The Ruby Knight

  ‘Why does the possibility of an alliance worry Otha so much?’ Kalten sounded puzzled. ‘There aren’t enough Styrics in the west to pose that much of a threat, and since they won’t touch steel weapons, they wouldn’t be of much use if war breaks out again, would they?’

  ‘The Styrics would fight with magic, not steel, Kalten,’ Sparhawk told him, ‘and Styric magicians know a lot more about it than the Church Knights.’

  ‘The fact that the Zemochs are at Lake Randera is promising, though,’ Tynian said.

  ‘How so?’ Kalten asked.

  ‘If they’re still digging, it means they haven’t found Bhelliom yet. It also hints at the fact that we’re going to the right place.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Ulath disagreed. ‘If they’ve been looking for Bhelliom for the last five hundred years and still haven’t found it, maybe Lake Randera’s not the right place.’

  ‘Why haven’t the Zemochs tried necromancy? The way we’re going to?’ Kalten asked.

  ‘Thalesian spirits would not respond to a Zemoch necromancer,’ Ulath replied. ‘They’ll probably talk to me, but not to anybody else.’

  ‘It’s a good thing you’re along then, Ulath,’ Tynian said. ‘I’d hate to go to all the trouble of raising ghosts and then find out that they won’t talk to me.’

  ‘If you raise them, I’ll talk with them.’

  ‘You didn’t ask him about the Seeker,’ Sparhawk said to Sephrenia.

  ‘There was no need. It would only have frightened him. Besides, if those villagers had known the Seeker was in this part of the world, the village would have been abandoned.’

  ‘Maybe we should have warned him.’

  ‘No, Sparhawk. Life is hard enough for those people without turning them into vagabonds. The Seeker is looking for us. The villagers are in no danger.’

  It was late afternoon by the time they reached the edge of the woods. They halted there and peered out over seemingly deserted fields. ‘Let’s camp back here among the trees,’ Sparhawk said. ‘That’s awfully open ground out there. I’d rather not have anyone see our fire if I can avoid it.’

  They rode back among the trees a short way and set up camp for the night. Kalten walked out to the edge of the wood to keep watch. Shortly after dark, he returned. ‘You’d better hide that fire a little better,’ he told Berit. ‘You can see it from the edge of the trees.’

  ‘Right away, Sir Kalten,’ the young novice replied. He took a spade and banked more earth around their small cook-fire.

  ‘We’re not the only ones around here, Sparhawk,’ the big blond Pandion said seriously. ‘There are a couple of fires about a mile out there in those fields.’

  ‘Let’s go and have a look,’ Sparhawk said to Tynian and Ulath. ‘We’ll need to pinpoint the locations so we can slip around them in the morning. Even if the Seeker won’t be a problem for several more days, there are still other people trying to keep us away from the lake. Coming, Kalten?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ his friend said. ‘I haven’t eaten yet.’

  ‘We might need you to point the fires out to us.’

  ‘You can’t miss them,’ Kalten said, filling his wooden bowl. ‘Whoever built them wants lots of light.’

  ‘He’s very attached to his stomach, isn’t he?’ Tynian said as the three knights walked towards the edge of the wood.

  ‘He eats a great deal,’ Sparhawk admitted, ‘but he’s a big man, so it takes a lot of food to keep him going.’

  The fires far out in the open fields were clearly visible. Sparhawk carefully noted the locations. ‘We’ll swing north, I think,’ he said quietly to the others. ‘Probably we’ll want to stay in the woods until we get well past those camps out there.’

  ‘Peculiar,’ Ulath said.

  ‘What is?’ Tynian asked.

  ‘Those camps aren’t very far apart. If the men out there know each other, why didn’t they make just one camp?’

  ‘Maybe they don’t like each other.’

  ‘Why did they camp so close together then?’

  Tynian shrugged. ‘Who knows why Lamorks do anything?’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do about them tonight,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Let’s go back.’

