CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Naldeth's best speed was still barely sufficient to keep them from dropping behind the wild men. The village warriors were increasingly avid to join this new battle. Trying to find the sun whenever the meagre canopy of nut-tree branches grew thin over stretches of rocky earth, Kheda judged they were heading very nearly due west. He did his best to gauge their progress through the unfamiliar terrain but was still taken by surprise when the ground rose up and he saw the spearmen slipping over the crest of high ground that marked the eastern side of the tree-dwellers' dry valley. As they crouched to avoid being skylined, the tall trees with their dense, dark leaves barred their way down the slope, obscuring their view of the western bank.

Does this dry stream bed mark some boundary between the cave dwellers behind us and these people who owe fealty to the cloaked wizard and his black dragon?

Kheda looked northwards upstream and then down and saw the scarred spearman and the stooped hunter doing the same. Their eyes met and they nodded agreement. The warlord turned to Risala and Naldeth as the scarred spearman gave brisk orders to the village warriors.

'We'll make for that.' Kheda pointed upstream to a break in the tall buttressed trees. As they drew closer, he saw that some calamity had ripped through the forest, tossing the mighty trunks down the slope like twigs to leave a broad swathe of broken ground running down to the dry stream bed.

The village warriors gathered in the shade of the forest edging the destruction. On the western bank the tree-dwellers' broad fire pit smoked untended. The dry stream bed was entirely devoid of life. So was the sky. The scarred spearman slid beside Kheda and pointed to movement up among the platforms and shelters that clung to the trees on the far side of the stream and in the shadows around the thick boles.

'Where's their wizard?' Kheda asked Naldeth, not taking his eyes off the settlement. 'Where's that black beast of a dragon?'

'They got wind of our approach.' Risala shrugged that off. 'Do you think any of them will be circling around to attack us from behind?'

Kheda glanced over his shoulder to see the stooped hunter turning a reassuring number of spearmen and a few archers to look for just such a threat. Then he was startled by raucous shouts from their wild allies. A group of village spearmen advanced to stand at the top of the bare, broken slope, waving their spears and yelling defiance. The rest waited hidden, braced and ready. The scarred spearman grinned at Kheda.

Naldeth frowned. 'Those tree dwellers would be fools to launch any assault up this slope.'

'And our spearmen can't run into battle from here.' Risala was equally puzzled. 'They'll exhaust themselves crossing the stream bed before they get there.'

'I've no idea what they're thinking.' Kheda gave voice to his frustration. 'How am I supposed to be a warlord when I can't even talk to the men I'm sending into battle?'

'Don't worry.' The mage stared intently across the narrow valley. 'This is my battle.'

Risala carefully drew a white-fletched arrow from her quiver. 'Where is he?'

Fresh shouts from the village spearmen drowned out

her words. Their tone turned from hostile to mocking. Some among the tree dwellers weren't proof against such taunting. A handful advanced from the darkness beneath the mighty trunks to wave their own spears and yell scathing retorts. This simply spurred the wild men on the ridge to new derision. A flash of colour startled Kheda, then another. The village wild men were hurling the wings they had hacked from the murderous birds down the slope, to lie dulled with dust on the dry stream bed's margin.

'What does that signify?' Risala was mystified.

Kheda slowly shook his head. 'They don't like it. Look.'

More tree dwellers advanced into the open, adding their angry shouts to the commotion echoing back and forth across the dry valley. Those village warriors armed with bows launched a storm of salvaged arrows into the sky. Tree dwellers looked up vacantly, wondering what the hissing rain might be.

'So they did understand me,' Kheda said with bitter relief.

Most of the tree dwellers had the wit to scurry backwards for the shelter of the trees. Those too slow fell screaming with wounds to arms and legs. A few thrashed in agony in the sandy stream bed as shafts driven deep into their bodies or faces were the death of them. The village spearmen roared, exultant, and the newly fledged archers launched a second flight of arrows. This time a cloud of dust sprang up from the dry stream bed to stop the missiles, weighing them down with dirt that matted their tousled fletching.

'Where is he?' Naldeth scoured the far bank for the wizard in the beaded cloak.

'Is the dragon anywhere close?' Risala was searching the rocks and shadows.

Kheda took an envenomed arrow and carefully nocked it on his bowstring.

'Leave their wizard to me.' Naldeth's bloodshot eyes were calm as he gazed over the valley.

'They are coming out to fight.' Risala readied her own bow as the clouds of sand in the stream bed subsided to show the tree dwellers rapidly advancing, shaking their spears and shouting with new boldness. The wild bowmen launched another cascade of arrows, thinner this time. Too many had already emptied their quivers. A curtain of dust swirled up just ahead of the advancing tree dwellers and the arrows slid down it, their threat blunted. By contrast, the tree-dwellers' slingstones shot straight and true through the haze and struck several village spearmen, prompting cries of pain.

'Naldeth?' Unable to see who had been wounded, Kheda tried in vain to pick out any obvious leader among the advancing enemy. 'The wizard?'

'I can't see him.' Risala was equally frustrated.

Naldeth stood motionless, rapt in remote contemplation.

Kheda staggered as the ground shook beneath his feet. The village spearmen's shouts turned to dismay as the hard-packed ridge crumbled beneath their feet. Torrents of flowing earth knocked men off their feet. As the soil turned to insubstantial sand around their roots, several of the lofty green trees fell too. They crashed downwards, ripping branches from their neighbours and crushing everything where they landed. The swathe of disintegration widened, splitting up the village spearmen. Some were forced down the face of the slope, others scrambling backwards away over the crest. Triumph edged the tree-dwellers' belligerence. Their leading spearmen broke into a run, now more than half-way across the stream bed.

Incongruous among the consternation spreading through the village spearmen, Naldeth chuckled. A glow of ochre light spread through broken ground and the

powdery soil turned solid once again. The magic raced away down the slope and spread across the valley. The tree dwellers retreated apprehensively and Kheda saw they were right to be concerned. The sand of the dry stream bed swirled around them like water, ripples spreading. Soon they were sinking up to their knees. Ripples grew into steeper peaks, breaking with a spume of dust and surging mercilessly over the tree dwellers like a stormy sea.

As one man flailed frantically, he splashed the man next to him with great gouts of dirt that filled his eyes and mouth. Choking, the unfortunate clawed at his face, losing his own struggle to stay afloat. As he sank, he clutched at the nearest man, only to drag him down too. Both vanished beneath the flowing soil. Some had the presence of mind not to struggle, trying to float on the shallow waves of fluid earth, the boldest even using their spears as makeshift paddles.

'There he is.' The young wizard wasn't looking at the tree dwellers drowning in the sand. All his attention was focused on a solitary figure emerging from the shadows on the far bank.