"Southern Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKenna Juliet E.)

Chapter Three

'What if Chazen Saril is indeed dead?' Telouet handed Kheda a cup of water.

The warlord drank it down gratefully. Even with the breeze of their passage over the water, the sun was still punishingly hot. He was still in his armour but he'd discarded his helm before it could broil his brains. 'Then we offer however many of his ships have fetched up at the Hyd Rock the choice of flight, death at our hands or swearing allegiance to the Daish domain.'

'Offering fealty's their only sensible course,' declared Atoun.

'If Sekni Chazen is still alive, and with some of the children, they might think different.' Seated in his shipmaster's chair, Jatta was leafing through a small book bound in battered scarlet leather, locks on its three clasps.

Kheda could never see Jatta consulting his book without recalling Daish Reik's pointed advice.

'Leave the business of sailing to your shipmasters and see to your own responsibilities. Do not get too curious either; a true seamaster will give up his first-born child before he'll share the secrets of his routes.'

Every shipmaster made a record of the seaways he travelled, both those open to any ship wishing to traverse a given domain and those supposedly permitted to local vessels only. Allegedly unbreakable ciphers hid notes of landmarks, warnings of every lurking reef and sandbar and peculiarities of tide and current to help or hinder. 'I hate to say it but I think it's highly unlikely Sekni Chazen still lives.' Kheda handed the cup back to Telouet. 'Even if she does, I cannot see her trying to establish a regency when there's no child anywhere near an age of discretion.'

'No ship will hold out for Sekni or Itrac, come to that, not now they're in our waters,' opined Atoun robustly.

'Not and commit themselves to returning to a domain overrun by mysterious invaders who burn everything in their path.' Telouet looked meaningfully at Kheda.

The warlord shrugged, face non-committal. 'Let's hope Chazen Saril is still alive.'

The other men looked at him in some surprise. Kheda met their stares, composed.

'If he's alive, we round up every last one of his ships and men and send them back to join him in driving off these invaders, whoever they may be. If he's dead, we either wait for these wild men to come north and attack us or we take on the burden of claiming the domain and dealing with its difficulties ourselves.'

'Neither being an inviting prospect,' Atoun acknowledged.

'And Ulla Safar, Ritsem Caid and Redigal Coron might well object if we seized Chazen lands,' Jatta observed as he returned his attention to the seas ahead of the trireme.

'Ulla Safar would flog his oarsmen to bare bones, if he thought he could claim some Chazen island,' growled Atoun. 'He'd love to see us with his forces on either hand.'

'Ritsem Caid wouldn't stand idly by while Safar did that.' Telouet shook his head.

'No, he wouldn't.' Kheda got to his feet. 'So we could find the Caid domain attacking Ulla troops to the north while we were embroiled with Safar's men down here, with the ships fleeing Chazen getting in everyone's way. That would leave these invaders digging in, quite undisturbed and doubtless making ready for their next step north to our lands.'

The silence between the four of them was surrounded by the rush of water, the piping flute and the creak and splash of the oars.

'So we're all going to be pleased to see Chazen Saril's fat face safe and sound,' Atoun grunted.

'And we'll show him appropriate respect,' said Kheda mildly. 'How soon will we be there, Jatta?'

'We're slowing a little in the currents hereabouts.' The shipmaster gestured to a line of shoals and reefs off towards the south. The dark scar stretched across the azure sea fore and aft of the Scorpion, foam boiling up where the furious waves forced themselves through the scant fissures between the rocks.

'The Serpents' Teeth should give these invaders pause for thought.' Atoun looked with some satisfaction at the natural ramparts. 'They've always broken Chazen ambitions.'

'Chazen Saril has always been content with his lot.' Kheda found himself hoping Saril was still alive and not just for reasons of governance. The southernmost warlord of the entire Archipelago might be inclined to indolence but there was no malice in him. Kheda let slip a wry smile.

Remember when you told your father how you envied Sard's lesser burden, with his circumscribed domain and its scant resources, goaded beyond endurance by Daish Retk's expectations? You expected a tongue lashing, if not a beating, not his booming laughter.

'You'd better be the best foreteller between the southern ocean and the unbroken northlands before you wish for another man's life. Who knows what lies beyond the next rains for any of us?'

Neither of us realised those words had the ring of portent, did we, my father? Neither of us foresaw your death before those next rains had ended, leaving me ruling the domain, barely married to Janne, not even as old as Sirket.

'They're putting up sails back there.' Telouet was looking past the sternposts to the heavier triremes following the Scorpion.

'They'll be pulling their canvas down soon enough.' Jatta clapped the helmsman on the shoulder. 'Cai was born and bred in these waters. He knows how contrary the winds are.'

Cai grinned as he concentrating on feeling the ship's course through the twin stern oars. Kheda noted the helmsman's own book of sailing notes tucked securely by one thigh.

I wonder how soon Jatta will be telling me he's willing to see Cat raised to command of his own ship, a despatch galley or such? Well, he'll have the pick of the domain's best mariners to replace him, for the warlord's personal trireme.

Kheda glanced back at the heavy triremes surging in their wake. Unlike the Scorpion, such ships drew their whole crew from the particular island whose produce supplied them, spare sons opting to serve the domain by taking up an oar instead of a plough or a hunting spear.

Jatta's head snapped round as they all heard a flurry of horns passed from one ship to another.

'They're changing course.' Telouet squinted across the brilliant sea.

'The signal is to summon help for one of our own, under attack.' Jatta's angular brows met in a scowl above his beak of a nose.

'Then we join them.' Kheda's voice was untroubled; his face a bland mask but apprehension twisted around his gut like one of Sain's flowering vines strangling a sapling.

Is it come to this already? Have these invaders come north in the night? Are we going to be sunk with fire and magic before we even reach the boundary of our own waters?

