The Scorpion's swordsmen and archers keeping watch on the trireme's upper level studiously avoided Kheda's eye.
'True enough.' Kheda walked carefully back down the length of the speeding ship, curbing a desire to signal the rowing master to order an ever-faster stroke.
If they spend the last of their strength now, they'll have nothing left to get you back to Daish waters, when the time comes to leave Chazen Saril to face whatever it is that's plaguing his domain. When the time comes to make sure the Daish islands are prepared to fight any such assault, be it magic or just drug-addled wild men.
The waters opened out into a major channel and the close-gathered fleet broke free of the islands tangled in their matted swamps and knot trees. The next islands were little more than scrub-covered hummocks in the distance, fringed with white sand behind crooked walls of coral. A fresh breeze blew away the last of the muddy smell that hung around the Scorpion.
Kheda and Telouet sat in the shelter of the sternposts, silent as the shipmaster and helmsman guided the long, lithe ship away from the vicious teeth of the reefs, the Horned Fish barely staying ahead of them. They soon passed the chain of barren islets and a larger stretch of land appeared ahead of them.
'That's it.' Kheda rose to his feet.
Telouet raised a signal flag on the sternpost and the heavy triremes fanned out either side of the lighter vessels carrying the two warlords. The rowing master walked the length of the gangway, lavish with his praise for the rowers. The bow master and the sail crew waited in the prow, ready to back the Scorpion's swordsmen and archers, alert for any enemy that might appear.
The Scorpion rounded a blunt-nosed headland to find a shallow cove protected by a sizeable reef breaking the sea into white foam. Pale sand gave way to short dusty grass dotted with tall nut palms. Their grey trunks rose in graceful sweeps, fringed fronds bleached yellow by the season waving in the breeze, their rustling echoing the susurration of the sea. Well spaced and with no brush to speak of beneath them, the trees offered nothing by way of cover to any lurking enemy.
'This is the landing the Horned Fish's shipmaster told me to make for,' Jatta told Kheda.
'Let's hope this is as easy a fight as the last one,' Telouet murmured fervently, one hand on a sword hilt.
'Can you see any movement?' Kheda took an unconscious pace forward.
'Nothing.' Telouet shook his head as he reached out to restrain his master with an arm across his chest.
'Perhaps the invaders never came here?' said Jatta dubiously.
Kheda shot him a sceptical glance. 'You'd pass up a clean, open island like this in favour of those stinking mires?'
'All depends what you're used to.' Jatta shrugged.
'What are these wild men used to?' Kheda wondered aloud. 'How will we ever know, if we cannot question any captives?
'Who needs to know?' Telouet was still watching the shore, trying to see beyond the palm trees into the darker green forest behind. 'All they need to know is they're not welcome here and we can tell them that plain enough without words.'
Cai and the heavy trireme helmsmen were making a cautious approach to avoid the merciless reef. Atoun and all the warriors waited impatiently, sliding down the stern ladders as soon as the ships reached the sheltered shallows, splashing through crystal-clear waters on to the brilliant sand, staying close together, swords at the ready. Archers on the side decks of the triremes stood alert to return a killing storm of barbed arrows for so much as a thrown stone.
No missiles appeared. No enemy appeared. The only sounds to rise above the crashing of the surf were the cheerful squawks of crookbeaks foraging among the palms. Atoun signalled this way and that. The warriors broke from their defensive knots and spread out. As they approached the gently curving trees, Kheda was irresistibly reminded of beaters on the hunt, flushing out forest deer and ground fowl that he and Sirket might down with swift arrows, while Rekha and Janne flew their proud hawks at lesser birds fleeing on the wing.
'Doesn't look as if there'll be much sport today,' he remarked to Telouet as Atoun raised a sheathed sword to indicate there was no more foe to be fought.
'Chazen Saril's keen to go ashore again.' Telouet pointed to the Horned Fish, which was approaching the shallows, Saril standing in the prow.
Keen to learn the fate of those who'd once been his brothers? Or looking to remove them once and for all from the domain's accounts?
Kheda considered his options. 'Let's join him. This domain has no great tradition of warfare so I'm not confident he's capable of meeting an unexpected enemy.'
Jatta had already given the rowing master the word and the rowers began turning the Scorpion stern on to the shore.
'My lord.' Telouet went down the ladder first to hold it firm for his master. Kheda hurried down the rope rungs and they waded ashore. Kheda saw his own well-hidden curiosity openly reflected in Telouet's expression.
'You are welcome to my shores.' Saril greeted him on the beach with an incredulous grin at odds with his formal words.
'I thank you for that grace.' Kheda was looking around as he gave the customary reply 'Atoun, is there no sign of these savages?'
'None.' The warrior shook his head.
'Perhaps they never came here after all,' suggested Saril with sudden hope.
'Perhaps they've come, got what they wanted and left.' Kheda fixed Saril with a meaningful look. 'We should visit this residence you keep here.'
'Very well.' Saril chewed his lower lip reluctantly. 'With just a small escort though.'
'Atoun, pick me a few good men to go looking inland,' Kheda ordered his commander. 'In the meantime, leave a solid guard for the ships and have the rest search the shoreline in both directions. Anyone who finds so much as a wild man's footprint is to raise a horn call.'
'If we're going inland, I'll scout out the path myself,' Atoun told him robustly. 'You wait here with Telouet and follow on when I tell you, my lord.'
'As you wish,' said Kheda mildly.
'You allow your people a great deal of latitude,' observed Chazen Saril, looking with disfavour at Atoun's back.
'As long as they earn it by doing their duty in exemplary fashion.' Kheda waited patiently as Atoun allotted tasks to his warriors to his satisfaction and then gathered a small detachment around himself, running along a path no more than a dry score in the turf beneath the nut palms, disappearing over a rise some little way inland.
Handpicked swordsmen came to ring Kheda and Saril, looking to Telouet for their orders.
'When we get the signal, lads,' he told them easily.
As he spoke, Atoun's familiar whistle floated up on the breeze and Kheda looked at Telouet. 'Well?'
'Everyone keep your eyes skinned or I'll peel your eyelids back with my belt knife.' With the other swordsmen on all sides, Telouet walked a few paces ahead of the two warlords, swords drawn, his face hard and dangerous.
'I haven't seen my brothers, not since—' Saril broke off, drawing the sword he'd got from somewhere. Sunlight wavered on the blade.
'You cannot blame yourself for being eldest born.' Kheda hefted his own weapon, settling it in his hand. 'And if your brothers suspected what Chazen Shas had planned, they could have fled when he lay on his deathbed.'
'They all suspected the old snake had other plans for me.' Saril surprised him with a sour bark of laughter. 'Oldest living child of the name inherits but my grandfather made sure Chazen Shas took up his sword with a deathbed decree that his body slave execute the old snake's elder brother and sisters.'