'Yes,' she answered wearily, 'but there's something you have to see.' Her face was tearstained, her eyes red-rimmed. 'You remember I said there was something strange in these woods, something elemental gone all awry?'
The scent of decay grew stronger and Kheda's stomach roiled. 'What is it?'
'You can see all you need to from here.' Velindre approached the cave's entrance with visible reluctance.
Naldeth pushed past her. 'There's magical—' He recoiled, retching.
Kheda looked into the cave to see a tangle of bloodied corpses. The only movement was the crawling of black flies. Dark clots of insects shifted like shadows across the bodies. More clung to the cave's walls where gouts of blood utterly obscured the delicate paintings. It was difficult to estimate the numbers of dead, but it was all too easy to see the slender legs of women among the confusion of limbs. Children's hands stuck out from the crush as if they were scrabbling at the cave walls.
Risala gasped with horror, pressing her hands to her face.
'This is what they were doing in the night.' Kheda didn't even realise he was speaking aloud.
'You knew about this?' Furious, Velindre berated the warlord. 'You did nothing?'
'I knew something was happening.' Kheda glared accusingly at the scarred spearman and the other weaponless warriors. 'I didn't know what—' His rage strangled any further words.
Tears stood in Risala's eyes. 'Why were these people killed?'
'Because they were mageborn.' Naldeth spat vomit into the dust. 'Every last one of them.'
'You wanted these people to free themselves from magical tyranny.' Kheda regretted the words as soon as he spoke. He made no move to defend himself as Naldeth's fist smashed into his cheek. He staggered backwards, struggling not to fall over. The mage came after him, ready to hit him again.
'I didn't know what they were doing!' Kheda shouted. 'How could I? I couldn't ask any of them!' He waved a hand at the scarred spearman and his band. 'Don't you think I would have stopped them if I'd known?'
'You Archipelagans think all wizards are better off dead,' snarled Naldeth. He turned on the motionless warriors, brandishing a handful of scarlet fire. The pyre roared with shocking intensity.
'I know better than that now.' Kheda took a step forward to place himself between the irate wizard and the wild warriors. 'And you know better than this.'
'But why did they do this?' Risala gazed into the charnel cave, a tear trickling down her face.
'They did it to please us.' Velindre's voice was thick with loathing. 'You should have seen their smiles when I came here. I think Kheda's right — they're looking to rid themselves of all their wizards. And all because we killed their mages and drove the dragons away instead of pandering to the beasts and using their power to assert our own domination over these wretches.'
'You think that's what we should have done?' Aghast, Naldeth let his hand fall and the scarlet fire flickered out, the flames of the pyre dying back.
'No.' Velindre turned her back on the stinking cavern, scrubbing fresh tears from her eyes. 'I don't know what else we could have done. But we don't know what we've started here, and we sure as curses don't know how to stop it. We can't even talk to these people!'
'At least we have shown them that not all wizards are necessarily tyrants.' Kheda tried to keep the despair he felt out of his voice.
'What good will that do? Who have we shown this marvellous revelation? A couple of hundred of however many thousands live on this accursed rock?' Velindre retorted with angry dejection. 'And they think the best
way to please us is to slaughter these innocents. What good are we doing here? I should have listened to you, Naldeth. We should go back to Hadrumal and lay this all before the Council.'
'If we leave, all this will have been for nothing,' Kheda objected. 'All these people will be crushed under the heel of the first wild wizard to learn there's land and dragon fodder here for the taking.'
'Who made you their warlord?' Velindre snapped.
'You were the one lecturing me about responsibility,' countered Kheda.
He fell silent as a spearman he recognised from the village slowly approached. He was holding the hacking blade that Kheda had given the scarred spearman. He offered it to Kheda. As the warlord took the weapon, still bemused, the scarred spearman took a few paces away from his companions. He dropped to his knees and raised his chin, leaning back to offer his naked throat to Kheda. A nerve twitched in his cheek as he screwed his eyes tight shut in anticipation of the killing blow.
'I can't do this,' Kheda said helplessly. 'I can't condemn a man when I don't know what he's done.'
'You know what he's done.' But Velindre wasn't condemning the man either. 'He just didn't think it was a crime until he saw my reaction.'
Kheda swallowed. 'They can be the ones to drag out the bodies and give them to the fire—'
'Be quiet.' Naldeth's soft words nevertheless commanded everyone's attention.
'Where is it?' Risala's voice was harsh with dread.
Behind the scatter of rocks where the cave entrance lay, the forest sloped upwards. Grouped in sparse clusters, the nut trees cast meagre shadows on the dry earth. Kheda saw a golden glint in a patch of darkness blink out and
reappear. Now that he saw it was an eye, he could see the rest of the earth dragon's head. The random shadows beneath the trees ran together or melted away as the ground shifted and blurred. The beast appeared fully, crouched between two thickets, its belly pressed to the dusty soil. It moved one forefoot, extending steely claws to crush a sapling with purposeful menace.
'I can't drive it away without the ruby closer to hand,' Naldeth said evenly.
'Where is it?' Unblinking, Velindre was watching the dragon.
'On the Zaise.' Out of the corner of his eye, Kheda could see the wild men frozen with fear.
'We'll never get to the ship before the beast attacks,' Risala whispered.
'That depends on what it's here for.' Kheda swallowed sour revulsion. 'Do you suppose it's come to eat those dead in the cave?'
'No.' Naldeth's voice echoed as if he were hidden deep in a cavern. 'It's come for me.'
Kheda forced his eyes away from the dragon to look at the wizard. Naldeth's leg was melting again, the liquid metal rippling. The mage staggered and the stony soil around him glowed with ochre magic. The limb re-formed, misshapen and discoloured.
'It knows I killed that wild wizard in the beaded cloak. It didn't come to help him because it wanted to see what I would do to him.' The magelight still suffused the patch of ground where Naldeth stood. 'And I didn't yield to it before, so that makes me a rival. It's come to kill me.'
'It's come to kill us both,' Velindre said thoughtfully. 'I really don't think it liked my snowstorm.'
Kheda saw the magewoman was standing precariously astride a cleft that had opened noiselessly between her feet.
The gap opened wider. A few moments more and she would lose her balance. Suddenly clenching her fists on her breastbone, Velindre drew up slatey-blue magelight from the depths to crisscross the void. She sprang backwards, traversing an impossible distance, further than a wild man could launch a spear. Landing painfully on her rump, she stretched both hands out before her to ward off the black dragon's magic. The rift in the ground snaked towards her, fast as a whip. Sapphire fire burned around her fingers as she shuffled backwards, shooting through the air to strengthen the magelight webbed across the cleft. The thrusting point of the rift slowed and stopped just short of her scrambling feet.
'Is there anything we can do?' Kheda gripped sword hilt and hacking blade.
The dragon fixed him with its burning amber gaze and opened its black maw to hiss at him. Its black tongue tasted the air before licking around its shiny metallic teeth. Kheda's sword and the hacking blade melted like wax, the steel dripping to the ground in useless gobbets.