The Ruby Knight

  They withdrew into the shadowy cover of a stand of trees and dismounted.

  ‘Sephrenia,’ Bevier said in a puzzled tone of voice, ‘if Bhelliom can destroy the Seeker with magic, couldn’t you use ordinary Styric magic to do the same thing?’

  ‘Bevier,’ she replied patiently, ‘if I could do that, don’t you think I’d have done it a long time ago?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, sounding a bit abashed, ‘I didn’t think of that, I suppose.’

  The sun came up blearily that morning. The pervading fog from the lake and the heavy mist out of the forest to the north half-clouded the air at ground-level, although the sky above was clear. They set out watches and checked over saddles and equipment. After that, most of them dozed in the muggy heat, frequently changing watch. A man on short sleep in sultry weather is not always very alert.

  It was not long after noon when Talen woke Sparhawk. ‘Flute wants to talk to you,’ he said.

  ‘I thought she’d be asleep.’

  ‘I don’t think she ever really sleeps,’ the boy said. ‘You can’t get near her without her eyes popping open.’

  ‘Someday maybe we’ll ask her about that.’ Sparhawk threw off his blanket, rose to his feet and splashed some water from a nearby spring on his face. Then he went to where Flute cuddled comfortably next to Sephrenia.

  The little girl’s huge eyes opened immediately. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked.

  ‘It took me a moment to get fully awake.’

  ‘Stay alert, Sparhawk,’ she said. ‘The Seeker’s coming.’

  He swore and reached for his sword.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ she said disgustedly. ‘It’s still a mile or so away.’

  ‘How did it get this far north so fast?’

  ‘It didn’t stop to pick up any people the way we thought it would. It’s alone, and it’s killing its horse. The poor beast is dying right now.’

  ‘And Ghwerig’s still a good distance away?’

  ‘Yes, Bhelliom’s still south of the city of Venne. I can get snatches of the Seeker’s thought.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s hideous, but it has much the same idea that we have. It’s trying to get far enough ahead of Ghwerig to set up an ambush for him. It can pick up local people to do its work for it up here. I think we’ll have to fight it.’

  ‘Without Bhelliom?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Sparhawk. It doesn’t have any people to help it, and that might make it easier to deal with.’

  ‘Can we kill it with ordinary weapons?’

  ‘I don’t think so. There’s something that might work, though. I’ve never tried it, but my older sister told me how to do it.’

  ‘I didn’t think you had any family.’

  ‘Oh, Sparhawk,’ she laughed, ‘my family is far, far larger than you could possibly imagine. Get the others. The Seeker will be coming up that road in just a few minutes. Confront it, and I’ll bring Sephrenia. It will stop to think – which is to say that Azash will, since Azash is really its mind. But Azash is far too arrogant to avoid a chance to taunt Sephrenia, and that’s when I’ll strike at the Seeker.’

  ‘Are you going to kill it?’

  ‘Of course not. We don’t kill things, Sparhawk. We let nature do that. Now go. We don’t have much time.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t have to. Just go and get the others.’

  They ranged out across the road at the fork, their lances set.

  ‘Does she really know what she’s talking about?’ Tynian asked dubiously.

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ Sparhawk murmured.

  And then they heard the laboured breathing of a horse very near to fatal exhaustion, the unsteady thudding of staggering hooves and the savage whistle and crack of a whip. The Seeker, black-robed and hunched in its saddle, came around the bend, flogging its dying horse unmercifully.

  ‘Stay, hound of hell,’ Bevier cried out in a ringing voice, ‘for here ends your reckless advance!’

  ‘We’re going to have to talk to that boy someday,’ Ulath muttered to Sparhawk.

  The Seeker, however, had reined in cautiously.

  Then Sephrenia, with Flute at her side, stepped out of the trees. The small Styric woman’s face was even paler than usual. Oddly enough, Sparhawk had never fully realized how tiny his teacher really was – scarcely taller than Flute herself. Her presence had always been so commanding that somehow in his mind she had seemed even taller than Ulath. ‘And is this the meeting thou hast promised, Azash?’ she demanded contemptuously. ‘If so, then I am ready.’

