‘Dev, come with me,’ Kheda said sharply.
‘What?’ Dev looked at the warlord, slow to collect himself.
‘Arao, I want every piece of wreckage or driftwood turned over. I want every stain on this beach dug up. I want every one of those torn apart and anything inside laid bare!’ Kheda was already walking across the sand, pointing this way and that at the derelict huts. Arao reinforced his orders with terse shouts and the warlord turned to Dev as the barbarian caught him up. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Nothing,’ snapped the wizard.
Almost immediately, shouts came from several directions. A man prodding a stain in the sand had found something, as had a group scattering a heap of tide-washed detritus with their swords. One held up a second severed foot on the point of his blade.
‘Do you think we’ve got a pair?’ Dev chuckled, dark eyes shining oddly.
Kheda caught a look of contempt from Arao as the other swordsman overheard.
I know just what you’re thinking: he’s still an ignorant, star-crossed barbarian, even if he does wield Aldabreshin steel in the service of your warlord.
‘What’s over there?’ Kheda looked towards two men investigating the space beneath the raised platform of the mined sailer granary. Whatever they had found was enough to drop one to his knees, vomiting noisily.
‘Let’s see.’ Dev hurried towards them. Scowling, Arao took up the body slave’s station at the warlord’s side.
Kheda had to stop and take a determined swallow to settle his own stomach when he saw that two Shearsword men had dragged the head and shoulders of a man out from beneath the splintered wood. The corpse still had both his arms but that was all. Shattered ribs were ground into a gory mess of torn flesh along with the broken remnants of his shoulder blades. All that remained below that was a short tail of vertebrae clotted with blood and sinew.
‘At least he’s not one of ours, one of Chazen,’ the swordsman who’d managed to retain his breakfast said through clenched teeth.
The dead man was unmistakably an invader. His coarse, wiry hair was caked in coloured mud with small bones and black feathers tipped with scarlet woven into it. Handprints in a thick white paint made a pattern of sorts down each arm.
‘Their leaders decorate themselves like this.’ Kheda used his own sword point to turn one of the broken corpse’s hands. The fingers were torn and scored, vicious wooden splinters sticking out of the dead flesh. ‘But no wizard, I would say.’ He risked a brief questioning glance at Dev.
The barbarian shook his head, bending to peer into the empty gloom beneath the buckled and splintered floorboards of the granary. ‘I’m more interested in what killed him. That’s cursed drastic damage to do with stone knives and wooden clubs.’
‘I can’t see anything like a clean cut.’ Kheda stood up and considered the torn margins of the severed chest. No Archipelagan blade did this.’
‘There’s one of those stone knives over there, my lord,’ the Shearsword man with the stronger stomach volunteered.
Kheda looked where the sharp-eyed warrior was pointing and saw dull black obsidian in the white sand. There was no sign of blood or tissue on the invader’s blade. ‘Why would he throw his weapons away?’
‘Surrendering?’ Dev was still studying the partial corpse, baffled. ‘And then what? There are no swords anywhere. Are we supposing whoever caught the poor bastard held him down and sawed him in half with a sharp bit of broken rock?’
That thought set the hapless Shearsword man who’d made the gruesome find spewing hopelessly again. ‘Go back to your ship.’ Kheda clapped the warrior on one mail-clad shoulder. ‘Get some clean air in your lungs and a little fresh water in your belly. Nothing else, mind, not for a while. You, go with him.’ He nodded to the other swordsman. ‘You’ve acquitted yourselves well enough for today.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ the unafflicted wanior said gratefully, bowing low before shepherding his companion down towards the sea.
‘Arao, go and see what your men are turning up.’ As the warrior walked slowly away, after a last dubious look at Dev, Kheda took a few steps to distance himself from the pungent remnants of the dead savage. He turned to Dev, his voice low and urgent. ‘You’re sure he wasn’t one of their wizards?’
‘What?’ Dev looked vacantly at Kheda for a moment.
No.’ The barbarian shook off his abstraction and laughed briefly. ‘He wouldn’t have been hiding under a granary floor if he had been.’ The barbarian wizard’s face hardened abruptly. ‘Though something very odd has gone on here.’
