Western Shore ac-3

by Juliet E. McKenna

  The scarred spearman turned to gaze in that direction, new keenness brightening his eyes still further. He stooped to redraw the original marks showing all four putative foes and looked up at Kheda, unblinking. He tapped the side of one dark eye with a dusty forefinger and pointed at the

  first mark before pointing authoritatively at an individual spearman lurking behind another tree. He did the same for the second and third, his expression now demanding Kheda's understanding. When it came to the fourth mark, he swept his hand around as if to gather up all the rest of the men and smacked his palm down hard to sweep the mark into oblivion.

  You 're trusting me this far. You'1l leave men to keep watch on these three groups while the rest of us attack the force slipping up the ravine. That's good enough for me.

  As Kheda nodded vigorously, the scarred spearman darted to the next tree and drew the men hiding behind it into a whispering huddle. Those three split up to run to different trees, beckoning and hissing to the wild warriors now alert on all sides. The scarred spearman hurried back to Kheda, new eagerness in his eyes.

  The warlord turned to look at the fringe of the grassland at the base of the steep slope where dark figures were now obvious, squatting among the tussocks.

  Too obvious, some of them. But I'd never have guessed they were a magical deceit if Naldeth hadn 't sent word. Still, what wouldn 't I trade for a decent bow and a quiver of broad-bladed arrows, so I could put a shaft into one of them, just to be sure?

  He looked at the scarred spearman, who nodded back, his brown face implacable. At his sudden shout, the bulk of the spearmen from the village sprang out from behind the barrel trees and ran towards the ravine. Only a few remained behind the foremost trunks, clutching their spears as they looked down the slope of the plateau.

  Kheda flinched as a shower of lethal-looking spears soared up from the enemies lurking in the bristling grasses. Before the shafts of fire-hardened wood had landed, several of the village's spearmen had stopped to hurl their own weapons down the slope in answer. Stones whizzed

  through the air, apparently slung by the attackers below. Some fell short, others glanced off the swollen-bellied trees. More of the spearmen halted, stricken with doubt.

  Can't you see their spears aren 't landing anywhere close to us and that the stones from their slings aren't kicking up any dust?

  Kheda shouted at the hesitating men with wordless anger, urging them on, his steel blades bright in his hands. Some yielded, turning to run for the ravine again. Too many scowled and skirted around him to reinforce the scattered men who had been left to watch the slope.

  The scarred spearman shouted something, urgent and incomprehensible. Kheda gripped his sword and his hacking blade and they ran forward together. The first of the wild men whom the spearman had successfully co-opted had reached the brink of the ravine and were looking down with shouts of hate and menace. Kheda flinched as missiles soared up out of the thistly scrub. One of the village's spearmen, less wary than the rest, sank screaming to his knees clutching at a spear driven clean through his body just above the hip. A couple of others suffered wounds and bruises as sharp-edged rocks and smooth sling stones skittered and bounced across the hard earth. A wild warrior close by Kheda fell headlong, dead before he could make a sound as a slingshot buried itself in one of his eyes.

  Kheda tried to look down into the ravine without exposing himself to danger. The twisted nut trees grew thickly there, protected from the winds and able to wind their roots down into a more constant water supply. It was difficult to make out the tree dwellers hiding beneath the fringes of pale-green leaves. Another shower of stones and sharpened sticks shot upwards, forcing Kheda and all the village spearmen to dodge backwards.

  As they did so, a roar came from behind them, as if

  some mighty force was charging up the steep slope from the grasslands. The uncertain shouts from the spearmen left on guard rose to a panic that tore more spearmen away from the edge of the ravine. Kheda watched them go, exasperated. The scarred spearman shouted after them, to no avail.

  Kheda looked back down into the ravine. He still couldn't make out where the tree dwellers were or what they were doing, but he could see enough dark curly heads to be sure there was a considerable force down there.

  The warlord grabbed the scarred spearman's hand and wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the Aldabreshin hacking blade. Still gripping the man's hand, he used the broad blade to point down into the ravine, before jabbing an insistent forefinger into the spearman's chest and then down at the ground.

