The Ruby Knight

brown-stained waters of the lake.
    Berit pushed the raft out of the way, and Ulath launched his rock with a mighty heave.
    ‘Lord!’ Kalten said. ‘No dying man could ever throw anything that far.’
    ‘That was the idea,’ Ulath said modestly. ‘That’s the absolute outer limit of the area we search. Berit!’ he bellowed in a shattering voice, ‘mark that spot and then go down. I need to know how deep we’re going and what kind of bottom we’ve got to work with.’
    Berit hesitated after he marked the place where the second rock had struck the water. ‘Would you please ask Lady Sephrenia to turn her back?’ he asked plaintively, his face suddenly bright red.
    ‘If anyone laughs, he’ll spend the rest of his life as a toad,’ Sephrenia threatened, resolutely turning her back on the lake and turning the curious little girl Flute around at the same time.
    Berit stripped and went over the edge of the raft like an otter. He re-emerged a minute later. Everyone on shore, Sparhawk noticed, had held his breath while the agile novice had been down. Berit exhaled explosively, spraying water. ‘It’s about eight feet deep, Sir Ulath,’ he reported, clinging to the end of the raft, ‘but the bottom’s muddy – two feet of it at least – mucky and not very nice. The water’s dark brown. You can’t see your hand in front of your face.’
    ‘I was afraid of that,’ Ulath muttered.
    ‘How’s the water?’ Kalten called out to the young man in the lake.
    ‘Very, very cold,’ Berit chattered.
    ‘I was afraid of that, too,’ Kalten said glumly.
    ‘Well, gentlemen,’ Ulath said, ‘time to get wet.’
    The rest of the afternoon was distinctly unpleasant. As Berit had announced, the water was cold and murky, and the soft bottom was thick with brown mud from the nearby peat-bogs. ‘Don’t try to dig around in that with your hands,’ Ulath instructed. ‘Probe with your feet.’
    They found nothing. By the time the sun went down, they were all exhausted and blue with the cold.
    ‘We have a decision to make,’ Sparhawk said soberly after they had dried themselves and put on tunics and mail-shirts. ‘How long is it going to be safe for us to stay here? The Seeker knows almost exactly where we are, and our scent will lead it right to us. As soon as it sees us in the lake, Azash will know where Bhelliom is. That’s something we can’t let Him find out.’
    ‘You’re right, Sparhawk,’ Sephrenia agreed. ‘It will take the Seeker a while to gather its forces, and a while longer to lead them back here, but I think we’ll need to set a time limit on how long we stay in this place.’
    ‘But we’re so close,’ Kalten objected.
    ‘It’s not going to do us any good to find Bhelliom just to turn it over to Azash,’ she pointed out. ‘If we ride off, we’ll lead the Seeker away from this spot. We know where Bhelliom is now. We can always come back later when it’s safe.’
    ‘Noon tomorrow?’ Sparhawk asked her.
    ‘I don’t think we should stay any longer.’
    ‘That’s it then,’ Sparhawk said. ‘At noon we’ll pack up and go back to the city of Venne. I get the feeling that the Seeker won’t take its men into a town. They’d be very conspicuous the way they shamble around.’
    ‘A boat,’ Ulath said, his face ruddy in the light of their fire.
    ‘Where?’ Kalten asked, peering out at the night-shrouded lake.
    ‘No. What I mean is, why don’t we ride to Venne and hire a boat? The Seeker will follow our trail to Venne, but it won’t be able to sniff our tracks over water, will it? It’ll camp outside Venne waiting for us to come out, but we’ll be back here by then. We’ll be free to search for Bhelliom until we find it.’
    ‘It’s a good idea, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said.
    ‘Is he right?’ Sparhawk asked Sephrenia. ‘Will travelling by water throw the Seeker off our trail?’
    ‘I believe it will,’ she replied.
    ‘Good. We’ll try it then.’
    They ate a meagre supper and went to their beds.
    They rose at sunrise the following morning, took a quick breakfast and poled the raft back out to the markers that indicated where they had left off the previous day. They anchored the raft and once again went into the chill waters to probe at the muddy bottom with their feet.
    It was almost noon when Berit surfaced not far from where Sparhawk was treading water and catching his breath. ‘I think I’ve found something,’ the novice said, gasping for air. Then he up-ended