Jatta whirled round to shout orders down to the rowing master. The sweating oarsmen strove to turn the narrow ship in an impossibly tight circle. Jatta joined Cai in hauling on the twin tillers as the seas seethed around the biting blades.

With the Scorpion rocking, struggling back through the waters the rowers had just stirred up, Kheda saw the heavy triremes surging behind a narrow islet of white sand topped with a sprawl of dusty green brush and the darker tufts of nut palms.

'We can cut round up there.' Jatta was standing at Cai's shoulder, pointing, and his route book open in one hand. Absently, he fingered his braided beard. The scars and calluses he'd earned as a rower in his youth were vivid on honey-coloured skin bequeathed by some distant ancestor from the north where Aldabreshin territories touched the unbroken barbarian lands.

Atoun tapped an impatient foot on the close-fitted planks of the deck, oblivious to Telouet's exasperated glare. The toiling oarsmen hauled the trireme past the little island; the rowing master and bow master both pacing up and down the lower gangway, shouting exhortations.

The channel opened out ahead of them. Thanks to Jatta's short cut, the Scorpion's course now lay alongside the heavy galleys as they ploughed through the strait.

'It's a Chazen merchant galley.' Jatta's contempt rose above the noises of sea and ship. 'Chasing down a low galley of ours.'

Reefs forced the Scorpion away to the side. As the trireme hastened towards clear water Kheda got a good view of the chase underway ahead.

The low galley was one of many such vessels linking the myriad islands within every domain. Men sat three to a bench and sweated over their oars on a single open deck.

Shipmaster and helmsman shared a meagre stern platform canopied against the sun. A square-rigged mast stood always raised behind the first six banks of oars, twice that number behind. At the moment, the Daish men were dropping their sail in a confusion of cloth. The great galley had three masts to their one, so no wind would help them outrun this pursuit. Their only hope of escape was their smaller ship's shallower draught as they sought to skip across the reefs cutting through the strait, heading straight for the Scorpion.

'I hope that helmsman knows his shoals,' murmured Jatta fervently.

The low galley darted between two spiky reefs; the roaring sea splashed right up over the Daish ship's shallow sides, soaking her unprotected oarsmen. The great galley couldn't follow and seeing the heavy triremes bearing down on it, wallowed in the deeper waters in an attempt to turn its course to the channel where the Scorpion waited.

'Do they think they can pass us?' scowled Atoun derisively.

'They're not slowing,' Telouet observed.

'They're heavily laden,' said Jatta thoughtfully.

'And heavily manned.' Kheda could see archers lining the side rails of the upper deck and the glint of sun on chainmail armouring the men behind them. Rowers would be sweating on the middle of the three levels below, thirty banks of three oars to each side. Great galleys were happy to take the weight of so many men in trade for the muscle needed to propel their vast cargoes between domains. Kheda took a moment to judge the Chazen ship's speed between two usefully prominent clumps of wind-tossed palms. Yes, the great galley was certainly heavily laden; that was probably all that had saved the lesser galley thus far.

What's in your capacious holds? Trade goods, or Chazen troops to attack helpless Daish vessels, to seize Daish land now you've been driven out of your own?

'I don't think they fancy their chances just now,' said Atoun with grim satisfaction.

Belatedly, the shipmaster of the Chazen great galley had ordered a sudden stop. The sails on the three tall masts were being struck. The oars on one side began backing while the others dug deep with new urgency.

'He's going to try and make a run for it.' Jatta glanced at Kheda.

'Ram him before he can make the turn,' Kheda ordered.

The shipmaster barked the order to the rowing master and the piper's note sounded shrill and rapid. The Scorpion's swordsmen and archers ran for the prow, to find a safe handhold for the collision and to be ready for the fight that would follow.

'Signal to the heavy galleys to make ready to board.' Kheda moved to call down to the bow master, who hurried to the prow. As the signal horn drowned out the flute's voice, the rowers marked their own time with a low rhythmic growl, an ominous sound as the trireme bore down on the enemy.

'They're a good crew,' said Jatta dispassionately. The great galley had all but made the whole turn as the Scorpion drew near.

'Aim for the stern,' Kheda told Jatta. 'Cripple their steering.'

The shipmaster moved to take one of the Scorpion's two tillers from Cai.

Kheda recalled the conversation he'd had with Daish Reik, the first time he'd been in a battle at sea, just a little older than Mesil.

'I've heard tell hitting a ship at the wrong angle can rip the ram clean off a trireme. And very silly we'd look without it. Which is why you'll see the helmsman match their course as soon as we hit.' Daish Reik had been smiling with vicious anticipation, teeth white in his black beard. 'Besides, the ram's built separate from the hull just in case he gets it wrong. We won't sink. Now hold on to something.'

Kheda took a firm grip on the shipmaster's chair. The Scorpion surged through the sea, the white beaches and the myriad greens of the shore flashing past.

'They're yielding!' came a shout from somewhere.

Kheda shook his head at the hoarse cries of the Chazen galley's frantic signal horns. 'Too late.' The Scorpion was already within a ship's length of the great galley.

The trireme's brass-sheathed ram ripped into the planks right on the waterline. A shudder ran the length of the Scorpion. With a grunt forced out of every man aboard by the impact, it was as if the ship herself groaned. Cai and Jatta threw all their weight against the twin tillers. The crossbeams at the Scorpion's bow, reinforced where they projected on either side of the ram, crashed into the galley's side, springing the weakened seams of her planking still further. The jutting timbers smashed the great galley's rearmost oars. Screams came from the galley's middle deck as rowers were clubbed by their own splintered oars sent in all directions.

'Back!' yelled Jatta.

The rowing master had already set the oarsmen to dragging the Scorpion back from the great galley. Water poured in through the gash in the wounded ship's side and she began listing almost immediately. The sea was suddenly full of men desperately trying to swim clear of the foundering vessel amid a confusion of broken and flailing oars.

