The Ruby Knight

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 blushing. ‘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.’

‘God and I aren’t on the best of terms,’ Talen said glibly. ‘He’s busy, and so am I. We try not to interfere with each other.’

‘The boy is pert,’ Bevier observed disapprovingly. ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘it is not proper to speak so of the Lord of the universe.’

‘You are an honoured Knight of the Church, Sir Bevier,’ Talen pointed out. ‘I am but a thief of the streets. Different rules apply to us. God’s great flower-garden needs a few weeds to offset the splendour of the roses. I’m a weed. I’m sure God forgives me for that, since I’m a part of his grand design.’

Bevier looked at him helplessly, and then began to laugh.

They rode warily across south-eastern Pelosia for the next several days, taking turns scouting on ahead and riding to hilltops to survey the surrounding countryside. The sky remained dreary as they pushed on to the east. They saw peasants – serfs actually – labouring in the fields with the crudest of implements. There were birds nesting in the hedges, and occasionally they saw deer grazing among herds of scrubby cattle.

While there were people about, Sparhawk and his friends saw no more church soldiers or Zemochs. They remained cautious, however, avoiding people when possible and continuing their scouting, since they all knew the black-robed Seeker could enlist even normally timid serfs to do its bidding.

As they came closer to the border of Lamorkand, they received increasingly disturbing reports concerning turmoil in that kingdom. Lamorks were not the most stable people in the world. The King of Lamorkand ruled only at the sufferance of the largely independent barons, who retreated in times of trouble to positions behind the walls of massive castles. Blood-feuds dating back a hundred years or more were common, and rogue barons looted and pillaged at will. For the most part, Lamorkand existed in a state of perpetual civil war.

They made camp one night perhaps three leagues from the border of that most troubled of western kingdoms, and Sparhawk stood up directly after a supper of the last of Kalten’s hindquarter of beef. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘what are we walking into? What’s stirring things up in Lamorkand? Any ideas?’

‘I spent the last eight or nine years in Lamorkand,’ Kalten said seriously. ‘They’re strange people. A Lamork will sacrifice anything he owns for the sake of revenge – and the women are even worse than the men. A good Lamork girl will spend her whole life – and all her father’s wealth – for the chance to sink a spear into somebody who refused her invitation to the dance at some midwinter party. I spent all those years there, and in all that time, I never heard anyone laugh or saw anyone smile. It’s the bleakest place on earth. The sun is forbidden to shine in Lamorkand.’

‘Is this universal warfare we’ve been hearing about from the Pelosians a common thing?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘Pelosians are not the best judges of Lamork peculiarities,’ Tynian replied thoughtfully. ‘It’s only the influence of the Church – and the presence of the Church Knights – that’s kept Pelosia and Lamorkand from blithely embarking on a war of mutual extinction. They despise each other with a passion that’s almost holy in its mindless ferocity.’

Sephrenia sighed. ‘Elenes,’ she said.

‘We have our faults, little mother,’ Sparhawk conceded. ‘We’re going to run into trouble when we cross the border then, aren’t we?’

‘Not entirely,’ Tynian said, rubbing his chin. ‘Are you open to another suggestion, maybe?’

‘I’m always open to suggestions.’

‘Why don’t we put on our formal armour? Not even the most wild-eyed Lamork baron will willingly cross the Church, and the Church Knights could grind western Lamorkand into powder if they felt like it.’

‘What if somebody calls our bluff?’ Kalten asked. ‘There are only five of us, after all.’

‘I don’t think they’d have any reason to,’ Tynian said. ‘The neutrality of the Church Knights in these local disputes is legendary. Formal armour might be just the thing to avoid misunderstandings. Our purpose is to get to Lake Randera, not to engage in random disputes with hotheads.’

‘It might work, Sparhawk,’ Ulath said. ‘It’s worth a try anyway.’

‘All right, let’s do it then,’ Sparhawk decided.

When they arose the following morning, the five knights unpacked their formal armour and began to put it on with the help of Kurik and Berit. Sparhawk and Kalten wore Pandion black with silver surcoats and formal black capes. Bevier’s armour was burnished to a silvery sheen, and his surcoat and cape were pristine white. Tynian’s armour was simply massive steel, but his surcoat and cape were a brilliant sky blue. Ulath put aside the utilitarian mail-shirt he had worn on the trail and replaced it with chain-mail trousers and a mail-coat that reached to mid-thigh. He stowed away his simple conical helmet and green traveller’s cloak and put on instead a green surcoat and a very grand-looking helmet surmounted by a pair of the curled and twisted horns he had identified as having come from an Ogre.

‘Well?’ Sparhawk said to Sephrenia when they had finished putting on their finery, ‘how do we look?’

‘Very impressive,’ she complimented them.

Talen, however, eyed them critically. ‘They look sort of like an iron-works that sprouted legs, don’t they?’ he observed to Berit.

‘Be polite,’ Berit said, concealing a smile behind one hand.

‘That’s depressing,’ Kalten sighed to Sparhawk. ‘Do you think we really look that ridiculous to the common people?’

‘Probably.’

Kurik and Berit cut lances from a nearby yew-grove and affixed steel points to them.

‘Pennons?’ Kurik asked.

‘What do you think?’ Sparhawk asked Tynian.

‘It couldn’t hurt. Let’s try to look as impressive as we can, I suppose.’

They mounted with some difficulty, adjusted their shields and moved their pennon-flagged lances into positions where they were prominently displayed and rode out. Faran immediately began to prance. ‘Oh, stop that,’ Sparhawk told him disgustedly.

