'You think you can fight back against those savages and their magic? You're an idiot. All you Archipelagans, you're ignorant, magicless fools.' Dev gestured for the wine bottle. 'You cannot fight those with wizardry bred in their very bone.' For the first time, he sounded entirely serious, even without malice.
'You could.' Kheda jerked his head towards Risala beside him. 'She told me as much.'
'I could, true enough.' Dev swung up his feet and lay back in his hammock, tipping the last of the wine into his cup. 'I did, very effectively, I might add. What's that to you, soothsayer? Suborning magic will see you skinned along with me and her head on a spike, just for good measure,' he concluded with happy malice.
Kheda picked up his cup and drank the heady wine slowly before putting into words the furious debate he'd waged with himself, even as he and Risala had fought their way through the storm.
You've come too far, at the cost of too much pain, for you and all those you love to give up now.
'The malice of magic is what stains whatever it touches. These savages, they've proved themselves vicious beyond belief. Would dealing with a wizard to find some way to fight them, if that's the only way to fight them, would that be so very evil?' He looked at Risala, desperate to see some agreement in her eyes.
She looked at him, biting her lip, before shivering suddenly. 'I wouldn't like to stand before any warlord and plead that case for his mercy.'
'I once read an argument where magic was likened to a crystal prism,' Kheda said to her, beseeching. 'Splitting the pure light into broken colours. A second prism can restore the light. Might using a wizard's knowledge to quell magic not be the lesser of the two evils?'
'Pardon me for interrupting your philosophical debate—' Dev tossed the empty wine bottle into the air. 'Your assumption—'
A blue light sparked inside the dark green glass and died at once. The bottle crashed to the floor and shattered.
'Arseholes!' Dev sat up straight, mouth open. He waved a hand at the lamp, which burned on steadily, golden glow unaffected. He half jumped, half fell from his hammock. 'What have you done, you bastards?'
'Mind the glass!' Risala warned, drawing her feet up to the top of the chest, hugging her knees.
Dev ignored the dull green shards scattered across the boards, glaring at Kheda. 'What have you done?'
'Tamed your magic, for the moment.' Kheda hoped he'd dusted the last of the powder he'd taken from Shek Kul's box from his fingers. 'I'd rather have your cooperation willingly but I'll force you if needs be.'
And thank you for that ancient concoction, great lord of Shek, even if you had no idea if it would work, as you were scrupulously honest in explaining.
'You think you can force me to work magic for you?' spat Dev. 'By taking it from me? What is this, one of your useless talismans actually working for a change?'
'I can't force you to help me,' Kheda said tightly. 'But I can keep you helpless and deliver you up to the rulers of the Daish domain. We can both swear to your wizardry and throw ourselves on their mercy and see you skinned alive to purify us both and ward the evil of the invader's magic from the domain.'
'Daish Sirket would owe us a tremendous debt, if we could offer him the protection of such a rite, to strengthen his men and those of Chazen, when they sail south at the end of the rains,' Risala said boldly.
Kheda could feel her trembling, as she pressed close against him. 'I imagine Daish Sirket and Chazen Saril would share in the ritual. There would surely be omens to be read in the mirror of your liver, in the coils of your entrails. If you will not tell us willingly how we might defeat these invaders, perhaps your death will serve our purpose despite you.'
Read the truth in that, you bastard, because if that's all the good I can wring from your twisted carcass to help my domain, then I swear I will do it. Even if I die for it myself.
'You just try it, pal.' Dev launched himself at Kheda, heedless of the glass on the floor.
Risala darted away to one side and Kheda ducked the other. Sharp pain in his feet slowed him and Dev bore him down to the floor, reaching for his neck with strangling hands. Bucking his hips to try and throw the lighter man off, Kheda thrust a fist upwards between the wizard's forearms. He couldn't manage a hard punch to Dev's throat but it was enough to loosen his grip. Kheda forced his other arm up and knocked the mage's hands aside. Dev's forehead came down to butt him and Kheda rolled his head aside to take the blow on his cheekbone. The pain of that was enough to make him gasp but it was Dev who yelled.
Kheda blinked away tears to see Risala's sharp fingernails drawing blood in the wide neck of Dev's tunic. Rising to his knees with a roar of anger the wizard swung round an arm but he couldn't reach her. A wrench of his shoulders instead pulled Risala around to trip over Kheda's legs. She went sprawling across the splinter-strewn floor but, clinging to Dev, she dragged him with her. Kheda scrambled up and flung himself at Dev, his greater weight knocking the mage flat. Glass crunched beneath them.
Ignoring the needle-sharp pains in his knees and shins, Kheda straddled Dev's hips, pinning the mage to the boards. Warding off Dev's blows with one forearm, he landed a jarring punch on the wizard. Dev's head jolted as his lip split.
'He's got a knife!' Risala had seen him scrabbling for something beneath his tunic and seized his hand. Leaning on it with all her weight, she bore it down to the floor. Kheda held it down with one knee and caught Dev's other hand in a vice-like grip, muscles built by half a season's rowing bunching beneath his tunic sleeve as he fought the wizard's wiry strength. With his free hand, he grabbed Dev's jaw and thumped the mage's bald head hard against the floor.
'Don't think you can get me to kill you, just to save you from the augur's knife,' he hissed.
Twisting his head free, Dev managed to bite Kheda between thumb and forefinger. Kheda punched him again, under the jaw, snapping his teeth shut.
'He doesn't have to be unmarked, does he, not like a sacrificial animal?' Risala panted with triumph as she held up the knife Dev had tried to use on Kheda. Steel caught the lamplight. 'Can't you hamstring him, to keep him from escaping? Cut the tendons in his arms as well. They all seem to wave their hands around to work their magic'
'All he has to be is a wizard.' Kheda let his full weight press down on Dev.
'Working magic has nothing to do with using your hands, you stupid bitch.' The mage writhed beneath him.
Kheda took the knife from Risala and shoved the point between Dev's snarling teeth. The mage's instinctive recoil left him with a sharp cut in the corner of his mouth.
Kheda lent forward to look Dev in the eye. 'The last time a wizard was caught and killed in the Safar domain, they cut his tongue out ahead of time, so he couldn't curse anyone.'
Dev froze, tense but still, and Kheda slowly withdrew the knife.
'I shouldn't have waited to see if you drowned. I should've summoned the waves to sink you myself.' Dev winced and rolled his head to spit blood away. 'If I'd known you were going to be this much trouble. I could have done with consulting a soothsayer, couldn't I?' he added with vicious wit.
Kheda matched his sour humour. 'You're the one in charge here.' Laying the knife alongside Dev's throat gave the lie to his words. 'It's your choice. Help us against these invaders and their magic or see your blood shed in hopes that it will protect the Daish domain. What would you rather do?'