There was a second crash and then a third as two Daish heavy triremes drove their prows into the great galley. Their rams rode higher than the Scorpion's, designed more to bite and hold fast to make a bridge for swordsmen intent on boarding. The stricken vessel shuddered, already sunk to her oar ports. The warriors on the great galley threw their swords into the sea in open surrender as the deck filled with all those who'd been below decks fleeing the encroaching waters.

Kheda saw women and children struggling in the confusion of noise and panic.

They're not raiders. They've fled whatever disaster it is that's ravaging Chazen. I need to know where they've come from, what they've seen.

He took a step forward. Telouet stretched out an arm to bar his way. 'You'll go no closer to their archers than this, my lord.'

Kheda turned to Atoun who was watching the Daish swordsmen taking possession of the galley with visible frustration. He pointed to a man feverishly ripping pages from a book to let the heedless wind blow them away to oblivion. 'Bring me that shipmaster!'

Rope ladders were already slung over the Scorpion's stern and Atoun disappeared at once, soon reappearing in a small boat rowing for the ruined galley.

Kheda sat in the shipmaster's chair watching the great ship sink to rest on a hidden reef, uppermost deck knee deep in water, only prow and sternposts rising clear of the sea. Every time a wave lapped at the wreck, the sound of breaking wood rippled through the air.

Close at hand, the sounds of hammering and urgent repairs reverberated through the Scorpion. Kheda leaned forward to call to Jatta.

'What's the damage? Are we still fit to sail for the Hyd Rock?'

Jatta came halfway up the stairs from the lower gangway. 'There're a few seams need caulking and there's the usual damage to oar loops and such. Nothing we can't bear.' He disappeared again.

'My lord.'

Kheda turned to see what Telouet was looking at.

'I don't think he was going to wait to pay his duty to you,' said the slave thoughtfully.

One of the Daish heavy triremes was escorting the lesser galley whose aid they had come to. The smaller ship was limping along with several broken oars and Kheda could see his own swordsmen on the deck. One was on the stern platform and the sun glinted on his naked blade.

'Let's see what he has to say for himself.' He looked to see if Atoun was on his way back.

The two mariners arrived at much the same time. Unhampered by the naked blade in one hand, Atoun drove a battered and hangdog man up the ladder before him, Telouet standing over him with a ready sword as soon as he set foot on the deck. The master of the lesser galley stood proud on his own stern platform as his vessel drew up smartly beside the Scorpion. Gaudy pennants flapped from the poles supporting the canopy fluttering just below the deck level of the Scorpion. The Daish mariner judged the distance to a nicety, jumping to catch hold of the rope ladder and climb lithely aboard.

'My lord.' He knelt on the deck and bowed his head to the planking.

'Your name?' Kheda stayed in the shipmaster's chair, face impassive.

'Maluk, great lord.' He looked up, eyes bright.

Kheda considered the equally bright gleam of gold in his ears and around the man's neck. He did not smile. 'And you, of Chazen?'

'Kneel before Daish Kheda!' Telouet threw the man down on to his knees. He slumped, chin sunk on his chest, hair matted and cotton tunic stained with blood from a split in his scalp that Kheda judged to be a day or so old.

'Chazen man,' Kheda said sharply. 'What is your name?'

Telouet would have reminded the man of his manners with a smack round the head but stilled at Kheda's look.

'Rawi, great lord,' he mumbled.

The warlord noted a hint of uncertainty cross Maluk's face. 'What brings you uninvited and flying no flag of mine to grant you passage through my waters?' he asked mildly.

Now Rawi looked confused. 'We were told to flee, to take all we could carry and flee.' He shivered despite the baking heat of the sun. 'My lord's soldiers came. They drove us all from our homes, threatening to club us if we tarried. They said we would die if we stayed. They said an enemy had come—' He broke off, swallowing hard, and raised horror-struck eyes.

Kheda could see the man's quandary reflected in his eyes.

If you warn me of magic, will I be grateful or just put you to death where you kneel?

With hopeless resignation, Rawi opened his mouth.

Steel in his voice, Kheda interrupted. 'Why were you pursuing my ship?'

'We were not alone. There were skiffs with us, fishing boats, anything that would float.' Rawi shot Maluk a look of pure hatred. 'He has followed us for a night and a day, picking them off. We took as many aboard as we could—'

'We sought only to protect the Daish domain,' Maluk declared robustly.

'From what, exactly?' Kheda queried sternly.

'We feared invasion, great lord,' Maluk insisted with a little too much wide-eyed innocence. 'We thought men of Chazen were come to steal our islands. The beacons were burning!'

'Men of Chazen? Come to raise battle with their Southern Firl families in tow?' Kheda stood to look at the two heavy triremes where the tally of bound and kneeling swordsmen was at least equalled by women and children, the decks now cluttered with hastily filled sacks and roughly tied bundles, all sodden and wretched. 'Didn't you look for help to tackle a ship so much stronger than your own?'

Maluk spread uncertain hands. 'We signalled to other ships and to villages that we passed with our lanterns. I don't know if they saw us. No one came to our aid. But we dared not lose sight of the enemy,' he continued, a little bolder now. 'We had to know where they might land, my lord. Then we would have carried word to the nearest beacon towers, to summon your warriors.'

A claim impossible to prove or disprove. And there are sufficient fighting men aboard Rawi's galley to justify Maluk's assertion that he'd feared invasion. All the women and children would have been below decks, and every man driven from his home by threats of unspecified foes would have carried a weapon if he could. So, hoping to get away with it unseen but confident in his excuses if not, Maluk's been raiding this Rawi's haphazard flotilla, claiming whatever loot he could for himself. And then, well aware his life was all but forfeit for sailing in my waters without a pennant to authorise his passage, the Chazen shipmaster finally turned his great galley on his tormentor. Proving this Maluk's ill faith could doubtless be done, if I had half a season to spare. I don't have half a day. I have to get clear of this tangle and make best speed to the Hyd Rock.