  ‘Ssso, Sssephrenia,’ the hateful voice said, ‘we meet again and all unexsspectedly. Thisss may be thy lassst day of life.’

  ‘Or thine, Azash,’ she replied with calm courage.

  ‘Thou canssst not dessstroy me.’ The laugh was hideous.

  ‘Bhelliom can,’ she told the thing, ‘and we will deny Bhelliom unto thee and turn it to our own ends. Flee, Azash, if thou wouldst cling to thy life. Pull the rocks of this world over thine head and cower in fear before the wrath of the Younger Gods.’

  ‘Isn’t she pushing this a little?’ Talen said in a strangled voice.

  ‘They’re up to something,’ Sparhawk murmured, ‘- Sephrenia and Flute. They’re deliberately goading that thing into doing something rash.’

  ‘Not while I have breath!’ Bevier declared fervently, couching his lance.

  ‘Hold your ground, Bevier!’ Kurik barked. ‘They know what they’re doing! God knows, none of the rest of us do.’

  ‘And art thou ssstill continuing thine unwholesssome dalliencsse with these Elene children, Sssephrenia?’ the voice of Azash said. ‘If thine appetite isss ssso vassst, come thou unto me, and I ssshall give thee sssurfeit.’

  ‘That is no longer within thy power, Azash, or hast thou forgotten thy unmanning? Thou art an abomination in the sight of all the Gods, and that is why they cast thee out, emasculated thee and confined thee in thy place of eternal torment and regret.’

  The thing on the exhausted horse hissed in fury, and Sephrenia nodded calmly to Flute. The little girl lifted her pipes to her lips and began to play. Her melody was rapid, a series of skittering, discordant notes, and the Seeker seemed to shrink back. ‘It ssshall avail thee not, Sssephrenia,’ Azash declared in a shrill voice. ‘There isss yet time.’

  ‘Thinkest thou so, mighty Azash?’ she said in a taunting voice. ‘Then thy endless centuries of confinement have bereft thee of thy wits as well as thy manhood.’

  The Seeker’s shriek was one of sheer rage.

  ‘Impotent godling,’ Sephrenia continued her goading, ‘return to foul Zemoch and gnaw upon thy soul in vain regret for the delights now eternally denied thee.’

  Azash howled, and Flute’s song grew even faster.

  Something was happening to the Seeker. Its body seemed to be writhing under its black robe, and terrible, inarticulate noises came out from under its hood. With an awful jerking motion it clambered down from its dying horse. It half staggered forward, its scorpion claws extended.

  Instinctively, the Church Knights moved to protect Sephrenia and the little girl.

  ‘Stay back!’ Sephrenia snapped. ‘It cannot stop what is happening now.’

  The Seeker fell squirming to the road, tearing off the black robe. Sparhawk suppressed a powerful urge to retch. The Seeker had an elongated body divided in the middle by a waist like that of a wasp, and it glistened with a pus-like greyish slime. Its spindly limbs were jointed in many places, and it did not have what one could really call a face, but only two bulging eyes and a gaping maw surrounded by a series of sharp-pointed, fang-like appendages.

  Azash shrieked something at Flute. Sparhawk recognized the inflections as Styric, but – and he was forever grateful for the fact – he recognized none of the words.

  And then the Seeker began to split apart with an awful ripping sound. There was something inside it, something that squirmed and wriggled, trying to break free. The rip in the Seeker’s body gre
w wider, and that which was inside began to emerge. It was shiny black and wet. Translucent wings hung from its shoulders. It had two huge protruding eyes, delicate antennae and no mouth. It shuddered and struggled, pulling itself free of the now-shrunken husk of the Seeker. Then, finally fully emerging, it crouched in the dirt of the road, rapidly fanning its insect wings to dry them. When the wings were dry and flushed with something that might even have been blood, they began to whir, moving so rapidly now that they seemed to blur, and the creature that had been so hideously born before their eyes rose into the air and flew off towards the east.

  ‘Stop it!’ Bevier shouted. ‘Don’t let it get away!’

  ‘It’s harmless now,’ Flute told him calmly, lowering her pipes.

  ‘What did you do?’ he asked in awe.

