‘Just a few more days, I should think.’
After a time he gave a curt bob of assent. ‘Very well. A few days.’ He regarded Hairlock critically. ‘You say you know where the boats are?’ The squat mage nodded. ‘They’d better be there – for your sake.’
Hairlock swallowed, wincing.
*
Three days later something woke Dancer from a restless sleep; he quickly glanced to Kellanved’s ledge but it was still empty so he laid his head back down. He wondered, then, what had disturbed him.
Sands hissed, shifting and blowing. The hanging billowed and snapped in a sudden gust. Dancer leapt to his feet and pulled it aside; the night was thick with billowing dust – he couldn’t even see across the pit.
So. It must be now. He looked to the empty ledge: Sorry, friend, but this is too good to pass up.
He drew on the leather straps of two skins of water he’d been saving and set out across the wide pit. He tied a rag over his nose and mouth as he went.
Inmates were out running about in some sort of panic, staring at the churning sands. Dancer grasped the arm of one, yelling, ‘What is it? Why are you out?’
‘Can’t you sense it?’ the oldster answered. ‘This is no normal storm!’
I’ve heard that before, Dancer thought, and he peered about. Kellanved! Yet where? Should I return to the cave?
Hairlock emerged from the swirling umber sands. ‘No time like the present, lad!’ he shouted above the howling winds.
Dancer waved him close. ‘Yes, I know. Find Eth’en!’
The mage’s wide thick mouth turned down even more than usual, dismissive. ‘Faugh! Never mind him! Now’s our chance.’
Dancer shook his head. ‘This storm. I think it’s him.’
‘Him who?’
Dancer started off for his alcove. Hairlock followed; they found Eth’en there. Even as Dancer closed, the old scholar was nodding.
‘It is him,’ he called.
Dancer swept an arm to the cave. ‘But he’s not here!’
Eth’en pointed to the ramp. ‘Up there, to the south. That is the focus of the disturbance.’ Dancer moved to go but the Spiritwalker touched his arm and leaned in close. ‘You must remove him!’ he shouted. ‘It seems this land does not like what your friend is becoming. The entire island will rise against him!’
‘Becoming? What do you mean?’
Eth’en waved them off. ‘I do not know. Something more – if he lives.’
‘Come with us!’
‘No. I must remain. But thanks. Now go!’
Hairlock was already halfway up the ramp. Dancer nodded farewell to the Spiritwalker and followed, all the while keeping an eye out for any guards, but none emerged from the billowing eddies of sands. They hurried to the gate in the palisade and Dancer set to unlatching the fat crossbar. He succeeded in releasing one of the tall leaves and pulled, and the two men slid out. ‘Which way?’ the mage shouted.
Dancer peered round, his gaze shielded from the scouring winds. ‘I don’t know!’ Then he heard something: distorted yells and the thump of crossbows releasing. He pointed the way.
They came upon the rear of a skirmish line of guards spread out across the grounds south of the encampment. They appeared to be stalking something, half with swords bared, half firing crossbows into the skirling storm of dust and golden sands.
Dancer snatched up a rock and struck down the nearest while the burly mage took another from behind and wrenched his neck clear round. Dancer took up the guard’s cheap shortsword and charged down the line; Hairlock advanced on the next, his arms out like an experienced grappler.
Dancer did not know how many of them he struck down but eventually a shout went up – some sort of recall – and the guards backed away, giving ground. He let them go, regretting that he hadn’t come across Puller.
He set to searching, shielding his gaze against the stinging sands. After a time he spotted a dark blotch against the umber and sere rocky ground. It was Kellanved, his black vest and shirtings tattered and torn, smeared in ashes and dirt. He turned him over, searched his face. He still wore the aspect of a grey-haired ancient.
‘Kellanved!’
The lad appeared to be awake but was staring off at nothing. Yet he frowned then, and blinked, as if troubled, or searching after something. ‘Yes,’ he half-mouthed, and nodded. ‘Kellanved … now.’
Hairlock appeared from the blowing sands, bloodied and bruised, his hands caked in sand that clung wet and dripping with blood. ‘Let’s go,’ he growled.
‘Lower your Warren!’ Dancer shouted to Kellanved.
‘I don’t think I can,’ the lad answered, sounding genuinely bewildered – and even a touch frightened.
‘Dammit to Hood!’ Dancer picked him up and ran.
They jogged. Hairlock covered the rear, giving directions. The storm seemed to lose strength over time as Kellanved was now deliberately trying to limit his own power, but it did not entirely fall away, and it appeared to be moving with them.
The desert coast came into view, the ocean sparkling beneath the night sky, which, bizarrely, stretched clear and bright with stars. Hairlock pointed to the west and led them through the night to a narrow cove where, at a heap of rock, he began digging in the sand. Dancer set Kellanved down and joined in.
After some searching, Hairlock exposed the tall prow of a buried boat, very narrow, constructed of horizontal planks, with a single step for a mast, which itself was missing. They found paddles buried within and eventually they had it empty enough to yank it free of its pit.
Kellanved then called from the night, ‘Ah … I seem to be in trouble…’
Hairlock started dragging the boat down to the strand while Dancer staggered, exhausted, over to where Kellanved lay.
He found the mage half sunk in the sand. ‘What in the Abyss…?’ He threw himself down and frantically started digging.
‘It has me,’ Kellanved hissed in pain.
‘What does? Some thing?’
‘No. The island. It’s what it does.’
‘Quit babbling – we’ll have you out.’ He dug down deep, then pulled, but couldn’t get him free.
‘Pull!’ Kellanved gasped. ‘It has me!’
Realizing that something very terrifying was happening to his friend, Dancer slipped his arms under the lad’s, adjusted his footing, and yanked, straightening his legs with all his might.
Kellanved yelled his pain, writhing and puffing.
They fell backwards, Kellanved on top.
Hairlock appeared, peering down at them, frowning his impatience. ‘Let’s go,’ he urged. ‘This is no time to be lying about.’
Both Dancer and Kellanved nodded. Dancer helped his friend limp down to the surf and the waiting boat.
*