And what preparations would we make? What lies would I have to tell my allies to persuade them I'd seen portents foretelling such an attack?
'Let's see what I can see.' Velindre sounded oddly tense as she poured a little water into her empty palm and summoned up a mossy glow within it.
Kheda moved to her side. All he could see was a tangled mass of unfamiliar forest. 'Where's Itrac?'
'Never mind Itrac, that's not even Chazen.' Velindre's brows knotted as she passed her other hand over the uncommunicative puddle of water. The dark-green glow brightened to emerald radiance, obliterating the useless image. The magelight grew brighter in the shadow of Velindre's hand and then dissolved into sickly jade threads
that wavered like weed in the water. Velindre cursed as the magical tension holding the water together snapped and the liquid dripped through her fingers to vanish into the thirsty ground.
Naldeth stared at the damp dust with disbelief. 'If she can't hold a scrying together, you don't want her risking your lives with a translocation.'
Kheda reluctantly set aside any thoughts of an immediate return to Chazen. 'What about just getting us back to the Zaise, so we don't have to skirt round that skull-faced mage or the tree dwellers and their dragon?'
'I was trying to scry out the Zaise that second time,' the magewoman said bitterly.
'What's happening?' Naldeth couldn't restrain his curiosity.
Kheda rounded on him before Velindre could answer. 'Can you try the necessary magics?'
'Me?' The young wizard stared at the warlord. 'My affinity's with fire and scrying's a water spell, so there's the antipathy—'
'Don't even try,' Velindre advised tartly. 'With the turmoil in the elements hereabouts, Hearth Master Kalion couldn't see further than those trees.'
'You don't know—' Naldeth began hotly.
'Then it seems we're walking back to the Zaise,'1 Risala interrupted with deliberate composure.
'Indeed.' Kheda took a moment to gather his thoughts.
This is no time for a quarrel. We can argue when we 're back on the ship— where I'll tell Velindre she's to sail us at least as far east as she needs to be sure of sending me and Risala back home with her magic. We 're not staying here if these mages can't keep us safe with their wizardry.
The others stood looking expectantly at him.
'We need shade and cover from unfriendly eyes.' Kheda pointed to the sparse greenery a little way inland.
'We're far too exposed on this cliff. But we had better stay alert for any sign of those murderous birds or worse.'
'You and I can do that.' Risala shot a stern glance at the wizards. 'You two keep watch for any dragon or wild mage.'
'I don't know how much daylight we have left.' Kheda started walking, the sun still uncomfortably hot on his back. 'I'm not sure we'll get back to the Zaise before dark.'
Risala followed close by his shoulder, her hacking blade held ready. The wizards followed a few paces back, Velindre curbing her long stride to match Naldeth's irregular gait.
At least this ground is hard enough for him to walk fairly easily.
Once they had crossed the open expanse of hard-packed ruddy soil, the dusty green proved not to be trees after all but a bizarre blend of thistly bushes and plants that thrust long fingers as thick as a man's arm into the air. They had no branches or side shoots; they were just stems densely covered with spine-tipped leaves that looked more like the scales of some lizard than the skin of any plant.
'There's cover, if not a lot of shade,' Kheda said bracingly to Risala.
She looked behind her to be sure the two wizards weren't lagging. 'We can hope no one's fool enough to come in among all these thorns just wearing a few scraps of hide.'
It was relatively easy to pick a path between the upthrust spikes and the desiccated thistle plants. The only obstacles were intermittent sprawls of pale yellowy-green plants with thick, succulent leaves studded with curling black thorns.
Kheda kept an eye on the broken line of the cliff edge away to his off hand. The sun sank steadily in the sky, and by the time the western sea took on the golden glow
that promised sunset, they had reached a stretch of this strange spiny forest where brilliant scarlet blossoms dotted the scaly green stems. Tiny grey birds fluttered around the flowers, together with the largest butterflies Kheda had ever seen, yellow as sulphur.
'What was that?' Naldeth halted and whirled around, searching the lattice of green pillars casting long shadows across the dry ground. 'I heard footsteps,' he said with complete conviction.
Kheda strained his ears. In the distance he could hear the sea's ceaseless murmuring. Close at hand, at first the silence seemed utterly complete, as the onset of dusk vanquished the day's breezes. Gradually, he picked out the chirruping of some insect and the idle trills of the tiny grey birds flitting overhead from lofty bloom to lofty bloom, burying their long beaks in the flowers. Red scissor-tailed finches snapped incautious flies out of the air.
'Perhaps it was some animal,' he said at length.
'Hunting us?' Risala was still keeping a keen eye to the fore.
'Perhaps,' Kheda acknowledged readily, 'but we're hardly as defenceless as those savages.' He nodded to Naldeth. 'Draw your blade and keep watch behind us. But don't go rushing into the attack, and don't use magic unless something's about to bite your head off.'
'Or someone else's.' Naldeth unsheathed his hacking blade and gripped it resolutely.
Velindre looked up at the vivid evening sky. 'The dragon's still a good way away.'
'Both of them?' Risala's vigilance ahead wavered for a moment.
'I'd feel the black dragon coming anywhere close,' Naldeth reassured her. 'Fire and earth are sympathetic elements and given that creature's power—'
'We can discuss all this when we're safely back at the Zaise? Kheda narrowed his eyes as he thought he saw some movement among the motionless forest of upthrust stems.
Was that some brush stirred by a breeze or some animal or just my eyes deceiving me?
He swapped his own hacking blade to his off hand and drew his sword. 'We move as quietly as we can. Sound will carry further than we can see once it gets dark.' He picked up the pace, Risala at his side.
'How are we going to cross that river in the dark?' she asked in a low tone.
'Without using magic?' He glanced at her and shrugged. 'I don't know. I don't even know if we'll get that far. It might be better to find some shelter on this side and cross at first light.'
'That skull-faced mage lives on this side of the river,' she reminded him.
He grimaced. 'And the black dragon lives on the far side, between us and the Zaise?
'I take it we're not stopping for food?' Velindre was rummaging in the leather sack she was carrying. She handed Kheda a scrap of salted duck meat wrapped in stale sailer bread.
He chewed it, finding his mouth too dry for comfort. 'We'll certainly have to look for water before long.'
'Will you look for omens at first light?' Risala asked with unexpected insistence. 'Please—'
'Kheda,' Naldeth warned from the rear, 'there's definitely something following us.'
'Quiet.' Velindre hushed him. 'Listen.'
A night breeze was rolling down from the hills inland. Faint yet unmistakable, Kheda heard heart-rending sobbing. 'Where is that coming from?' he breathed.
Velindre raised a hand, magelight no brighter than starshine flickering between her outspread fingers. 'Over
there.' She pointed inland, not far off the line Kheda was estimating would take them back to the river.