‘If you say so, my lord.’ Zicre looked past him out into the gully, face expressionless. Like all the men he wore rough cotton clothes smudged with soot and sweat.
At least we all agreed that we didn’t need the burden or noise of armour that wasn’t going to save us in any case, if the dragon caught up with us.
Kheda stood up, tipping glutinous lotion from a small blue bottle on to a scrap of cotton waste. ‘This is going to hurt,’ he warned as he took the man’s hand, holding it tight as he swabbed firmly. ‘But the quicker I do it, the sooner it will be over.’
Zicre hissed and caught his breath. ‘Thank you, my lord,’ he said through gritted teeth.
Kheda turned Zicre’s hand over as he continued with his ruthless cleansing. No real oar calluses. You hadn’t been aboard the Mist Dove long. What did you do before that?’
‘Huntsman, my lord,’ said Zicre tightly, ‘from the western slopes.’
‘Here on Boal?’ Kheda looked up at him as he returned the blue bottle to the chest. ‘On the far side of these mountains?’
Zicre nodded, bracing himself for the touch of the ointment Kheda was uncorking.
‘When all this is over, you must show me your forests.’ Kheda coated the burn thickly with grey salve flecked with pinkish fragments. ‘We’ll hunt together.’
Uwe haven’t been hunted down first,’ Zicre said incautiously. He ducked his head and studied the burn, clenching and unclenching his fist
The low murmur of conversation deeper in the cave halted abruptly.
‘We’ve kept ahead of it so far,’ Kheda said calmly as he replaced the ointment in the physic chest. ‘It’s a more dangerous beast than anything else in these forests, I’ll grant you. Personally, I’d rather be tracked by some rogue jungle cat with a taste for villagers or pursued by a water ox crazed with foaming madness, but it’s still just a beast and we are men. We have our wits and this is the second largest island in the domain, so we have league upon league of forest to hide in. It may be hunting us, but we’re not hook-toothed hogs to blunder off a cliff in terror or spotted deer to just lie down and die of heat prostration.’
But why is it hunting us?’ Zicre burst out.
Kheda checked to be sure the lacquered wooden box with the cracked and smudged wax seal was safe before he closed the physic chest. We were all on the Mist Dove,’ he said carefully.
‘Why did it attack the Mist DoveV demanded someone hidden in the cave. Emboldened, a murmur of assent rose to be lost in the hollow space.
You ‘re the warlord. They look to you for answers. You can’t give them the truth, so are you going to dishonour them by giving them lies?
‘That was the ship that led the fleet.’ Kheda shoved his physic chest backwards and used it as a low stool. He looked into the darkness, meeting the unseen challenge squarely. ‘The beast may even have realised that I was aboard. Zicre, you have loals in these forests, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ The erstwhile hunter was taken unawares by the question. ‘Black-cloaked ones.’
‘Have you ever seen what happens when one gang decides to take over another gang’s stretch of forest?’ Kheda asked.
Not seen it so much as heard it,’ Zicre said slowly, ‘and found the big males from the gang under attack beaten to bloody pulp and half-eaten.’
‘Loals know to concentrate on killing the strongest leaders among their rivals.’ Kheda shrugged. ‘I think that cursed beast is at least as clever as a loal.’
‘Loals can’t curse us with magic,’ muttered a sullen voice in the darkness.
‘You all survived attack by men with magic last year,’ Kheda shot back. ‘You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t. I don’t call that cursed, to live when so many died. I don’t see any curse on Chazen, not with the best pearl harvest in living memory coming out of the sea. We’ve all survived worse than this dragon.’
‘But what are we going to do, my lord?’ asked someone desperately. ‘Just let it chase us till it’s burned every tree on the island?’
‘If that’s what we must do, to keep it from flying off to burn and devour our homes and families,’ Kheda said harshly. The undercurrent of response in the cave took on a surprised note. ‘And while it’s chasing its tail pursuing us, our other ships and warriors are hunting down the last of the invaders,’ he reminded the mutinous darkness.
And when will they kill whoever has summoned this beast to plague us, tell me that?
T read you the last dispatches from the Gossamer Shark. The remaining invaders are scattered on the barren islets beyond Comi now. We’ll soon rid Chazen of those vermin. Then, as soon as we find out the barbarians’ trick of killing dragons, we’ll be rid of that bane as well, won’t we? The Green Turtle should be back sometime around the breaking of the rains. We just have to keep one step ahead of the beast till then.’ He grinned. ‘And it won’t find these forests so easy to burn when the real storms start, will it?’ The assent from the darkness was more dutiful than convinced.
‘Water, my lord?’ A swordsman stepped out of the shadows offering Kheda a battered wooden cup. He shot a look of covert contempt at Dev. The wizard was lying on the bare earth just inside the cavern entrance, eyes closed, apparently asleep.
‘Thank you.’ Kheda took the cup and drank gratefully.
‘Zicre, can you find somewhere to keep watch for Ridu? I don’t imagine you’ll be able to sleep with that burn. If the rest of us get our heads down we can move on tonight.’ The warlord closed his eyes and leaned back against the water-sculpted wall of the cave. He wasn’t that tired but it seemed wisest to put an end to this dangerous conversation.
You can take your dissenting notions out of here with you, Zicre, and keep them to yourself. To think I wanted Chazen people to learn to speak their minds to me. As my father said, Be careful what you wish for, lest you get it.
Weariness of mind and body surprised Kheda as the urgency that had kept him on his feet since dawn and through all the long days evading the dragon’s pursuit retreated.
Where is Ridu? Is he going to have any news from Itrac? Has she had any news from Risala? What will this mage-woman of Dev’s do whenever she gets here, when she finds out what I’ve done to him? Will she just vanish in a puff of smoke and take whatever knowledge she might have along with her? A hand shaking his shoulder startled Kheda awake. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.
/ never meant to sleep. Oh well, no harm done.
‘It’s Ridu, my lord.’ It was Zicre, speaking quietly.
‘I’ll see him outside.’ Kheda rubbed a hand over his beard and glanced at the men dozing further back in the cave. No need to disturb everyone.’
He stepped over Dev, who didn’t appear to have moved since he’d lain down. Ridu was waiting out in the gully, enjoying the shallow breeze funnelled by the earthen walls. Kheda realised that the worst of the day’s heat had passed, not that there would be much evening cool this close to the coming of the rains. ‘My lord.’ The youthful swordsman looked younger than ever stripped of his armour. He held out a small wooden box. ‘The Yellow Serpent was at the rendezvous. It brought dispatches.’
‘Excellent news.’ Kheda breathed a sigh of relief and took the box, sinking down on to a convenient boulder. ‘Sit. Zicre, get him some water, please.’ He cracked the seal on the box and opened it to find several pages of individually folded and sealed reed paper inside. ‘My lady Itrac’s taking every precaution, I see.’ He looked over at Ridu. ‘Are there any stray ships creeping around Chazen waters?’
Ridu shook his head as he drank thirstily, spilling water down his grimy tunic. No, my lord,’ he gasped. ‘Everyone’s terrified of the dragon.’
Kheda looked at the youth thoughtfully for a moment before cracking the seal on Itrac’s note and scanning the contents. ‘All seems well enough on Esabir,’ he mused.
Apart from the fact that we’ve nearly emptied the treasury of gems to save the palm huts and sailer granaries of Boars threadbare hill villages. And we wont be replacing such wealth any time soon, with not so much as a single trading galley venturing into Chazen waters since Janne Daish went home. Is that her doing? Would she need to do anything, with a dragon overflying our sea lanes? At least there’s no other cause for alarm in Itrac’s news.