'Like a matia?' Velindre was incredulous.
'A what?' Naldeth looked bemused.
'A small furry beast that hunts snakes,' Kheda explained. 'They never fight to wound each other, because a wounded matia will soon be dead and none of them want to risk that. The males chase each other up and down the biggest trees to prove who's the most agile.'
'And the most cunning,' continued Risala slowly. 'They aim to trap their rivals on some branch too high and exposed to offer escape. When the winner relents, the defeated one slinks off.'
'And sometimes the winner doesn't relent until an eagle has spotted the treed matia and plucked it off the branch to feed its chicks,' Kheda added.
'Which is considered a notable omen.' Risala looked at him, her expression bleak.
'But dragons aren't matia.' Velindre reached for her own flask and gulped down half her water. 'Let's not forget that.'
'True enough, but that black dragon was certainly out to defeat a rival.' Naldeth spoke with complete conviction.
'Will it see you two as a threat if we use magic to try to get back to the ZaiseV Kheda looked from Naldeth to Velindre. 'Will it find you out?'
'When the fire dragon came to Chazen, it hunted Dev like a hound on a ripe scent.' Risala plainly shared his concern. 'And it was looking to kill him, not just to prove it could work more impressive magic or chase him off.'
'Maybe fire dragons are different. Fire mages have a
reputation for volatility, even if Naldeth here proves the rule by exception. Maybe it just didn't like Dev. He could be pretty objectionable when he put his mind to it.' Velindre's smile was a wry blend of pain and affection. 'All I can tell you is that blue dragon isn't the least bit interested in pursuing me.'
'I don't suppose you look much of a threat when it can snatch a simple translocation spell away from you so easily,' Naldeth commented incautiously.
'My instincts didn't wholly fail me,' retorted Velindre waspishly. 'We didn't land out on those reefs, did we?' She flicked a hand towards the lethal seas foaming beyond the cliff edge.
'Are we going back to the ship?' Risala took a drink and screwed the cap back on her water flask. 'Or somewhere else?'
'Can you use your magic to get us back to Chazen?' Kheda shoved the star circle in his pocket. 'You two could stay to try to fathom the mysteries of these dragons and these wild mages and then come to warn us if there's any sign of them taking to the ocean again.'
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.'