Risala had seen the same thing. 'Talismans?' she wondered, with a sideways glance at Kheda.
The skull-faced mage halted. One of the tree dwellers might just have been able to reach him with a particularly fine spear cast. The skull-wearer turned and beckoned to someone in his retinue. The women with the feathers in their mud-caked hair led burly savages dragging bound and bloodied captives out from the midst of the spearmen. They threw their prisoners onto the sand in front of the skull-faced mage, who called out something unintelligible to his tree-dwelling counterpart.
The mage in the bead cloak shrugged with evident unconcern as he made some reply. It was impossible to see the skull-faced wizard's reaction but the captives writhed in their bonds in frantic, futile efforts to free themselves.
'Here it comes,' Velindre breathed.
A sound like canvas torn in a storm filled the air. The sound of a dragon's wings.
'The source of Skull-Face's power.' Naldeth shivered with anticipation.
I should have brought that remnant of Shek Kul's powder with me. Cramming it down Dev 's throat was the only thing that stopped him setting all of us alight when the fire dragon's aura overwhelmed him.
'Make sure you control your magic with the beast so close,' Kheda whispered fiercely, looking from Velindre to Naldeth. 'Or will I have to knock you senseless?'
'I'm all right.' Naldeth's brown eyes were uncannily bright nonetheless, irises tainted with a hint of redness.
The dried-up stream bed and the banks on either side shook as the skull-faced mage's vivid blue dragon landed just behind him.
'I should have been expecting this.' Velindre gritted her teeth, hugging her knees to her chest. She glared at a coil of dust spiralling up beside her and it promptly died.
The dragon was as long as any trireme that sailed Aldabreshin waters. It stalked forward on long, elegant legs, muscular tail twitching and stirring up dust with the murderous spike at its tip. The thick scales on its back and flanks were midnight blue edged with vibrant azure. Smaller scales on its belly paled to the hazy lavender of a rainy-season sky threatening thunder, a shade echoed in the membranes of the vast wings it was carefully folding tight against its sides. Arching its serpentine neck, the dragon snapped a fearsome crest of sapphire spines erect. As it opened its mouth, it hissed with an unexpected softness that was somehow all the more menacing. Its head was long and pointed, its teeth glittering crystal blades. Its predator's eyes were the blue of a late-evening sky with pinpoints of white fire shining like stars at their centre.
More lightly built than the fire dragon that was the death of Dev. Vastly more alert than the simulacrum Velindre
concocted. How dangerous is it? How dangerous is a wizard with that creature's power to call on?
Kheda glanced involuntarily at Velindre. The mage-woman was still sitting huddled, her eyes fixed on the cobalt dragon. Her ragged breath clouded in the stillness as if the air still held the chill of the dawn but Kheda was as hot as ever.
The skull-faced mage shouted something to his opponent in the beaded cloak. The grey-haired mage shrugged once again, his gesture dismissive. The blue dragon shifted its feet slightly, lethal sapphire talons digging into the sandy soil.
'Oh my,' murmured Naldeth.
A grating noise like the first warning of a landslip echoed around the valley. Kheda looked at the crag above the tree-dwellers' encampment expecting to see rocks tumbling from the heights. There was nothing to be seen. Then there was something there. He blinked, not trusting his own eyes, before looking at Risala. She didn't notice, transfixed as she stared up at the crag, her mouth half-open.
The shape of the outcrop had not altered. It was Kheda's perception that had changed, as if the harsh sound of stone against stone had somehow affected his eyes instead of his ears. Where he had seen dark stains trickling in meaningless patterns down the grey rock, now he saw the outlines of legs and a long, thick tail. Where the edge of the crag had been a random array of ragged stones silhouetted against the cerulean sky, now it was the curve of a dragon's spine, edged with regularly spaced razor-sharp scales. Shadows shifted to become a head rising up from a ledge. Kheda blinked again and the creature was transformed from a painted shape on the cliff to a living beast, not as long as the sky dragon but heavier, deeper in the chest and broader in the haunches.
It sprang down from its perch to land just behind the wild wizard with the gaudy cloak of beads. Its shining armoured hide was black as jet save for its underside where dark steely-grey scales offered no hint of vulnerability. Claws the colour of ancient unrusted iron dug into the stream bed as it crouched low. It snarled silently, showing metallic teeth like newly forged swords as its long black tongue tasted the air. Even the inside of its mouth was black. Against such darkness, the vibrant amber of its eyes was all the more striking. It glowered, spines bristling around its blunter, broader head, its unblinking gaze burning with golden fire.
No wonder these tree dwellers weren 't worried about being attacked.
Risala reached for Kheda's hand, her grip crushing his fingers. Kheda looked hastily at Naldeth. The young mage was motionless, hands pressed to his face, mouth open in wonder. He glanced wide-eyed at Kheda. The warlord breathed a little more easily, seeing none of the dangerous thrall in the young mage's eyes that he had feared.
He looked back at Velindre. Her eyes were closed as she sat still hugging her knees, her jaw clenched. Strain deepened every line and wrinkle in her face, aging her cruelly. Moisture condensed out of the dry air to bead her short-cropped hair like cold crystals, trickling down her temples like sweat.
The wild wizard in the beaded cloak clapped his hands together. The black dragon reared upright on its hind legs and extended its wings. Sunlight flashed from silver membranes stretched between the black bones.
The sky dragon reared up to match it, the draught from its outspread wings sending clouds of dust boiling into the air. The skull-faced mage was unbothered. None of the dust came within arm's length of his own people. The bound captives thrown into the space between the two
wizards weren't so fortunate. They writhed and coughed as sand blew all around them, filling their eyes and ears.
The beaded mage shouted angrily as the wind raised by the sky dragon's wings spread to set his people's tree-top dwellings swaying wildly. He raised his hand and the air around the platforms fell abruptly still. The black dragon sprang into the air with a brutal clap of its wings, swooping low over its opponent. It breathed an oily black mist at the blue dragon, which recoiled before leaping into flight itself. It spat white fog into the smoky stain on the air and the darkness dissipated, falling down to the earth. The skull-faced mage wheeled around, gesturing. He wasn't quite quick enough and black tendrils landed on two of his retinue. They fell choking to the sand, legs thrashing and hands clutching at their throats for an instant before being stilled in death.
The dragons didn't care. The blue flapped its mighty wings and soared higher. The black pursued it a little way and then fell sideways through the air, cutting a wide circle above the watching savages. Sand rose from the stream bed as the dragon passed overhead, trailing behind it. The dust coalesced into a glittering line cutting through I he sky wherever the black dragon's tail flicked. The crea-lure flexed its wings and rose to join the blue dragon, which had been carving lazy circles in the sky, spinning wisps of cloud out of nothingness.
The black dragon rolled backwards and lashed at the blue dragon with its tail. The shining trail of burning sand snapped like a whip and flung fiery droplets at the cloud dragon. It dodged deftly, though its skeins of cloud were thrown into disarray. Hissing, it spat white vapour at the burning drops, which promptly fell from the sky in a rain of hard black crystals.