An invader stalked out from one of the few remaining houses of the village. The retinue fawning after him looked no different from the other wild men, crudely dressed and splashed with paint. The leader alone wore a long cloak made from the entire skin of a whip lizard. It trailed down his back, clawed feet flapping at his side, the tail scoring a line on the sandy ground behind him. The lower jaw had been cut from the blunt head and he wore the skull like a helmet, the vicious upper fangs curving white against his dark face. His own smile was as white as the whip lizard's teeth and his laughter rang out as the last glimmer of sapphire magelight faded from his hands.

The savages guarding those toiling in the ditch turned to acknowledge the newcomer, falling to their knees in abject obeisance. Seeing their distraction, one islander hurled a baulk of wood at the man in the lizard skin.

The invader raised a casual hand and the heavy timber hung motionless in the air before bursting into flames. Inside an eyeblink, the solid wood was no more than a shadow of ash, blown away on the next gust of wind.

'Is that the wizard?' Risala could only manage a strangled whisper.

'Hush.' Dev was watching intently.

As the savages' mage advanced, his followers joined in his loud amusement, nodding and laughing. The Chazen men cowered in the bottom of the ditch. The women and children slowed to a reluctant shuffle, averting their faces from the man still struggling in the empty air above the murderous stakes.

'What's he going to do?' Risala hissed.

'Leave him there,' Dev shrugged.

'What are we going to do?' There was a quaver in Risala's question.

'See what happens next,' grinned Dev. 'Should make a good few stanzas for this epic of yours.'

Risala gazed balefully at the scene before them, chin resting on her hands. Dev watched the man in the lizard cloak.

Ignoring the islander still imprisoned by magic, the savage mage was moving between the groups of wild men, nodding and gesturing. The invaders bowed low, some dropping to one knee or prostrate before him.

Mages have real power among these people, Dev thought silently. There's none of the scraping and apologising Hadrumal teaches, all restraint and self-denial lest mageborn offend the incapable mundane. Perhaps these savage mageborn banded together and dictated their terms to those that lacked their talents, instead of living on sufferance or being driven out as freaks and menaces.

'What's that?' Risala whispered urgently. She pointed at a vessel that had just rounded the far headland of the long bay, sliding over the water indifferent to wind and wave.

Dev abandoned his speculations. 'Offhand, I'd say it was a boat,' he replied sarcastically. Though it was an uncommon enough craft to warrant a closer look. Four of the invaders' narrow tree trunk hulls had been lashed together and roughly boarded over, a pair of scullers standing at the stern while everyone else sat crowded on the unrailed deck. There was a sizeable contingent of wild men aboard.

'Our friend the Lizard is keen to be first in line,' murmured Dev.

The savage mage was hurrying down from the village, his cloak lashing behind him. His spearmen all turned towards the water and bowed low, those closest to the newly arrived boat prostrating themselves on the sand.

Risala sank low to the ground as the strange vessel grounded in the shallows.

A man sitting cross-legged in the prow stood up. The bright colours of his own long cloak swirled around as he stepped off the crude decking. His feet didn't touch the water. Opening his arms so the cloak flapped like the wings of some enormous bird, he walked through the air on a path woven of magic drawn from both sea and air. The lattice of light veered from green to blue, bright beneath his feet, reaching out ahead of him. He arrived, perfectly composed, on the dry sand just below the newly dug ditch and the bridge of magic faded to a turquoise memory. His retinue splashed hastily through the shallows to gather in an obsequious half circle behind him.

'Is that a magic cloak?' Risala's eyes were huge.

'No, just glory bird feathers.' Dev considered the newcomer in his mantle of gaudy plumage. That spell to get ashore dry-footed was a simple enough trick but Lizardskin was bowing low, his whole body cringing. Feathercloak was capable of far more than that, it would seem.

Feathercloak was nodding, seemingly in approval, and Lizardskin stood upright, clapping his hands together. Brawny savages appeared from one of the larger storehouses carrying chests and a tightly tied sack. Lizardskin's ingratiating gestures plainly invited Feathercloak to help himself from the loot. Feathercloak stood aloof, raising one hand to beckon someone else forward.

'Now who do you suppose this is?' Dev wriggled forward a little on his elbows. A tall savage stalked forward from Feathercloak's followers. He bowed low to his master before looking down on Lizardskin with a supercilious sneer. He wore no cloak but boasted a breastplate of closely tied white bones and more ivory shards were woven into his thick hair.

'What sort of bones are those?' Risala swallowed hard. 'Do you suppose they eat—'

'Who cares?' Dev dismissed the question as the bone-decorated savage knelt down to open a coffer. He held something up to Feathercloak, who shrugged and shook his head. The Bone Wearer tossed it away. The warm colours of turtleshell showed dark against the sand, rimmed with gold bright even under the dull skies. Whatever the Bone Wearer found next satisfied Feathercloak, who summoned another underling to take it, a man distinguished by a necklace of shark teeth. As the Bone Wearer opened the sack, he offered up a handful of something to Feathercloak. At the shake of his master's head, he tossed the pearls aside, the gleaming drops hitting the sand like priceless rain.

Risala watched baffled as more beautifully crafted pieces in turtleshell and nacre were tossed aside like so much rubbish. 'If they scorn such wealth, what do they want?'

'They're finding something worth stealing,' Dev disagreed. Whatever the Bone Wearer was showing Feathercloak now plainly won his approval, and was handed over to the underling.

By the time Feathercloak had examined all the booty, he'd taken no more than a chest full. The underling carried it down the beach while Lizardskin clapped his hands sharply together. More of his own retinue appeared from the trees, dragging a weeping column of men and women. Most were grey-haired, all were stumbling with shock and weariness, clothes creased and dirty. Their hands were tied and a heavy leather rope had been plaited around their necks to link them together. The only younger man was a youth with a twisted foot, struggling to use his crutch, dark weals on his naked back showing the price he'd paid for failure to keep up. Savages walked on either side of the shambling line, whips trailing negligently in the sand.

'No warlord would treat a domain's elders like this.' Risala was appalled.

'Can't see them having much value as slaves.' Dev thought for a moment. 'Hostages, do you suppose? If this lot don't do as they're bid, grandma gets a club to the back of the head?'

Feathercloak and Lizardskin looked to be saying their farewells. Dev burned with frustration. 'If we're going to learn anything of value about these people, we have to know who their leaders are,' he commented to Risala. 'I'd say Feathercloak's higher up the pecking order than Lizardskin. We have to find a way to follow him.'

'That one's seen that man over the ditch.' She pointed with a shaking finger.

Dev watched the Bone Wearer stride arrogantly across the beach to look up at the hapless islander still hanging, despairingly, over the sharpened stakes. The Bone Wearer raised a hand, blue light streamed from it and the man fell with a scream of pure terror.