The Ruby Knight

The rest of us remained behind to marshal the main force. We were to follow when the army was gathered. When we arrived here, His Majesty was nowhere to be found. None here knoweth what befell him. Seek ye, therefore, elsewhere.’
    ‘One last question, My Lord,’ Ulath said. ‘Knowest thou perchance which route it was His Majesty’s intention to follow to reach this field?’
    ‘He sailed to the north coast, Sir Knight. No man – alive or dead – knoweth where he made landfall and disembarked. Seek ye therefore in Pelosia or Deira, and return me to my rest.’
    ‘Our thanks, My Lord,’ Ulath said with a formal bow.
    ‘Thy thanks have no meaning for me,’ the ghost said indifferently.
    ‘Let him go back, Tynian,’ Ulath said sadly.
    Once again, Tynian released the spirit as Sparhawk and the others stood looking at each other, their faces filled with chagrin.

Chapter 9

    Ulath walked over to where Tynian sat on the wet ground with his head between his hands. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. Sparhawk had noticed that the huge, savage Thalesian was strangely gentle and solicitous with his companions.
    ‘I just feel a little tired, that’s all,’ Tynian replied weakly.
    ‘You can’t keep doing this, you know,’ Ulath told him.
    ‘I can hold out for a little longer.’
    ‘Teach me the spell,’ Ulath urged. ‘I can wrestle with the best – alive or dead.’
    Tynian smiled wanly. ‘I’ll wager that you could, my friend. Have you ever been bested?’
    ‘Not since I was about seven,’ Ulath said modestly. ‘That was when I crammed my older brother’s head into the wooden well-bucket. It took our father two hours to get him out of it. My brother’s ears got caught. He always had those big ears. I sort of miss him. He came out second-best in a fight with an Ogre.’ The big man looked at Sparhawk. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘now what?’
    ‘We certainly can’t search all of northern Pelosia or Deira,’ Kalten said.
    ‘That’s fairly obvious,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We don’t have time. We’ve got to get more precise information somehow. Bevier, can you think of anything that might give us a clue of where to look?’
    ‘The accounts of this part of the battle are very sketchy, Sparhawk,’ the white-cloaked knight replied dubiously. He smiled at Ulath. ‘Our Genidian brothers are a bit lax in keeping records.’
    ‘Writing in runes is tedious,’ Ulath confessed. ‘Particularly on stone. Sometimes we let those things slide for a generation or so.’
    ‘I think we need to find a village or a town of some sort, Sparhawk,’ Kurik said.
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘We’ve got a lot of questions, and we aren’t going to get the answers unless we ask somebody.’
    ‘Kurik, the battle was five hundred years ago,’ Sparhawk reminded him. ‘We’re not going to find anybody alive who saw what happened.’
    ‘Of course not, but sometimes local people – particularly commoners – keep track of an area’s traditions, and landmarks have names. The name of a mountain or a stream could be just the clue we need.’
    ‘It’s worth a try, Sparhawk,’ Sephrenia said seriously. ‘We’re not getting anywhere here.’
    ‘It’s very slim, Sephrenia.’
    ‘What other options do we have?’
    ‘We’ll keep going north then, I suppose.’
    ‘And probably past all the excavations,’ she added. ‘If the ground’s been ploughed over, it’s a fairly sure sign that Bhelliom’s not there.’
    ‘That’s true, I suppose. All right, we’ll go on north, and if something promising turns up, Tynian can raise another ghost.’
    Ulath looked dubious at that. ‘I think we’ll have to be careful there,’ he said. ‘Just the effort of raising those two almost put him on his back.’
    ‘I’ll be all right,’ Tynian protested weakly.
    ‘Of course you will – at least you would be if we had time to let you rest in bed for several days.’
    They helped Tynian into his saddle, pulled his blue cape around him and rode north in the continuing drizzle.
    The city of Randera stood on the east shore of the lake. It was surrounded by high walls, and there were grim watch-towers at each corner.
    ‘Well?’ Kalten said, looking speculatively at the bleak Lamork city.
    ‘Waste of time,’ Kurik grunted. He pointed at a large mound of dirt slowly melting down in the rain. ‘We’re still coming across diggings. We need to go farther north.’
    Sparhawk looked critically at Tynian. Some of the colour had returned to