'Let's see if anyone can understand that we'd prefer to see mercy for the defeated.' Holding curling swathes of the sticky bark, Kheda headed for a youth sitting hunched over a forearm where both bones were plainly snapped. Kheda looked at Risala and grimaced. 'Of course, they may just think we're torturing him for our own amusement. I've no way of letting him know I mean no harm, nor anything to take the edge off his pain.'

The youth flinched and hunched down as Risala gripped his narrow shoulders tightly. 'Better this than leaving him in agony and with an arm that'll mend all crooked.'

Kheda took hold of the boy's upper arm, careful to support his wrist with his other hand. 'Naldeth, I need you too.'

'You want me to try mending those bones?' The wizard approached, looking unsure of himself. 'I didn't mind trying that dragon's magic to make those needles but I'm not at all sure about experimenting on a living person—'

'Just take the weight of his arm while I get the edges of the bones back in line,' said Kheda briefly.

The warlord set the broken limb with practised mercilessness. The boy's raw scream silenced every cave dweller's whimper as well as the belligerence of the village spearmen. Kheda concentrated on winding a length of the sappy bark around the break and up and down the fainting boy's forearm. He drew his dagger once again to slice a thin, fibrous length to serve as a tie and rubbed the back of his hand over his own dry lips. 'Risala, can you tell Velindre he needs some water please?'

'They've worked that much out for themselves.' She pointed towards the cave-dweller women now emerging from the lowest caverns carrying dripping gourds filled from some underground cistern.

'Some for the rest of us wouldn't go amiss.' Naldeth had been absently winding a strip of bark around his hands. He looked down, surprised to find he had all but manacled himself as the resin rapidly dried.

'Pick five more wounded for me to help before we move on.' Kheda noted that the village spearmen had recovered all the weapons still worth having and no intact arrows remained on the ground.

The mage stared at him. 'Why do I have to choose?'

'Because you decided this fight would end this way.' Kheda stared at him, unblinking.

'Then start with her.' Naldeth pointed to a woman huddled beside a fallen boulder, one ankle grotesquely swollen. The youthful mage nodded more resolutely. 'We can come back here once we've recovered the Zaise. You can bring your physic chest.'

'And empty all my pots of salves before I'd treated half these abrasions, with no means of refilling them?' Kheda took no pleasure in rebuking the wizard. 'What do I do if you're injured? Or Risala? Or Velindre?' He knelt to probe the woman's ankle with careful fingers, trying to determine if any bones were broken.

Hearing a stir among the warriors in the shadows, he looked up to see Velindre hurrying towards them, visibly concerned. 'There's something—'

Kheda abandoned the woman's foot to stand up and search the trees. 'Is it the tree dwellers? The dragon?'

The village spearmen were spreading out, turning their backs on the cave dwellers as they raised their bows and clubs. A piercing cry rang through the forest and echoed back from the rock face. The cave dwellers murmured with new dismay.

'Those murderous birds have caught the scent of fresh blood.' Risala plucked a white-fletched arrow from her quiver.

Kheda saw the village spearmen disappearing into the trees. 'We have to go after them. If they get away from us, hunting or hunted, we'll never bring them back together to attack the tree-dwellers' valley.'

'I'm staying here,' Velindre said abruptly. 'There's something else in those woods. I wasn't talking about those birds. There's something wound around with elemental magic and quite close by. You don't want to leave that behind you any more than some enemy force.'

Risala looked around at the wretched cave dwellers. 'You can make sure none of these people come after us, out for revenge?'

Kheda looked at Naldeth and then at the magewoman. 'Is he up to defying that mage in the beaded cloak on his own?'

'What will you do when that dragon appears?' Risala demanded of the young wizard.

'Everything I did last time and more,' Naldeth snapped.

'You had better, or we're all dead.' Kheda nodded. 'Stay close to me.'

They hurried to catch up with the last of the village

warriors slipping through the trees. Kheda searched for familiar faces. It was more difficult than ever to recognise individuals with the clay-tainted grease obscuring their features. As they left the clearing around the rocky outcrop behind, squawks erupted deeper in the forest. The killer birds' cries soon changed from aggression to panic and the village spearmen's shouts proclaimed successes.

'Do you suppose there are any tree dwellers hunting in these woods and hearing all this commotion?' Risala muttered savagely.

'Can their mages scry?' Kheda wondered.

'I've no idea.' Naldeth's metal foot stumbled on the uneven ground.

A spearman came hurrying towards them and Kheda recognised the stooped hunter by his twisted back. He grinned widely, waving a bloody blue wing. Kheda smiled back at the same time as pointing urgently in the direction of the tree-dwellers' valley with his sword. The spearman nodded with ready understanding and tossed the bird's wing at Naldeth before using his fingers and mouth somehow to send a piercing whistle through the forest. Similar signals answered him and Kheda's immediate fears receded as the fighting force re-formed. The savages were scooping up handfuls of leaf mould to smear on their arms and legs. Now their skins merged into the forest floor with its dappling of sun and shadow.

'What am I supposed to do with this?' Naldeth turned the bird's wing over, perplexed.

'I don't know.' Kheda ground dirt into his grubby tunic. His trousers couldn't be more soiled.

Risala was doing the same. 'Better not throw it away. We don't want to insult anyone.'

'I'm not about to stick the feathers in my hair.' Naldeth's attempt at a jest was half-hearted.

'Come on.' Kheda dismissed the irrelevance, turning all

his attention to the trees ahead. He caught glimpses of heads, a back, an arm holding a spear aloft to better negotiate a patch of tortuous undergrowth. The village spearmen were moving faster through the dappled grey trees than they had raced over the grassy plains.

They don't need me to tell them we need every advantage of speed and surprise to stand a chance against the tree dwellers.

Kheda looked over his shoulder at Naldeth. 'As soon as you see their wizard, do whatever you can to stifle his magic or kill him outright.' He noticed that the wizard's face was a tense mask of determination and discomfort. 'Is your leg—'

Naldeth cut him off with a gesture. 'I'll manage.'

'I'll stay close to him.' Risala spared Kheda a brief smile before focusing intently on the forest ahead. She held her bow and quiver close to her body. 'I'll put a shaft into that wizard if I get the chance. The ones we fought with Dev were as vulnerable to an arrow in the belly as anyone else.'

'I remember.' Kheda didn't waste any more time on talk, pushing on over the undulating ground as fast as he felt Naldeth could manage.