'We'll just have to see.' Velindre tapped Risala on the shoulder. 'If we all sit facing outwards, we can lean on each other as we keep watch.'
The magewoman sat herself down to look inland along the tree line towards the unseen caves. Kheda settled himself to watch the softly swaying grasses while Risala stared into the gloom of the twisted woodland. Naldeth lowered himself awkwardly to the ground, vigilant in the direction of the tall tree and the mage with the beaded cloak.
The flames of the burning barrel trees eventually began to gutter. The shouts of the searching spearmen faded as they toiled back up the slope and disappeared beyond the bare plateau.
No one spoke. Kheda felt his own breathing slow and heard the inconsequential sounds of the night landscape for the first time. He looked up to gauge the progress of the moon past the fronds of the spindly trees and surprised himself with a yawn. After the long day's walk and the constant tension, he realised he was exhausted. Then he noted just how still Naldeth was sitting beside him, all his weight resting on Kheda's shoulder.
Has he fallen asleep? He had better not start snoring.
The young mage was still awake. 'We're being watched,' he said softly.
'What?' Velindre turned her head towards the plain.
'There.' Kheda focused on a dark shape lurking motionless behind the fringe of grasses. It hadn't been there before.
Risala twisted awkwardly to see. 'What is it?'
'It's more a question of who.' Kheda got slowly to his feet, letting his hacking blade hang loosely by his side. He spared a quick glance to either side and saw that both the tree dwellers and the men from the caves still had sentries keeping watch across the river.
Are we about to be betrayed to them?
The shape shifted and stepped onto the open ground at the edge of the grass. The moonlight showed them the old woman in her hide wrap. Close to, Kheda could see that her bare legs were no more than skin and bone and her grey hair was matted in filthy clumps. She would have been shorter than Risala if she had been standing upright. She was shorter still as she stooped over the bundle cradled in her skinny arms. She stood motionless, head cocked slightly to one side, her expression lost in shadow.
'I don't think she's about to attack us,' Risala said with reluctant compassion.
'She certainly has no magic' Velindre's level tone nevertheless betrayed her relief.
Kheda tensed as the old woman moved. All she did was lay her bundle down on the ground and knuckle her back in an eloquent gesture of weariness. She looked from side to side and then cocked her head at him again. Kheda didn't move. The old woman folded her arms across her meagre chest and thrust her head forward at him. Both wizards and Risala froze as she took a step Forward. Surprising them all, she skirted nimbly around
the sprawl of fleshy plants and vanished into the dark woodland.
'Where did she go?' snapped Velindre.
'Do you want to risk magic to find her?' Naldeth asked.
Risala was looking at the bundle on the bare earth. 'She left all her things.'
Or made us some offering, to try to buy her life?
'Let's just keep our ears open for a moment,' suggested Kheda.
All he could hear was the same idle night sounds as earlier. Kheda found he was too tense to sit down again. In between glances to check on the patiently watching savages hemming them in, he looked over his shoulder in the direction the old woman had gone.
For no reason he could have explained, he was more than half-expecting her to return. She did so, and sooner than he had anticipated. Hurrying on silent feet, she gathered up her belongings and looked expectantly at the four of them gathered close together in the shallow scrape. She jerked her head and walked back past the sprawl of fleshy plants. When they did not follow, she beckoned insistently, shifting her burden to one bony hip.
'She wants us to follow her,' Naldeth said cautiously.
'It could be a trap.' Risala was dubious.
'If she wanted to betray us, all she had to do was shout to those sentries.' Kheda stood slowly upright.
'Can we assume she wants to avoid them as well?' Velindre rose beside him. 'Where do you suppose she wants us to go?'
'There's only one way to find out, and we're none too safe here.' Kheda took a deep breath and walked up out of the hollow.
The old woman nodded vigorously and moved deeper into the trees, pausing to look back to make sure they were
following. Kheda went first, Risala close behind him, Velindre and Naldeth spread out a little further back.
Kheda squinted as he saw the old woman heading unerringly towards a solid darkness within the gloom. As they drew closer, he saw a low outcrop of grey stone sheltering a black hollow leading down into the earth.
That's surely too small to be some dragon's den.
He couldn't decide if he was reassured or not to see the old woman scramble down what was evidently a steeply sloping entrance.
'Are we going in there?' Risala sounded torn. 'Why do you suppose she's helping us?'
'I don't know,' Kheda admitted, 'but it doesn't sound as if there's anything in there eating her.' Kheda looked around the inhospitable wood. 'That's a better hiding place than any we've found, and as long as we know where she is, she can't be betraying us.'
'I helped her. She's returning the favour. Come on.' Naldeth pushed past them both to clamber down awkwardly into the cavern.
Velindre shrugged and did the same.
'Go ahead.' Kheda nodded to Risala, making a last survey of the encroaching darkness before following her.
The entrance was even steeper than he had anticipated, a slick expanse of rock with some uncomfortably sharp ridges. Inside the darkness was absolute.
'Is this just a cave?' Kheda instantly regretted asking as both wizards kindled flames.
A blue-white feather danced on Velindre's upturned palm. 'It's remarkable,' she murmured.
'What does it mean?' Naldeth's magelight made a candle of his forefinger as he gazed around.
Risala was watching the old woman closely. 'She doesn't seem overly bothered by magic'
'Just as long as it doesn't bring some wild wizard
down on us,' Kheda said tersely. 'Is it safe for you to do that?'
'Don't worry.' Velindre chewed absently on her ragged thumbnail as she walked deeper into the darkness.
'It's only a tiny flame.' Naldeth followed her, the radiance nevertheless filling the cavern.
There wasn't much space between the walls of faceted grey rock and windblown leaves were scattered all along the floor. Kheda didn't have a chance to consider what vermin might be lurking among them: he was too astonished by the riot of colours splashed all around him.
'It's those birds.' Risala traced a wondering finger over a startlingly effective representation of the murderous fowl. It was drawn with just a few deft strokes of charcoal around natural bulges in the rock that shaped the body of the bird. Fingers dipped in some green pigment had been pressed against the stone to make surprisingly realistic feathers.
'And those armoured lizards.' Kheda picked out an ochre shape lurking in pale grass made by rapid scratches scored into the rock and through the picture.
'And a dragon.' Velindre slowly raised her hand and her magelight burned brighter to show a spur of stone thrusting down from the rocky roof. It had been skilfully shaped and painted to bring out the full likeness of the dragon's profile that some unknown artist had seen in the rock. It loomed over them, perhaps a quarter as long as the real thing, every scale painstakingly picked out with red pigment rubbed into the shallow grooves carved into the stone. The jaw was closed, the muzzle a bulbous protrusion, the spiny crest a fan of crevices.
The eye glinted and Kheda saw that a shard of crystal had been wedged into the rock there. Velindre stepped aside and as her magelight moved with her, the answering