Kheda turned the spyglass to the village side of the defensive ditch. 'Where is the dragon-hide wizard?'

'He won't show himself until I call him out,' said Dev slowly. 'There, by that middle stockade, the man with the sharks' teeth necklace. He's been running errands for the other two who've tied their ships to Dragonhide's stern rail.' He glanced at Risala. 'That's our friend in the feather cloak and the chancer in the lizard skin, remember them? They're best of friends now.'

'We should aim to kill them as early as possible, I take it?' Kheda did his best to commit the muster of wizards to memory.

'You're getting the idea.' Dev clapped him on the shoulder.

'When—' Kheda looked up to find Dev gone. Startled, he looked at Risala. 'Where is he?'

She pointed down to the beach. 'There.'

In the blink of an eye, Dev had stepped from their perch on the headland down to the empty dust between the defensive ditch and the first of the village huts. His white garb shone luminous among the sun-burnished savages as he stood motionless, hands loosely tucked through the golden chain of his belt. Some of the closest invaders were already gaping at him, a few raising wooden spears and stone-studded clubs. The commotion beyond the spike-studded ditch continued unabated, newcomers still intent on getting through the barrier.

Risala nocked a paste-tipped arrow. 'When do we start shooting the wizards?'

'That's what I was about to ask Dev.' Kheda ground his teeth. 'As soon as he gets his head stove in would probably be a good time.'

A circle of savages was slowly closing on Dev, weapons raised, ugly intent in their every advancing step.

Pillars of red light erupted from the dry ground, coalescing in the radiance. A giant bird appeared, towering over the closest savage, walking on legs as thick as a man's waist. It bent a sharply crested head to snap at his eyes with a viciously hooked beak. He screamed and recoiled, stumbling into those behind him. The apparition batted stubby, flightless wings and threw back its head to crow in harsh triumph. One wild man had the presence of mind to thrust his dark wooden spear at the apparition. It passed straight through the brilliant bird's fiery plumage and the man pulled it free without resistance. He turned to brandish the weapon in triumph and Kheda saw his mouth open in exhortation.

The magic-wrought Yora Hawk pecked at his head. The man's bristling, mud-caked hair burst into flames. He screamed, the shrill sound glancing off the stunned silence that had now fallen along the entire shoreline. His head was ablaze with scarlet fire, crimson drops falling all around, not of blood but of magical flame. It took hold on the empty ground, flowing together to ring him in an all-consuming conflagration. The wild men closest fled.

Those who'd been trying to attack Dev from behind weren't sure where to run. Four of them faced a serpent easily as tall as the Yora Hawk, rearing up on trailing wings of flame to stare at them with unblinking ruby eyes. A tongue of piercing red light flickered in and out of the lipless mouth as it swayed slowly from side to side. One man broke and the serpent struck, not biting but darting forward to loop itself around the man and drag him, shrieking, back across the sand. His flesh was already smouldering from the touch of its iridescent scales before the Winged Snake bit him in the neck with a flash of flame. The wound glowed as lines of fire beneath his skin showed the unearthly venom coursing through his veins. The hapless savage burned from the inside out, his skin finally cracking and crumbling into blackened embers. The other three ran but the snake swept past them on its burning wings, cutting off any hope of escape. It hovered, waiting for another victim to try fleeing, long tail lazily looping and coiling in the dust.

'For a barbarian, Dev certainly knows his constellations,' Kheda managed to say, mouth dry.

A massive Mirror Bird was standing guard on Dev's seaward side, another creation of shimmering flame, stalking back and forth, rattling the great fan of its tail as its long crested head quested forward. Those savages now retreating hastily towards the spike-studded ditch were doing their best to evade the speckles of light struck from the apparition by the sun riding low in the sky behind them. Every time one of the glints of red touched bare flesh, a man cried out. Leather loincloths and wooden weapons were already scarred with sparks. The bird opened its mouth and hissed and the invaders fled, throwing away weapons now burning in their hands. The recent arrivals on the beach had set aside their tussles and were now lining the other side of the defensive ditch.

I wouldn't be relying on that to protect me.

'I don't think I could make an epic poem of this.' Risala's voice was hoarse. 'Not without being stoned for it.'

'Look, there!' Kheda caught his breath as three men emerged from the biggest hut left standing in the village. The first was cloaked in the barbaric splendour of pale grey lizard skin; the second in multi-hued feathers; and the third wore a red cloak dark as dried blood yet somehow glowing in the sinking sunlight.

'That's the dragon-hide mage,' Risala confirmed shakily. 'Those two with him, they're the ones we have to kill as soon as we can.'

'Only when Dev has got everyone caught up in his magic,' warned Kheda, infuriated.

Risala tensed as the mage with his lizard-skull helm walked slowly towards the Yora Hawk. The great bird's head wove from side to side, as if assessing this new threat. The savages now forming in a dense, impenetrable ring at a prudent distance from this unknown sorcerer all took a pace backwards. The others still hesitating between the spiked ditch and the Mirror Bird seized their opportunity to flee. Those still trapped by the Winged Snake weren't so lucky. The monster's glittering head darted forward, mouth agape. One man fell to the sand, blood burning within his veins, then the next and the last. A murmur of apprehension swept through the invaders and the circle retreated a few paces more. Lizardskin was still studying Dev's proudly strutting hawk.

'How will we know when?' Risala looked at him. 'What if he can't do it, what if Lizardskin kills him?'

'We'll just have to try shooting the most dangerous wizards.' Kheda shrugged helplessly. 'Perhaps they won't be expecting arrows. We might get a few of them.' He risked a quick survey of the seaward side of the ditch and found the savage with the grotesque necklace of loal hands. He was watching intently, his followers levelling their spears to claim a half circle of empty sand for their master.

'There's Catskin.' Risala pointed a discreet finger. 'And Palm Crown.'

The savages' deference was making both men comparatively easy targets. Kheda nodded slowly, still searching for the one with the butterfly breastplate. 'Can you make that kind of shot?'

'I can try for either,' Risala responded wryly.

'We've got more than one arrow for each of them.' Kheda assessed the steepness of the brush-choked slope beneath them and the utter confusion now swirling around the beach below the ditch.

Seeing us is one thing; they've got to reach us and that's no easy climb. We might get half our arrows off and still have a chance to run before they reach us. It had better be the arrows with the paste on. But where have the other mages gone? How are we supposed to pick them out of that horde? And it's not just spears we have to fear. If a wizard can see us, surely he can kill us. What hope then?

A flash of golden light wrenched his eyes back to Dev. A surge of dust was flowing across the ground. It rose like mist, sparkling and swirling. The Yora Hawk looked as if it were wading in mud, the Winged Snake's lashing coils were slowly being stilled and the Mirror Bird was struggling like a sea bird caught in a slick of filth.