Risala gasped as the fiery apparitions disintegrated, her cry as one with the rush of fearful triumph spreading through the massed savages. Kheda watched, breath held, as Dev's scattered magic drew itself back into a wall of flame that held back the rising, stifling dust. The flames rose higher, unnatural crimson painfully bright, hiding Dev from sight. The dust subsided and its colour faded from a sunlit gold to a darker, amber hue. The radiance slowly sank into the ground. Dev's wall of fire remained impenetrable.

'If he doesn't get on with this, there's going to be no light for shooting,' Kheda muttered apprehensively, glancing towards the west.

'Look!' Risala urged in shocked wonder.

The solid ground around Dev was turning to powder. The savages encircling the northern mage were scrambling backwards, the slower among them already stumbling, knee deep in sand. The landward edge of the ditch crumbled, stakes falling this way and that, earth flowing to fill the trench. The bottom of Dev's ring of fire hung in the air, unsupported.

The flames subsided, shrinking to waist level then to knee height, then disappearing altogether to reveal the wizard standing on a solid circle of untouched ground. Dev's hands were on his hips, his whole stance one of challenge and mockery.

Kheda tensed.

Lizardskin raised his hands and the dust surged upwards all around Dev. Dev gave a careless wave and a surge of blue light drove the choking cloud sideways straight across the ditch to send the savages there stumbling backwards, coughing and pawing at their eyes. Even as Lizardskin raised his hands intending some new attack, Dev snapped his fingers and sent a ball of scarlet fire straight as an arrow for the savage mage's head. Lizardskin batted it away with a shaft of blue light but another was already on its way, and another. As fast as the savage mage waved one ball of flame away, Dev sent two or three more arcing towards him. Lizardskin began ducking and weaving, successive fiery missiles getting closer and closer before they were abruptly quenched.

Kheda heard the feather-cloaked mage's shout at the same time as everyone else. A paralysed hush seized the entire shore. The feather-cloaked mage strode down the beach, waving his arms, his heavy mantle of iridescent plumes sweeping around him. A full-throated roar burst from the savages and raising their weapons, they charged as one man at Dev.

Dev raised his hands and every thrusting spear burst into flames. The hafts of stone-studded clubs split into smoking splinters and the stones themselves exploded into vicious shards. The savages fell back in confusion to cower among the huts of the village and hide behind the piles of plunder. Some clutched bloodied heads, others stumbled and crawled, hands groping, eyes blinded. Kheda saw the vicious wounds to their arms and chests were seared black or swollen with weeping blisters.

The wild warriors weren't the only ones confused. Even as every weapon was turned against its wielder, Dev flung a final handful of fire at Lizardskin. This time the savage wizard was an instant too slow and the ball of scarlet flame dodged past the skein of blue light that Lizardskin cast out to catch it. The sorcerous fire caught him full in the chest. He staggered backwards, shrieking, clawing at the clinging magic. Fire ringed his torso with a brilliance painful to behold. Lizardskin threw back his head and screamed, falling to his knees. He toppled backwards, dead before he hit the ground. The flames vanished. Beneath the lizard's skull, his face was unmarked, frozen in a rictus of agony. His legs and feet were similarly untouched Between his shoulders and his waist, there was nothing left but a few dark knots of charred bone and a stench of burning carried on the breeze.

Feathercloak's howl of fury rose above the stifled pain of the injured savages and the fearful commotion among those on the seaward side of the stake-filled ditch. A spear of lightning arced down from the cloudless sky. The ground where Dev was standing exploded with an ear-splitting crack.

Kheda and Risala both jumped, startled beyond words.

'Is he dead?' quaked Risala.

'No.' Kheda pointed. 'There.'

Incredibly, Dev was now standing well clear of the seared sand.

Feathercloak gestured and more lightning seared through the air. Dev raised an out-turned palm and knocked the blast aside with a blue-white streak of his own magic.

This can't be lightning. We couldn't see it if it was. It would be too fast.

Feathercloak was sending spear after spear of the unnatural lightning at Dev. The northern wizard knocked each one awry with a shattering shaft of his own. Shards of azure light showered down on the huts and heaps of booty. Palm thatch started to smoulder damply.

A wind arose from nowhere, swirling with sapphire radiance. Gathering into a narrow spiral, a whirlwind danced along the shore towards Dev. The northern mage continued trading magic with Feathercloak, ignoring the swaying, bending spiral of destruction sweeping his way. The magical whirlwind darkened as it sucked up debris from the ground, now the smoky blue of a storm sky. Smouldering leaves on a nearby roof burst into open flame, fanned by the breezes drawn into the vortex. Pouncing like a jungle cat, the whirlwind doubled over and enveloped Dev in a funnel of livid, clouded light.

'Where did he go now?' wondered Kheda aloud. This time the wizard was nowhere to be seen when the whirlwind halted on the broken lip of the ditch. It slowed, magical radiance fading, debris falling from it. Feathercloak shouted harsh rebuke at his terrified minions hiding among the huts and piles of plunder. He gestured and a few reluctantly edged towards the spot where Dev had been standing.

Risala clutched Kheda's arm. 'Dragonhide!'

The mage in the blood-red cloak had emerged from the shadow of the doorway where he'd stood to watch the contest. A wail like the cry of a pack of whipped dogs went up as the wild men fell away before him, bowing low, arms outstretched in supplication. Dragonhide called out to Feathercloak with an impatient jerk of his head. Feathercloak turned to reply, hands spread in bemusement.

Disregarded, the whirlwind's speed slowly increased, a pale blue light threading through the spiral. The vortex widened and reached down into the ditch. Those who'd been clustered along the seaward side fled as the revitalised whirlwind uprooted the stakes, flinging them in all directions.

Whatever Dragonhide was saying to Feathercloak, his gestures eloquent of fury, was lost in the new commotion. Feathercloak faced the errant whirlwind, hands upraised in command, expression one of outrage. Sapphire light shot through the spiral like the crackled glaze of a lustre vase. The whirlwind was wrenched this way and that, ripped and distorted. It struggled in the bottom of the ditch then slowly, inexorably, advanced up the beach towards Feathercloak. The magic within it shone ever brighter. Kheda felt the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck bristle as if a thunderstorm to drown the world were about to break. The whirlwind slowed, a sight against all nature, but still it crawled up the shore, edging ever closer to Feathercloak.

He didn't take his eyes off the rebellious vortex but he did spare one hand for some frantic signal to Dragonhide. In the next instant, the whirlwind had claimed him. It spiralled upwards, taller than the highest trees on the slope behind the beach, narrowing, darkening to a dull lapis. Then, shocking the savages' appalled cries to silence, the whirlwind vanished. Feathercloak's body fell from the skies to land with a thud on the sands.

'He must be dead,' gasped Risala.

Kheda simply nodded. The savage mage's corpse was pierced time and again with splintered stakes from the ditch. Pieces as thick as a man's hand and as long as an arm or leg were driven clean through his chest, his belly, his thighs, one run through his head from just below his jaw to emerge above one ear. Blood oozed slowly over the raw pallor of the newly broken wood. Brightly coloured feathers slowly floated down from the empty air, drifting aimlessly in all directions. The wild men shied away from their fragile touch, swatting them away hysterically.