  Sparhawk awoke just before dawn. When he went to rouse the others, he found that Tynian, Berit and Talen were missing. Tynian’s absence was easily explained. He was on watch at the edge of the woods. The novice and the boy, however, had no business being out of their beds. Sparhawk swore and went to wake Sephrenia. ‘Berit and Talen have gone off somewhere,’ he told her.

  She looked around at the darkness pressing in on their well-hidden camp. ‘We’ll have to wait until it gets light,’ she said. ‘If they’re not back by then, we’ll have to go and look for them. Stir up the fire, Sparhawk, and put my tea-kettle near the flame.’

  The sky to the east was growing lighter when Berit and Talen returned to camp. They both looked excited, and their eyes were very bright.

  ‘Just where have you two been?’ Sparhawk demanded angrily.

  ‘Satisfying a curiosity,’ Talen replied. ‘We went to pay a visit on our neighbours.’

  ‘Can you translate that for me, Berit?’

  ‘We crept across the fields to have a look at the people around those campfires out there, Sir Sparhawk.’

  ‘Without asking me first?’

  ‘You were asleep,’ Talen explained quickly. ‘We didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘They’re Styrics, Sir Sparhawk,’ Berit said seriously, ‘at least some of them are. There’s a fair scattering of Lamork peasants among them, though. The men around the other fire are all church soldiers.’

  ‘Could you tell if the ones you saw were western Styrics or Zemochs?’

  ‘I can’t tell one kind of Styric from another, but the ones out there have swords and spears.’ Berit frowned. ‘This might have been my imagination, but all the men out there are sort of numb-looking. Do you remember how blank the faces of that group of ambushers back in Elenia were?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The people out there look more or less the same, and they’re not talking to each other or even sleeping, and they haven’t posted any sentries.’

  ‘Well, Sephrenia?’ Sparhawk said. ‘Could the Seeker have recovered more quickly that you thought it would?’

  ‘No,’ she replied, frowning. ‘It could have set those men in our path before it went on to Cimmura, however. They’d follow any instructions it might have given them, but they wouldn’t be able to respond to any new situations without its presence.’

  ‘They’d recognize us though, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Yes. The Seeker would have implanted that in their minds.’

  ‘And they’d attack us if they saw us?’

  ‘Inevitably.’

  ‘Then I think we’d better move on,’ he said. ‘Those people out there are just a little too close to make me feel entirely comfortable. I don’t like riding through strange country before it’s fully light, but under the circumstances -’ Then he turned sternly to Berit. ‘I appreciate the information you’ve brought us, Berit, but you shouldn’t have gone off without telling me first, and you most definitely should not have taken Talen along. You and I are paid to take certain risks, but you have absolutely no right to endanger him.’

  ‘He didn’t know I was tagging along behind him, Sparhawk,’ Talen said glibly. ‘I saw him get up, and I was curious about what he was doing, so I sneaked after him. He didn’t even know I was there until we were almost to those campfires.’

  ‘That’s not precisely true, Sir Sparhawk,’ Berit disagreed with a pained look. ‘Talen woke me and suggested that the two of us should go and have a look at those men out there. It seemed like a very good idea at the time. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think of the fact that I was putting him in danger.’

  Talen looked at the novice with some disgust. ‘Now why did you do that?’ he asked. ‘I was telling him a perfectly good lie. I could have kept you out of trouble.’
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  ‘I’ve taken an oath to tell the truth, Talen.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t. All you had to do was keep your mouth shut. Sparhawk won’t hit me because I’m too little. He might decide to thrash you, though.’

  ‘I love these little arguments about comparative morality before breakfast,’ Kalten said. ‘Speaking of which -’ He looked meaningfully towards the fire.

  ‘It’s your turn,’ Ulath told him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s your turn to do the cooking.’

  ‘It surely can’t be my turn again already.’

  Ulath nodded. ‘I’ve been keeping track.’

  Kalten put on a pious expression. ‘Sparhawk’s probably right, though. We really should move on. We can have something to eat later.’

  They broke camp quietly and saddled their horses. Tynian came back from the edge of the woods where he had been keeping watch. ‘They’re breaking up into small parties,’ he reported. ‘I think they’re going to scour the countryside.’