Before Kheda could ask what he meant, one of the Dancing Snake’s sword captains hailed them from over by the remnants of the invaders’ stockade. Kheda led the way past reluctant swordsmen uncovering more mangled remnants of flesh and bone.
‘You were right to say this is a puzzle, but I still don’t think we’ve enough bits to make more than a couple of people,’ remarked Dev.
Kheda ignored the barbarian as he looked inside the crude wooden circle, one side of it almost completely broken down, the timbers half-buried in the sand.
‘Do you want a head count?’ the Dancing Snaked wanior offered reluctantly.
‘Add up the feet and divide by two?’ Dev suggested with the hint of a grin.
The inside of the stockade was a charnel house. Blood splashed up the inner faces of the crudely split logs, dried black by the hot sun. Black flies clustered on broken limbs and half-crushed heads scattered piecemeal across the torn and sodden earth. Fat, pale maggots writhed where their feasting had been disturbed, squirming in noxious slime pooled in shaded hollows. The stench in the enclosed space was revolting and Kheda retreated hurriedly.
‘Shipmaster Mezai heard screams in the night.’ He turned his back on the carnage. ‘They must have been fighting among themselves.’
‘There can’t be much food on an island like this.’ Dev stared past Kheda at a lifeless head, as if he might read some answer in the clouded, oozing eyes rimmed with greedy flies. ‘Do you suppose they ended up eating each other?’
Kheda saw one of the warriors turn away, face anguished.
You lost someone, family or friend, to the invaders. This reminder of their suffering must be excruciating. He shot the barbarian a quelling look. ‘They may have grievously mistreated the captives they took but there was never any sign of such an obscenity.’
‘They’d have kept prisoners fed and watered if they were going to end up on a spit, even fattened them up, maybe,’ Dev persisted thoughtfully, heedless of Kheda’s glare. ‘Besides, they used to take the elders, all scrawny and tough—’
‘Enough!’ Kheda silenced Dev with a hard slap on the side of his helm with his mailed gauntlet. He didn’t allow anyone, swordsman or barbarian, time to speak before giving new orders with cold determination. ‘Arao, search this isle from end to end and side to side. If there’s anything larger than a palm rat in those trees, I want to see it running scared. If we catch a single living savage, we will find some way of getting answers out of him. In the meantime, bring some sail crew ashore to gather up this carrion. Throw it all in this stockade and pile every other bit of wood on top. I want this vileness burned to ashes!’ He had barely finished speaking before Arao’s lead had the sword captains summoning their men with curt commands, dividing the warriors into troops. As the swordsmen began disappearing into the scrubby forest, swords raised, tense and alert, sail crews from the triremes disembarked and set about the gruesome task of cleansing the beach.
‘Come on, let’s see what’s what.’ Dev headed for the fringe of nut palms, his bald, leathery face uncharacteristically eager.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ snapped Kheda.
The barbarian turned, dark eyes momentarily confused. You want me to scry out these savages here in the open?’
‘I don’t want you doing anything just at present.’ Before Kheda could continue, a shout rang through the trees. Archers aboard the Brittle Crab swung their bows up ready, barbed broad-heade
d arrows nocked.
‘Shearsword! ShearswordP Two swordsmen supporting a third emerged from the trees, yelling to identify their trireme.
‘Dev, get my physic chest.’ Kheda ran across the soft sand, feet slipping and clumsy in his leggings. ‘What’s happened?’
The two men lowered their companion gently to sit on the ground. The injured man was biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. Kheda saw that something had driven clean through his foot, leather sandal and all, to leave a dark, bloody hole.
‘Deadfall, in the trees,’ the man gasped. ‘Saw that and the trip stick. Didn’t see the stake-pit under the leaves, though.’
Naturally,’ Kheda said wryly.
‘Just where you’d step to avoid the trip for the deadfall,’ spat one of his companions, rearranging the swords shoved askew in his belt by his exertions.
‘Lie flat so that the wound’s higher than your heart.’ Kheda drew his dagger and slit the lattice of laces tying the thick deerhide around the swordsman’s foot. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Pai, my lord.’ Lying back, he gritted his teeth as Kheda carefully peeled back the bloodstained leather. ‘You’ve won yourself light duties for a good few days with this.’ Kheda bent to examine the wound more closely before looking up and raising his voice. ‘Dev! Where’s my physic chest? One of you light me a fire and get some water boiling.’
