'What do we do?' Risala looked at Kheda as he hauled the young mage up to stand in the cave entrance.
'What we always do,' the warlord said wryly. 'Stay out of the way.'
And be ready to run if the battle goes badly for Velindre or Naldeth and I see the faintest possibility that we might escape unnoticed in the confusion. If we could get to theZaise, would we have any chance of sailing for home without a mage to steer us through contrary winds and waves?
The old woman was trying to pull Risala into the depths of the cave now. Kheda jumped down the slope and shooed her away. He took Risala's hand and pulled her up towards the daylight. 'Whatever happens, I want you by my side.'
'What—' As Risala's voice rose on a note of panic, the reverberation of dragon wings outside drowned out every other sound.
Sapphire light crackled all around Velindre. She was standing a few paces away, looking up into the sky. Raising one hand, she drew down a pillar of light as blue as the cloudless sky above. The base of it hovered just above her upturned palm, bathing her in a painfully bright radiance
that bleached all colour from her. Unblinking, Velindre stood still as a statue carved of marble. Only the pillar showed any sign of life. Brighter azure light pulsed down its length from some unimaginable height above, as regular as if it echoed the beat of her heart.
The wild mage's sky dragon bellowed. It was circling high above. With a spiral twist through the air, it flew at the sapphire column, jaws gaping with menace. Veering away at the very last moment, it wasn't quite deft enough and one edge of its wing brushed against the lurid light. The magic shivered in Velindre's hand and she gasped. Above, the sky dragon roared with rage or agony. Kheda couldn't tell which.
What use is foretelling? Every portent that might guide my life has been pored over since the day I was born, yet no omen ever saw my death in an unknown land encompassed by wizards battling with dragons.
The magewoman stretched her hand up higher, her face a daunting mask of determination. Blood trickled down her chin as she bit her lip, looking black against her unnatural pallor.
The sky dragon swooped with another deafening crash of its lavender wings, mouth agape, and this time it bit into the blue light with its crystal teeth. The flash of magic seared Kheda's vision and left him frantically wiping away stinging tears. Trying to blink away the throbbing smudges staining his sight, he grabbed for his sword hilt.
The sky dragon roared with renewed fury and dived low to pass so close to the ground that its wings stirred up a cloud of dust and dry leaves. A second bellow rang out, high above. Kheda's vision cleared and he realised that what he had vaguely thought was some unexpected cloud was in fact a soaring white dragon. He looked quickly towards the savages still lurking beneath the trees.
They were staring up at the skies, hands and weapons limp at their sides, mouths open in astonishment.
The false dragon that Velindre had summoned was as white as the ice coating the most inaccessible peaks of the Archipelago's tallest mountains. Its underside and the membranes of its wings were touched with the blue of a moonlit sky seen from such cold heights. Its claws and ferociously bared teeth were the indigo of those rarest of nights when the stars alone ruled the heavens. Cold white fire burned in its sapphire eyes as it looked down and it hissed with contempt. The cobalt dragon beat its lavender wings and screamed its outrage as it climbed the sky to fight this unexpected rival.
Dragons fight dragons. Wizards fight wizards. Where is the skull-faced wild mage?
Kheda looked back to the wild men but couldn't make out either the skull wearer or the feather-crowned women. He found his gaze drawn inexorably skywards again.
No one's going to be making any move until this is over, one way or another.
The false dragon darted this way and that. The sky dragon was long and lithe; the false dragon was more slender still and smaller, able to twist through impossibly tight circles. The sky dragon drew level with it and bated its wings, hanging in the air like a hawk. It breathed a dense white mist at the false dragon. The simulacrum fell down the sky just ahead of the tumbling cloud. The savages beneath the trees howled their approval. Just when it looked certain that the vapour would envelop it, the false dragon blinked into invisibility. The cheers of the wild men fell apart in confusion.
The sky dragon roared and dived steeply downwards. Scattering the mist with furious strokes of its mighty wings, it searched for its enemy, questing head whipping from side to side. The false dragon appeared directly
behind its lashing tail and spat shards of crystalline ice that skittered noisily across the vivid blue scales armouring the sky dragon's flanks. Outrage rang through the sky dragon's roaring, now so loud that Kheda's ears were aching.
The blue beast doubled back on itself in midair, lethal mouth agape. The false dragon flapped its wings to climb higher but looked just too slow to evade it. Then, in the instant the sky dragon was about to sink crystal fangs into its icy white neck, the false dragon vanished once more. The sky dragon hissed and began rolling over and over, wings folded close to its body with head and tail outstretched. Strands of pale vapour began forming around it.
'There he is.' Naldeth hadn't been watching the antics of Velindre's simulacrum. He had been waiting for the skull-faced mage.
Kheda saw the wild wizard standing in the midst of his retinue, his head tilted incongruously backwards like the rest. It was impossible to see the wild wizard's reaction through his skull mask but his people were plainly astounded as they watched the battle going on above their heads. 'Are you ready?' he asked Naldeth.
Can you do this? Truly? And what happens if you can, never mind if you cannot?
'I'll be ready just as soon as Velindre plays her part,' Naldeth murmured, now looking upwards.
The blue dragon had rapidly gathered a dense spiral of cloud around itself and flew unerringly at the false dragon as soon as it reappeared. This time the simulacrum waited, flapping in a lazy circle, indigo tongue lolling and jaw gaping wide in what looked uncommonly like a mocking smile.
Because you 've seen it try this trick before, haven't you, Velindre?
But this time as the blue dragon flew closer, it didn't release the cloud as a murderous vortex. Instead, white tendrils reached out from the spiral and sought to entangle the false dragon. In the instant before the clutching white fingers laced themselves tight, the simulacrum vanished yet again. More significantly, the tendrils of cloud flashed into vivid claws of lightning that shot backwards towards the blue dragon. The beast shrieked and writhed as white light crackled along its hide, leaving deep burns scoring its vibrant blue scales.
The crowd around the skull-faced mage gasped, a few shouting out loud in their astonishment. Kheda watched the wild wizard in the skull mask shove his feather-crowned attendants aside. He hurried forward out of the shade of the nut trees to see what was going on up above more clearly. The false dragon appeared and then disappeared again before the sky dragon could attack. It reappeared once more, this time a little further away in the direction of (he sea. Bellowing with fury that made the air shake, the blue dragon flew after it more swiftly than the fastest trireme. The simulacrum lured it still further away. Soon both dragons were lost beyond the swell of the land as it rose towards the broken cliffs of the seashore.
Stumbling slightly, Velindre walked backwards towards the shelter of the cave mouth. Her face was drawn and blood from her bitten lips stained her teeth. 'Naldeth, let's see ... if you were . . . paying attention ... to Hearth Master . . . Kalion's lessons.' Chest heaving as she gasped for breath, she sat down heavily, her head hanging. 'Some water would be nice,' she rasped.