The Ruby Knight

Gods.’
    ‘Anything you say.’ He shrugged.
    Vanion rose and began to pace up and down. ‘We’d better get started with this,’ he said. ‘It might be safer if you left the chapterhouse before daylight and before this fog lifts. Let’s not make it too easy for the spies who watch the house.’
    ‘I’ll agree with that,’ Kalten approved. ‘I’d rather not have to race Annias’s soldiers all the way to Lake Randera.’
    ‘All right, then,’ Sparhawk said, ‘let’s get at it. Time’s running a little short on us.’
    ‘Stay a moment, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said as they began to file out.
    Sparhawk waited until the others had left, and then he closed the door.
    ‘I received a communication from the Earl of Lenda this evening,’ the Preceptor told his friend.
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘He asked me to reassure you. Annias and Lycheas are taking no further action against the queen. Apparently the failure of their plot down in Arcium embarrassed Annias a great deal. He’s not going to take the chance of making a fool of himself again.’
    ‘That’s a relief.’
    ‘Lenda added something I don’t quite understand, though. He asked me to tell you that the candles are still burning. Do you have any idea what he meant by that?’
    ‘Good old Lenda,’ Sparhawk said warmly. ‘I asked him not to leave Ehlana sitting in the throne-room in the dark.’
    ‘I don’t think it makes much difference to her, Sparhawk.’
    ‘It does to me,’ Sparhawk replied.

Chapter 2

    The fog was even thicker when they gathered in the courtyard a quarter of an hour later. The novices were busy in the stables saddling horses.
    Vanion came out through the main door, his Styric robe gleaming in the mist-filled darkness. ‘I’m sending twenty knights with you,’ he told Sparhawk quietly. ‘You might be followed, and they’ll offer some measure of protection.’
    ‘We need to hurry, Vanion,’ Sparhawk objected. ‘If we take others with us, we won’t be able to move any faster than the pace of the slowest horse.’
    ‘I know that, Sparhawk,’ Vanion replied patiently. ‘You won’t need to stay with them for very long. Wait until you’re out in open country and the sun comes up. Make sure nobody’s too close behind you and then slip away from the column. The knights will ride on to Demos. If anybody’s following, they won’t know you aren’t still in the middle of the column.’
    Sparhawk grinned. ‘Now I know how you got to be Preceptor, my friend. Who’s leading the column?’
    ‘Olven.’
    ‘Good. Olven’s dependable.’
    ‘Go with God, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said, clasping the big knight’s hand, ‘and be careful.’
    ‘I’m certainly going to try.’
    Sir Olven was a bulky Pandion Knight with a number of angry red scars on his face. He came out of the chapterhouse wearing full armour, enamelled black. His men trailed out behind him. ‘Good to see you again, Sparhawk,’ he said as Vanion went back inside. Olven spoke very quietly to avoid alerting the church soldiers camped outside the front gate. ‘All right,’ he went on, ‘you and the others ride in the middle of us. With this fog, those soldiers probably won’t see you. We’ll drop the drawbridge and go out fast. We don’t want to be in sight for more than a minute or two.’
    ‘That’s more words than I’ve heard you use at one time in the last twenty years,’ Sparhawk said to his normally silent friend.
    ‘I know,’ Olven agreed. ‘I’ll have to see if I can’t cut back a little.’
    Sparhawk and his friends wore mail-shirts and travellers’ cloaks, since formal armour attracts attention out in the countryside. Their armour, however, was carefully stowed in packs on the string of a half-dozen horses Kurik would lead. They mounted, and the armoured men formed up around them. Olven made a signal to the men at the windlass that raised and lowered the drawbridge, and the men slipped the rachets, allowing the windlass to run freely. There was a noisy rattle of chain, and the drawbridge dropped with a huge boom. Olven was galloping across it almost before it hit the far side of the fosse.
    The dense fog helped enormously. As soon as he had galloped across the bridge, Olven cut sharply to the left, leading the column across the open field towards the Demos road. Behind them, Sparhawk could hear startled shouts as the church soldiers ran out of their tents to stare after the column in chagrin.
    ‘Slick,’ Kalten said gaily. ‘Across the