'Keeping watch for dragons,' Naldeth said succinctly.
'And as far as I can tell, the wild men have sent scouts to stand sentry by the river.'
'I take it she's recovered from yesterday.' Kheda saw the magewoman's golden hair, bright in the sunlight beyond the crude huts. She was standing still as a statue, her face turned to the sky, her eyes closed, her hands hanging loosely at her sides. 'She's not scrying?'
'We don't want to draw any dragon with magic, not just yet. We're not complete fools.' Naldeth's words were mild enough.
Kheda couldn't help gazing up at the cloudless blue. 'Can she alert us to any dragon approaching? Or just those of the sky?'
'She'll sense a dragon riding the air at the greatest distance and probably one manipulating water not far short of that.' Naldeth looked contemplatively at Velindre. 'But she'll know if the black dragon comes anywhere near.'
'Are you ready to tackle the creature and its mage, if we go across the river?' Kheda asked the youthful wizard.
Which is another task there's no benefit in delaying.
Naldeth squared his shoulders defiantly. 'Velindre and I have discussed how to stifle his magic rather than killing him outright.'
'As long as he's not killing our people, do as you see fit.' Kheda saw Risala emerge from the knot of women by the hearth. As they parted to let her pass, he saw they were pounding something in the hollow curve of an old tree trunk.
'What do you suppose is for breakfast today?' the mage wondered.
Risala was carrying crude bowls salvaged from old, cracked gourds. As she smiled at Kheda, reserve nevertheless shadowed her eyes.
So there's still distance between us, despite the closeness of last night. How can I put things right? I'm not going to lie to you and tell you the omens predict our safe return to Chazen, with our lives going back to the way they were.
He saw the bowls were full of the fluffy white pulp they had eaten before. 'Just what is this?'
Risala shrugged. 'They're beating it out of shoots that they cut from the bases of those spiny finger trees.'
Kheda wished for a spoon as he ate with his dirty fingers.
What wouldn 't I give for that bath I was dreaming of? We had better find some way of washing before we all fall ill with some filth-borne disease.
'There are a lot more spearmen here this morning.' Risala looked discreetly around the enclosure. 'They've been coming in since first light, with their women and children.'
Kheda had already noted the increased numbers sitting around the ashy circle of the central hearth. 'It looks as if they intend to stay.' A group of men was breaking holes in the hard dry earth with the points of their wooden spears. Youths and young women stood ready with rough lattices of twisted tree branch and arms full of freshly cut fronds. 'Do you think we can persuade them to fight?'
'The more spears we have to call on, the better,' Naldeth said reluctantly. 'We have to get that ruby egg from the Zaise. Nexus magic is our only hope of driving away that black dragon.'
'Or any other beast that flies over and sees so much prey for the taking.' Risala looked up apprehensively.
Kheda felt the weight of the task before him descend on his shoulders. 'Then let's get these people ready to fight with some new tricks that will hopefully send more of the cave dwellers and tree dwellers running than will be willing to stand and fight.' He scraped up the last of the fluffy pulp and handed the rough bowl back to Risala.
'What tricks?' Naldeth followed the warlord back into the dead mage's hut.
'The cave dwellers aren't between us and the Zaise? Risala protested.
'No,' Kheda agreed regretfully as he sorted through the most promising lengths of wood. 'But if they owe fealty to that mage over the river, they'll stab us in the back if we don't take them out of the balance. I told you, we've started a war here, whether these people realise that or not. The quickest way to end a war is to wage it without mercy.' He found a suitable length of worn leather and gathered up a handful of long, dry grasses.
'Which is what these people did in Chazen,' Naldeth said pointedly as they returned to the bright day outside. 'Are you sure you aren't taking revenge?'
'No.' Kheda sat down and drew his belt knife.
Risala sat a little distance away. 'No, you're not taking revenge, or no, you're not sure?'
'Weren't the people who came to Chazen just fleeing that drowned island?' Naldeth looked troubled.
'Perhaps, but they attacked first rather than trying to sue peaceably for sanctuary. And whoever they were, they were driven on by their wizards, who showed no one any mercy. This battle should free the cave dwellers from such tyranny.' Kheda began stripping the bark from the curved branch with deft knifestrokes. 'Risala, can you cut me some thong from those hide strips, please?'
'What are you making?' Naldeth watched him work, mystified.
'A bow.' Kheda worked his way around an irregularity in the wood.
Naldeth looked at him open-mouthed 'You can't be thinking you can teach these people archery in half a day?'
'They don't need to shoot the topknot off a palm pigeon.' Kheda looked down the length of the crude bow
stave and resumed shaping it. 'A shower of arrows against people not expecting them doesn't need to be aimed. Now, can you summon water or do I need Velindre to do that?'
'I can summon water, but there's not much more I can do with that element,' Naldeth admitted. 'Not hereabouts anyway.'
Kheda looked up as the relentless pounding of the women's staves in the hollow tree slowed and faltered. Heads were turning all across the enclosure as the savages realised he was doing something. 'Can you find me a bone splinter that will make a decent needle? About as long as your smallest finger.'
'You'll be lucky to get a handful of shots out of that before it breaks,' Risala remarked as she tossed him a skein of thin leather strips.
'We don't have time to go hunting for decent wood or to craft proper bows.' Kheda used his dagger to scrape damp pith from the newly peeled wood and then carefully gouged deep notches in each end of the wood. 'We can hope that that mage in the beaded cloak is taking some time to try to fathom our presence here, but don't forget, he's hardly exerted himself as much as Velindre or Naldeth. We have to be ready for him and his followers to make another attack.'
Men were drifting towards them now, some with children hiding behind their legs while older boys came scampering ahead with lively curiosity. As Naldeth searched among the bones in the hearth, the women gathered round him, speculating audibly.
'Risala, do you think you could persuade these women to make us some strings?' Kheda cut a long strip, three fingers wide, from one of the hides offered the night before and used the tip of his dagger to pierce holes along both edges. 'And lend us a bowl, to soak the leather in?'
'I can try.' Risala teased some fibres from the discarded
strips of bark. As she walked over to the village women, she began twisting them into two thin spirals. When she had a finger's length, she wound them together against themselves, so each one stopped the other from unravelling. The women clicked their tongues and smiled as they recognised what she was doing. As Risala touched the cords holding a gourd on one woman's shoulder, her expression beseeching, the women nodded readily.
'Well done,' Naldeth commented as she and he both returned together.
'It's hardly magecraft.' Risala was amused despite herself. She handed Kheda a shallow vessel roughly fashioned from a piece of hollowed log.
'Will this serve as a needle?' Naldeth diffidently proffered a sharp shard of bone unmistakably shaped and pierced by magic.
Did you learn how to do that from that black dragon '$ magic?