The Scorpion's stern platform was an island of silence in the uproar of wood and water all around, every eye on Kheda as he considered the choices before him.

Don't think you can hurry me. I am the warlord; my word is law. Mine is the right of life and death over all of you.

'Every life is woven into a myriad others throughout the course of each passing day. Every child is born of a web of ancestors and grows to be half of a union giving rise to unforeseen lives. Never take a life without considering all the possible consequences. Breaking a single thread can be all but invisible or utterly catastrophic.'

We had been walking in my mother's garden just after dawn. Daish Reik stopped by a dew-jewelled spider's web, suiting his actions to his words. His first touch had left the shimmering pattern unaltered. The second had destroyed it.

How many are already dead, thanks to Maluk and Rawi both? The pattern of life and death, past, present and future, must already be pulled this way and that. How can I cut through this tangle they have made between them? How can I make it plain beyond doubt that I will not permit Chazen ships to wander at will through my domain, any more than I'll tolerate Daish hunters preying on the helpless? I cannot sail south and leave undeclared warfare to strangle my domain.

Kheda looked at the expectant Maluk, plainly all too ready to spring up from his knees and return to share his loot with his crew. Beside him, Rawi hunched, staring hopelessly at the deck planks.

Kheda looked beyond the pair of them to Atoun and to Telouet, giving both warriors an infinitesimal nod. Atoun stepped forward and jabbed the tip of his long curved sword into Rawi's side, just below his ribs. Rawi stiffened involuntarily, his back arching away from the pain.

Telouet's similar thrust startled Maluk who had turned to gape at Rawi's whimper. Instinct brought his head up and back as Telouet's sword was already sweeping around and down to behead him in one clean stroke.

Atoun's blade flashed in the sun. Rawi's body fell forward, blood gushing from the stump of his neck in a sprawling arc that spattered the toes of Kheda's booted leggings. His head, sightless eyes still startled, rolled towards Maluk's headless torso. Telouet stopped it with one foot, looking a question at Kheda.

'Throw then both into the water.' The warlord kept his face impassive. 'If all that Rawi had become in life cannot be returned to his birthplace in death, then his body can feed the fish hereabouts and share whatever goodness lay within him with the Daish domain. I do not see that he deserves burning to ash like some unregenerate evildoer. I don't feel inclined to delay to see Maluk restored to his people though. I'm not convinced they would benefit by his influence on their future. Let the sea wash away his transgressions.'

Telouet sent both heads overboard with rapid kicks and moved to catch Rawi's corpse by one flaccid hand. Atoun grabbed at Maluk and threw the dead man overboard without ceremony. The abrupt splashes brought faces round on all sides, the shock of realisation plunging everyone into a spreading circle of silence broken only by the incautious cries of a child and the murmur of sea against sand and wood against rock.

Jatta startled Kheda by throwing a bucket of seawater over his feet and the deck of his beloved ship.

Might that blood have shown some pattern of omen? You didn't think to look in time, did you?

Kheda bit back a rebuke for the shipmaster and looked out over the water, noting a plethora of little vessels as the local islanders had come to see what this commotion might portend for them.

'Jatta, tell the helmsman of Maluk's ship that he is raised to the mastery and if he wants to keep that rank, never mind his own head, he had better return whatever loot was stolen from the Chazen fleet.' Kheda's face was hard. 'Atoun, summon some of those skiffs and send word to all the local villages that they are to shelter these unfortunates until I send word that the people of Chazen are to sail once more for their homes. We of Daish will do our best to defeat whatever vileness has attacked them, not least because it's in our own interests to secure our southern borders. Telouet, tell the men and women of Chazen that my mercy will last only as long as they cause no trouble. If they cannot accept our kindness with due humility, they will be driven out to meet whatever doom awaits them. Village spokesmen are to send word to Janne Daish of any such trouble. Jatta, I want to be ready to sail for the Hyd Rock as soon as may be. The heavy triremes are to follow as soon as they can set these Chazen people ashore.'

Kheda folded his arms slowly. Everyone else sprang into action.

This news will doubtless spread faster than the light of a burning beacon. Good. Everyone will benefit from learning that Daish's warlord has absolutely no intention of letting this unforeseen catastrophe undermine his authority.

Jatta returned to stand before Kheda. 'I would like to take on some more water, while we have the chance.'

'As you see fit,' Kheda nodded. 'Then we must make best speed.'

Once Jatta was satisfied the helpful locals had supplied sufficient fresh water to replenish the Scorpion's casks Kheda rose to yield the shipmaster's chair. A rapid flurry of orders set the trireme on her way. Kheda walked the length of the ship along the side deck, Telouet striding along between him and the drop to the water.

Finding some release for the tension knotting his back and neck, Kheda returned to the stern platform. 'This crew have done far more than we should usually ask of them,' he remarked to Jatta. 'We must make sure they are suitably rewarded.'

Atoun stood beside the shipmaster's chair. 'We must assess the situation at the Hyd Rock and once we know Chazen Saril's fate, we must decide where to send our triremes.'

'I'd advise blocking the seaways to these invaders and all those fleeing before them,' said Jatta grimly. 'This haphazard fighting will spread quicker than contagion if we don't pen the Chazen boats in.'

Telouet grunted his agreement.

Kheda shrugged. 'The first thing we need to see is what is at the Hyd Rock.'

The men all fell silent, looking ahead past the narrow upcurve of the prow as the doughty rowers, still unflagging, drove the trireme westwards through the turbid, raucous waters bounded to the south by the Serpents' Teeth. The sun beat down, striking blinding light from the shimmering surface of the sea. Finally, after what seemed like half a lifetime, the rocks and reefs petered out to leave the irregular broken hulk of the Hyd Rock standing alone among the waves.

