'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!'
'Then how are we to know what to do for the best?' cried Kheda before he could stop himself. He took a long slow breath. 'No matter. We'll just have to go south, as I said before. We'll have to see what we're facing with our own eyes.'
Chapter Four
The colour of this water's more like a river than the sea. It doesn't even have waves, it's so confined in this maze of mud and rock and oh, what I wouldn't give for some clean salt air, instead of this stifling stink.
Kheda hastily suppressed that thought before he inadvertently made any kind of wager with the future. 'Is this a course Cai's ever sailed before?'
'We've neither of us been in these waters.' Jatta shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the gap between two dusty islands lying half south ahead. 'We're well off the usual trade channels.' The shipmaster had his red route book absently clutched in one hand.
Kheda looked past the Scorpion's prow to the stern of Saril's fast trireme, the Horned Fish, a precise two ship's lengths ahead, thanks to Jatta's expert guidance. 'Is it evidence of his good faith, to show us these byways?'
'He has little enough to lose.' Jatta sounded noncommittal. 'I'll warrant heavy triremes will be ready to stare us down, if we try coming this way once he's back in his compound again.'
'You'll be making your notes on these seaways though?' enquired Kheda innocently.
'I'd be remiss in my duty to the Daish domain if I didn't.' Jatta's wicked smile belied his lofty tone. 'And a little skiff on a moonlit night can generally find a quiet channel to slip past a heavy trireme.'
'Which might be useful under some different turn of the heavens,' allowed Kheda.
If not for us, maybe for Sirket in some unforeseen future. Remember what Daish Reik told you at much the same age as he is now. 'Never assume that any situation mill remain as it is, no matter how long it has resisted the twists of fate.' Are we truly going to find ourselves facing magic here, in the face of all expectation?
Jatta turned a serious face to Kheda. 'Have we left our own ships ready to chase off any Chazen ships using this panic as excuse to spy out our seaways?'
'I had the signals sent before we left the Hyd Rock, and explicit orders to Janne Daish.' Kheda glanced back past the Scorpion's sternpost to Atoun's heavy triremes, Saril's two vessels leading them on. 'Besides, if we can win Chazen at least a foothold back in his own domain with a rapid strike, his people will have no choice but to retreat to their own waters.'
'Do we know how many of these invaders hold this place?' Jatta was studying an island just coming into view. It was no great size but boasted the conical peak of a fire mountain rising stark and grey above thickly forested slopes. Knot trees reached down to the water and beyond, the solid ground fringed by swamps of tangled grey roots lapped by sluggish seas.
'According to everything Atoun can determine, only a small force came this far east. Chazen Saril says they will surely be keeping to this one island. It's the only land in this reach with year-round springs of water.'
I sincerely hope the assurances of the Chazen men are trustworthy. Most particularly in reporting no suspicion of magic hereabouts.
'Chazen Saril's helmsman had better know where he's taking us.' Jatta looked at a confused cluster of little islets with disfavour. 'Some of these channels are so narrow and shallow a shoal of real horned fishes would be swimming in single file.'
'There'll be scant landing, from what I hear.' Cai adjusted the Scorpion's course as signal flags fluttered from the Horned Fish's stern platform.
'So once we've killed these invaders, we have only the one beach to guard against any more of them,' Kheda said bracingly.
'That's Atoun's task, killing and guarding.' Seeing the Horned Fish slow, Jatta looked down the gangway and waved to the rowing master. The piper drew out his note and the Scorpion obediently loitered in the strait. Baffled by the tree-smothered islands in all directions, the currents made little headway against the rowers' determination.
Kheda raised a hand in salute as the first of the heavy triremes passed the Scorpion. Atoun, unmistakable on the stern platform, raised his naked sword in salute. One of the Chazen ships passed on their other flank, the shipmaster rising from his seat to sweep a low bow to Kheda. As Kheda inclined his head in recognition, he saw Saril at the stern of the Horned Fish, naked blade in his hand, directing the heavy triremes with urgent gestures as they surged past.
'He's going ashore?' Jatta was astonished.
'It's his domain that's been invaded,' shrugged Kheda, impassive.
'It's not the place of warlords to get themselves killed in skirmishes like common swordsmen,' Telouet growled. 'Hasn't he heard enough poets' laments to know that?'
'I don't suppose many decent poets bother coming this far south,' commented Jatta with faint derision.
'I doubt he'll go ashore. He's got no armour for one thing.' Kheda saluted Chazen Saril who was still wearing the remnants of his bedraggled finery.
The heavy triremes laden with swordsmen passed both the Horned Fish and the Scorpion, leaving the two fast ships blocking the seaway, ready to foil any escape by the unknown invaders.
'You'd have had the sense to find yourself a hauberk, even if I wasn't there to lead you by the hand,' Telouet snorted.
'Keep such thoughts to yourself when Chazen Saril's within earshot,' Kheda remarked mildly. 'Or he really will demand I have you flogged.'
'And refusal would cause such unwelcome offence.' Jatta spared Telouet an irreverent grin.
'There's the landing.' Cai pointed to a stretch of dank grey sand barely visible between the bigger ships.
The Scorpion's archers and swordsmen stood on the bow platform and side decks, alert to any danger from the lesser islets that all but enclosed this anchorage. Here and there a sheer cliff of black rock rose from the shadowed seas but, for the most part, dark green knot trees with their stubby, fleshy leaves came right to the water's edge. There was no sign of movement among the twistud grey branches, and scant breeze cooled the sweat on Kheda's forehead. A scent of decay hung heavy in the air, which hummed with the chirrups of countless, nameless insects.