The savage mage swept flies and beetles alike away in a sandstorm but only for a moment. The magic fell away into confusion as he clawed at his throat with frantic hands, his own blood coating his fingers. Falling backwards, he thrashed from side to side in convulsions, back arched so viciously only his head and his heels touched the ground.

Silence abrupt as a thunderclap fell as he died. The insects were stilled, the savages on both sides of the strait frozen, even the wounded stifling their torment. The wizard crowned with the wreath of leaves rose to his feet and limped slowly to the water's edge on the far side of the strait, his broken leg whole again. The painted mage's men immediately prostrated themselves, hands outstretched in supplication. All of the wreath wearer's own followers looked tensely at him, weapons in hand.

The savage wizard nodded and his own men began dragging their log boats down to the sea. Paddling across the narrow stretch of water, some headed for the big hut where the dead mage had dwelt, reappearing with coffers and sacks of loot. Others began ripping down the wall of the prison enclosure, taking the split logs down to the water and lashing together crude platforms to lie across pairs of log boats. The painted mage's erstwhile followers threw aside their weapons and cowered, abject, until the newcomers clapped them on the shoulder in welcome, returning their weapons with nods of approval. Once accepted, they eagerly joined in transferring all the painted mage had amassed to the wreath wearer's store of plunder.

Kheda tensed as the huddled misery of the Chazen islanders was laid bare. They weren't even trying to flee, hiding their faces from any hope of freedom.

Risala's words echoed his own thoughts. 'Isn't there anything we can do to rescue them?'

'And give ourselves up to that bastard?' Dev spoke almost absently, watching the wreath-crowned mage intently. 'No, I'm not going up against him or any of his kind until I've thought all this through.'

Risala looked at Kheda, face drawn. 'There's nothing we can do?'

'We can bear witness,' he said harshly.

To what all Daish fates will be, if I do not find some way to defeat these evil savages.

Having ransacked the huts, the wild men turned to breaking down the remnants of the stockade and dragging out their terrified captives. Cowering and wailing, Chazen islanders were forced on to the improvised rafts with blows and kicks, women dragged by their hair, men by their beards. Once across the strait, they were thrown to the ground in front of the wreath-crowned wizard. He nodded with perfunctory approval to the cringing savages now pledging their allegiance with fervent obeisance. His original followers were pulling apart the walls of their own prison enclosure, driving the new captives inside to join those already there.

'They're not going to have room to breathe,' Risala murmured with growing concern as another raft load were forced within the wooden walls.

'Much these savages care,' muttered Kheda wrathfully. 'Haven't we seen enough?'

'No.' Dev shook his head determinedly. 'I need to get down there, see what's been done to the ground, to that mage, if I'm to get any measure of their magic'

Kheda looked at Risala, who shrugged helplessly. They sat beneath the bushes and waited. The wreath wearer got the pick of the plunder his men brought over from the dead mage's camp. His only interest was in small coffers that disappeared into his own hut. The savages lit fires with kindling bows and threw grain, fruit and meat all together in the biggest cook pots they could find. The smell of food made Kheda's belly rumble but the sight of the dead mage below being devoured by the insects the wreath wearer had summoned effectively killed his appetite.

Risala nudged him some while later and proffered a water skin. Kheda drank deeply, gratefully, and thanked her with a smile.

'Looks like they're on the move.' Dev hadn't taken his eyes off the scene below.

Kheda looked down to see the savages making more rafts from their log boats and crudely split planks. The loot from the wreath-crowned mage's hut was piled high on the biggest and the wizard stepped aboard to lounge idly on a heap of plundered quilts. The rest of his enlarged retinue made ready to leave, breaking open the stockade and dragging out the stumbling, sobbing captives. They were lashed into groups of five and six with vines tied around their necks and forced aboard the other rafts. A sizeable number were left behind, either moribund or dead. The savage warriors boarded those log boats that remained, standing upright and long paddles in hand. They surrounded the flotilla as it moved off.

'I don't know how they do that.' Kheda shook his head.

'A fair amount of it's magic' Dev pointed to green-tinted water flowing against the run of the tide to carry the wreath-crowned mage's boat away down the strait. The rest followed, the savages barely having to make a stroke. Before long, they all disappeared around a jutting angle of the undulating shore.

'Dev, scry for him,' Kheda said urgently. 'We have to know where he's going.'

'I can find him again, any time I want to.' Dev gazed at the body of the dead mage with an avidity that raised the hairs on the back of Kheda's neck. 'I need to work out what he was doing with his magic before I try mine against him.'

Kheda gripped the wizard's arm with a firmly restraining hand. 'We wait till we're sure they're not coming back.'

They waited. The day began to cool and the scatter of clouds above merged and thickened. A spatter of rain fell and then drifted away. The birds of the jungle chattered softly in the trees as they gathered to feed. Sudden rustles in the underbrush turned Kheda's head, Dev's too. Kheda gripped the hacking blade; Dev raised a hand outlined in ruddy light. A rounded hump of brindled hide briefly broke through the dark glossy leaves of a berry bush.

'Just a hog.' As Kheda spoke, a couple of striped hoglets emerged from the underbrush, little noses rooting in the leaf litter.

'Good eating, if you can catch them,' observed Dev. The hoglets startled at his voice and darted back into cover.

Dev looked at Kheda. 'Our friend with the leaves isn't coming back and I want to see all I can before dark.'

'All right.' Kheda nodded reluctantly. 'Risala, stay here, keep watch for us, please.'

She didn't object. Dev was already heading down to the village and Kheda had to hurry to catch him.

'What are we looking for?' he asked, drawing level with the northern mage.

'Give me the blade.' Taking it, Dev dug the broad, square tip into the soil. 'How much rain has this place had over the last run of the moons?'

Kheda rubbed earth dry as dust between his fingers. 'You'd think it was the end of the dry season.'

'One or other of them drew all the water out, as part of his spell casting. If you can call it spell casting,' Dev commented thoughtfully. 'Their magic is pure instinct.'

That meant nothing to Kheda so he moved to look more closely at the dead wizard, now a rotting sprawl of slack limbs beneath the crawling insects. The corpse looked as if it had lain unburied for days. 'How does magic do this?'

'Not sure. Effective, isn't it?' Hefting the blade, Dev cut deep into the meat of the corpse's thigh. The squelching sound and the stink made Kheda's gorge rise and he backed away.

Going pale enough to betray his barbarian blood, Dev nevertheless held his ground, prodding the dark slime oozing over the thirsty ground. 'There's no bone in here, just spongy fragments and bits of sinew.' Retreating, he studied the smears and nameless scraps sticking to the blade for a moment before stabbing it into the dusty soil to clean it as he stared across the water to the other beach. 'But that's not what he did to our friend in the wreath. His leg bones snapped, turned all brittle. How did he do that, I wonder? How did our friend in the leaves undo it?'