  Do you understand me? You stay here and fight. I have to show the rest of your men that these attackers from the grassland are no more than illusion.

  Kheda turned and ran for the slope at the edge of the plateau. To his intense relief, the scarred spearman didn't follow, shouting harsh rebuke instead at those others who took a pace after the warlord.

  Over by the slope leading down to the grasslands, the village's spearmen were retreating from barrel tree to barrel tree, seeking shelter from a ceaseless hail of sticks and stones. Kheda forced himself not to hesitate, running onwards, flinching inwardly as the missiles continued to rain down.

  It's an illusion. Just an illusion.

  Just as he had convinced himself, a stone hit him hard on the shoulder, numbing his sword arm. In the same breath, a mob of tree dwellers, their faces twisted with hatred, appeared over the lip of the slope, brandishing their clubs and stone knives.

  If they aren't an illusion, I'm a dead man.

  An attacker ran towards Kheda, murderous club raised high. Kheda slashed at the man's midriff with his sword before driving upwards instinctively to parry the heavy club. The blade bit into neither flesh nor wood. As Kheda wondered how he had missed the savage, windblown dust blurred his vision. He blinked it away and saw the stone-studded club coming at his face. Kheda dodged to one side but the savage was still there in front of him.

  Because it's an illusion.

  Cursing himself for a fool, Kheda charged straight at the snarling wild man and found he passed straight through him. A second attacker appeared and Kheda ran full at him as well. A shiver of doubt shook the warlord at the very last moment but there was no way to stop. The attacker vanished, leaving a trace of fine dust sticking to the sweat on Kheda's face. There was no time for euphoria as the warlord realised he had gone too far down the perilously steep slope to stop safely. All he could do was carry on running until the dense tussocks of grass slowed him. Eventually he stopped, chest heaving, and turned to see what was happening behind him.

  The last of the illusions dissolved into a cloud of pale dust as a spearman swept his weapon through it. A few of the village warriors were still on the lip of the plateau, looking down uncertainly. More had followed Kheda down the slope, some through choice, others with no more option than he had had. A couple were smeared with dust and blood where they had fallen but didn't seem to be slowed by their injuries. All regarded Kheda with respect tempered with awe. Looking around to get his bearings, he heard screams and shouts coming from the direction of the ravine.

  'Let's see how those tree dwellers like being attacked from the flank,' he urged the spearmen. They looked back

  at him, uncomprehending. Kheda grinned and beckoned with his sword, moving towards the ravine. Grinning back ferociously as they realised his intent, the village spearmen made haste to follow.

  Kheda hung back a little as he reached the mouth of the ravine. Walls of angled rocks loomed on either side, bristling with thorny plants clinging to the crevices. The nut trees grew thick and tangled in the uneven depths. He looked back and saw he had no need to caution the spearmen to move quietly. They were slipping through the scrub with practised stealth.

  A lesson you learn on this hostile isle or die.

  He did his best to match their deftness as they advanced deeper into the gully, drawing closer to the sounds of fighting. As they rounded a shoulder of red-veined stone, Kheda saw a double handful of th
e tree dwellers climbing up the rock face under cover of the slingshots and spear casts of the rest of their force.

  A shaft of fire-hardened wood from somewhere behind whistled over Kheda's head, making him jump. The village spearman's aim was true and one of the climbers screamed as the point pierced his calf. As he reached instinctively down to the bloody wound, he lost his grip on the unforgiving rock. He fell backwards with a despairing shriek cut short as he landed with a sickening crunch somewhere unseen.

  The other climbers froze on their perches, yelling back down to their allies. Attackers came running out of the thistly cover, their clubs studded with sharp shards of black stone and raised for the kill. The spearmen who'd followed Kheda ran forward as one man, shouting up to their allies on the brink of the ravine. Dark faces appeared up above and began hurling sticks and stones back down on the climbers. More lost their hold and fell to death or incapacitating injury.

