They'll be defended by Ritsem and Redigal and Daish besides, that's what will happen if I don't return. Can I risk not knowing what lies beyond the western horizon? Could I return to Itrac and try to live in any kind of peace of mind now that I know this unseen land could be nurturing who knows what manner of magical threat?
The vista ahead of him was empty of answers. The Reteul flew on over the turquoise waters as if driven on as much by his urgent questions as by the magewoman's magic.
CHAPTER EIGHT
How long will this place smell of burning? How far does the breeze carry the decaying breath of this place, to remind passing ships of what happened here? Does it keep them away?
Kheda watched the blackened isle rising above a slew of jagged reefs just high enough above the water to give a foothold to tenacious tangles of grey-stemmed midar. The tormented screams of dying Daish warriors echoed loud in his memory.
My swordsmen, my faithful captain Atoun, ripped apart by whip lizards transmuted to something half-way between animal and man by the wild mages. My first encounter with magic that was as foul as I had always believed it. Yet I come here now in a barbarian wizard's company, finding myself increasingly persuaded that she alone can show me what threat to the domain lies beyond the horizon.
'We could have been here last night.' Velindre sat on the Reteul's stern thwart, one hand on the tiller.
'This isn't a shore I wanted to come on in the twilight or with a contrary wind.' Kheda adjusted the angle of the sail.
We did kill all the monsters, didn't we? Surely nothing could have survived.
The Reteul continued on her way, the morning breeze negating any need for magic. Both magewoman and warlord wore the loose unbleached cotton tunic and trousers of zamorin.
Not that anyone will take me forzamorin with my beard. Not that there's anyone to see me hereabouts.
The little boat skirted the vicious corals. Kheda studied the shore. There were no trees, just stark black stumps still taller than a man where the insatiable flames had devoured the mighty iron woods. The dense stands of tandra trees and dappled figs hadn't been able to withstand the all-consuming flames, reduced to heaps of charred wood. The clusters of nut palms that had edged the beach were just a memory, their ashes a stain spread across the white sand by the storms of two successive rainy seasons.
Velindre shook her golden head at the devastation. 'If I didn't know better, I'd have said elemental fire did this.'
'It was sticky fire,' Kheda said shortly. 'We don't set such blazes lightly, but there are times when only the purification of burning will suffice, especially in times of disease.' A shift of the wind brought a richer scent to mingle with the memory of burning and he noticed swathes of fresh green among the dark ruination.
Renewal. I could have called that a favourable omen, if I still believed in such things.
Coral gulls walked splay-footed and unbothered along the sandy shore. Unseen among the newly grown low brush, crookbeaks squabbled raucously. Looking over the side rail, Kheda saw a school of sunset fish flash from yellow to orange and disappear into trailing sea grasses.
'There's our anchorage.' The magewoman waved a hand towards a blunt headland defying a sizeable reef not far out to sea and the Reteul veered obediently inshore.
'Thai's your ship?' Kheda looked at the blue-hulled vessel lying at anchor in the shallow cove. 'You've certainly applied yourself as a scholar to have sufficient learning to trade for something like that.'
'I'm flattered that you think I could do so,' Velindre said, a trifle sarcastically. 'No, I took a leaf out of Dev's book. I've been trading, which incidentally gave me an excellent excuse for idling around the beaches to listen to sailors' tales of mysteries out on the deep.'
'You didn't think such stories were just prompted by your barbarian liquors and dream smokes?' Kheda tried to keep the distaste out of his voice.
'Hardly, given that's not what I trade,' Velindre retorted acidly. 'Dev was a fool to risk being caught with such contraband.'
'What is your cargo?' Kheda was curious.
Velindre didn't answer, studying the vessel ahead instead. 'That's how they build ships in the western domains, so it's robust enough to take out onto the open ocean. We wouldn't survive this voyage in a cockleshell like this one.'
The blue-hulled vessel was nothing like the Reteul. Kheda certainly hadn't seen many similar ships in these southerly waters. The twin masts were much of a height and each carried a creamy triangular sail hanging half-furled from a raking yardarm. Bright with yellow paint and carving, a six-sided platform rose solidly above the steering oars at the stern, its angularity incongruous. Kheda would have been hard pressed to tell which was the prow or the stern without the steering oars and the cant of the sails. Both ends of the ship were equally rounded, blunted with a layer of double planking. Solid clinker-built panels were fixed to shield the steering oars from violent seas.
'You can sail that yourself without arousing suspicion?' he asked dubiously. 'Without magic?'
'It's a two-man ship.' Velindre wasn't offended. 'The sideways sweep of each sail can be governed from the stern platform as long as there's a second pair of hands
to adjust the pitch of the yardarms. You see those ropes running to the pulleys on the side rails?'
Kheda lost all interest in the complexities of the unfamiliar rigging when he saw two figures on the raised stern platform.
Risala.
'We'll beach the Reteul up above the high-water line. If anyone does sail by, they can assume you're ashore communing with the past.' Velindre took a firm grip on the tiller and lifted one long hand towards the sail. 'Hold on to something.'
Kheda grabbed at the side rail as the Reteul accelerated towards the shore. Velindre's magic drove the little ship swiftly up the sloping sand, shells grating beneath her hull.
'Don't spring any planks,' he warned the magewoman sternly. 'I shall want to sail home in this boat.'
The Reteul slowed to a halt. As Kheda waited a moment to be certain the deck wasn't about to shift beneath his feet, he saw one of the figures on the blue boat dive off the stern. Fetching anchors from the lockers in the Reteul's prow and stern, he swung himself over the side and down onto the sand. He had the little boat firmly secured by the time Risala reached the shallows.
She stood waist deep, wiping wet hair out of her eyes and smiling. 'Good morning, my lord.'
Taking a moment to appreciate her slenderness outlined by her clinging wet tunic, Kheda grinned back before a faint noise inland sent a shiver down his spine. He turned to look at the burned trees and clumps of new brush. 'We did kill all the monsters, didn't we?'
'The biggest thing on this island is a chequered fowl,' Risala assured him. 'Naldeth - the other wizard — he's been ashore several times and scried across the island besides.'
'Has he had any more success scrying out to the west?' Velindre called down from the ReteuPs deck.
Risala looked up, shading her eyes with one hand. 'Not really.'
'Why has he been ashore?' Kheda demanded, frowning.
Never mind any thought of portent, I won't have any barbarian mage disturbing Chazen Saril's bones to satisfy some macabre curiosity.
'Because his elemental affinity is with fire.' Velindre leaned over the ReteuPs rail, unconcerned. 'He was curious to see how the burning spread once you'd set your fires, and how the land is recovering.'