'Someone, I'd say.' Velindre narrowed her eyes as she looked at the diggings. 'For water.'
'Using pointed sticks and pieces of gourd.' Naldeth pointed to the detritus scattered around the hole.
'Which they dropped as they ran.' Kheda looked at the darker earth cast aside around the hole. 'And they're not long gone, or that would have dried out.'
Risala looked at him. 'Could they have heard us coming?'
'I think we would have seen or heard them running, don't you?' Kheda looked up and down the dried-up stream. There was no sign of any living creature in the silent and empty valley.
'So what do we do now?' Naldeth asked expectantly.
Kheda stared across the dry valley. There was no obvious trail cutting through the trees on the far side of the stream bed. 'We have to get across this open ground as quickly as we can.'
'Do you want me to wrap a little concealment around us?' Velindre offered.
Kheda hesitated. 'Can you be certain no wild mage will sense it?'
'Not unless he's actively looking for us and scrying this valley in particular,' she assured him.
'Very well, then.' Kheda nodded reluctantly, taking one last look to be certain there was no one in sight.
The air shivered with the disquieting shimmer of magic as he strode into the open. Apprehension prickled down his spine along with a trickle of sweat, though at least there was a breath of cool breeze once they emerged from beneath the trees.
As they reached the patch of dug-up ground, Kheda scanned the soft stream bed for any sign to show which way the unknown savages had fled. All he could see were animal tracks: splayed footprints with the telltale depressions made by taloned toes and the dragging line left by a tail cutting between them.
Is that what they were running from? What was it? A lizard? Where did the lizard go?
'Do we see if we can find whoever was digging or carry on to those caves you were talking about?' Naldeth was struggling to get a purchase on the loose sandy earth with his false foot.
Risala walked a few paces away in the direction of the unseen grasslands, scanning the ground. 'They didn't go this way.'
'They went north.' Velindre looked up the dry stream.
'Away from that wild mage with the skull mask.' Risala
turned her attention towards the black and brown trees clustered thickly on the opposite bank. 'I'm not anxious to go into that forest, Kheda, not if those birds are there.'
'Then we'll go and see if we can find the people who went upstream from here.' Kheda grinned as both wizards' faces betrayed their surprise at this change of plan. 'A wise leader always listens to those following him.' He pointed to the far bank. 'But we'll use those trees for cover. We're not going to walk up the middle of this watercourse.'
Risala looked at him with a smile in her eyes. 'As you command, my lord.'
They moved on and Kheda tried to curb his exasperation with Naldeth's halting progress. Once they were safely within the trees on the far side of the stream bed, he allowed a halt.
The young wizard evidently read something in Kheda's expression. 'If you want me moving any faster, I'll need to use more magic,' he said tightly.
'I'll try to find a path that won't be too taxing.' Kheda tried not to sound curt.
That proved easier said than done and it was an awkward task keeping close enough to the edge of the trees to see the dry stream clearly without drawing too near to the fractured lip of the bank. High above, unseen birds bickered. Now and again one squawked a peremptory warning and Kheda froze. When the idle chatter in the treetops resumed, he moved on, each time with his heart beating a little faster. The dry valley curved around a shallow bend and as soon as he got a good view of what lay beyond, Kheda stopped.
'Not all these savages live in caves.'
Back on the western bank that they had just left behind them, below another of the irregular outcrops where the rocks of this harsh land broke through the meagre soil, the
thickly buttressed trees had been claimed by the wild men. Underbrush and lesser saplings had been cleared and platforms built around the sturdiest trunks, supported by branches forced into compliance with thick plaited ropes. Crude sheaves of dry leaves showed up brown among the green, tied to cast shade, while hanging hides foiled draughts, though the dwellings could hardly be called huts. Wild men and women were moving peaceably around the wide bases of the trees with no thought that they might be observed.
'Do you suppose these people have a wizard to call on?' Risala studied them.
'We'll have to wait and see,' said Velindre, her eyes keen.
Are these allies of those cave-dwellers to the east of here? Or does this dry valley mark some boundary? Whose territory are we in? Does it make any difference?
Kheda looked up and down the bank of the stream where they stood, searching for a safe place to hide and keep watch on those new wild men without risk of being seen. A wide-boled tree whose drooping branches were thick with coppery leaves caught his eye. Cautiously, he pushed aside the dangling foliage to find a bare circle of richly scented earth within the curtain of branches. There were no snakes immediately apparent or burrows where some venomous creature might be lurking.
'In here.' He beckoned the others into this opportune hiding place.
'What now?' Naldeth sat down in the aromatic shadows wilh palpable relief.
'Concentrate on your element.' Velindre moved to get a better view across the dry stream. 'We should be able to sense if there are any mageborn over there.'
The wizards sat still in remote contemplation. Risala edged across the ground to join Kheda. Sitting cross-legged,
she delved inside the leather sack she was carrying and offered him stale sailer flatbread and a piece of dried turtle meat.
'What do you suppose those wild men are eating?' Kheda whispered as he chewed the leathery flesh.
'Something substantial given the size of that hearth.' Risala dripped a little water from her flask onto the sailer bread to make it more palatable.
Time passed tediously slowly as they watched the savages piling dry branches into a hollow dug just above the edge of the stream bed. The substantial stones ringing the pit were blackened with use. With some agreement presumably reached that the pile was big enough, a handful of dark-skinned men in leather loincloths huddled to one side. A sharp rapping noise echoed across the emptiness and after another interlude, pale-grey smoke showed that a fire had been kindled.
'Just a natural flame.' Naldeth stirred to answer before anyone could ask. 'Struck from flint and fool's gold,' he commented with some interest.
The huddle broke up as the wild men carried smoking bundles of tinder and poked them into different places around the edge of the pit. The smoke thickened and darkened and drew together into a single column. Dry wood crackled and split and the first true flames flickered to life. Children appeared to fling bundles of sticks onto the fire. As the blaze rose to a brilliant scar against the darkness of the trees behind, the men shooed the children away. They chased each other around the tree trunks with shouts and laughter that echoed along the dry valley.
The men sat around the fire, watching as the dry wood burned down to a bed of glowing embers. From time to time, women in scanty leather wraps emerged from the shadows beneath the platforms rigged in the trees. They consulted with the seated men before disappearing once
more. Finally, the men rose to fetch sticks and raked aside the ashes and stones that had been soaking up the heat of the fire.
The women reappeared in twos and threes. Some held dripping lumps of meat or ungainly burdens wrapped in thick green leaves. Others carried gourds and lengths of stout vine plugged at each end with twisted tufts of foliage. The meat hissed as it was tossed into the middle of the hot stones, while everything else was set carefully in the ring of embers. The fickle breeze carried the taste of roasting meat to taunt the unseen watchers beneath the all-enveloping tree.