'Pardon me for interrupting your philosophical debate—' Dev tossed the empty wine bottle into the air. 'Your assumption—'

A blue light sparked inside the dark green glass and died at once. The bottle crashed to the floor and shattered.

'Arseholes!' Dev sat up straight, mouth open. He waved a hand at the lamp, which burned on steadily, golden glow unaffected. He half jumped, half fell from his hammock. 'What have you done, you bastards?'

'Mind the glass!' Risala warned, drawing her feet up to the top of the chest, hugging her knees.

Dev ignored the dull green shards scattered across the boards, glaring at Kheda. 'What have you done?'

'Tamed your magic, for the moment.' Kheda hoped he'd dusted the last of the powder he'd taken from Shek Kul's box from his fingers. 'I'd rather have your cooperation willingly but I'll force you if needs be.'

And thank you for that ancient concoction, great lord of Shek, even if you had no idea if it would work, as you were scrupulously honest in explaining.

'You think you can force me to work magic for you?' spat Dev. 'By taking it from me? What is this, one of your useless talismans actually working for a change?'

'I can't force you to help me,' Kheda said tightly. 'But I can keep you helpless and deliver you up to the rulers of the Daish domain. We can both swear to your wizardry and throw ourselves on their mercy and see you skinned alive to purify us both and ward the evil of the invader's magic from the domain.'

'Daish Sirket would owe us a tremendous debt, if we could offer him the protection of such a rite, to strengthen his men and those of Chazen, when they sail south at the end of the rains,' Risala said boldly.

Kheda could feel her trembling, as she pressed close against him. 'I imagine Daish Sirket and Chazen Saril would share in the ritual. There would surely be omens to be read in the mirror of your liver, in the coils of your entrails. If you will not tell us willingly how we might defeat these invaders, perhaps your death will serve our purpose despite you.'

Read the truth in that, you bastard, because if that's all the good I can wring from your twisted carcass to help my domain, then I swear I will do it. Even if I die for it myself.

'You just try it, pal.' Dev launched himself at Kheda, heedless of the glass on the floor.

Risala darted away to one side and Kheda ducked the other. Sharp pain in his feet slowed him and Dev bore him down to the floor, reaching for his neck with strangling hands. Bucking his hips to try and throw the lighter man off, Kheda thrust a fist upwards between the wizard's forearms. He couldn't manage a hard punch to Dev's throat but it was enough to loosen his grip. Kheda forced his other arm up and knocked the mage's hands aside. Dev's forehead came down to butt him and Kheda rolled his head aside to take the blow on his cheekbone. The pain of that was enough to make him gasp but it was Dev who yelled.

Kheda blinked away tears to see Risala's sharp fingernails drawing blood in the wide neck of Dev's tunic. Rising to his knees with a roar of anger the wizard swung round an arm but he couldn't reach her. A wrench of his shoulders instead pulled Risala around to trip over Kheda's legs. She went sprawling across the splinter-strewn floor but, clinging to Dev, she dragged him with her. Kheda scrambled up and flung himself at Dev, his greater weight knocking the mage flat. Glass crunched beneath them.

Ignoring the needle-sharp pains in his knees and shins, Kheda straddled Dev's hips, pinning the mage to the boards. Warding off Dev's blows with one forearm, he landed a jarring punch on the wizard. Dev's head jolted as his lip split.

'He's got a knife!' Risala had seen him scrabbling for something beneath his tunic and seized his hand. Leaning on it with all her weight, she bore it down to the floor. Kheda held it down with one knee and caught Dev's other hand in a vice-like grip, muscles built by half a season's rowing bunching beneath his tunic sleeve as he fought the wizard's wiry strength. With his free hand, he grabbed Dev's jaw and thumped the mage's bald head hard against the floor.

'Don't think you can get me to kill you, just to save you from the augur's knife,' he hissed.

Twisting his head free, Dev managed to bite Kheda between thumb and forefinger. Kheda punched him again, under the jaw, snapping his teeth shut.

'He doesn't have to be unmarked, does he, not like a sacrificial animal?' Risala panted with triumph as she held up the knife Dev had tried to use on Kheda. Steel caught the lamplight. 'Can't you hamstring him, to keep him from escaping? Cut the tendons in his arms as well. They all seem to wave their hands around to work their magic'

'All he has to be is a wizard.' Kheda let his full weight press down on Dev.

'Working magic has nothing to do with using your hands, you stupid bitch.' The mage writhed beneath him.

Kheda took the knife from Risala and shoved the point between Dev's snarling teeth. The mage's instinctive recoil left him with a sharp cut in the corner of his mouth.

Kheda lent forward to look Dev in the eye. 'The last time a wizard was caught and killed in the Safar domain, they cut his tongue out ahead of time, so he couldn't curse anyone.'

Dev froze, tense but still, and Kheda slowly withdrew the knife.

'I shouldn't have waited to see if you drowned. I should've summoned the waves to sink you myself.' Dev winced and rolled his head to spit blood away. 'If I'd known you were going to be this much trouble. I could have done with consulting a soothsayer, couldn't I?' he added with vicious wit.

Kheda matched his sour humour. 'You're the one in charge here.' Laying the knife alongside Dev's throat gave the lie to his words. 'It's your choice. Help us against these invaders and their magic or see your blood shed in hopes that it will protect the Daish domain. What would you rather do?'

'Suppose I do help you?' Dev's jaw jutted belligerently. 'What do I get out of it?'

'Besides a whole hide?' Kheda didn't have to pretend surprise. Cramp threatened in his thighs and he shifted a little. Needles of glass pricked his shins, a stickiness of blood warm on his skin.

'I thought you weren't a man's man.' Dev tested Kheda's weight with a suggestive twist of his own hips.

'You won't distract me with your nonsense.' Kheda pressed the knife harder into the leathery skin of Dev's throat.

'Don't you want revenge on the invaders?' Risala's taunt turned both men's heads. She shook her head at Dev. 'Don't you want to make that mage in the dragon-hide cloak pay for sending those tentacles to slap your sorry arse and try ripping you limb from limb?'

'Revenge isn't worth so much,' said Dev tightly. 'I'll want something I can trade for real value.'

'Pearls? Turtle shell?' Kheda shrugged. 'What's so funny about that?'

Dev licked at the corner of his mouth, the knife cut painfully pulled by his unexpected chuckle. 'Those wizards down south don't reckon much to pearls or turtle shell. They want gems, the bigger the better, talisman stones for preference.'

'That's what was in the coffer?' Risala asked.

'You're not the only one I've been keeping an eye on.' Dev slid a sly glance towards her.

'Why do they want talisman gemstones?' demanded Kheda.

'So many questions.' Still pinioned, Dev nevertheless tried to shrug. 'Every answer has its price, you must know that much, soothsayer.'

Kheda looked down at the wizard with undisguised contempt. 'If you're paid, well paid, with pearls and jewels as well as your worthless life, will you help us?'

'What does a penniless soothsayer with a slut of a poet in tow have to pay me with?' scorned Dev.

Tell him who you are and you give yourself over to his mercy. Is there any other way to win his assistance? Isn't this a wager that'll prove your cause, one way or the other?