. Every village would be as empty as the one outside his own compound. His people would be cowering in their hidden refuges, the old, the young and the women, at least. The spokesmen that every village chose would be gathering the farmers, the fishermen, the hunters from the hills, readying themselves to repel any invader, determined to hold until some detachment of the warlord's swordsmen could come to their relief. The swordsmen would be as resolute, intent on defending the islands they had been plucked from, whose labours supplied their needs.

Ahead, he saw a single fishing boat slide behind a black zigzag of rocks, laggard behind its fellows. Where the channel opened out into a wider sea, another trireme kept watch. At Jatta's command, the great horn announced the Scorpion's passage south. The ship creaked and vibrated beneath Kheda, the piper's measure regulating the steady oar strokes, the splash and rush of the water a ragged counterpoint to the flute. The piper began a tune now that the rowers had their rhythm, though one with the constant beat that the oarsmen demanded. Voices floated up from below; the ceaseless murmur of encouragement and guidance from the rowing master and the regular banter of the sail crew bringing water to the thirsty rowers. An abrupt hammering told everyone that the carpenter was making some running repairs, nothing unusual in that. The rowers pulled ceaselessly on their oars. Soon the swift trireme had left the heavier vessels far behind. Lulled by the motion of the ship and the hypnotic gliding waters, Kheda dozed fitfully. Every time he jerked awake in a muffled rattle of chainmail, the moons were a little further in their course.

The next time he opened his eyes, the sky was paling and all at once it was dawn. The sun rose brighter than any beacon, throwing new light on the scatter of islands ahead. Beyond, Kheda could see the sprawling bulk of Nagel, its heights marching away into the distance. This was an island of fire mountains but the boiling craters of the live peaks were far inland. Here the tree-clad slopes ran down to pale beaches of coral sand.

Kheda threw off his blanket, scouring the drowsiness from his eyes with the back of one hand. As he stood, he saw a dolphin leap from the foam arrowing out from the trireme's bow, sparkling drops flying from its fin. It plunged back into the sea but another cut across the vessel's spreading wake, then another.

'There's an omen for us, and one of the best!' He pointed and Jatta relayed the news to the lower deck. As the rowing master and bow master spread the word, Kheda heard a muted cheer from the weary rowers. The piper moved seamlessly from the gentle tune he had been playing to a spirited dance measure and the humming of the rowers rose up from below.

They passed the outlying islets and Kheda scanned the Nagel shore. The first sign of life was a collection of huts built on low stilts along the high-water mark.

'Only to be expected, that they'd be deserted this late in the dry season,' observed Telouet bracingly. He swung his arms to ease stiff shoulders. 'I really do hate sleeping in armour,' he said with feeling.

'Everyone but the hardiest fishermen will have moved to the cool of their heights a full cycle of the Lesser Moon since,' Kheda agreed.

This really is a senseless time of year for anyone to launch an attack. But there is no sense in magic, is there? That's its wickedness, its wanton chaos, throwing all the unity of nature into disarray.

One of the archers keeping watch on the landward side of the trireme's split deck gave a sudden shout. 'Wreckage!'

At Jatta's word, the rowing master gave the order to slow and the rowers counted down their strokes in unison. Kheda moved for a clearer view. The hull of a fishing skiff lay upturned on the beach. The mast sprawled broken beside it, spars and sail tangled. Movement was just discernible on the sands; crabs were busy around bedraggled tangles of cloth. There was no one to be seen but the archers knelt braced and ready, arrows nocked. The Scorpion's swordsmen rose to their feet.

Telouet looked at the upturned hull. 'What do you suppose happened there?'

'It's not breached anywhere that I can see.' Kheda shrugged. 'Anything from a freak wave to a sea serpent could have rolled it over.'

'It's the season for them,' Telouet acknowledged.

'Let's make for that,' Kheda ordered, pointing at a column of smoke rising in the distance.

Jatta's curt commands were relayed and the ship moved along the shore.

'My lord.' One of the sail crew stood on the gangway below them. He offered up wooden cups of water and a bowl of cold sticky sailer grain.

'Thank you.' Kheda drank deeply, the cool water refreshing him. He scooped cold grain, nuts and shreds of cooked meat from the bowl with his fingers. The edge of his hunger blunted, he passed the bowl to Telouet still half full. 'Have you any besa?'

