The Diamond Throne

to rejoin the others. ‘We’ve got some trouble up ahead,’ he reported. ‘There’s a group of armed men hiding in a grove of trees in the next valley.’
    ‘An ambush?’ Tynian asked.
    ‘People don’t usually hide unless they’ve got some mischief in mind.’
    ‘Could you tell how many there are?’ Bevier asked, loosening his Lochaber from its sling on his saddlebow.
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘One way to find out,’ Ulath said, reaching for his axe.
    ‘Who are the two Pandions?’ Kalten asked nervously.
    ‘They didn’t say.’
    ‘Did they give you the same kind of feeling they gave me?’
    ‘What kind of feeling?’
    ‘As if my blood had just frozen.’
    Sparhawk nodded. ‘Something like that,’ he admitted. ‘Kurik,’ he said then, ‘you and Berit take Sephrenia, Flute, and Talen to some place out of sight.’
    The squire nodded curtly.
    ‘All right then, gentlemen,’ Sparhawk said to the other knights, ‘let’s go and have a look.’
    They started out at a rolling trot, five armoured knightsmounted on war horses and wielding a variety of unpleasant-looking weapons. At the top of the hill they were joined by the two silent men in black armour. Once again Sparhawk caught the unpleasant smell, and once again his blood ran strangely cold.
    ‘Has anybody got a horn?’ Tynian asked. ‘We should let them know we’re coming.’
    Ulath unbuckled one of his saddlebags and took out the curled and twisted horn of some animal. It was quite large and had a brass mouthpiece at its tip.
    ‘What kind of an animal has horns like that?’ Kalten asked him.
    ‘Ogre,’ Ulath replied. Then he set the mouthpiece to his lips and blew a shattering blast.
    ‘For the glory of God and the honour of the Church!’ Bevier exclaimed, rising in his stirrups and flourishing his Lochaber.
    Sparhawk drew his sword and drove his spurs into Faran’s flanks. The big horse plunged eagerly ahead, his ears laid back and his teeth bared.
    There were shouts of chagrin from the elm grove as the Church Knights plunged down the hill at a gallop with the grass whipping at the legs of their chargers. Then perhaps eighteen armoured men on horseback broke out of their concealment and rode out into the open to meet the charge.
    ‘They want a fight!’ Tynian shouted jubilantly.
    ‘Watch yourselves when we mix with them!’ Sparhawk warned. There may be more hiding in the grove!’
    Ulath continued to sound his horn until the last moment. Then he quickly stuffed it back into his saddlebag and began to whirl his great war axe about his head.
    Three of the ambushers had held back; just before the two parties crashed together, they turned tail and rode off at a dead run, flogging their horses in sheer panic.
    The initial impact might easily have been heard a mile away. Sparhawk and Faran were slightly in the lead, with the others fanned out and back in a kind of wedge formation. Sparhawk stood up in his stirrups to deliver broad overhand strokes to the right and the left as he crashed into the strangers. He split open a helmet and saw blood and brains come gushing out as the man fell stiffly out of his saddle. On his next stroke his sword sheared through an upraised shield, and he heard a scream as his blade bit into the arm to which the shield was strapped. Behind him he could hear the sounds of other blows and shrieks as his friends followed him through the mêlée.
    Their rush through the centre of the ambushers left ten down, killed or maimed, but, as they whirled to attack again, a half-dozen more came crashing out of the grove to attack them from the rear.
    ‘Go ahead!’ Bevier shouted as he wheeled his horse. ‘I’ll hold these off while you finish the rest!’ He raised his Lochaber and charged.
    ‘Help him, Kalten!’ Sparhawk called to his friend, then led Tynian, Ulath, and the two strangers against the dazed survivors of their first attack. Tynian’s broadsword had a much wider blade than those of the Pandions and thus a great deal more weight. That weight made the weapon savagely efficient, and Tynian cut through flesh or armour with equal ease. Ulath’s axe, of course, had no finesse or subtlety. He hewed at men as a woodsman might hew at trees.
    Sparhawk briefly saw one of the two strange Pandions rise in his stirrups to deliver a vast overhand blow. What the knight held in its gauntleted fist, however, was not a sword, but rather that same kind of glowing nimbus that had been given to Sephrenia in the shabby