The Ruby Knight Part 14

"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 Bh.e.l.liom'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 pa.s.s 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 gra.s.sy 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 a.s.sault 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 b.l.o.o.d.y gra.s.s. 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."

"Yes, Sir Sparhawk," the novice said and rode back towards the woods.

Sparhawk looked around and saw a brush-choked draw not far away. "Let's hide these," he said, looking at the bodies. "We don't want to make it obvious that we've come this way."

"Did their horses all run off?" Kalten asked, looking around.

"Yes," Ulath replied. "Horses do that when there's fighting."

They dragged the mutilated corpses to the draw and dumped them into the brush. By the time they had finished, Berit was returning with Sephrenia, Talen and Flute. He carried the new lances across his saddle. Sephrenia kept her eyes averted from the blood-stained gra.s.s where the fight had taken place. It took but a few minutes to affix the steel points to the lances, and then they all remounted.

"Now I'm really hungry," Kalten said as they set out at a gallop. "How can you?" Sephrenia demanded in a tone of revulsion.

"What did I say?" Kalten asked Sparhawk.

"Never mind."

The next several days pa.s.sed without incident, although Sparhawk and the others kept wary eyes to the rear as they galloped on. They took shelter each night in places of concealment and built small, well-shielded fires. And then the cloudy skies finally fulfilled their promise. A steady drizzle began to fall as they pushed on towards the north-east.

"Wonderful," Kalten said sardonically, looking up at the soggy sky.

"Just pray that it rains harder," Sephrenia told him.

"The Seeker should be moving about again by now, but it won't be able to follow our scent if it's been washed out by rain."

"I suppose I hadn't thought of that," he "admitted.

Sparhawk periodically dismounted to cut a stick from a particular kind of low-lying bush and to lay it carefully on the ground pointing in the direction they were going.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Tynian asked him finally, pulling his dripping blue cloak tighter about him.

"To let Kurik know which way we've gone," Sparhawk replied, remounting.

"Very clever, but how will he know which bush to look behind?"

"It's always the same kind of bush. Kurik and I worked that out a long time ago."

The sky continued to weep. It was a depressing kind of rain that soaked into everything. Campfires were difficult to get started, and they tended to go out without much advance warning. Occasionally they pa.s.sed Lamork villages, and now and then an isolated farmstead. The people for the most part were staying in out of the rain, and the cattle grazing in the fields were wet and dispirited-looking. They were not too far from the lake when Bevier and Kurik finally caught up with them on a bl.u.s.tery afternoon when the steady rain was blowing almost horizontally to the ground.

"We delivered Ortzel to the Basilica," Bevier reported, wiping his dripping face. "Then we went to Dolmant's house and told him about what was happening here in Lamorkand. He agrees that the upheaval is probably designed to pull the Church Knights' out of Chyrellos. He'll do what he can to block that."

"Good," Sparhawk said. "I like the notion of all of Martel's efforts being wasted. Did you have any problems along the way?"

"Nothing serious," Bevier said. "The roads are all being patrolled, though, and Chyrellos is crawling with soldiers."

"And all the soldiers are loyal to Annias, I suppose?" Kalten said sourly.

"There are other candidates for the Archprelacy, Kalten," Tynian pointed out. "If Annias is bringing his troops into Chyrellos, it stands to reason that the others would bring in theirs as well."

"We certainly don't want open fighting in the streets of the Holy City," Sparhawk said. "How's Archprelate Cluvonus?" he asked Bevier.

"He's fading fast, I'm afraid. The Hierocracy can't even hide his condition from the common people any more."

"That makes what we're doing all the more urgent," Kalten said. "If Cluvonus dies, Annias will start to move, and at that point he won't need the Elenian treasury any more."

"Let's press on then," Sparhawk said. "It's still a day or so to the lake."

"Sparhawk," Kurik said critically, "you've let your armour get rusty."

"Really?" Sparhawk Pulled back his sodden black cloak and looked at his red-tinged shoulder-plates with some surprise.

"Couldn't you find the oil-bottle, My Lord?"

"I had my mind on other things."

"Obviously."

"I'm sorry. I'll deal with it."

"You wouldn't know how. Don't fool with the armour, Sparhawk. I'll tend to it."

Sparhawk looked around at his companions. "If anybody makes an issue of this, there's going to be a fight," he said ominously.

"We would sooner die than offend you, My Lord Sparhawk," Bevier promised with an absolutely straight face. "I appreciate that," Sparhawk told him and then rode resolutely off into the driving rain, his rusty armour creaking.

Chapter 8.

The ancient battlefield at Lake Randera in north central Lamorkand was even more desolate than they had been led to believe. It was a vast wasteland of turned-over earth with mounds of dirt heaped up everywhere. There were huge holes and trenches in the ground filled with muddy water, and the steady rain had turned the vast field into a quagmire.

Kalten sat his horse beside Sparhawk, looking helplessly out at the muddy field, that seemed to stretch off to the horizon. "Where do we start?" he asked, sounding baffled at the enormity of the task before them.

Sparhawk remembered something. "Bevier," he called.

The Arcian rode forward. "Yes, Sparhawk?"

"You said that you'd made a study of military history."

"Yes."

"Since this was the biggest battle that's ever been fought, you probably devoted some time to it, didn't you!"