  ‘The spell simply speeded up its maturing,’ she replied. ‘My sister was right when she taught me that spell. It’s an adult now, and all of its instincts are bent on breeding. Not even Azash can override its desperate search for a mate.’

  ‘What was the purpose of that little exchange of insults?’ Kalten asked Sephrenia.

  ‘Azash had to be so enraged that He would begin to lose his control of the Seeker so that Flute’s spell would work,’ she explained. ‘That’s why I threw certain unpleasant realities in His face.’

  ‘Wasn’t that a little dangerous?’

  ‘Very.’ she admitted.

  ‘Will the adult find a mate?’ Tynian asked Flute in an awed voice. ‘I’d hate to see the world crawling with seekers.’

  ‘It will find no mate,’ she told him. ‘It is the only one of its kind on the surface of the earth. It no longer has a mouth, so it can no longer feed. It will fly around in its desperate search for a week or so.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then? And then it will die.’ She said it in a chillingly indifferent voice.

  Chapter 20

  They dragged the husk of the Seeker off the road and returned to the trees to await Ghwerig. ‘Where is he now?’ Sparhawk asked Flute.

  ‘Not far from the north end of the lake,’ she replied. ‘He’s not moving right now. It’s my guess that now that the fog has burned off, the serfs have gone to the fields. There are probably so many people about that he has to hide.’

  ‘That means that he’s likely to come through here after nightfall, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s probable, yes.’

  ‘I’m really not very excited about meeting a Troll in the dark.’

  ‘I can make light, Sparhawk – enough for our purposes, anyway.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it.’ He frowned. ‘If you could do that to the Seeker, why didn’t you do it before?’

  ‘There wasn’t time. It always came on us by surprise. It takes a while to prepare oneself for that particular spell. Do you really have to talk so much, Sparhawk? I’m trying to concentrate on Bhelliom.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ll go and talk with Ulath. I want to find out exactly how to go about attacking a Troll.’

  He found the big Genidian Knight dozing under a tree. ‘What’s happening?’ Ulath said, one of his blue eyes opening.

  ‘Flute says that Ghwerig’s probably hiding right now. He’s not moving, at any rate. He’s likely to come past here sometime tonight.’

  Ulath nodded. ‘Trolls like to move around in the dark,’ he said. ‘It’s their customary hunting time.’

  ‘What’s the best way to deal with him?’

  ‘Lances might work – if we all charge him at the same time. One of us might be able to get in a lucky thrust.’

  ‘This is a little too serious to be trusting to luck.’

  ‘It’s worth a try – for a start, anyway. We’ll probably still have to fall back on swords and axes. We’ll need to be very careful, though. You have to watch out for a Troll’s arms. They’re very long, and Trolls are much more agile than they look.’

  ‘You seem to know a great deal about them. Have you ever fought one?’

  ‘A few times, yes. It’s not really the sort of thing you want to make a habit of. Has Berit still got that bow of his?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Good. That’s usually the best way to start on a Troll – slow him down with a few arrows and then move in to finish up.’

  ‘Will he have any weapons?’

  ‘Maybe a club. Trolls don’t really have the knack of working in iron or steel.’

  ‘How did you ever learn their language?’

  ‘We had a pet Troll in our chapterhouse at Heid. Found him when he was a cub, but Trolls are born knowing how to speak their language. He was an affectionate little rascal – at least at first. Turned mean on us later on, though. I learned the language from him while he was growing up.’

  ‘You say he turned mean?’

  ‘It wasn’t really his fault, Sparhawk. When a Troll grows up, he starts to get these urges, and we didn’t have time to hunt down a female for him. And then his appetite started to get out of hand. He’d eat a couple of cows or a horse every week.’

  ‘What finally happened to him?’

  ‘One of our brothers went out to feed him, and he attacked. The brothers couldn’t have that, so we decided that we’d have to kill him. It took five of us, and most of us had to take to our beds for a week or so afterwards.’

  ‘Ulath,’ Sparhawk said suspiciously, ‘are you pulling my leg?’