The slave knelt to rummage in the bundle and handed up a small silver pot. Kheda unscrewed the top as Telouet rapidly ate his share of the breakfast. As he scrubbed his teeth with a finger dipped in the tiny black grains, the pungent seeds cut through the sourness of sleep in his mouth. He handed the pot back to Telouet as the trireme passed a narrow promontory, which hid a marsh-fringed river mouth. A drift of small boats clustered on the mudflats below a tall tower whose beacon was throwing thick black smoke into the air. Figures huddled around the boats, their hanging heads and hunched shoulders wretched and defeated. A line of men with fishing spears, hoes and sailer scythes stood ready to stop anyone making a break for the shelter of the broad-leaved lilla trees fringing the beach. As some watchman on the tower saw the trireme, a harsh horn sounded frantically.

'Call a boat out to us.' Kheda waited as Jatta ordered a signal from the trireme then drew a deep breath. 'Let's see what's washed up here. Get your men fed and watered as quickly as you can.'

He watched, outwardly calm, as a fishing skiff rowed out towards them. Apprehension crawled down his spine like some insidious insect. One of the sail crew came up to sling a ladder over the trireme's stern, and as Kheda turned to climb down, he caught Telouet's eye.

You're as grim-faced as I've ever seen you, my faithful slave.

Pausing on the ladder, Kheda recognised the spokesman of one of Nagel's larger villages waiting in the boat below. 'You're Gauhar, aren't you?'

'There's a woman ashore claims to be Itrac Chazen, my lord.' Stocky, with the more tightly curled hair of a hill dweller, the man looked up, consternation plain on his brown face.

Kheda smiled reassurance at the man. 'Who does she have with her?'

'Ordinary folk, a lot of them hurt.' The man shook his head dubiously. 'They have Olkai Chazen with them but she looks close to death.'

Kheda turned back to the trireme. 'Telouet, bring the ship's remedy chest.'

Telouet passed the ebony casket down. Kheda sat as Gauhar leant into his oars and pulled for the shore. As they drew closer, Kheda could see a patterned cloth had been stretched to make a shelter between the boats lying all askew on the mud. An ominous number of figures lay prostrate beneath it. 'What manner of injuries do these people have?'

'Broken arms and ankles.' Oar strokes punctuated Gauhar's words. 'Burns.'

'Some fool could have let a fire spread, people getting trampled in the panic running riot after it?' hazarded Telouet.

'It wouldn't be the first time.' But Kheda heard the doubt in his agreement so turned to studying the hastily beached boats on the shore instead. The largest was no more than a despatch galley, rowed by a mere ten men to a side, each with a single oar.

Hardly a vessel a Chazen wife would ordinarily travel in. Doubtless prestige is a secondary consideration when fleeing for one's life.

Kheda bent to unlace his leggings as Gauhar drove the bucking boat through the turbulent water where the river fought the sea.

'My lord.' Telouet frowned with disapproval.

'We don't want them getting wet, do we?' Kheda stripped off the detested encumbrances. Gauhar pulled beyond the reach of the river and turned for shore. Mud hissing beneath the hull, the boat grounded close to those so unexpectedly cast ashore. Shallow ruffs of surf rippled around them and swept up the beach.

'I don't suppose they'll want to make a fight of it but I'm going first.' Telouet jumped over the skiff's prow into the knee-deep waters. Kheda followed, relishing the soothing coolness of the sea on his sweaty feet. Muddy sand, gritty with fragments of shell, oozed beneath his toes.

Kheda made a rapid survey of these unknown unfortunates. Most were humble islanders, in plain cotton clothes, with hands and faces hardened with toil, wind and sun. They stood, eyes dutifully downcast, salt-stained and soot-smudged. A few wore dishevelled remnants of slaves' and servants' clothes; finer cloth, silk-embroidered, less serviceable for the hardships of flight over the seas. He could see sprawling bruises on just about every exposed limb, some plainly footprints. Several islanders had torn their sleeves away to spare their touch on raw and angry burns while most of the servants held up painfully blistered hands. Two children, faces grey with pain, clutched obviously broken arms.

