The Ruby Knight

  Kalten and Tynian had flanked the attackers on either side and were chopping their way into the mêlée, while Ulath, Kurik and Berit intercepted the few survivors who managed to make their way through the concerted counter-attack.

  The ground was soon littered with bodies in red tunics and bloody white Styric smocks. Riderless horses plunged away from the fight, squealing in panic. In normal circumstances, Sparhawk knew the attackers bringing up the rear would falter and then flee when they saw what had befallen their comrades. These expressionless men, however, continued their attack, and it was necessary to kill them to the last man.

  ‘Sparhawk!’ Sephrenia shouted. ‘Up there!’ She was pointing towards the hilltop beyond which the attack had come. It was the tall, skeletal figure in the black hooded robe which Sparhawk had seen twice before. It sat its horse atop the hill with that faint green glow emanating from its concealed face.

  ‘That thing’s starting to bore me,’ Kalten said. ‘The best way to get rid of a bug is to step on it.’ He raised his shield and thumped his heels on his horse’s flanks. He started to gallop up the hill, his blade held menacingly aloft.

  ‘Kalten! No!’ Sephrenia’s shout was shrill with fright. But Kalten paid no attention to her warning. Sparhawk swore and started after his friend.

  Suddenly Kalten was hurled from his saddle by some unseen force as the figure atop the hill gestured contemptuously. With revulsion Sparhawk saw that what emerged from the sleeve of the black robe was not a hand, but something more closely resembling the front claw of a scorpion.

  And then, even as he swung down from Faran’s back to run to Kalten’s aid, Sparhawk gaped in astonishment. Somehow Flute had escaped from Sephrenia’s watchful eye and had advanced to the foot of the hill. She stamped one grass-stained little foot imperiously and lifted her rude pipes to her lips. Her melody was stern, even slightly discordant, and for some peculiar reason it seemed to be accompanied by a vast, unseen choir of human voices. The hooded figure on the hilltop reeled back in its saddle as if it had been struck a massive blow. Flute’s song rose, and that unseen choir swelled its song in a mighty crescendo. The sound was so overpowering that Sparhawk was forced to cover his ears. The song had reached the level of physical pain.

  The figure shrieked, a dreadfully inhuman sound, and it clapped its claws to the sides of its hooded head. Then it wheeled its horse and fled down the far side of the hill.

  There was no time to pursue the monstrosity. Kalten lay gasping on the ground, his face pale and his hands clutching at his stomach.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Sparhawk demanded, kneeling beside his friend.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Kalten wheezed.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Are you hurt?’

  ‘No. I’m lying here for fun.’ The blond man drew in a shuddering breath. ‘What did it hit me with? I’ve never been hit that hard before.’

  ‘You’d better let me have a look at you.’

  ‘I’m all right, Sparhawk. It just knocked the breath out of me, that’s all.’

  ‘You idiot. You know what that thing is. What were you thinking of?’ Sparhawk was suddenly, irrationally angry.

  ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ Kalten grinned weakly. ‘Maybe I should have thought my way through it a little more.’

  ‘Is he hurt?’ Bevier asked, dismounting and coming towards them, his face showing his concern.

  ‘I think he’ll be all right.’ Then Sparhawk rose, controlling his temper with some effort. ‘Sir Bevier,’ he said rather formally, ‘you’ve had training in this sort of thing. You know what you’re supposed to do when you’re under attack. What possessed you to dash into the middle of them like that?’

  ‘I didn’t think there were all that many of them, Sparhawk,’ Bevier replied defensively.

  ‘There were enough. It only takes one to kill you.’

  ‘You’re vexed with me, aren’t you, Sparhawk?’ Bevier’s voice was mournful.

  Sparhawk looked at the young knight’s earnest face for a moment. Then he sighed. ‘No, Bevier, I suppose not. You just startled me, that’s all. Please, for the sake of my nerves, don’t do unexpected things any more. I’m not getting any younger, and surprises age me.’

