'It holds some secret?' Kheda tried to be patient with the man.

'It holds my brothers,' snapped Saril abruptly.

'Oh.' Kheda kept his voice carefully neutral. 'And it's vital that we hold it? If we're to keep the invaders at bay in this reach of the domain?'

'Yes.' With another of his quicksilver changes of mood, Saril heaved a defeated sigh and caught up a broken spear shaft. He sketched a rough map in the sand. 'See how the currents run? If we hold that island, we can deny these invaders the rest of this reach.'

As long as they don't have magic to carry them over the waters heedless of such things.

Kheda nodded slowly. 'Do you know if the invaders have taken it?'

Saril flung the broken spear shaft away into the trees. 'It's all but certain.'

'Perhaps these invaders merely see the island's strategic value.' Kheda hesitated before continuing. 'Or is it possible that they have some deeper purpose in taking it? Could they know what they would find there?'

'Much good it will do them, even if this is all some insane pretence to cover up an attempt to cast me from my domain.' Chazen Saril's voice was hard and bitter. 'My father may have held back from killing my brothers outright but he decreed they should be gelded and blinded, their tongues slit. There were four. One killed himself soon after. Another died when an attack of break-bone fever turned to bleeding sickness in the rains three years since. Two remain.' Saril's eyes bored into Kheda's, searching for any reaction. 'Nameless.'

'Are these nameless housed separately or together?' Kheda asked dispassionately.

'They're held together, in a compound in the centre of the island.' Saril knelt to find a seashell. His hand hovered over the map scrawled in the sand before stabbing it with the white spiral. 'I believe you owe me a secret in turn. What does the Daish domain do with its surplus sons?'

'I will only speak for my father.' Kheda wasn't about to give away anything more than he had learned. 'Daish Reik's final decree offered my younger brothers the choice of death, or of castration and passing into my hands as zamorin slaves.'

'What did they choose?' demanded Saril.

'That is none of your concern.' It might be an open secret among Kheda's household that Rembit had been born of Daish Reik and his second wife Inril but everyone knew to keep their mouths shut. 'Your concern is retaking your domain from whoever these people are, spell casters from some unknown land or mere counterfeits, intent on setting up one of your crippled brothers as figurehead in your place.'

'I must consider what to do for the best before we make any more voyages.' Saril shook his head stubbornly. 'We must see to the dead here first. Their crimes warrant burning but that would make this beach a place of ill omen and this island has no other landing.'

And you could spin out such debates with yourself and your people to lose us any benefit accrued from the battle we've just won.

'Atoun!' Kheda snapped impatient fingers to summon his commander. Telouet came too. 'This is the next island we must take.' Kheda pointed at the map drawn in the sand. 'Ask the Chazen shipmasters for only such waymarks and warnings of currents as we will need to reach it safely'

'Do we know what forces to expect?' Atoun studied the map and pointed at the bleached white shell. 'Is that some stronghold?'

'A retreat for some afflicted unfortunates of the warlord's family,' Kheda said blandly. 'They do not suffer from anything contagious.'

Just the hereditary affliction of being born a son to a ruling lord.

'My lord Chazen Saril—'

Kheda turned ready to quell any ill-timed curiosity from Telouet but the slave was thinking about something else. 'We should be on our way to this next island before any burning of the dead. We don't want to raise an alarm for whoever awaits us with a column of smoke.'

'I don't know where we can burn them,' said Chazen Saril obstinately. 'Not so late in the dry season. We could set the whole island alight. I shall have to take time to consider this carefully.'

Kheda looked at the bodies piled up in ungainly heaps 'Have them taken to the mountaintop and thrown into the crater. They burn and your island is purified at one and the same time.'

Chazen Saril opened his mouth to protest but Telouet forestalled him.

'As you command, my lord.' The slave bowed low and turned to shout orders at the village spokesman.

'I'll be sure the ships are ready to depart.' Atoun's bow was more perfunctory, his mind already on the next assault.

'You lay a heavy burden on my people, Daish Kheda,' cried Saril angrily, jowls quivering. 'Hauling this many dead all the way up to the peak. You don't think this risks binding these invaders to this island? You don't fear the malice that brought these people here will now pour molten rock down on these defenceless forests? But now you've given your orders,' he concluded with grim satisfaction, 'I will not humiliate you by countermanding them. We will just have to wait, and for my own requirements to be met. I was about to set these people to setting up watch posts and fuelling beacons, so we might at least know if our retreat is cut off, when we set about this next conquest of yours.'

'I must consult with Jatta.' Kheda bit his tongue and walked away without ceremony.

Actually, Chazen Saril has a point there. It wasn't the most sensible thing to suggest, that the dead be thrown into the fire crater. 'Never make decisions in the heat of anger or the chill of shock.' Daish Reik is proved wiser than you yet again. Are you wise enough to meet this challenge? You may be wiser than Chazen Saril but that's not saying a great deal. Do you remember him being so prone to switching between fear and folly? What are you risking, for the Daish domain, fighting alongside a man ill prepared to meet the demands upon him?

As he crossed the beach, Telouet caught up with him. 'What now?

Kheda's pace didn't slacken. 'We drive these savages from this next island. The sooner we hand Chazen Saril a territory he has some chance of holding, the sooner we return home and ensure all his people go back to demand his protection. Summon a boat.'

Kheda stood aloof as Telouet hailed a skiff. Once aboard the Scorpion, Kheda claimed the shipmaster's seat to take the weight of the armour off his weary feet. Closing his eyes, he strove to calm himself, recalling the subtle exercises to relax his shoulders and back, arms and legs that Daish Reik's ever-faithful body slave Gaffin had taught him.

What was it he told you? 'Not as good as sleep, but good enough when there's no chance of sleep.' What else would he be telling you, him or Daish Reik? That you being irritated with Saril will only benefit your foes? Let the Chazen warlord see to his domains concerns. You address your own.

Some indeterminate time later, Kheda heard the shipmaster's step on the deck. He spoke without opening his eyes. 'Jatta, have we been given all the water we need? Are the men fed? We don't want to go into a fight and find half of them disabled by cramps.'

'It's all in hand, my lord,' Jatta assured him. 'And something's put a goad into Chazen Saril,' he added with some surprise.

Kheda opened his eyes at that.

'He's probably afraid we'll leave without him,' Telouet mocked. He handed Kheda a cup of water, sweet with a hint of purple berries. 'At least someone's found him some armour.'

Kheda saw Saril now wore a chainmail shirt and helm. The silver-chased helm didn't match the copper-ornamented plates of the hauberk but at least he looked a little more like a warlord. 'Where's Atoun? How soon will we be ready to sail?'

'The more delay, the more we lose any element of surprise,' agreed Telouet.

'We shouldn't be too much longer,' Jatta said comfortably.