'We beg for sanctuary' A woman in a torn tunic of sea-green silk embroidered with azure waves scrambled out from beneath the makeshift awning. 'I am Itrac Chazen.' Her voice was high and strained and she snapped her mouth shut with an audible click of teeth. She was tall and sparely built, much-mingled blood favouring her with a honey-coloured skin and long black hair. Kheda remembered that flowing sensuous to her waist with barely a curl in it. Now it was tangled and sandy, twisted up into a fraying knot bound with a scrap of cloth. She wore one long earring of turquoise beads but its pair had been torn from her other ear, leaving a dark stain of dried blood on her neck. The silver chains around her neck were tangled and broken and the heavily carved rings on all her fingers were black with filth.

'I recognise you,' Kheda replied with smooth courtesy. 'What brings you to my shores?'

What was it Janne told me about you? Barely older than Sain for one thing, third wife and married less than a year. Not yet a mother. Rekha said something about you managing some promising trades, even with your paltry share of Chazeris limited wealth.

The woman hesitated, then spoke hurriedly. 'I beg your care for our wounded. Olkai Chazen is near death.'

'I'll do all I can. Telouet, bring the remedy chest.' Kheda walked forward to meet Itrac.

If you've got a weapon concealed beneath those sodden, ragged clothes, I'll eat those cursed leggings. Besides, even if you have got a knife, it can't be large enough to threaten chainmail.

'There.' Itrac pointed beneath the fluttering shade of the awning.

Several women sat huddled together on the ground, heads bandaged, faces grazed. One lay on her side, arms folded tight across her belly, eyes screwed tight on fear and pain. An older man lay motionless on his back; blood crusted around his mouth and nose, a blank-faced child helplessly fanning inquisitive flies away with a dirty hand. Two bruised and salt-stained slave girls knelt either side of a woman who murmured with pain as she tried to roll from side to side. The girls restrained her with gentle hands, faces taut with concentration. A single length of the finest cotton covered their mistress so that all Kheda could see was the callused soles of her brown feet.

'Let me see.'

At Itrac's nod, the girls lifted the cloth aside and Kheda knelt on the muddy sand.

'Send Gauhar for honey, as much as he can find,' he said to Telouet. 'Have you made her drink?'

'We have been trying,' Itrac quavered. One of the slave girls nodded wordlessly towards a brass water jug with a long curved spout.

'Well done.'

For all the good it might do.

Kheda forced his face into immobility as he studied Olkai Chazen's injuries. If he hadn't known her nigh on all his life, born Olkai Ritsem less than a year after himself, he'd have struggled to recognise her. She lay naked, thanks to whoever had had the sense to strip her burning clothes from her. Her right side was largely uninjured, her right hand loosely curled, fingernails painted, garnet-studded rings gleaming silver. Her left hand was burnt to the bone, fingers clawed and blackened. Deep burns covered the left side of her body from shoulder to knee, splashed across her stomach and thighs, raw flesh weeping, framed by charred and blistered skin.

You raised that hand to fend off the fire.

Then the flames had flared upwards, to sear away her hair, leaving that side of her skull burnt to black stubble, face swollen and cracked, crusted oozing eye surely blind. Kheda winced as she moaned softly, lost in a delirium of pain.

'How did this happen?'

'We do not know' Itrac's brittle defiance bordered on hysteria. 'It was dark. We were attacked. Everything was set alight.'

'Sticky fire?' Telouet looked down at Olkai's injuries with undisguised horror.

'Perhaps.' Kheda bent to sniff. There was no hint of sulphur or resin hanging around the wounds. He sat back on his heels.

Perhaps, if someone threw a pot of sticky fire right at her, catching her full in her belly. Who would do such a thing? You don't use sticky fire against people. You throw pots of it to set light to thatch or to scatter flames across the ground to ward people off.

'Gauhar, let these people gather firewood in the forest and leatherspear for their burns.' Kheda turned to open the remedy chest. 'Telouet, set me some water to boil.' He found the small glass bottle he sought and turned to Itrac. 'You let the water cool and then mix this into it. One measure like this to that ewer full of water.' He unstoppered the bottle and shook fine crystals out on to his palm. 'Wash the wounds with it, as gently as you can.'

Itrac stared at him, hugging herself, shaking. 'But the pain—' She couldn't force the words out.

'I'll ease that.' Kheda opened a compartment at one end of the chest and took out a crystal vial. Finding a silver spoon, he carefully measured out drops of viscous golden fluid. 'Lift her head, carefully.'