  ‘Perhaps I didn’t consider the feelings of my comrades,’ Bevier admitted contritely. ‘I promise it will not happen again.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Bevier. Let’s help Kalten back down the hill. I want Sephrenia to take a look at him, and I’m sure she’ll want to have a talk with him – a nice long one.’

  Kalten winced. ‘I don’t suppose I could talk you into leaving me here? This is nice soft dirt.’

  ‘Not a chance, Kalten,’ Sparhawk replied ruthlessly. ‘Don’t worry, though. She likes you, so she probably won’t do anything to you – nothing permanent, anyway.’

  Chapter 3

  Sephrenia was tending a large, ugly-looking bruise on Berit’s upper arm when Sparhawk and Bevier helped the weakly protesting Kalten down the hill to her.

  ‘Is it bad?’ Sparhawk asked the young novice.

  ‘It’s nothing, My Lord,’ Berit said bravely, although his face was pale.

  ‘Is that the very first thing they teach you Pandions?’ Sephrenia asked acidly, ‘- to make light of your injuries? Berit’s mail-shirt stopped most of the blow, but in about an hour his arm’s going to be purple from elbow to shoulder. He’ll barely be able to use it.’

  ‘You’re in a cheerful humour this afternoon, little mother,’ Kalten said to her.

  She pointed a threatening finger at him. ‘Kalten,’ she said, ‘sit. I’ll deal with you after I’ve tended Berit’s arm.’

  Kalten sighed and slumped down onto the ground.

  Sparhawk looked around. ‘Where are Ulath, Tynian and Kurik?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re scouting around to make sure there aren’t any more ambushes laid for us, Sir Sparhawk,’ Berit replied.

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘That creature didn’t look so very dangerous to me,’ Bevier said, ‘- a little mysterious perhaps, but not all that dangerous.’

  ‘It didn’t hit you,’ Kalten told him. ‘It’s dangerous, all right. Take my word for it.’

  ‘It’s more dangerous than you could possibly imagine,’ Sephrenia said. ‘It can send whole armies after us.’

  ‘If it’s got the kind of power that knocked me off my horse, it doesn’t need armies.’

  ‘You keep forgetting, Kalten. Its mind is the mind of Azash. The Gods prefer to have humans do their work for them.’

  ‘The men who came down that hill were like sleepwalkers,’ Bevier said, shuddering. ‘We cut them to pieces, and they didn’t make a sound.’ He paused, frowning. ‘I didn’t think Styrics were so aggressive,’ he added. ‘I’ve never seen one with a sword in his hand before.’

  ‘Those weren’t western Styrics,’ Sephrenia said, tying off the padded bandage around Berit’s upper arm. ‘Try not to use that too much,’ she instructed. ‘Give it time to heal.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Berit replied. ‘Now that you mention it, though, it is getting a little sore.’

  She smiled and put an affectionate hand on his shoulder. ‘This one may be all right, Sparhawk. His head isn’t quite solid bone – like some I could name.’ She glanced meaningfully at Kalten.

  ‘Sephrenia,’ the blond knight protested.

  ‘Get out of the mail-shirt,’ she told him crisply. ‘I want to see if you’ve broken anything.’

  ‘You said the Styrics in that group weren’t western Styrics,’ Bevier said to her.

  ‘No. They were Zemochs. It’s more or less what we guessed at back at that inn. The Seeker will use anybody, but a western Styric is incapable of using weapons made of steel. If they’d been local people, their swords would have been bronze or copper.’ She looked critically at Kalten, who had just removed his mail-shirt. She shuddered. ‘You look like a blond rug,’ she told him.

  ‘It’s not my fault, little mother,’ he said, suddenly blu
shing. ‘All the men in my family have been hairy.’

  Bevier looked puzzled. ‘What finally drove that creature off?’ he asked.

  ‘Flute,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘She’s done it before. She even ran off the Damork once with her pipes.’

  ‘This tiny child?’ Bevier’s tone was incredulous.

  ‘There’s more to Flute than meets the eye,’ Sparhawk told him. He looked out across the slope of the hill. ‘Talen,’ he shouted, ‘stop that.’

  Talen, who had been busily pillaging the dead, looked up with some consternation. ‘But Sparhawk –’ he began.