  ‘We’ll want to keep to the woods then,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Let’s ride.’

  They moved cautiously, staying well back from the edge of the trees. Tynian rode out to the fringe of the forest from time to time to scout out the movements of the numb-faced men out in the open fields. ‘They seem to be ignoring these woods entirely,’ he said after one such foray.

  ‘They’re unable to think independently,’ Sephrenia explained.

  ‘No matter,’ Kalten said. ‘They’re between us and the lake. As long as they’re patrolling those fields out there, we can’t get through. We’re going to run out of woods eventually, and then we’ll be at a standstill.’

  ‘Just exactly which ones are patrolling this section?’ Sparhawk asked Tynian.

  ‘Church soldiers. They’re riding in groups.’

  ‘How many in each group?’

  ‘About a dozen.’

  ‘Are the groups staying in sight of each other?’

  ‘They’re spreading out more and more.’

  ‘Good.’ Sparhawk’s face was bleak. ‘Go keep an eye on them and let me know when they’re far enough apart so they can’t see each other.’

  ‘All right.’

  Sparhawk dismounted and tied Faran’s reins to a sapling.

  ‘What have you got in your mind, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia asked suspiciously as Berit helped her and Flute down from her white palfrey.

  ‘We know that the Seeker was probably sent by Otha – which means Azash.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Azash knows that Bhelliom’s about to emerge again, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Seeker’s primary task is to kill us, but if it fails to do that, wouldn’t it settle for keeping us away from Lake Randera?’

  ‘Elene logic again,’ she said disgustedly. ‘You’re transparent, Sparhawk. I can see where you’re leading with this.’

  ‘Even though their minds are blank, the church soldiers would still be able to pass information to each other, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’ She said it grudgingly.

  ‘Then we don’t have any choice in the matter. If any of them see us, we’ll have them all right behind us within an hour.’

  ‘I don’t quite follow,’ Talen said, looking puzzled.

  ‘He’s going to kill all the men in one of those patrols,’ Sephrenia said.

  ‘To the last man,’ Sparhawk said grimly, ‘and just as soon as the others are all out of sight.’

  ‘They can’t even run away, you know.’

  ‘Good. Then I won’t have to chase them.’

  ‘You’re plotting deliberate murder, Sparhawk.’

  ‘That’s not precisely accurate, Sephrenia. They’ll attack as soon as they see us. What we’ll be doing is defending ourselves.’

  ‘Sophistry,’ she snapped and stalked away muttering to herself.

  ‘I didn’t think she even knew what that word means,’ Kalten said.

  ‘Do you know how to use a lance?’ Sparhawk asked Ulath.

  ‘I’ve been trained with it,’ the Thalesian replied. ‘I much prefer my axe, though.’

  ‘With a lance you don’t have to get in quite so close. Let’s not take too many chances. We should be able to put a fair number of them down with our lances, and then we can finish up with our swords and axes.’

  ‘There are only five of us, you know,’ Kalten said, ‘- counting Berit.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I just thought I’d mention it.’

  Sephrenia came back, her face pale. ‘Then you’re absolutely set on this?’ she demanded of Sparhawk.

  ‘We have to get to the lake. Can you think of any alternatives?’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact, I can’t.’ Her tone was sarcastic. ‘Your impeccable Elene logic has completely disarmed me.’

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something, little mother,’ Kalten said, obviously trying to head off an argument by changing the subject. ‘Exactly what does this Seeker thing look like? It seems to go to a great deal of trouble to keep itself hidden.’

  ‘It’s hideous,’ she shuddered. ‘I’ve never seen one, but the Styric magician who taught me how to counter it described it to me. Its body is segmented, very pale and very thin. At this stage, its outer skin has not yet completely hardened, and it oozes out a kind of ichor from between its segments to protect the skin from contact with the air. It has crab-like claws, and its face is horrible beyond belief.’

  ‘Ichor? What’s that?’

