Dev appeared beside him, face twisted with a fury apparent even through the blurring still plaguing Kheda’s vision. Kheda opened his mouth in a mute, hopeless plea. Dev reached out to force Kheda’s jaw shut, his fingers digging in painfully. The wizard raised a warning finger in front of his eyes and pointed towards the shore. Somehow in the midst of his panic, Kheda realised that foul as the feeling of being half-suffocated was, it wasn’t actually getting any worse.
Will it make any difference to Chazen if I’m saved from a natural death by wizardry?
Dev turned and began his laboured crawl back towards the shore again. This time Kheda followed, pushing with his feet and knees, doing his best to drag himself with his spare hand. The fingers pinching his nostrils threatened to cramp as he grew colder. He found himself fighting against the water and the drag of his chain mail, even though he couldn’t feel its weight. Jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached, he ducked his head and continued fighting his way towards the pale promise of the open air.
The sea bed sloped more steeply upwards and the ridges in the sand grew closer together, telling Kheda that they were getting closer to the shore.
I suppose it makes sense to move more like a crab than a man down here.
He looked up and in a heart-stopping moment of relief thought they were within reach of the open air. He tried to stand and raised a frantic hand only to realise that the surface was still more than an arm’s length away. A roll of surging white foam knocked him sideways, shoving him this way and that. Kheda fell back to the sea bed, using hands and feet in a desperate scramble until his head broached the surface. He gulped down clean, salt-scented relief before choking on a mouthful of water as a wave broke over his head. When he could breathe again, he retched and coughed.
‘Come on.’ Dev’s hand grabbed the scruff of his neck and hauled him forwards. Before it sees me.’
‘Where’s the dragon?’ Kheda wiped water from his eyes and tried to run in the knee-deep surf. He lost his footing and fell, only saved from another ducking by Dev’s strong arm.
The wizard hauled him upright and gave him a feeble slap across his nerveless face. ‘Move, curse you!’ Kheda’s armour felt five times the burden it had ever been as the waters fell away behind them. Where his hands and feet had been numb before, now he realised that the water and rasping sand had left his skin sodden and tender. He staggered after Dev as the wizard reeled across the sand like a man drunk on barbarian liquor. The mage barely reached the shade of a cluster of nut palms before he collapsed, chest heaving, breath rattling in his throat.
Kheda rubbed at his stinging eyes. His hair and beard were sticky with salt. Looking out to sea, he saw the Brittle Crab and the Gossamer Shark racing desperately away from the island. The dragon wheeled above them. ‘They can’t outrun the beast,’ he said despairingly.
‘They won’t have to.’ Dev forced himself up on to his hands and knees. ‘It’ll be back.’
‘Look!’ Kheda pointed to men crawling ashore among the wreckage of the Mist Dove. We must get everyone together, before the savages attack.’
‘There are no savages.’ Dev’s words were muffled as he scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘There never were any savages. The dragon wrought an illusion. It wanted us to come and see what had happened.’
‘It can do that?’ Kheda gaped. ‘I don’t know what it can do.’ Dev broke off, shuddering. ‘I know what it wants to do. It wants to kill me. It’s realised I come in a ship. It’s realised Chazen ships are hunting the wild men. So it showed a Chazen ship a Chazen village under attack by the wild men. Ah!’ He gasped with pain and began frantically tearing at the lacings of his hauberk
‘What are you doing?’ Kheda asked in alarm.
‘The dragon,’ said Dev, jaw clenched as he fought his way free of his armour. ‘It’s back.’
A black shape blotted out the sun and Kheda saw the creature’s evil shadow sweep across the sand. ‘Run!’ Dev threw his chain mail away as hard as he could. The ungainly sprawl of metal burst into flames, the plates writhing and buckling, the rings melting into drops of liquid steel.
With the deafening sound of the dragon’s wings directly above, Kheda took to his heels. The stand of nut palms exploded into flames as the dragon wheeled overhead, blasting the sand with its fiery breath, scorching whatever was left of Dev’s armour into oblivion. It crowed with exultation before landing with a thud that shook the whole beach. Thrusting its massive head into the flames, it began ripping at the burning trees with its murderous foreclaws.
Warlord and wizard crouched in a tandra thicket. Kheda saw that some of the men washed up on the shore who had fallen terrified to the sands were cautiously lifting their heads. One made a dash for the dubious safety of the trees. The dragon ignored him, still intent on reducing the nut-palm thicket to smouldering fragments. More of the men ran for their lives.
They’ll never believe I swam ashore in this armour.
Kheda threw his helm aside and began wrestling his way free of his own hauberk.
‘I’ve got to get away from it,’ Dev said fervently, shaking like a man wracked with fever.
‘We’ve got to get away from all this tinder.’ Alarmed, Kheda saw the dry husks of tandra pods start smoking. A tuft of the white fibres within flared up. He flailed at it with his armour before the oily black seeds ignited.
‘It knows its magic speaks to mine,’ Dev said with difficulty. ‘That’s how it’s going to find me.’
‘This beast’s too cursed clever by half.’ Kheda looked at the dragon standing in the midst of the blackened nut-palm stumps. The creature had lifted its head and was surveying the trees and brush that fringed the beach. But you said it was doing a wizard’s will. Where is he?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Dev tightly. ‘All I know is that thing wants me dead.’
The dragon took a few paces along the shore and blasted a striol-choked spinefruit tree into fiery oblivion.
Could I escape, along with whoever else has washed ashore, while it hunted him down?
But Dev saved my life, so I’m bound by every code of honour to try to save his barbarian, magic-cursed hide. Besides, this magewoman won’t be too inclined to offer her help if she learns that I left him to be eaten by the beast.
‘What do you suppose it wants more?’ Kheda said slowly. ‘Do you think we could escape it if it was sated with gems?’
‘They’re all at the bottom of the strait along with the Mist Dove? Dev watched with sick apprehension as the dragon studied the spreading blaze it had created, tongue tasting the air.
No, they’re not,’ Kheda said with growing determination. ‘Look.’
Several of the survivors were seizing chests or coffers from the broken wreckage scattered on the shore before scurrying towards the forest.
‘That fire’s coming our way.’ Dev began backing out of the tandra thicket.
Kheda stood his ground despite the scarlet flames crawling towards them, crackling and spitting. ‘Can you distract it somehow, while I try to find some gems? We can at least buy some time to run. How far do we have to go before it loses your scent?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ spat Dev. ‘There’s no hiding from it—’
Kheda slapped the mage hard across the face. ‘You’re a lot of despicable things but you’ve never been a coward. Don’t start now!’ He caught Dev’s arm, barely saving himself from the wizard’s fist in his face. ‘How can you distract it?
Dev rubbed his flushed cheek. ‘We could see what it makes of your armour if I set it melting,’ he muttered without conviction. ‘Leave it there.’
‘Just keep one step ahead of it.’ Kheda gripped Dev’s arm, trying to encourage the mage. ‘I’ll be back.’ Dev pulled away and disappeared into the trees. His bare feet left scorched, smouldering prints in the dry leaf litter.
Kheda caught up his swords and ran along the edge of the shore. He scanned the trees urgently for any signs of the Mist Dove’s crew.