  ‘Would I do that? Trolls aren’t really too bad – as long as you’ve got plenty of armed men around you. An arrow in the belly usually makes them kind of cautious. It’s the Ogres you’ve got to watch out for. They don’t have enough brains to be cautious.’ He scratched at his cheek. ‘There was an Ogress once who developed an unreasoning passion for one of the brothers at Heid,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t too bad-looking – for an Ogress. She kept her fur fairly clean and her horns shiny. She even used to polish her fangs. They chew granite to do that, you know. Anyhow, as I was saying, she was wildly in love with this knight at Heid. She used to lurk in the woods and sing to him – most awful sound you ever heard. She could sing all the needles off a pine tree at a hundred paces. The knight finally couldn’t stand it any more, and he entered a monastery. She just pined away after that.’

  ‘Ulath, I know you’re pulling my leg now.’

  ‘Why, Sparhawk,’ Ulath protested mildly.

  ‘Then the best way to get Ghwerig out of the way is to stand back and shoot him full of arrows?’

  ‘For a start. We’ll still have to get in close though. Trolls have very tough hide and thick fur. Arrows don’t usually penetrate very deep, and trying to do it in the dark is going to make it very tricky.’

  ‘Flute says she can make enough light for us.’

  ‘She’s a very strange person, isn’t she? – even for a Styric?’

  ‘That she is, my friend.’

  ‘How old do you think she really is?’

  ‘I have no idea. Sephrenia won’t even give me a clue. I do know that she’s much, much older than she appears to be, and much wiser than any of us can guess.’

  ‘After the way she got that Seeker off our backs, I don’t think it would hurt us to do as she says for a while.’

  ‘I’d agree to that,’ Sparhawk said.

  ‘Sparhawk,’ the little girl called sharply, ‘come here.’

  ‘I just wish she wouldn’t be so imperious all the time,’ Sparhawk muttered, turning around to answer the summons.

  ‘Ghwerig’s doing something I don’t understand,’ she said when he rejoined her.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He’s moving out onto the lake.’

  ‘He must have found a boat,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Ulath tells us that he can’t swim. Which way’s he going?’

  She closed her eyes in concentration. ‘More or less to the north-west. He’ll miss the city of Venne and come out on the west side of the lake. We’re going to have to ride on down there if we’re going to intercept him.’

  ‘I’ll tell the others,’ Spa
rhawk said. ‘How fast is he moving?’

  ‘Very slowly right now. I don’t think he knows how to row a boat very well.’

  ‘That might give us a little time to get there before he does.’

  They broke their minimal encampment and rode south on the Alaris road along the west side of Lake Venne as twilight settled over western Pelosia.

  ‘Will you be able to pinpoint his approximate landing place from the sense you’re picking up from Bhelliom?’ Sparhawk asked Flute, who rode in Sephrenia’s arms.

  ‘To within a half-mile or so,’ she replied. ‘It gets more precise as he gets closer to shore. There are currents and winds and that sort of thing, you understand.’

  ‘Is he still moving slowly?’

  ‘Even more so. Ghwerig has certain difficulties with his shoulders and hips. It makes rowing very difficult for him.’

  ‘Can you make any kind of guess about when he’ll make it to shore here on the west side of the lake?’

  ‘In his present condition, not until well after daybreak tomorrow. At this point he’s fishing. He needs food.’

  ‘With his hands?’

  ‘Trolls are very, very fast with their hands. The lake-surface confuses him. Most of the time, he’s not even sure which way he’s going. Trolls have a very poor sense of direction – except for north. They can feel the pull of the pole through the earth. On water, though, they’re almost helpless.’

  ‘We’ve got him then.’

  ‘Don’t plan the victory celebration until after you’ve won the fight, Sparhawk,’ she said tartly.

  ‘You’re a very disagreeable little girl, Flute. Do you know that?’

  ‘But you do love me, don’t you?’ she said with disarming ingenuousness.

  ‘What can you do?’ he asked Sephrenia, helplessly. ‘She’s impossible.’

  ‘Answer her question, Sparhawk,’ his tutor suggested. ‘It’s more important than you realize.’

  ‘Yes, God help me,’ he said to Flute, ‘I do. There are times when I want to spank you, but I do love you.’

  ‘That’s all that’s important,’ she sighed. Then she snuggled up in Sephrenia’s protective robe and went promptly to sleep.