The Ruby Knight

asked.
    ‘Those camps aren’t very far apart. If the men out there know each other, why didn’t they make just one camp?’
    ‘Maybe they don’t like each other.’
    ‘Why did they camp so close together then?’
    Tynian shrugged. ‘Who knows why Lamorks do anything?’
    ‘There’s nothing we can do about them tonight,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Let’s go back.’
    Sparhawk awoke just before dawn. When he went to rouse the others, he found that Tynian, Berit and Talen were missing. Tynian’s absence was easily explained. He was on watch at the edge of the woods. The novice and the boy, however, had no business being out of their beds. Sparhawk swore and went to wake Sephrenia. ‘Berit and Talen have gone off somewhere,’ he told her.
    She looked around at the darkness pressing in on their well-hidden camp. ‘We’ll have to wait until it gets light,’ she said. ‘If they’re not back by then, we’ll have to go and look for them. Stir up the fire, Sparhawk, and put my tea-kettle near the flame.’
    The sky to the east was growing lighter when Berit and Talen returned to camp. They both looked excited, and their eyes were very bright.
    ‘Just where have you two been?’ Sparhawk demanded angrily.
    ‘Satisfying a curiosity,’ Talen replied. ‘We went to pay a visit on our neighbours.’
    ‘Can you translate that for me, Berit?’
    ‘We crept across the fields to have a look at the people around those campfires out there, Sir Sparhawk.’
    ‘Without asking me first?’
    ‘You were asleep,’ Talen explained quickly. ‘We didn’t want to wake you.’
    ‘They’re Styrics, Sir Sparhawk,’ Berit said seriously, ‘at least some of them are. There’s a fair scattering of Lamork peasants among them, though. The men around the other fire are all church soldiers.’
    ‘Could you tell if the ones you saw were western Styrics or Zemochs?’
    ‘I can’t tell one kind of Styric from another, but the ones out there have swords and spears.’ Berit frowned. ‘This might have been my imagination, but all the men out there are sort of numb-looking. Do you remember how blank the faces of that group of ambushers back in Elenia were?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘The people out there look more or less the same, and they’re not talking to each other or even sleeping, and they haven’t posted any sentries.’
    ‘Well, Sephrenia?’ Sparhawk said. ‘Could the Seeker have recovered more quickly that you thought it would?’
    ‘No,’ she replied, frowning. ‘It could have set those men in our path before it went on to Cimmura, however. They’d follow any instructions it might have given them, but they wouldn’t be able to respond to any new situations without its presence.’
    ‘They’d recognize us though, wouldn’t they?’
    ‘Yes. The Seeker would have implanted that in their minds.’
    ‘And they’d attack us if they saw us?’
    ‘Inevitably.’
    ‘Then I think we’d better move on,’ he said. ‘Those people out there are just a little too close to make me feel entirely comfortable. I don’t like riding through strange country before it’s fully light, but under the circumstances -’ Then he turned sternly to Berit. ‘I appreciate the information you’ve brought us, Berit, but you shouldn’t have gone off without telling me first, and you most definitely should not have taken Talen along. You and I are paid to take certain risks, but you have absolutely no right to endanger him.’
    ‘He didn’t know I was tagging along behind him, Sparhawk,’ Talen said glibly. ‘I saw him get up, and I was curious about what he was doing, so I sneaked after him. He didn’t even know I was there until we were almost to those campfires.’
    ‘That’s not precisely true, Sir Sparhawk,’ Berit disagreed with a pained look. ‘Talen woke me and suggested that the two of us should go and have a look at those men out there. It seemed like a very good idea at the time. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think of the fact that I was putting him in danger.’
    Talen looked at the novice with some disgust. ‘Now why did you do that?’ he asked. ‘I was telling him a perfectly good lie. I could have kept you out of trouble.’
    ‘I’ve taken an oath to tell the truth, Talen.’
    ‘Well, I haven’t. All you had to do was keep your mouth shut. Sparhawk won’t hit me because I’m too little. He might decide to thrash you, though.’
    ‘I love these little arguments about comparative morality before breakfast,’