One of Pai’s companions glanced towards the stockade where a small fire was now taking hold.
No,’ said Kheda sharply. ‘Don’t get an ember from there, light a fresh fire. Let’s not risk ill luck in the wound. We’ll soak the foot in an infusion of blueshadow leaves and then pack the wound with chamaz pulp. It has to heal from the inside first or it’ll fester.’ He felt carefully for the bones of the foot. ‘You’ve not done too much damage, surprisingly enough.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ stammered Pai, sweat beading his ashen face.
Saving his foot wont do him much good if he dies from the shock of it all. Best give him a few hemp leaves to chew to take the edge off that.
Kheda looked round for Dev and saw the barbarian hurrying back across the sands as more commotion erupted from the forest further down the beach.
“Gossamer Shark! Gossamer Shark!’ Five men were carrying another out from the shadow of the trees, one to each limb and the fifth supporting his head.
‘Keep this held up.’ Kheda handed Pai’s foot to one of the men who had carried him out of the forest and hurried to see what had befallen the new casualty.
‘Spear trap, my lord,’ gasped the swordsman supporting the man’s head.
‘Four stakes to it,’ added one grasping the casualty around a thigh. ‘At belly height.’
‘Knocked him clean off his feet,’ one of the two supporting the wounded man’s shoulders explained. ‘Lay him down.’ Kheda pushed back the man’s chain veil to uncover his face and saw that his skin was grey and clammy. The heartbeat in his neck was rapid and feathery under the warlord’s fingertips. ‘What’s his name?’
Naeir,’ said the other one supporting his shoulders. ‘It was a sapling, bent back sideways, sharpened stakes on the end. We never saw it, not till it hit Naeir,’ he babbled frantically.
‘Did he hit his head as he fell?’ Kneeling, Kheda felt the unconscious man’s abdomen but the chain mail, dirty with fragments of wood and leaves, frustrated his searching hands.
/ can’t tell how badly he’s hurt without getting his armour off But getting it off could make things worse, if he’s bleeding inside. Liver or spleen could be ruptured, even his stomach. Then there ‘11 be no saving him. Dev appeared and set the warlord’s physic chest down beside him. ‘How old was the trap?’ he asked. The men looked at him, uncomprehending.
‘How old was the trap?’ Dev repeated himself with scant patience. ‘Was the wood still green, with leaves on the twigs? Did some sly bastard set it this morning to catch you lot if you came looking for him? Or was it dried out from being rigged there half a season ago?’
‘That’s a good question.’ Kheda looked up at Dev.
As the barbarian opened his mouth to say something more, a sudden storm of shouts and screams swept across the beach. Startled, Kheda was rising to his feet when a brutal buffet of sand-laden air and a deafening roar knocked him to his knees again. Before he could recover his footing or clear his stinging eyes, someone grabbed him by the arm and dragged him, stumbling, across the sands into the dubious shelter of the trap-laden forest. They dropped behind a tangle of sard-berry bushes choked with striol vines.
Kheda spat sand and fragments of things he didn’t want to think about out of his mouth. What—’
‘Look!’ It had been Dev who had dragged him off the beach. Now the barbarian was crawling and twisting through the bottoms of the bushes, his chain mail scorning the striol thorns.
Kheda wriggled after him on elbows and knees, the metal plates in his leggings digging into the backs of his legs. He swallowed hard. ‘What is that?’
Dev looked at him as if he couldn’t believe the question. ‘It’s a dragon, Kheda. You’ve heard of them, I take it, even down in these godforsaken islands?’
The warlord gaped at the wizard. ‘What’s it doing here?’
‘Whatever it chooses,’ Dev answered with strangled sarcasm.
Yes, you asked for that, didn’t you? Kheda lay as flat as he could beneath the inadequate cover of the stunted bushes and gazed at the beach with utter incredulity.
This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. No? Then what’s that? A mist-dream conjured by some barbarian smoke addling everyone’s wits?