  Kheda raised his sword to parry a tree-dweller's club. This was no illusion. The sharp steel bit deep into the hard, dry wood and Kheda wrenched the weapon out of the savage's hand with an effort that tore deep into his shoulder muscles. The man ripped at Kheda with a stone knife clutched in his other hand. Kheda smashed downwards with the club and sword still locked in their deadly embrace. The impact as the man's forearm broke jarred the club free from the sword and Kheda turned the blade sideways instantly to rip the savage's belly open. The wild man screamed and doubled up, blood flowing down his thighs as he tried to close the gaping wound. Slate-blue loops of entrails bulged around his hands.

  Kheda would have granted him a merciful beheading but another attacker threw himself forward, whirling his club two-handed and screaming incoherently. The warlord sidestepped and swept his sword round. He cut one of his opponent's hands clean through at the wrist and smashed the other to rags of flesh and white splinters. Blood sprayed from the savage's stump to stain the nut trees as he stumbled backwards, wailing.

  Kheda wiped drops of red stickiness from his eyes and pursued the man. Another enemy interposed himself, jabbing with a spear. This one was alert enough to stay beyond reach of Kheda's deadly blade, darting forward to threaten him with the spear's blackened point before scurrying backwards. Kheda joined in the dance, blinking away blood. The savage matched his every move. Out of the corner of his eye, Kheda saw a second attacker slip sideways to come round behind him, club slowly lifting.

  Kheda took a pace backwards, pulling his dagger from its sheath. Stepping forwards, he threw the knife full at the spearman's chest, startling him into an incautious leap backwards. Striking breastbone or a rib, the dagger had given the man little more than a flesh wound. The shock

  was enough, though, as he looked down to see what had happened. Kheda dodged past the murderous point of the bloodstained spear just as the crushing club swept down behind him with a draught that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Kheda cut the spearman's head half from his shoulders with a scything stroke of his sword, spinning around in the same movement to meet the man with the club. The savage recoiled, his second stroke faltering. Kheda rolled his hands to send the flat blade between the man's ribs and the savage staggered, bloody froth bubbling in his mouth.

  Kheda ripped his sword backwards and the savage fell away dead. The one half-beheaded behind him was dead too. Kheda slipped as he wheeled around to see how the battle was going. There was so much blood that even this dry earth needed time to soak it up. A village spearman, one of many now climbing nimbly down the rocks to join in this battle, jumped the last stretch. He nodded grimly at Kheda as he scooped up the dead tree-dweller's club from the bloodied, muddied ground. A tree dweller ran towards them and then hesitated, fatally, unable to decide whether to attack Kheda or this new enemy. The village warrior's brutal club smashed into his head. The attacker fell without a sound, one whole side of his face grotesquely distorted.

  Sword at the ready, Kheda took stock as best he could, ducking down briefly to recover his thrown dagger. The village spearmen's yells were turning from defiant to triumphant as they slaughtered the tree dwellers in the ravine, still more of their own climbing down the rock face to come to their aid.

  How do I take control of this situation?

  Village spearmen were emerging from the tangled nut trees, dragging dead and dying tree dwellers by their hands or feet. Where one moaned and struggled, a club

  put paid to his efforts and the warrior dragged him mercilessly onwards. A few of the attackers came walking out of the thickets, heads bowed between their upraised arms. The village warriors drove them on with vicious jabs from their spears, inflicting fresh wounds in their backs and legs.

  As they passed by him on either side, Kheda realised the wild men of the village were taking all the dead and injured to the open space beyond the mouth of the ravine, their own included. Where the tree-dwellers' dead were simply dumped in a broken confusion of limbs and bodies, injured wild men from the village were carried carefully and laid gently down on the bare earth. Friends knelt to offer solace with a handclasp or a forehead pressed against the wounded man's, sweat and tears mingling.

  Kheda watched as a kneeling spearman drew a knife of black stone from some fold in his loincloth and expertly slit the throat of the wounded man lying in his embrace. A broken shaft jutted from the man's belly, bright with lifeblood and dark with ordure from his ripped bowels. Anguish twisted the spearman's face as he waited, unmoving, for his friend's blood to stop flowing down his chest and arm.