'Ships!' The cry from the watchful archers in the prow was immediately drowned out by Jatta's shout. 'Chazen vessels!'

Atoun immediately looked aft to check the position of the domain's heavy triremes. 'We don't land without a full complement of swordsmen, my lord,' he said bluntly.

'How many ships?' Kheda moved to get a clearer view of the triremes anchored in the shallow curve of the little island's northern face.

'Four,' murmured Jatta. 'Two heavy, two light.'

Kheda grimaced. 'That's no great strength.'

'They've brought more than their usual crews with them,' said Telouet dourly. 'You can barely see the sand for people.'

Not that there was much sand, just a narrow strip of storm-soiled beach with a few clusters of stunted palms sheltered by the brutal black outcrop that made the whole southern side of the islet a wall of rock.

'Let's hope there are plenty of fighting men, to carry the battle back to their enemy before we have to risk any Daish blood,' Kheda remarked.

'I wonder how many wounded they have.' Telouet scanned the shoreline cluttered with awnings and fire pits.

'Chazen Saril's pennant!' Jatta stood to point at an azure finger of silk waving on the sternpole of one of the fast triremes.

'Then he's alive!' exclaimed Telouet.

'If he isn't, I'll use it to hang whoever thinks he's some right to fly it,' Kheda promised. 'Raise my own standard.'

Atoun was already hauling up the scarlet silk scored with the sweeping black curves that proclaimed Daish authority.

'I want our heavy triremes anchored so that none of them can break out without my permission,' Kheda said abruptly.

'I'll give the signal.' Jatta pointed at a battered skiff bobbing beside one of the Chazen heavy triremes casting loose to make its way across the water towards the Scorpion. 'There's a boat.'

'Telouet and Atoun, I'll want your counsel.' Kheda put his helmet back on and wordlessly accepted the detested leggings from Telouet. The blunt toes made his feet cursed clumsy as he climbed carefully down the ladder slung over the Scorpion's stern. Mindful of his sword, he settled himself as his slave and his commander joined him.

'Where is Chazen Saril?' Atoun demanded with a scowl.

'Ashore, honoured master, great lord,' replied the man at the oars, shrinking in an attempt at a bow, encumbered as he was.

Kheda sat upright in the stern of the boat, face calm. He didn't move when the man at the oars drove them aground, waiting for Telouet and Atoun to jump over the side. Both scowling ferociously, they splashed through the waves to scatter those waiting open-mouthed and apprehensive on the sand with the threat of their drawn swords.

'Remember you are always on show, my son. Someone is always watching you, be it in awe of your power or because they're wondering if they might find a way to fill you full of arrows'

'My lord,' Telouet turned and bowed, 'you may come ashore.'

And it won't do to trip and fall flat on my face in the surf. Kheda stepped carefully over the side of the boat. At least the sea water seeping into his leggings cured the sweaty itch plaguing his feet.

Chazen Saril came hurrying through the crowd, hands outstretched. 'Daish Kheda, I am relieved beyond measure to see you here.'

'And I you.' Kheda clasped the southernmost warlord's hands as custom dictated. He felt an entirely unceremonial tremor in Saril's fervent grip.

A drowning man couldn't hold on tighter. All of you look worse than people who've suffered a whirlwind breaking their huts into kindling and bringing the seas to surge over their crops and pens.

Chazen Saril's plump face was drawn with weariness, dark shadows smudging the coppery skin below eyes so dark brown as to look black. Blood and char stained his once elegant white silk tunic, the gossamer fabric of a sleeveless overmantle rich with golden embroidery torn and snagged in numerous places. The diamond rings on his fingers and the braided chains of pearls and gold around his neck only served to emphasise his dishevelment.

Mighty warlord of the Chazen domain, you look as shaken and confused as little Efi woken from a nightmare and not yet realising a father's arms are around her.

'You bring a great many men to this resting place for rowers.' Kheda smiled to soften his rebuke. Reminding Saril of established agreements might be necessary but this was no time to start a fight over something so trivial.

Saril had no time for any such niceties. 'This is the only place for us to make a stand. We are invaded—'

'I know.' Kheda cut him short. 'I have spoken with Itrac'

'She lives?' Saril gaped at him. 'And Olkai?'

'Itrac does well enough. I have granted her and her people sanctuary for the present.' Kheda held Saril's gaze and allowed his pity to show in his eyes. 'Olkai is burned, very badly, very deeply, over much of her body.'

Daish Reik had never thought much of Saril's skills as a healer but Kheda saw the man knew what he was being told. His mouth quivered and a tear he could not restrain spilled from one eye. 'Have you news of Sekni?'

'No, I'm sorry,' Kheda said with genuine regret. 'We've heard nothing.'

Saril turned his head aside, grimacing as he struggled not to weep openly.

So much for envying Saril the freedom to marry as his fancy prompted, himself a sufficiently meagre catch to be allowed romantic liaisons with lesser daughters.

'You're weary and overburdened, that's only to be expected.' Kheda looked at Telouet. 'Where can we sit at our ease, while we discuss what must be done now, for the sake of both our peoples?'

Saril looked at him with desperate belligerence. 'You must give me and mine sanctuary.'

The man's mood is veering as wildly as a pennant in a rainy squall.

Kheda hardened his heart. 'You must drive these invaders from your domain. I will give you and yours what shelter and food we can spare in the meantime, for suitable recompense in due course.'

A sigh of disappointment swirled through the crowd like the rustle of the wind-tossed palms at the edge of the beach.

Saril's expression settled in a guarded neutrality. 'Naturally.'

'And we of Daish will back your fight, on account of the long friendship between us,' Kheda continued. 'Once I know just what it is I am committing my people to.'

