The Ruby Knight

down from his saddle and walked among the fallen soldiers lying in huddled heaps on the bloody grass. Sparhawk turned his head away as his friend systematically ran his sword into each body. ‘Just wanted to be sure,’ Kalten said, sheathing his sword and remounting. ‘None of them are going to do any talking now.’
    ‘Berit,’ Sparhawk said, ‘go and get Sephrenia and the children. We’ll keep watch here. Oh, one other thing. You’d better cut us some new lances as well. The ones we had seem to be all used up.’
    ‘Yes, Sir Sparhawk,’ the novice said and rode back towards the woods.
    Sparhawk looked around and saw a brush-choked draw not far away. ‘Let’s hide these,’ he said, looking at the bodies. ‘We don’t want to make it obvious that we’ve come this way.’
    ‘Did their horses all run off?’ Kalten asked, looking around.
    ‘Yes,’ Ulath replied. ‘Horses do that when there’s fighting.’
    They dragged the mutilated corpses to the draw and dumped them into the brush. By the time they had finished, Berit was returning with Sephrenia, Talen and Flute. He carried the new lances across his saddle. Sephrenia kept her eyes averted from the blood-stained grass where the fight had taken place.
    It took but a few minutes to affix the steel points to the lances, and then they all remounted.
    ‘Now I’m really hungry,’ Kalten said as they set out at a gallop.
    ‘How can you?’ Sephrenia demanded in a tone of revulsion.
    ‘What did I say?’ Kalten asked Sparhawk.
    ‘Never mind.’
    The next several days passed without incident, although Sparhawk and the others kept wary eyes to the rear as they galloped on. They took shelter each night in places of concealment and built small, well-shielded fires. And then the cloudy skies finally fulfilled their promise. A steady drizzle began to fall as they pushed on towards the north-east.
    ‘Wonderful,’ Kalten said sardonically, looking up at the soggy sky.
    ‘Just pray that it rains harder,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘The Seeker should be moving about again by now, but it won’t be able to follow our scent if it’s been washed out by rain.’
    ‘I suppose I hadn’t thought of that,’ he admitted.
    Sparhawk periodically dismounted to cut a stick from a particular kind of low-lying bush and to lay it carefully on the ground pointing in the direction they were going.
    ‘Why do you keep doing that?’ Tynian asked him finally, pulling his dripping blue cloak tighter about him.
    ‘To let Kurik know which way we’ve gone,’ Sparhawk replied, remounting.
    ‘Very clever, but how will he know which bush to look behind?’
    ‘It’s always the same kind of bush. Kurik and I worked that out a long time ago.’
    The sky continued to weep. It was a depressing kind of rain that soaked into everything. Campfires were difficult to get started, and they tended to go out without much advance warning. Occasionally they passed Lamork villages, and now and then an isolated farmstead. The people for the most part were staying in out of the rain, and the cattle grazing in the fields were wet and dispirited-looking.
    They were not too far from the lake when Bevier and Kurik finally caught up with them on a blustery afternoon when the steady rain was blowing almost horizontally to the ground.
    ‘We delivered Ortzel to the Basilica,’ Bevier reported, wiping his dripping face. ‘Then we went to Dolmant’s house and told him about what was happening here in Lamorkand. He agrees that the upheaval is probably designed to pull the Church Knights out of Chyrellos. He’ll do what he can to block that.’
    ‘Good,’ Sparhawk said. ‘I like the notion of all of Martel’s efforts being wasted. Did you have any problems along the way?’
    ‘Nothing serious,’ Bevier said. ‘The roads are all being patrolled, though, and Chyrellos is crawling with soldiers.’
    ‘And all the soldiers are loyal to Annias, I suppose?’ Kalten said sourly.
    ‘There are other candidates for the Archprelacy, Kalten,’ Tynian pointed out. ‘If Annias is bringing his troops into Chyrellos, it stands to reason that the others would bring in theirs as well.’
    ‘We certainly don’t want open fighting in the streets of the Holy City,’ Sparhawk said. ‘How’s Archprelate Cluvonus?’ he asked Bevier.
    ‘He’s fading fast, I’m afraid. The Hierocracy can’t even hide his condition from the common people any more.’
    ‘That makes what we’re doing all the more