The Ruby Knight

cattle.
    While there were people about, Sparhawk and his friends saw no more church soldiers or Zemochs. They remained cautious, however, avoiding people when possible and continuing their scouting, since they all knew the black-robed Seeker could enlist even normally timid serfs to do its bidding.
    As they came closer to the border of Lamorkand, they received increasingly disturbing reports concerning turmoil in that kingdom. Lamorks were not the most stable people in the world. The King of Lamorkand ruled only at the sufferance of the largely independent barons, who retreated in times of trouble to positions behind the walls of massive castles. Blood-feuds dating back a hundred years or more were common, and rogue barons looted and pillaged at will. For the most part, Lamorkand existed in a state of perpetual civil war.
    They made camp one night perhaps three leagues from the border of that most troubled of western kingdoms, and Sparhawk stood up directly after a supper of the last of Kalten’s hindquarter of beef. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘what are we walking into? What’s stirring things up in Lamorkand? Any ideas?’
    ‘I spent the last eight or nine years in Lamorkand,’ Kalten said seriously. ‘They’re strange people. A Lamork will sacrifice anything he owns for the sake of revenge – and the women are even worse than the men. A good Lamork girl will spend her whole life – and all her father’s wealth – for the chance to sink a spear into somebody who refused her invitation to the dance at some midwinter party. I spent all those years there, and in all that time, I never heard anyone laugh or saw anyone smile. It’s the bleakest place on earth. The sun is forbidden to shine in Lamorkand.’
    ‘Is this universal warfare we’ve been hearing about from the Pelosians a common thing?’ Sparhawk asked.
    ‘Pelosians are not the best judges of Lamork peculiarities,’ Tynian replied thoughtfully. ‘It’s only the influence of the Church – and the presence of the Church Knights – that’s kept Pelosia and Lamorkand from blithely embarking on a war of mutual extinction. They despise each other with a passion that’s almost holy in its mindless ferocity.’
    Sephrenia sighed. ‘Elenes,’ she said.
    ‘We have our faults, little mother,’ Sparhawk conceded. ‘We’re going to run into trouble when we cross the border then, aren’t we?’
    ‘Not entirely,’ Tynian said, rubbing his chin. ‘Are you open to another suggestion, maybe?’
    ‘I’m always open to suggestions.’
    ‘Why don’t we put on our formal armour? Not even the most wild-eyed Lamork baron will willingly cross the Church, and the Church Knights could grind western Lamorkand into powder if they felt like it.’
    ‘What if somebody calls our bluff?’ Kalten asked. ‘There are only five of us, after all.’
    ‘I don’t think they’d have any reason to,’ Tynian said. ‘The neutrality of the Church Knights in these local disputes is legendary. Formal armour might be just the thing to avoid misunderstandings. Our purpose is to get to Lake Randera, not to engage in random disputes with hotheads.’
    ‘It might work, Sparhawk,’ Ulath said. ‘It’s worth a try anyway.’
    ‘All right, let’s do it then,’ Sparhawk decided.
    When they arose the following morning, the five knights unpacked their formal armour and began to put it on with the help of Kurik and Berit. Sparhawk and Kalten wore Pandion black with silver surcoats and formal black capes. Bevier’s armour was burnished to a silvery sheen, and his surcoat and cape were pristine white. Tynian’s armour was simply massive steel, but his surcoat and cape were a brilliant sky blue. Ulath put aside the utilitarian mail-shirt he had worn on the trail and replaced it with chain-mail trousers and a mail-coat that reached to mid-thigh. He stowed away his simple conical helmet and green traveller’s cloak and put on instead a green surcoat and a very grand-looking helmet surmounted by a pair of the curled and twisted horns he had identified as having come from an Ogre.
    ‘Well?’ Sparhawk said to Sephrenia when they had finished putting on their finery, ‘how do we look?’
    ‘Very impressive,’ she complimented them.
    Talen, however, eyed them critically. ‘They look sort of like an iron-works that sprouted legs, don’t they?’ he observed to Berit.
    ‘Be polite,’ Berit said, concealing a smile behind one hand.
    ‘That’s depressing,’ Kalten