Stars above, it’s as big as the Gossamer Shark! The dragon, wherever it had come from, had landed on the widest part of the beach, where the sea swells left the sand untouched. It stood, four massive clawed feet firmly planted and its thick, muscular tail curling around as it folded its awesome wings. A crest of thick scales running down its spine and tail glowed like living flame in the bright sun, culminating in a heavy ridged spike at the tip of its tail. The overlapping scales along its back and haunches were dark red as the bloody heart of a recalcitrant fire—and a formidable defence, that much was obvious. As the colour of its hide lightened down its flanks to an orange-tinted gold, the scales gradually grew smaller. As the creature shifted its stance, the flexible folds of skin between limbs and body stretched and bunched, pale as sunrise in the angle of its hind leg and belly.
It turned its enormous head to look at the triremes now fleeing the beach and lashed its tail, the heavy spike gouging a deep furrow in the sand. All four vessels were rowing frantically for open water, oar blades chopping the sea into a frenzy of foam. The lighter Brittle Crab was already half a length ahead. The dragon dropped its snout towards the water, fine forked tongue flickering out, never quite touching the rising and retreating surf Scales framed its head with a lethal ruff of spines that would baffle any opponent trying to seize it by the neck. Heavy crimson scales armoured its broad, blunt-nosed muzzle, softening to lighter colours in the folds beneath its long jaw. That softer skin didn’t extend far below its head, however. The underside of the long, flexible neck was armoured with more elongated scarlet scales.
After a few moments, it turned away from the water and surveyed the beach, slowly and deliberately. Its eyes glittered like liquid rubies, lit from within by a single spark of feral intelligence. It glanced over at the mined stockade now blazing fiercely. The dragon drew its coppery lips back in a snarl that revealed a single row of long, pointed, pure white teeth. It opened its mouth and hissed; a low, menacing noise, as its red tongue flickered in and out.
Abruptly, it sprang, the colossal power in its hind legs sending it across the beach with barely any need to spread its huge wings. It landed on top of the stockade, crushing the pyre beneath its great feet. Lashing head and tail from side to side, it scattered the fire, snapping at the gouts of flame with a growl deep in its throat. The blaze died instantly to leave black ash and cold cinders. The dragon
snuffled at them, sending a flurry of sooty dust into the air.
Movement caught Kheda’s eye. Everyone had fled the beach in utter panic. Two swordsmen burdened with the unconscious Naeir had only managed to reach a knot of young nut palms standing some distance from the sparse margin of the forest. With the dragon apparently occupied, its back towards them, they seized their chance to try for better concealment, Naeir carried awkwardly between them.
The dragon’s head whipped around. It sprang a second time, unfolding the outermost crease of its wings to glide through the air. It landed, sending a tremor through the sand like the aftershock of a distant earthquake. With a bellow like the roaring fury of a forest fire, it swept the nut palms aside with a single sweep of a forelimb. The tree trunks landed half a ship’s length across the beach, snapped into splintered pieces.
The swordsmen dropped Naeir and fell to the sandy ground, curling up in a hopeless attempt to save themselves. The dragon crouched, belly to the sand, cocking its head. The fire in its eyes brightened as it reached out one forefoot, a single claw adroitly extended. Ignoring the other two for the moment, it prodded the unconscious Naeir. Getting no response, it bent its massive head closer while running that single vicious claw down the length of the man’s hauberk.
The grating noise sent a shiver of icy dread down Kheda’s spine. He watched, frozen with honor, as the beast drew back its head to consider the fallen warrior, long neck arcing as it looked at this mystery first from one side and then the other.
It doesn’t know what to make of the armour. It’s like that young matia you saw when you were out hunting with Sirket. It was doing well enough with the little lizards but it hadn’t a clue what to do when its mother brought back that jungle scun-ier. Even when she’d bitten between the shiny orange and black segments to break its back, the youngling hadn’t wanted to risk its pincers as it writhed in its death throes. The dragon bent its head to Naeir’s feet, mouth agape.
Then it changed its mind, twisting its maw as if to bite his head. At the last moment, it stopped, long tongue flickering out to run delicately along the brow band of the senseless swordsman’s helm.
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