Village spearmen shouted exultantly from the edge of the trees, running forward, clubs raised in one hand as they flung their spears with the other. The cave dwellers defending the thorn barricade rose up to meet them, throwing their own shafts of fire-hardened wood. The slings in the uppermost caves sent down more lethal stones.
A flash of white feather told Kheda that Risala had seen some incautiously exposed foe and, sure enough, a moment later a corpse plummeted from the heights. He tried to find her along the margin of the forest. A haze of mage-light revealed her standing beside Naldeth and Velindre, the wizardry lurid in the shadows of the trees. A low
growling made the air shudder. As one man, the village spearmen skidded to a halt and scrambled backwards for the illusory shelter of the trees.
The dragon.
Kheda felt a tremor in the ground beneath his feet. Mouth dry, he looked up as stones and dust began to fall from the top of the outcrop. He searched the broken edge for the dragon drawing itself out of the rocks. There was nothing there — or at least no sign of the black dragon's magic. The noise grew louder and men in the heights began to scream as the walls and floors of the caves broke apart beneath their feet. Men and women who had thought themselves safe in the lower levels began to cry out as the disintegration spread, sending cascades of shattered stone falling all around them.
The shards didn't drop to smash on the hard ground or break the limbs and skulls of the hapless defenders beneath. Kheda saw stones as big as his hand floating down like leaves slipping from trees in the dry season. Men and women from the heights were falling, but not to their deaths. Buoyed on clouds of dust with breezes snatching away their despairing cries, they tumbled slowly through the air, arms and legs flailing. They landed, some harder than others, within the thorny barricade where they cowered sobbing or simply lay frozen with fear.
Stones continued to rain down from the crumbling cliff. Piling in drifts like storm-driven leaves, they formed thick mounds blocking the mouths of the lowest caves. Panic-stricken shouts could be heard within, muffled as the walls grew higher.
Initially as startled as their foes, the village spearmen soon recovered themselves. Shouting exultantly, they emerged from the trees where they had so rapidly retreated, brandishing their weapons. Bolder than the rest, the scarred spearman hurled his spear at a cave dweller
who had just staggered to his feet. A coil of wavering dust coalesced into a solid arm and plucked the weapon out of the air. Tightening around the wood, it snapped it into useless splinters. The sharp crack echoed back from the broken cliff face, the only sound in the stunned silence.
Naldeth and Velindre walked forward. Kheda returned the white-fletched arrow he was holding to his quiver and went to join them. No one else moved. Risala stayed standing prudently behind one of the thicker twisted nut trees. Slinging his bow over one shoulder, Kheda drew his sword and summoned up his most authoritative, intimidating scowl for the scarred spearman, who looked inclined to test the dusty magic with a second spear.
He looked from Naldeth to Velindre. 'What now?' Kheda asked caustically.
Amusement lifted one corner of the magewoman's mouth. 'What do you propose?'
The young mage's face hardened with defiance. 'We won't countenance a slaughter.'
'So I see.' Kheda glanced upwards. 'Can we expect a dragon to come and argue that point?'
'No,' Velindre assured him seriously. 'We wouldn't have risked this if there was the slightest hint of a beast anywhere close.'
'I suppose that's one way to knock the fight out of them.' Risala approached the three of them. Wild men and women watched her, the village spearmen and the stunned cave dwellers alike all waiting, wide-eyed. 'Some advance warning would have been welcome.'
'I felt there had been enough disagreement between us over these last few days,' Velindre said composedly.
Risala waved her words away. 'How are you planning to deal with the tree dwellers, so we can get to the Zaise?'
'How do you propose to avoid a massacre starting as soon as we leave here?' Kheda looked around to see the
frustrated violence on the village warriors' faces. 'All these cave dwellers will most likely die now. Some might have escaped to hide in the forest in the confusion of the battle I was expecting to fight.'
'We must give these people a chance to surrender.' Jaw jutting obstinately, Naldeth waved a hand at the cowering cave dwellers. 'These spearmen will have to accept it, when they see that we do.'
'You'll risk their lives on that?' Kheda didn't hide his scepticism. 'When you've no way of explaining yourself?'
'Would you rather see their heads smashed in and be done with them?' retorted Naldeth.
Kheda did his best to curb his anger. 'This is warfare, Naldeth. It's ugly and cruel and relentless.'
'It doesn't have to be,' the wizard spat back.
'No, it doesn't, but it generally is in my experience,' snapped Kheda. 'And whatever we're going to do, we had best do it quickly. More on both sides will certainly die if that tree-dwellers' mage gets wind of our attack and whistles up his dragon while you're trying to find some compromise here to salve your conscience.'
'Kheda, some of these people have broken arms and legs and other wounds you could tend.' Risala spoke up before Naldeth could respond. 'If you want to convince everyone that you don't mean death for the cave dwellers, help them.'
'While we curb any of our allies who look inclined to dispute the point.' Velindre surveyed the village spearmen. Some were watching the cowering cave dwellers with unnerving intensity, weapons ready in their hands.
'What do you think will happen if you stop them when they've set their minds to killing these people?' Kheda didn't give either wizard a chance to respond.l No question you could do it, but I very much doubt that any of these spearmen will follow you afterwards.
Another lesson every warlords learns early is that a leader only commands as long as his men agree to obey. Do you want any spearmen backing you when we reach the tree-dwellers' valley? Or don't you think you need them?'
'Whether or not they come with us, I won't permit any more deaths than are absolutely unavoidable,' Naldeth said stubbornly.
Kheda saw the same obstinacy on both mages' faces.
How gratifying it must be to be master of powers that allow you the luxury of such magnanimity. Don't you understand that the rest of us never have such choices? But you're not going to give way on this and the longer I argue with you, the more time that gives some straggler to get word to that bead-cloaked wizard.
'I'll do what I can for the injured but only as long as our people are collecting spent arrows,' Kheda said brusquely. 'Then we move on the tree dwellers.'
Risala was looking at the cave mouths still blocked by the screes of broken stone. She rounded angrily on the youthful mage. 'How long are you going to leave those wretches walled up alive, Naldeth?'
Kheda saw the village spearmen gathering in knots beneath the trees, their low conversations indecisive, a slow stirring of irritation among some. 'Let your captives loose while I see if any of our allies are wounded. We won't win any friends by tending the enemy first.' He surveyed the wild warriors. To his surprise, while some had been painfully bruised by slingstones and hurled sticks, none had suffered any incapacitating injury.