One of the slaves, tears trickling down her face, cradled the unburned side of Olkai's head in her hands with infinite care. Kheda eased the spoon between her slack lips, pushing at the gummy spittle clogging her mouth. Bending close, he heard an ominous hoarseness in Olkai's breathing.

A strong enough dose of the dappled poppy and I could ease all your pains. Is that what I should do? Your life is surely done, for the good or ill of your domain. How can I hope to bring you through such injuries? Would you want me to, when you'll be scarred and crippled, even if you should live? A living omen of ill luck? Forgive me, Olkai, I have to try, if only to bring you to your senses long enough to tell me what you know. I have to think of my own people first.

'When you've bathed her wounds, cover them with honey, as thick as you can.' Kheda replaced the vial of golden poppy syrup and closed the chest. 'Wash it off and renew it at dawn and dusk.'

'Will she live?' Itrac asked hoarsely.

'We can but hope.' Kheda took a breath before continuing. 'Keep some honey aside. Mix a spoonful in a cup of boiled water as well as three spoonfuls of lilla juice and a pinch of salt. Tell Gauhar I said to give you everything you need. Clean out her mouth and then spoon it in. Don't stop. As soon as she's drunk one, make another cupful.' He stood and looked at Itrac. 'You've people here with broken bones. I'll set them as best I can and then do what I'm able for those who were trampled. You must tend everyone else's burns. Split the fleshiest part of the leather-spear leaves and lay the pulpy sides on to the wounds.'

'My lady Itrac.' Telouet was looking around the beach, frowning. 'Where are your body slaves?'

'I think they died to win us time to flee.' Itrac burst into sudden tears. 'It was horrible. We were attacked. Savages came out of the night to slaughter us all—'

'Walk with me. Telouet, see my orders are obeyed.' Kheda's stern command at least did something to quell the stir of consternation among his own islanders now gathered round. The Chazen islanders were raising fresh laments prompted by Itrac's words.

Telouet raised his voice to purposely drown them out. 'My lord grants them fire. We need kindling. Gauhar, fetch an ember from the tower's signal fire.'

Kheda caught Itrac by the elbow and led her some way along the beach. Too distraught to stand on her dignity, she didn't resist. When he was satisfied they wouldn't be overheard, Kheda turned, his face hard. 'Do not make your people's plight worse than it has to be, with pointless reminders of what they have suffered. Nor do I want you spreading useless alarm among my people.'

Itrac stared at him, shocked.

'I must do my duty by my domain,' Kheda warned her. 'As must you. You're the only one here to look after these people with Olkai so gravely injured. Now, before I can grant you sanctuary, I must know exactly what you flee. Tell me everything you saw, everything you heard, everything you suspect. For my ears only, mind you. Otherwise I'll have my men drive you all back into the water.'

As he'd hoped, his harsh words turned Itrac's thoughts from her distress to her responsibilities.

'We were visiting Boal,' she began slowly. 'Me, Olkai and Chazen Saril. We wanted to talk to the islanders about the turtles. They'll be coming soon, with the rains. We wanted to decide which beaches would be left and where they could gather eggs. Saril wanted to see for himself.'

Kheda suppressed the desire to hurry her through such irrelevancies. He could see the same desire on Telouet's face as the slave came up to stand unobtrusively behind Itrac.

Is there any significance to an attack on Boal? It might be one of the largest of the Chazen islands but it has little to recommend it beyond some and farmland on its northern face and the turtle beaches facing the southern ocean. It's no great prize.

'There's a nice residence we keep on Boal.' Itrac reached unconsciously for a bracelet she no longer wore. 'All the village spokesmen brought us gifts. There was to be a feast.' Her distant eyes suddenly fixed on Kheda. 'They came at sunset.

'Out of the setting sun, so we couldn't see them for what they were until it was too late. Besides, why should we expect any attack? Their boats were strange, so slight, so crude, just hollowed from a single log with the men standing and paddling. How did they do that? How did they not overturn out on the open water?'

She didn't wait for Kheda to answer. 'They were all but naked, leather loincloths, painted in wild colours, feathers and horns in their hair and around their necks. They didn't even have metal heads to their spears, just fire-hardened wood sharpened to a point. Their weapons killed all the same; men, women, children, they all died. They used clubs of studded stone as well, smashing skulls, breaking bone.' She was shaking without ceasing, hands knotted together, not feeling the rings digging painfully into her flesh.