Saril raised his head, squaring his shoulders. 'Shall we sit?' He gestured towards a stand of three unimpressive palms where cushions had been piled. The sparse growth of the current season was dull and dry, more brown than green, older fronds from earlier years hanging down around the gnarled and swollen trunks in tattered curtains.

'Thank you.' Kheda followed Saril with slow deliberation, flanked by Telouet and Atoun.

The Chazen warlord stumbled in the soft sand, heedless of the anxious eyes fixed on him.

'Barle must be dead,' Telouet whispered to Kheda. 'He'd never let him wander about without so much as a thickness of leather between him and a blade.' If Telouet had never had much time for Saril, he'd at least approved of the warlord's personal attendant.

Kheda silenced his slave with a curt gesture as Saril turned by the scatter of cushions. 'I can offer you no refreshment beyond water.' His wave was no more than a sad shadow of his former exuberant hospitality.

'That suffices with your domain at war.' Kheda settled himself, legs crossed. The leggings dug into the backs of his knees and his shoulders protested at the unceasing burden of his mail coat. He resolutely ignored the discomfort as Telouet and Atoun stood on either side, between the two warlords, faces to the crowd, drawn swords levelled.

'There'll be more than my domain at war with these wild invaders,' Saril retorted with some spirit. 'If we do not deny them Daish waters, they'll sweep up to Ritsem, Ulla, Endit and beyond. They may even now be burning Redigal lands.'

'I don't believe so, not yet,' Kheda countered. 'And if we fight together to deny them now, you can rally your people and strike back before they take a firm grip of your lands.'

An imperceptible hope crept into the closest faces on the edge of Kheda's vision.

On the other hand, Saril's expression hovered on the brink of outright despair. 'Perhaps we might claw back something, after the rains.'

'No.' Kheda shook his head emphatically. 'We strike now'

Saril looked at him, uncertain. 'If we can rally my people, gather them on some lesser island.'

'Daish does not cede lands to Chazen.' Telouet glowered at the harassed warlord.

'Chazen slaves with such impertinent tongues can expect to be flogged,' Saril shot back in reply.

'I beg forgiveness, great lord,' said Telouet, his expression far from contrite.

'We will shelter your people but only until they can return to their own.' Kheda smiled to sweeten his unpalatable words. 'Better those of Chazen return home to plant their crops than labour in my domain without reaping any reward. You won't still be here at harvest, come what may.'

That much I must make sure of or we'll never be rid of you.

'We always carry the fight to an enemy. It is for us to act and our foes to react. Daish Reik taught me that and I doubt Chazen Shas ever said different,' he said with a hint of challenge.

'That's all very well when your foes are familiar, their strengths apparent and weaknesses known. Neither my father nor yours ever had to face—' Stubborn, Saril shook his head. 'We cannot hope to carry the battle back south during the rains. I must find my people a home until then. I could look to Ulla Safar or Redigal Coron.' His hoarse voice betrayed his desperation. 'They will not spurn alliance with my domain. I have daughters nigh of an age to marry. Are you willing to see me make such an alliance? Sirket must be seeking a wife by now?'

And the honoured Janne Daish will threaten her esteemed husband with castration, never mind a slap in the face, if he agreed to such a paltry bride for their son. As for Ulla Safar or Redigal Coron, they'd not only spurn your daughters, they'd laugh in your face for suggesting such a notion.

Kheda swallowed the impulse to tell the man so. 'I have already said we will shelter you for the present. Rekha Daish will negotiate suitable recompense with Itrac Chazen once we see you safely restored to your own. As for Ulla Safar and Redigal Coron, I believe they would balk at helping you, if magic has assaulted your domain.'

Saril hung his head, fragile defiance collapsing. 'You've heard about that.'

'Is all that Itrac tells me fact?' The miserable acquiescence on the faces Kheda could see at the corner of his eye left Saril with no room to lie. 'I charge you on the honour of your domain to tell me the truth.' Kheda spared a glance for Atoun and Telouet and saw both men frozen, appalled at what they were hearing.

The time for secrecy is past. Daish crews and warriors coming ashore to eat and drink, to make good the ravages of such a forced voyage on the ships, they'll be hearing what transpired in Chazen. I need to meet that news with a plan ready for us all to implement, to give everyone something to think about besides the abhorrence of magic.

Kheda set his jaw. 'Did you see magic used in plain sight? What did you see?'

Saril hesitated before finally answering. 'They had no ships, yet they came out of empty ocean, riding in no more than hollowed logs. They had no swords, no knives, just wooden spears and stone clubs, yet they had no fear of our blades. Why should they fear us?' He laughed mirthlessly. 'They could call fire out of the empty air, fire and lightning. They could call up waves to drown our people. And there were more of them than a swarm of bloodflies. Our arrows could not harm them. They bounced off their naked skins like sticks tossed at boiled leather.'

'My lord, if these people truly bring magic—' Already swarthy, even before a lifetime weathered by the unforgiving sun, Atoun still visibly paled behind his beard. 'What shall we do against them?'

'We kill them all.' Kheda hid his own misgivings. 'As fast and as completely as we may. If we cannot fight them in open battle, we'll burn them wherever they may be hiding, burn this foulness from any land it touches. Fire cleanses all.'

'All the more reason to attack before the rains come,' said Telouet stoutly.

'But of course, it was night and we were in no sense prepared for attack.' Saril's voice rose in sudden challenge. 'How do we know it was truly magic? Who among us has ever even seen the fakery of some barbarian wizard of the north? Perhaps it is all some cunning counterfeit to play on our fears.'

From the dubious murmurs all around, it was clear the other men and women of Chazen were convinced of what they had seen.

Kheda took a moment to be sure his voice was calm and level. 'We cannot decide how best to fight until we know just where these wild men are gathered in strength. Atoun, ask all of Chazen's shipmasters exactly where they have seen these invaders. Find out just where anyone put to flight has come from. I want to know where the closest nest of these savages may be. We can take three ships at first light tomorrow and launch a quick raid to take their measure.'

