The wizard sighed. 'I suppose I'm still not used to Aldabreshin ways of waging war.'
'I told you, we wage war hard because that's the way to keep wars short.' Kheda found the disdain in Naldeth's face was rousing his anger. 'Every warlord knows that the most effective defence is relentless aggression. That doesn't mean we relish it. And we find that knowing that no quarter will be given to them does tend to discourage hotheads from starting a fight in the first place.'
'These people don't know that,' Naldeth objected.
'Then they'll learn and I imagine they'll learn fast.' Now that he had allowed himself to vent his temper, Kheda found he was disinclined to stop. 'So I'll crush the heads of this land's venomous snakes to make poisons for my arrows, and if I had time and the right herbs, I'd bury the corpses in a jar to ferment with the venoms, to make a paste ten times more deadly than the snake's own bite.
I'd show these people how to make scorpion pots to throw at their enemies, if they had clay, if I had the words to make them understand me and I knew which of this land's crawlers had the most lethal sting. When we retake the Zaise, you can have your ruby egg to work your magic and drive off the dragon while I'll take those barrels of naphtha and ground oil and that sulphur and resin and make sticky fire, just like we do in the Archipelago. That should show those tree dwellers across the river that these people are a force to be reckoned with, without a wizard to hide behind or a dragon to feed with their dead.'
'You think you have the right to show them such things?' Naldeth wasn't about to yield. 'All principles of warfare agreed in the north condemn sticky fire or any weapon like it as utterly immoral. Quite apart from anything else, such stuffs are hideously dangerous for friend and foe alike.'
'You expect me to believe that none of your barbarian war-captains has ever succumbed to temptation?' scoffed Kheda.
'There are cases recorded,' Naldeth admitted readily enough, 'mostly detailing how whoever was using the vile stuff was attacked by every other local army, including those he thought were his allies.'
Risala looked up from helping with the bow-making to interrupt the mage. 'Velindre says that's less from fear of the sticky fire and more because the only safe way to use such stuff is to have a wizard on hand. And any barbarian war-captain suspected of drawing magic into a battle can expect to have his throat slit by his own men before his enemies can reach him to do it.'
'I'd be inclined to agree that's a wise precaution,' Kheda said dryly.
'No wizard with any conscience would ever use his magic in a war.' Naldeth flushed with growing anger.
'Yet you'll give these people sticky fire to use against their enemies. What else are you thinking of? Poisoned smokes? I've heard tell of Archipelagan battles where warlords have used those and killed off half their own men.'
'The fate of friend and foe alike would be considered an omen,' Risala said tightly. 'Token of the rightness of that warlord's course or proof that he was in grievous error.'
'Do these portents absolve you of every responsibility?' cried Naldeth.
'A warlord would only ever use poisoned smokes as a very last resort, and he'd study the winds and weather carefully beforehand.' Kheda realised the wild men and women had stopped working on the sticks and leather and cord and were watching this heated exchange with bemused incomprehension. He tried for a reassuring smile to encourage them back to their labours.
'Where will this stop?' Naldeth demanded passionately. 'Where will you stop, assuming we subdue the tree dwellers and those people in the caves?'
'You're finally starting to think this through.' Kheda congratulated the mage acerbically. 'There's every chance we'll have to take the fight to whatever wild men live beyond this valley, to their wizard, and to their dragon. I hope this nexus magic you and Velindre plan on working with that ruby is going to be all you claim.'
'We'll be using that to drive off dragons, not to kill people,' Naldeth said wrathfully.
'And I'll show these people how to make a better means to do the killing that must be done, so you can keep your hands and conscience clean—' Kheda broke off as he saw the scarred spearman approaching with a couple of the oldest wild men he'd yet seen. He smiled and nodded and beckoned the three of them to approach.
The old men muttered among themselves as they came closer and settled themselves stiffly on the ground. Unfolding the hides they were carrying, they revealed lumps of shiny black stone and a surprising array of pieces of bone and wood. The oldest man, with ash-white hair, began breaking delicate flakes off the ungainly stones with a bulbous knuckle of bone. His neighbour picked one up and, peering close, knocked infinitesimal slivers from it with another stone, his tongue caught between toothless gums as he concentrated. Faster than Kheda would have expected, he held up a leaf of stone, sharp edges finely translucent in the sunlight.
The warlord tested the edge with a cautious finger to find it was as sharp as any steel. 'That will make a fine arrowhead.' He smiled at the old men and hoped his tone conveyed his approval.
'And this looks like some kind of resin to stick them to the shafts.' Risala was peering into a gourd that the scarred spearman had pressed into her hands. She looked around with a half-smile. 'If we can only persuade the best men with a sling to bring down some birds, we'll have everything we need.'
Naldeth was still brooding darkly on Kheda's forceful words. 'Where does this stop? What happens once we've driven off whatever dragon lives beyond the tree dwellers and subdued those people and their mage?'
'Initially, we wait and see if driving them offsets them fighting whoever lies beyond their far borders.' Kheda pulled both his sword and his hacking blade from his double-looped sword belt and sat down not far from the old men diligently chipping at their lumps and flakes of stone. Unsheathing the wide hacking blade, he slipped a whetstone from a little pocket sewn into the scabbard and ran it firmly down the edge.
'You want this war to spread still further?' Naldeth
wasn't giving up. 'I thought we were trying to improve the lot of these wretches.'
'In the longer term, I hope we shall.' Kheda concentrated on renewing the edge on the sturdy steel. 'In the short term, I'll settle for just not getting killed.'
Naldeth stared at the warlord. 'But where does this end?' he persisted.
Risala's gaze slid to Kheda, her expression unfathomable.
'Ultimately?' He concentrated on polishing out a shallow nick in the edge of the steel. 'I imagine we'll have peace when you've put all the dragons to flight and we've driven any remaining wizards off the edge of this island and any wild men who choose to stand against us rather than surrender are dead.'
Or when we have simply died through some mischance or fallen victim to a mage or a dragon's malice.
'You really mean that, don't you?' The young mage was incredulous.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kheda noticed the wild men and women growing increasingly restive, concerned at the wizard's agitation.
'You talk as if we have a choice. We don't.' He strove to sound unemotional. 'Either we take the battle to the tree dwellers and their wizard and his dragon or we wait for them to attack us. I prefer to fight on my own terms. I told you - this is a war now. Wars are very difficult to stop.' It was a challenge to hide both his sympathy for Naldeth's dismay and his irritation at the youth's naivety. 'This is why we bloodthirsty Aldabreshi so rarely start wars and in fact do all we can to avoid them, whatever your barbarian storytellers may say of us. Aldabreshin philosophers liken war to wildfire in a forest. Remember, we have no mages to curb such things.' He paused to lay down the hacking blade and drew his sword. 'It won't be safe to stop until we have imposed our new order on