  ‘Slime,’ she replied shortly. ‘It’s in its larval stage – sort of like a caterpillar or a worm, although not quite. When it reaches adulthood, its body hardens and darkens and its wings emerge. Not even Azash can control an adult. All they’re concerned with at that stage is reproducing. Set a pair of adults loose, and they’d turn the entire world into a hive and feed every living creature on earth to their young. Azash keeps a pair for breeding purposes in a place from which they can’t escape. When one of the larvae he uses as Seekers approaches adulthood, he has it killed.’

  ‘Working for Azash has its risks, doesn’t it? But I’ve never seen any kind of insect that looks like that.’

  ‘Normal rules don’t apply to the creatures who serve Azash.’ She looked at Sparhawk, her expression agonized. ‘Do we really have to do this?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’m afraid we do,’ he replied. ‘There’s no other way.’

  They sat on the damp forest loam, waiting for Tynian to return. Kalten went to one of the pack saddles and cut large slabs from a cheese and a loaf of bread with his dagger. ‘This takes care of my turn at cooking, right?’ he said to Ulath.

  ‘I’ll think about that,’ Ulath grunted.

  The sky overhead was still cloudy, and birds drowsed among the dark green cedar boughs that filled the wood with their fragrance. Once, a deer approached them, stepping delicately along a forest trail. One of the horses snorted, and the deer bounded away, his white tail flashing and his velvet-covered antlers flaring above his head. It was peaceful here, but Sparhawk pushed that peace from his mind, steeling himself for the task ahead.

  Tynian returned. ‘There’s one group of soldiers stationed a few hundred yards north of us,’ he reported quietly. ‘All the others are out of sight.’

  ‘Good,’ Sparhawk said, rising to his feet. ‘We might as well get started. Sephrenia, you stay here with Talen and Flute.’

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Tynian asked.

  ‘No plan,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We’re just going to ride out there and eliminate that patrol. Then we’ll ride on to Lake Randera.’

  ‘It has a certain direct charm,’ Tynian agreed.

  ‘Remember, all of you,’ Sparhawk went on, ‘they won’t react to wounds the way normal people would. Make sure of them so they won’t come at you from behind when you move on to the next one. Let’s go.’

  The fight was short and brutal. As soon as Sparhawk and the others burst from the wood in a thundering charge, the blank-faced
church soldiers drove their horses across the grassy field towards them, their swords aloft. When the two parties were perhaps fifty paces apart, Sparhawk, Kalten, Tynian and Ulath lowered their lances and set themselves. The shock of the impact was terrific. The soldier Sparhawk struck was picked out of his saddle by the lance that drove through his chest and emerged from his back. Sparhawk reined Faran in sharply to avoid breaking his lance. He pulled it free of the body and then charged on. His lance broke off in the body of another soldier. He discarded it and drew his sword. He lopped an arm off a third soldier then drove the point of his sword through the man’s throat. Ulath had broken his lance on the first soldier he attacked but then had driven the broken end into the body of another. Then the big Genidian had reverted to his axe. He smoothly brained yet another soldier. Tynian had driven his lance through another soldier’s belly and had finished him with his sword and moved on to another. Kalten’s lance had shattered against a soldier’s shield, and he was being hard-pressed by two others until Berit rode in and chopped the top off one of their heads with his axe. Kalten finished the other with a broad stroke. The remaining soldiers were milling around in confusion, their venom-numbed minds unable to react quickly enough to the assault by the Knights of the Church. Sparhawk and his companions crushed them together in a tangle and methodically butchered them.

  Kalten swung down from his saddle and walked among the fallen soldiers lying in huddled heaps on the bloody grass. Sparhawk turned his head away as his friend systematically ran his sword into each body. ‘Just wanted to be sure,’ Kalten said, sheathing his sword and remounting. ‘None of them are going to do any talking now.’

  ‘Berit,’ Sparhawk said, ‘go and get Sephrenia and the children. We’ll keep watch here. Oh, one other thing. You’d better cut us some new lances as well. The ones we had seem to be all used up.’