'You think we broke and fled?' Bitterness twisted Saril's face. 'That all this talk of magic is just some excuse for our cowardice?'

Well, if they were facing magic, I'd certainly back the quality of Daish warriors over Chazen's.

'I don't know what to think. Up, Chazen Saril,' Kheda commanded briskly, getting to his feet. 'It's time we looked to our own responsibilities.'

There was little change in Saril's dispondent expression. 'All my responsibilities lie ravaged or scattered to the far horizon.'

Kheda kicked his knee, just hard enough to startle a look of outrage from the plump man. 'We must read the auguries, Chazen Saril, the two of us together and the sooner the better.'

Saril caught his breath. 'I had not thought to even look where the birds flew at dawn.'

'Stars above, man, that's hardly surprising.' Kheda allowed himself to show a little compassion. He held out a hand. 'You're attacked with fire above all else, so we should read ashes, agreed?'

Saril scrambled gracelessly up before looking around the meagre island, new purpose in his face. 'We need as many different woods as possible. The more widely the fuel for the fire is rooted in past and present, the clearer the guidance the ashes will offer.'

A shiver of anticipation ran through the crowd.

'Let's see what the sea has brought us,' Kheda suggested.

'Cut some palm fronds as well,' Saril ordered a hovering skein of Chazen mariners as he brushed sand from his stained orange trousers.

'These fires will have stripped all the driftwood from the beach,' said Telouet, looking at the huddled masses with disfavour.

'Then let's see what's caught around the rocks.' Kheda restrained an impulse to strip off his damp leggings and feel the sand beneath his feet. At least he could climb over the razor-edged rocks in safety if he wore them.

The great black outcrop broke into ridges and rubble at the far end of the beach. Kheda moved cautiously over the slanting slippery facets, Telouet hovering at his side. The currents that wrecked the incautious on the ominous rock had carried plenty of debris up with the tides. Bleached drifts of shells and broken crab claws were piled in the hollows and crannies.

Will those invaders come to grief here? Do they have magic to carry them over the sea's capriciousness? No, you have to turn your mind from such distractions, from the unhappy people on the beach, from the insidious doubts that you did right by Olkai, from the fear that this disaster overtaking Chazen lurks just below the horizon to come sweeping up to crash down on the Daish domain. Remember Daish Reik's words.

'You must not merely see or hear the omens; you must feel every thread that ties you to every other living being. You must breathe the air that all passed from sight have shared, that all to come will taste in turn. You must know your place in the great scheme of things and see everything from that vantage point.'

Kheda stood still to draw the salt-scented air deep into his lungs. The noises around him faded as he closed his eyes and concentrated a steady exhalation to the exclusion of all else. Opening his eyes, a sea-stained tree root immediately caught his eye. Stooping, he picked it up and as he did so, he saw a worm-eaten fragment of a nut palm's trunk cast up beneath an overhang.

'My lord.' Telouet offered him a length of rope, snapped and frayed.

'Good enough,' Kheda nodded. 'It'll all burn.'

'Daish Kheda!'

Surprised by Saril's vigorous hail, Kheda nearly lost his footing on the hostile stone. 'What do you have there?'

The Chazen warlord was hurrying up the beach weighed down with an armful of splintered spars and shattered oar blades, even a few lengths of broken planking, one tarred length blistered and burnt. 'All this should carry some memory of whatever malice propels these invaders,' he said grimly, throwing his burden to the ground with a resounding clatter.

'Telouet, pass me those palm fronds.' Most definitely not wanting to complicate matters by spilling his own blood into the fuel for this fire, Kheda carefully used his dagger to strip back the tough brown stem and tease apart the clustered fibres of the yellow core.

Chazen Saril knelt over a scrap of wood where he'd gouged a shallow hole, a notch cut in one side. He carefully placed a sharpened stick in it, the looped string of a fire bow drawn tight around it. Drawing his hand back and forth slowly at first, he rapidly increased the pace and black dust gathered around the spinning point.

'Now.' Saril kept the stick whirling ceaselessly.

Kheda piled his tinder by the notch in the scrap of wood; it showed the faintest breath of white. As Saril pulled the fire bow away, brushing sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand, Kheda gathered up the scrap of wood, blowing gently into the frayed palm fibres, just enough to coax the nascent flame, not so much as to damp it with the moisture of his breath. A gleam of gold blinked among the pale smoke. Kheda cupped his hands to shelter the tiny fire from inquisitive breezes that could stifle it at birth.

No one needs that kind of omen.

'Here.'

Saril had built a nest of sticks and Kheda tucked the little flame safely inside it. Chazen Saril fed it with powdery scraps crumbled from a rotting branch and then sat back, watching greedy golden tongues licking at the sturdier wood he had brought from the wreckage of his ships.

Kheda saw the Chazen warlord's eyes grow distant, the energy born of having a task to accomplish deserting him.

'We're not here to read the flames,' Kheda told him sharply as he stacked the rest of the fuel around the burning heart of the fire. 'It's the ashes we need.'

Saril looked up with a sudden grin that caught Kheda by surprise. 'Did you ever make the mistake of suggesting dousing an augury fire with water, just to hurry things up?'

'I did,' Kheda laughed. 'But only the once.'

'My father slapped me so hard he knocked me clean off my feet.' Saril sounded perversely amused at the recollection.

Daish Reik wasn't given to beating any of his children, always more inclined to teach through laughter, even when there was only me left to learn such vital lessons for the good governance of the domain.

'This should burn down quickly enough.' Kheda stood and looked back down the shore, pleased to see the Daish ships had organised regular ranks of cook fires, rowers taking a well-earned rest as swordsmen shared the tasks of preparing a meal and ensuring armour and weapons were ready for any battle that might offer itself. Others were spread around the island, silhouetted vigilant against the sky as they perched on the heights of the rock, eyes turned to the south.