They crossed into Lamorkand not much past noon. The border guards looked suspicious, but automatically gave way to the Knights of the Church dressed in their formal armour and wearing expressions of inexorable resolve.

The Lamork city of Kadach stood on the far side of a river. There was a bridge, but Sparhawk decided against going through that bleak, ugly place. Instead, he checked his map and turned north. ‘The river branches upstream,’ he told the others. ‘We’ll be able to ford it up there. We’re going more or less in that direction anyway, and towns are filled with people who just might want to talk to alien strangers asking questions about us.’

They rode on north to the series of small streams that fed into the main channel. It was when they were crossing one of these shallow streams that afternoon that they saw a large body of Lamork warriors on the far bank.

‘Spread out,’ Sparhawk commanded tersely. ‘Sephrenia, take Talen and Flute to the rear.’

‘You think they might belong to the Seeker?’ Kalten asked, moving his hand up the shaft of his lance.

‘We’ll find out in a minute. Don’t do anything rash, but be ready for trouble.’

The leader of the group of warriors was a burly fellow wearing a chain-coat, a steel helmet with a protruding, pig-faced visor and stout leather boots. He advanced into the stream alone and raised his visor to show that he had no hostile intentions.

‘I think he’s all right, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said quietly. ‘He doesn’t have that blank look on his face that the men we killed back in Elenia had.’

‘Well met, Sir Knights,’ the Lamork said.

Sparhawk nudged Faran forward a bit through the swirling current. ‘Well met indeed, My Lord,’ he replied.

‘This is a fortunate encounter,’ the Lamork continued. ‘It seemed me that we might have ridden even so far as Elenia ere we had encountered Church Knights.’

‘And what is your business with the Knights of the Church, My Lord?’ Sparhawk asked politely.

‘We require a service of you, Sir Knight – a service that bears directly on the well-being of the Church.’

‘We live but to serve her,’ Sparhawk said, struggling to conceal his irritation. ‘Speak further concerning this necessary service.’

‘As all the world knows, the Patriarch of the city of Kadach is the paramount choice for the Archprelate’s throne in Chyrellos,’ the helmeted Lamork stated.

‘I hadn’t heard that,’ Kalten said quietly from behind.

‘Hush,’ Sparhawk muttered over his shoulder. ‘Say on, My Lord,’ he said to the Lamork.

‘Misfortunately, civil turmoil mars western Lamorkand presently,’ the Lamork continued.

‘I like “misfortunately”,’ Tynian murmured to Kalten. ‘It’s got a nice ring to it.’

‘Will you two be quiet?’ Sparhawk snapped. Then he looked back at the man in the chain-coat. ‘Rumour has advised us of this discord, My Lord,’ he replied. ‘But surely this is a local matter, and does not involve the Church.’

‘I will speak to the point, Sir Knight. The Patriarch Ortzel of Kadach has been forced by the turmoil I but recently mentioned to seek shelter in the stronghold of his brother, the Baron Alstrom, whom I have the honour to serve. Rude civil discord rears its head here in Lamorkand, and we anticipate with some certainty that the foes of My Lord Alstrom will shortly besiege his fortress.’

‘We are but five, My Lord,’ Sparhawk pointed out. ‘Surely our aid would be of little use in a protracted siege.’

‘Ah, no, Sir Knight,’ the Lamork said with a disdainful smile. ‘We can sustain ourselves and my Lord Alstrom’s castle without the aid of the invincible Knights of the Church. My Lord Alstrom’s castle is impregnable, and his foes may freely dash themselves to pieces against its walls for a generation or more without causing us alarm. As I have said, however, the Patriarch Ortzel is the paramount choice for the Archprelacy – in the event of the demise of the revered Cluvonus, which, please God, may be delayed for a time. Thus I charge you and your noble companions, Sir Knight, to convey his Grace safe and whole to the sacred city of Chyrellos so that he may stand for election, should that mournful necessity come to pass. With that end in view, I will forthwith convey you and your knightly companions to the stronghold of My Lord of Alstrom so that you may undertake this noble task. Let us then proceed.’

Chapter 4

The castle of Baron Alstrom was situated on a rocky promontory on the east bank of the river. The promontory jutted out into the main channel a few leagues above the town of Kadach. It was a bleak, ugly fortress, squatting toad-like under a cheerless sky. Its walls were thick and high, seeming to reflect the stiff, unyielding arrogance of its owner.

‘Impregnable?’ Bevier murmured derisively to Sparhawk as the knight in the chain-coat led them along the short causeway that led out to the castle gate. ‘I could reduce these walls within the space of two years. No Arcian noble would feel secure within such flimsy fortifications.’

‘Arcians have more time to build their castles,’ Sparhawk pointed out to the white-caped knight. ‘It takes longer to start a war in Arcium than it does here in Lamorkand. You can start a war here in about five minutes, and it’s likely to go on for generations.’

‘Truly,’ Bevier agreed. He smiled faintly. ‘In my youth I gave some time to the study of military history. When I turned to the volumes dealing with Lamorkand, I threw up my hands in despair. No rational man could sort out all the alliances, betrayals and blood feuds that seethe just below the surface of this unhappy kingdom.’

The drawbridge boomed down, and they clattered on across it into the castle’s main court. ‘And it please you, Sir Knights,’ the Lamork knight said, dismounting, ‘I will convey you directly into the presence of the Baron Alstrom and His Grace, the Patriarch Ortzel. Time is pressing, and we must see His Grace safely out of the castle ere the forces of Count Gerrich mount their siege.’