'There were hundreds of them, howling and killing. There was so much blood. Saril called for the horns to be sounded, the beacons lit to summon all the island's men but no one could hear him and the wild men were still coming ashore, They hit out at everyone. All they wanted to do was kill. Everyone was screaming. There was so much blood.' Itrac's eyes were still fixed on Kheda but saw only her horrifying memories.

'Ket, my body slave, and Stiwa, that was Olkai's, you remember? They found bows from somewhere. The hunters of the village, some of them found theirs. The arrows, they burst into flames. The arrows just burned as they flew through the air.' Her voice trailed off in disbelief.

'And then,' Kheda prompted gently.

'We ran—' Itrac stumbled over her words. 'We ran for the residence. The swordsmen barred the path as long as they could but the wild men kept on coming. They didn't care how many of their own died. There were always more of them. Then the ships started burning. Fire was falling out of the sky, out of nothing. How could that be? Everyone was screaming and the wild men were cheering. Then the fires started falling on the residence. That's when Olkai was burned.' Tears poured down Itrac's face.

'All right, that's enough, calm yourself Kheda reached out and gripped Itrac's hands until the tremors racking her slowed. 'Did you understand their tongue?'

The unexpected question stirred Itrac from her waking nightmare. 'No. I never heard the like. I never saw the like of such people either, nor heard tell of any, not in any domain.'

Nor had Kheda. 'What did Saril do?'

'He told Ket and Stiwa to get us to a boat.' Itrac swallowed a sob at the thought of her lost body slave. 'We had to leave. I had to look after Olkai. He said he had to get back to Sekni and the children. They were all at the dry-season residence. Oh, Daish Kheda, what will have happened to them?' Itrac stared at him, appalled.

'There's no way of knowing.' Kheda resolutely turned his mind from all he could imagine. 'Did Chazen Saril get to a trireme?'

'He got to a fishing boat, I think,' Itrac said dully. 'But there was so much fire and smoke, I can't be sure. Then Ket and Stiwa got us to the despatch galley but the wild men attacked as we were pushing off. When we got clear, we found we'd lost them both. I don't know if they're alive or dead, any of them.'

'It's possible we may yet have news of them.' Kheda released her hands. 'I've had word that Chazen triremes are holding the Hyd Rock.'

Itrac stared, mouth open. 'Chazen Saril lives?'

'It's possible, but no more than that, I cannot lie to you. As soon as I know anything for certain, I'll send you word.' Kheda looked back towards the boats. 'We had better get back to Olkai.'

Itrac hesitated, uncertain. 'What happens now?'

'You may have sanctuary here, on this shore and beneath the trees, within reason. Gauhar's people will feed you and help tend your wounded,' Kheda said firmly. 'I will sail for the Hyd Rock and find out what I can. Whatever happens, I will summon all my warriors to fight these invaders.' He smiled at Itrac. 'Go on. Tell your people they are safe.'

'I will. Thank you, Daish Kheda. We of Chazen are in your debt.' Itrac moved slowly at first, then began walking with more purpose, her back straightening, her head lifting.

'She didn't say anything about magic,' commented Telouet quietly.

'Would you?' Kheda asked sardonically. 'If you were seeking sanctuary from people who can cross an ocean balancing on hollowed-out logs and call a rain of fire down from an empty sky. What else could it be?'

'Then why do you risk giving these people sanctuary?' Telouet grimaced. 'Attacked by magic is touched by magic and magic corrupts everything it touches.'

'Wise men have written that an innocent victim of magic should not be condemned,' Kheda said slowly. 'They'll be tainted by its touch, true enough, but it's suborning magic, deliberately calling it forth, that's the true abomination, according to many sages. Besides, we have to fight it. We cannot just run before it like storm-tossed birds. There are talismans to turn its malice aside, aren't there?'

Telouet looked unconvinced. 'What do we do now, my lord?

'I'm not going anywhere till the heavy triremes catch up with us. Then all the crews will need to be fed, watered and rested. While they're doing that, we can send a message bird to Janne and Sirket. Who knows, they might have news for us as well.' Kheda shrugged. 'I want every fisherman Gauhar can spare sent out to scout for other Chazen survivors. They can spread the word that they're to be sheltered for the present. Then we make for the Hyd Rock and see what those Chazen triremes can tell us. Hopefully we'll find out just what disaster has come up from the south and if it's likely to come any further north.'