There's no real purpose among the Chazen men, even those that aren't injured. Is that just the shock consuming them or some insidious taint from magic?

Kheda looked at Telouet and saw his own thoughts reflected in the slave's dark eyes.

Unharmed and walking wounded, they will be going ahead of Daish men, to face whatever peril lies to the south.

He glanced at the fire but it was still blazing merrily, oblivious of his burning desire to read what counsel might emerge from its ashes.

Atoun's burly figure caught Kheda's eye. The warrior was standing with Jatta and a Chazen shipmaster from one of the heavy triremes, scratching something in the sand with a stick.

Telouet came to stand beside him. 'There's a man with the sense to see this danger weighs heavier in the scales than any concerns about keeping the secrets of his domain's seaways.'

'As soon as we're done here, we need to meet with Jatta and Atoun, and whoever Chazen Saril deems worthy among his shipmasters. We'll take four ships south. We need to decide where best to set the rest, to be sure of the earliest possible warning of any move north by these foes.'

'And to discourage any fleeing Chazen who think they might escape notice long enough to dig themselves into a new home,' scowled Telouet.

'We dare not spread our resources too thinly,' Kheda reminded his faithful slave. 'If we're to drive these people out, we'll need to take a substantial force when we make our main attack.'

So as to have enough men to finish the task, if magic rips the rest to rags of sodden flesh or burns them to charred bones.

'It'll be no easy task feedi#238;g a domain's full force gathered so late in the dry season,' Telouet muttered. 'Where will you muster them? The rains ave due any time after the Greater Moon shows itself; we can't risk losin#231; half our ships if a squall hits them on a bad shore.'

Will allying myself with Chazen be the right course to protecting my people or am I letting myself be carried off by a current I should have steered well clear of, to be wrecked on an unseen reef? Was Chazen attacked merely on account of lying southernmost in the Archipelago or is there some darker reason for this disaster befalling Saril?

'That's burned enough, isn't it?' The other warlord's voice startled Kheda from his thoughts.

He was surprised to see how quickly the fire had died.

'If we use gloves,' he said cautiously.

Telouet handed him a pair pulled from his belt, heavy leather reinforced with metal plates to foil a slashing sword.

'I don't have any.' Saril looked down at his hands before gazing around as if expecting his lost slave to appear with such things.

'I'll go first.' Kheda wasn't sorry to seize that opportunity. 'You can borrow these.'

Drawing on the thick gloves, he scooped a double handful of charred wood and feathery ash from the edge of the still-smouldering fire, taking a moment to judge the wind before flinging the ashes in a wide arc. In the corner of his eye, he saw all activity down the beach had stopped.

Chazen Saril backed away. Kheda stripped off the gloves and thrust them at him. 'You must throw before we look for signs.'

The Chazen warlord drew them on reluctantly. 'We're both in this together, I suppose.'

Kheda fixed him with a hard look. 'That remains to be seen, as much as anything else, don't you think?'

Saril gathered dying embers between his hands. Heaving a sigh, he tossed the blackened fragments out across the white sand, face tense with apprehension. 'Well? What do you see?'

Kheda walked slowly round the scatter of ash and cinder, searching for some familiar outline, some shape or shadow. 'Is that a sword?'

'More like wishful thinking,' Saril replied dubiously. 'Could that be the arc of a bow?'

'No, not with so many breaks in the line,' Kheda said with regret.

Saril began a slow circuit of the soiled sand, bending to peer more closely from time to time. Coming back to Kheda, he shook his head, bemused and defensive at one and the same time. 'I cannot read anything clearly. I must be too tired, too dazed by all that's happened to be properly attuned to the portents.'

Kheda was still intent on studying the ashes. 'Can that be a snake or a sea serpent?' He squatted down to draw a finger around the shape he was seeing.

Saril gave it a perfunctory glance. 'Not crooked at that angle.'

'There must be something to see.' Kheda looked up at him exasperated. 'Some representations of the heavenly bodies, the symbols of season and reason, the arcane forms of the various domains. Tell me what you see,' he demanded.

'Confusion,' Saril answered slowly.

'Where?' Kheda looked down at the scatter of ash and sand. 'For all of us? Or just for Chazen?'

'I don't mean a portent of confusion.' Saril stared down at the sand, face slack with fear. 'All I see is confusion. I can't trace any patterns, read any guidance. This is just,' he struggled for words, 'meaningless.'

'No.' Kheda set his jaw. 'There will be a meaning in this, if only we can read it.'

'What is a portent?' Saril asked suddenly.

'A sign arising from all that is and has been, that may guide us for the future.' Kheda couldn't keep a weary sarcasm out of his voice.

'Chazen Shas taught me to think of a forest tree, that can be fallen, the whole decaying yet the broken branches taking root, nourishing new shoots. He said all portents are rooted in the past, coming to bloom in our hands, that we may see the seeds of the future.' Saril looked at Kheda, face haunted. 'But there has never been magic used here, not within the whole memory of my domain. The records of our observatory towers reach back past a hundred cycles of the most distant jewels through the heavens, those that take years to pass between one arc of the heavens and the next. How can the past show us the future when we're faced with something that has never been part of our past, left no trace?' Just as Kheda thought hysteria was going to overwhelm the southern warlord, Saril broke off and stared at him, aghast. 'I believe there's something else working its ill influence here. Didn't your father warn you how thoroughly magic corrupts the natural order? I am very much afraid that the miasma already clouds our auguries. That's why there's nothing to see here!'

'Then how are we to know what to do for the best?' cried Kheda before he could stop himself. He took a long slow breath. 'No matter. We'll just have to go south, as I said before. We'll have to see what we're facing with our own eyes.'