  ‘Just come away from there. That’s disgusting.’

  ‘But – ’

  ‘Do as he says!’ Berit roared.

  Talen sighed and came back down the hill.

  ‘Let’s round up the horses, Bevier,’ Sparhawk said. ‘As soon as Kurik and the others get back, I think we’ll want to move on. That Seeker is still out there, and it can come at us with a whole new group of people at any time.’

  ‘It can do that at night as well as in the daylight, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said dubiously, ‘and it can follow our scent.’

  ‘I know. At this point I think speed is our only defence. We’re going to have to try to outrun that thing again.’

  Kurik, Ulath and Tynian returned as dusk was settling over the desolate landscape. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anybody else out there,’ the squire reported, swinging down from his gelding.

  ‘We’re going to have to keep going,’ Sparhawk told him.

  ‘The horses are right on the verge of exhaustion, Sparhawk,’ the squire protested. He looked at the others. ‘And the people aren’t in much better shape. None of us has had very much sleep in the last two days.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it,’ Sephrenia said calmly, looking up from her examination of Kalten’s hairy torso.

  ‘How?’ Kalten sounded just a bit grumpy.

  She smiled at him and wiggled her fingers under his nose. ‘How else?’

  ‘If there’s a spell that counteracts the way we’re all feeling right now, why didn’t you teach it to us before?’ Sparhawk was also feeling somewhat surly, since his headache had returned.

  ‘Because it’s dangerous, Sparhawk,’ she replied. ‘I know you Pandions. Given certain circumstances, you’d try to go on for weeks.’

  ‘So? If the spell really works, what difference does it make?’

  ‘The spell only makes you feel as if you’ve rested, but you have not, in fact. If you push it too far, you’ll die.’

  ‘Oh. That stands to reason, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m glad you understand.’

  ‘How’s Berit?’ Tynian asked.

  ‘He’ll be sore for a while, but he’s all right,’ she replied.

  ‘The young fellow shows some promise,’ Ulath said. ‘When his arm heals, I’ll give him some instruction with that axe of his. He’s got the right spirit, but his technique’s a little shaky.’

  ‘Bring the horses over here,’ Sephrenia told them. She began to speak in Styric, uttering some of the words under her breath and concealing her moving fingers from them. Try as he might, Sparhawk could not catch all of the incantation, nor even guess at the gestures which enhanced the spell. But suddenly he felt enormously refreshed. The dull headache was gone, and his mind was clear. One of the packhorses, whose head had been drooping and whose legs had been trembling violently, actually began to prance around like a colt.

  ‘Good spell,’ Ulath said laconically. ‘Shall we get started?’

  They helped Berit into his saddle and rode out in the luminous twilight. The full moon rose an hour or so later, and it gave them sufficient light to risk a canter.

  ‘There’s a road just over that hill up ahead,’ Kurik told Sparhawk. ‘We saw it when we were looking around. It goes more or less in the right direction, and we could make better time if we follow it instead of stumbling over broken ground in the dark.’

  ‘I expect you’re right,’ Sparhawk agreed, ‘and we want to get out of this area as quickly as possible.’

  When they reached the road, they pushed on to the east at a gallop. It was well past midnight when clouds moved in from the west, obscuring the night sky. Sparhawk muttered an oath and slowed their pace.

  Just before dawn they came to a river, and the road turned north. They followed it, searching for a bridge or a ford. The dawn was gloomy under the heavy cloud cover. They rode upriver a few more miles, and then the road bent east again and ran down into the river to emerge on the far side.

  Beside the ford stood a small hut. The man who owned the hut was a sharp-eyed fellow in a green tunic who demanded a toll to cross. Rather than argue with him, Sparhawk paid what he asked. ‘Tell me, neighbour,’ he said when the transaction was completed, ‘how far is the Pelosian border?’

  ‘About five leagues,’ the sharp-eyed fellow replied. ‘If you move swiftly, you should reach it by afternoon.’

  ‘Thanks, neighbour. You’ve been most helpful.’

