The Ruby Knight

shore of Lake Venne, peering out into the darkness that had settled over the lake. Gradually during the long night, Flute narrowed the area of their patrol, bringing them closer and closer together.
    ‘How can you tell?’ Kalten demanded of her a few hours past midnight.
    ‘Would he understand?’ Flute asked Sephrenia.
    ‘Kalten? Probably not, but you can try to explain it, if you’d like.’ Sephrenia smiled. ‘We all need a bit of frustration in our lives from time to time.’
    ‘It feels differently when Bhelliom’s moving at a diagonal than when it’s coming at you head-on,’ Flute tried.
    ‘Oh,’ he said dubiously, ‘that makes sense, I suppose.’
    ‘See,’ Flute said triumphantly to Sephrenia, ‘I knew I could make him understand.’
    ‘Only one question,’ Kalten added. ‘What’s a diagonal?’
    ‘Oh dear,’ she said, pressing her face against Sephrenia in a gesture of despair.
    ‘Well, what is it?’ Kalten appealed to his fellow knights.
    ‘Let’s swing south a bit, Kalten, and keep an eye on the lake,’ Tynian said. ‘I’ll explain it to you as we go along.’
    ‘You,’ Sephrenia said to Ulath, who had a faint smile on his face, ‘not a word.’
    ‘I didn’t say anything.’
    Sparhawk turned Faran and rode slowly back towards the north, looking out at the dark waters.
    The moon rose late that night, and it cast a long, glittering path across the surface of the lake. Sparhawk relaxed a bit then. Looking for a Troll in the dark had been a very tense business. It seemed somehow almost too easy now. All they had to do was wait for Ghwerig to reach the lake-shore. After all the difficulties and setbacks that had dogged them since they had set out in search of Bhelliom, the idea of just being able to sit and wait for it to be delivered to them made Sparhawk a little nervous. He had an ominous suspicion that something was going to go wrong. If all the things that had happened in Lamorkand and here in Pelosia were any indication, something was bound to go wrong. Their quest had been dogged by near-disaster almost from the moment they had left the chapterhouse at Cimmura, and Sparhawk saw no reason to hope that this situation would be any different.
    Once again the sun rose in a rusty sky, a coppery disc hanging low over the brown-stained waters of the lake. Sparhawk rode wearily back through the grove of trees from which they kept watch to where Sephrenia and the children were waiting. ‘How far away is he now?’ he asked Flute.
    ‘He’s about a mile out in the lake,’ she replied. ‘He’s stopped again.’
    ‘Why does he keep stopping?’ Sparhawk was growing increasingly irritated by these periodic halts in the Troll’s progress across the lake.
    ‘Would you like to hear a guess?’ Talen asked.
    ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘I stole a boat once because I had to get across the Cimmura River. The boat leaked. I had to stop every five minutes or so to bail out the water. Ghwerig’s been stopping about every half-hour. Maybe his boat doesn’t leak as much as mine did.’
    Sparhawk stared at the boy for a moment, and then he suddenly burst out laughing. ‘Thanks, Talen,’ he said, feeling suddenly much better.
    ‘No charge,’ the boy replied impudently. ‘You see, Sparhawk, the easiest answer is usually the right one.’
    ‘Then I’ve got a Troll out there in a leaky boat, and I’ve got to wait here on shore until he gets all the water out of it.’
    ‘That pretty well sums it up, yes.’
    Tynian rode in at a canter. ‘Sparhawk,’ he said quietly, ‘we’ve got some riders coming from the west.’
    ‘How many?’
    ‘Too many to count with ease.’
    ‘Let’s take a look.’ The two rode back through the trees to where Kalten, Ulath and Bevier were sitting, their horses looking off to the west. ‘I’ve been watching them, Sparhawk,’ Ulath said. ‘I think they’re Thalesians.’
    ‘What are Thalesians doing here in Pelosia?’
    ‘Remember what that innkeeper told you back in Venne?’ Kalten said, ‘- about a war going on down in Arcium? Didn’t he say that the western kingdoms are mobilizing?’
    ‘I’d forgotten about that,’ Sparhawk admitted. ‘Well, it’s none of our concern – at least not for the moment.’
    Kurik and Berit rode up. ‘I think we’ve seen him, Sparhawk,’ Kurik reported. ‘At least, Berit has.’
    Sparhawk looked quickly at the novice.
    ‘I climbed a tree, Sir Sparhawk,’ Berit explained. ‘There’s a small boat some