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-headed 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?’