  I feel your pain. I wish I could tell you you 've done him the only service left to you. There would be nothing I could do for him even if I had every instrument and ointment known to Aldabreshin healers.

  Kheda turned away to see that the prisoners were offered no such mercy. A spearman condemned one captive to an unnecessarily painful death with a cruel thrust deep into his belly. That prompted a murderous frenzy. Already noisy with flies, the air in the confines of the ravine grew rank with the stench of slaughter. All the bodies, friend or foe, were tossed onto the growing heap of carrion. A shadow crossed the sun and Kheda's blood

  ran cold. He looked up to see rusty-feathered birds with the keen eyes of predators circling overhead, barred tails fanning wide.

  'Kheda!' Naldeth waved from the lip of the ravine, perilously exposed on an outthrust rock. 'What are they doing?'

  'Are you sure they're all dead, the tree dwellers?' Kheda's voice cracked as he tried to shout back, his mouth as dry as the sandy ground.

  Risala appeared beside the young mage and began climbing rapidly down the rock face.

  'They're all gone,' Naldeth yelled. 'Dead or fled.'

  All the same, Kheda searched the tangled nut trees for any sign of movement as Risala descended. She ran towards him, her complexion ashen with distress. 'You're hurt!'

  Kheda looked down to see that his trousers were foul with blood. 'No, I'm not wounded.' His parched throat failed him.

  'Here.' Risala thrust the brass water flask she had brought into his hands.

  'What are they doing?' Velindre had joined Naldeth on the precipice.

  Kheda let his head hang for a moment, then uncapped the flask and drank. The water was sweet and fresh and whatever enchantment had made it had conferred some lingering cool.

  Time was when I would have died of thirst before drinking any water touched by magic.

  'Kheda!' Naldeth shouted down at him again.

  'Where's the dragon?' Kheda looked up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and instantly regretting it as he tasted some dead savage's blood.

  Blue magelight swirled around both wizards before Naldeth could answer. Velindre walked composedly down

  from the heights on a stair of sapphire radiance, Naldeth following more slowly with an uneven gait. The village spearmen instantly threw themselves to the ground, hands outstretched and faces pressed into the dust.

  'How can we tell them not to do that?' Naldeth looked exasperated.

  'Where's the dragon?' K
heda repeated.

  'It's gone to ground somewhere deep in the earth.' Velindre looked suspiciously down and around. 'It's a cursed clever beast. It was—'

  Kheda waved her words away. 'Naldeth, if you want to let these people know you're not the kind of ruler they're used to, you had better do something about this.' He waved his bloody hand at the carnage. 'They're piling up the dead and killing off the wounded and if that black beast doesn't turn up, surely some other dragon will catch the scent of so much meat. Are either of you ready to cope with that?'

  'This is vile.' Naldeth paled beneath his ruddy tan as he looked at the pile of corpses.

  'Yes it is, but it's all these people know,' Kheda said mercilessly. 'What are you going to do about it?'

  'Me?' Naldeth's mouth hung slack with dismay.

  'Can't we just make a break for the ZaiseV Risala clung to Kheda's hand despite the blood clotted around his fingernails. 'If the dragon has gone and the tree dwellers are here, there won't be anything between us and the ship—'

  Kheda saw the wizards exchange a swift guilty glance that told him they were thinking the same thing as him. 'Apart from the mage in the beaded cloak? And we can't leave these people like this. We started this, all of us, when we chose to come here—'

  A squawk interrupted him as one of the rusty-coloured birds darted down to tear at a dead man's open wounds.

  Another landed to peck at the unseeing eyes of the slain with its vicious hooked beak, cawing with pleasure.

  'I can do something about that,' snarled Naldeth.

  A searing wind sent the greedy birds tumbling through the air. They fled, screeching madly. Stray feathers floating after them were consumed in scarlet flashes. Then all of the dead bodies caught fire, each one burning with the fierce crimson of magic, painfully bright. The village spearmen still lying prone on the ground hastily scrambled away from the scorching heat.

  Naldeth clapped his hands, silencing the murmurs of consternation. All eyes turned to the young mage.