Southern Fire ac-1

by Juliet E. McKenna

  '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 distra
ctions, 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 feediîg 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 losinç 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 re
gret.

  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!'