  They splashed on across the ford. When they reached the other side, Talen rode up beside Sparhawk. ‘Here’s your money back,’ the young thief said, handing over several coins.

  Sparhawk gave him a startled look.

  ‘I don’t object to paying a toll to cross a bridge,’ Talen sniffed. ‘After all, somebody had to go to the expense of building it. That fellow was just taking advantage of a natural shallow place in the river, though. It didn’t cost him anything, so why should he make a profit from it?’

  ‘You cut his purse, then?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘And there was more in it than just my coins?’

  ‘A bit. Let’s call it my fee for recovering your money. After all, I deserve a profit too, don’t I?’

  ‘You’re incorrigible.’

  ‘I needed the practice.’

  From the other side of the river there came a how of anguish.

  ‘I’d say he just discovered his loss,’ Sparhawk observed.

  ‘It does sound that way, doesn’t it?’

  The soil on the far side of the river was not a great deal better than the scrubby wasteland through which they had just passed. Occasionally they saw poor farmsteads where shabby-looking peasants in muddy brown smocks laboured long and hard to wrest scanty crops from the unyielding earth. Kurik sniffed disdainfully. ‘Amateurs,’ he grunted. Kurik took farming very seriously.

  About mid-morning the narrow track they were following joined a well-travelled road that ran due east. ‘A suggestion, Sparhawk,’ Tynian said, shifting his blue-blazoned shield.

  ‘Suggest away.’

  ‘It might be better if we took this road to the border rather than cutting across country again. Pelosians tend to be sensitive about people who avoid the manned border-crossings. They’re obsessively concerned about smugglers. I don’t think we’d accomplish very much in a skirmish with one of their patrols.’

  ‘All right,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘Let’s stay out of trouble if we can.’

  Not very long after a dreary, sunless noon, they reached the border and passed without incident into the southern end of Pelosia. The farmsteads here were even more run-down than they had been in north-eastern Elenia. The houses and outbuildings were universally roofed with sod, and agile goats grazed on the roofs. Kurik looked about disapprovingly, but said nothing.

  As evening settled over the landscape, they crested a hill and saw the twinkling lights of a village in the valley below. ‘An inn perhaps?’ Kalten suggested. ‘I think Sephrenia’s spell is starting to wear off. My horse is staggering, and I’m in not much better shape.’

  ‘You won’t sleep alone in a Pelosian inn,’ Tynian warned. ‘Their beds are usually occupied by all sorts of unpleasant little creatures.’

  ‘Fleas?’ Kalten asked.

  ‘And lice, and bed-bugs the size of mice.’

  ‘I suppose we’ll have to risk it,’ Sparhawk decided. ‘The horses won’t be able to go much farther, and I don’t
think the Seeker would attack us inside a building. It seems to prefer open country.’ He led the way down the hill to the village.

  The streets of the town were unpaved, and they were ankle-deep in mud. They reached the town’s only inn, and Sparhawk carried Sephrenia to the porch while Kurik followed with Flute. The steps leading up to the door were caked with mud, and the boot-scraper beside the door showed little signs of use. Pelosians, it appeared, were indifferent to mud. The interior of the inn was dim and smoky, and it smelled strongly of stale sweat and spoiled food. The floor had at one time been covered with rushes, but except in the corners, the rushes were buried in dried mud.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider this?’ Tynian asked Kalten as they entered.

  ‘My stomach’s fairly strong,’ Kalten replied, ‘and I caught a whiff of beer when we came in.’

  The supper the innkeeper provided was at least edible, although a bit over-garnished with boiled cabbage, and the beds, mere straw pallets, were not nearly as bug-infested as Tynian had predicted.

  They rose early the next morning and rode out of the muddy village in a murky dawn.

  ‘Doesn’t the sun ever shine in this part of the world?’ Talen asked sourly.

  ‘It’s spring,’ Kurik told him. ‘It’s always cloudy and rainy in the spring. It’s good for the crops.’

  ‘I’m not a radish, Kurik,’ the boy replied. ‘I don’t need to be watered.’

  ‘Talk to God about it,’ Kurik shrugged. ‘I don’t make the weather.’