Juliet McKenna - Western Shore

It would be so easy to tell Naldeth simply to turn this ship's prow to the south, to round that cape and sail away east, leaving this strange and dangerous land. Velindre could find us with her magic, couldn't she? But when we return to the Archipelago, will I arrive to find I've lost Risala?

Kheda fetched scouring paste, rag and oil and cleaned his sword and his dagger, polishing them till they shone. Risala brought dried meat and fruit from some store, taking a share to Naldeth, still without a word. They ate, all remaining silent, watching the broken cliffs subside and the broad mouth of the river open up before them. The Zaise bucked as Naldeth's magic drove the ship through the turbulent water where the river's muddy flow forced itself out into the surging sea. The wide mudflats stretched away on either side.

'Watch the skies.' Kheda searched the sandbanks with their tangled tussocks of grasses.

Risala shaded her eyes with her hand. 'There's nothing to see, not even birds.'

Kheda noted the same lack of life across the fertile mudbanks. There were no birds, no sign of any animals. He called up to Naldeth. 'Has all the wizardry used in this valley today frightened everything away? How far does magic's influence reach? Does it taint the water, or the air?'

'Look over there.' Risala pointed at a pillar of smoke that was rising from the far edge of the grasslands on the northern bank, just a little eastwards of their own position.

'It's an ordinary fire,' Naldeth called, unperturbed.

Kheda tried to judge the intervening distance. 'And nowhere near the cave dwellers.'

'Isn't it near where we left Velindre?' Risala stood beside him, tense.

'She could let us know if she were in trouble, couldn't she?' Kheda tried to swallow his own apprehension as he realised Risala was right. 'Come on, we'll see more from the stern.'

They climbed up the ladder to join Naldeth.

'Isn't that the tree-dwellers' valley?' Risala turned to point to a shallow notch in the undulating land where it ran away westwards towards the broken shore.

'I think so.' Still looking inland, Kheda saw that the fire was rather more than half-way between the caves and the tree-dwellers' settlement.

That's the direction we fled in the night, when we met that old woman and she showed us shelter.

'Naldeth, if Velindre were in trouble, could she use this magic of yours to find the Zaise ? Or would the spell just carry her to the cave where we left it?'

'I don't think anyone's ever tried translocating to a boat while it's under sail.' This new idea evidently intrigued Naldeth. 'What—'

A gang of wild spearmen appeared on the north bank. Shouting and waving their spears, they beckoned to the Zaise and Kheda recognised several faces, even through their covering of grease and filth.

'I take it those are our friends?' Naldeth wrapped a skein of blue light around his burned hand and hauled the prow around towards the north shore regardless.

'They don't look too happy to see us,' Risala said slowly.

'No,' Kheda agreed, 'but they don't look as if they're about to attack us either.'

'They look more apprehensive than anything.' Naldeth's

newfound high spirits faltered for the first time. 'Velindre would have found a way to warn us, if there was danger.'

'There's definitely some kind of trouble.' Kheda studied the faces of the men waiting on the bank.

A good number of the men offered a studied blankness just short of defiance. Others were more openly nervous, their eyes flickering from Kheda to Naldeth. A few gazes slid to Risala with a hint of guilty appeal.

'Velindre had better not be hurt.' Naldeth's tone hardened.

The Zaise juddered as the keel sliced into the river bed. A ramp of mud reared up to bridge the gap between the ship's rail and the bank.

Kheda saw some of the spearmen on the bank react with violent surprise while the rest merely took a step back, more concerned with beckoning the three mariners ashore. 'Some of these warriors must be cave or tree dwellers. They haven't seen Naldeth's bridging trick.'

'Then Velindre has found some way to convince them to cooperate rather than fight.' Nonetheless, Risala looked uncertain.

'We can ask her once we find her.' Growing concern was rapidly quelling Naldeth's good humour. He swung himself over the rail and hurried to the bank.

Kheda noted which spearmen looked agog at the wizard's metal leg. He gestured to Risala to go on ahead, keeping one hand on his sword hilt as he brought up the rear.

The spearmen had trampled a broad path down to the river. They retraced their steps along it, noisily beating the stubborn tussocks with their spears and stamping down already crushed blades of the razor-sharp grass.

Kheda looked around in hopes of finding the scarred spearman or the stooped hunter. Neither wild man was anywhere to be seen. He recognised some faces, and registered all too clearly the beseeching glances that slid his way.

Whatever this trouble is, they're hoping I'll take their side.

Kheda hurried after Risala, who was walking as fast as she could to keep up with Naldeth. The joints and rivets of the wizard's metal leg glowed with scarlet fire. As the grasses thinned, they reached a line of straggling nut trees cut off from the main sprawl of the forest by a stony slope. Wild men were busy dragging fallen wood to add to a long fire that was the source of the smoke they had seen.

Just as Kheda realised this was familiar ground approached from an unfamiliar direction, Risala pointed to a shallow cluster of rocks. 'That's the cave we hid in, the one with the paintings.'

'There's Velindre.' Naldeth nodded at the magewoman, profoundly relieved. 'She's not hurt.'

Velindre was sitting on the bare earth hugging her knees some distance below the entrance to the cave. He recognised the scarred spearman standing some distance away, ringed by a band of warriors whom he identified as having come from the village across the river.

'What do you suppose they've done?' Risala wondered.

Kheda saw the wild men who'd met them at the river spread out to join the warriors on the far side of the cave or those gathering firewood, demonstrably disassociating themselves from the scarred spearman and his band. The shunned men hadn't a spear or a club between them. He caught an ominous breath of sickly putrefaction.

'Velindre!' Naldeth called out as the magewoman got slowly to her feet. 'Are you all right?'

'Yes,' she answered wearily, 'but there's something you have to see.' Her face was tearstained, her eyes red-rimmed. 'You remember I said there was something strange in these woods, something elemental gone all awry?'

The scent of decay grew stronger and Kheda's stomach roiled. 'What is it?'

'You can see all you need to from here.' Velindre approached the cave's entrance with visible reluctance.

Naldeth pushed past her. 'There's magical—' He recoiled, retching.

Kheda looked into the cave to see a tangle of bloodied corpses. The only movement was the crawling of black flies. Dark clots of insects shifted like shadows across the bodies. More clung to the cave's walls where gouts of blood utterly obscured the delicate paintings. It was difficult to estimate the numbers of dead, but it was all too easy to see the slender legs of women among the confusion of limbs. Children's hands stuck out from the crush as if they were scrabbling at the cave walls.

Risala gasped with horror, pressing her hands to her face.

'This is what they were doing in the night.' Kheda didn't even realise he was speaking aloud.

'You knew about this?' Furious, Velindre berated the warlord. 'You did nothing?'

'I knew something was happening.' Kheda glared accusingly at the scarred spearman and the other weaponless warriors. 'I didn't know what—' His rage strangled any further words.