The Ruby Knight

grinned.
    ‘You northern knights look at the world differently than we do,’ Bevier said, looking slightly embarrassed.
    ‘You want some lessons?’ Ulath asked him.
    Bevier suddenly blushed.
    ‘He’s a good boy.’ Ulath smiled broadly to the others, patting Bevier on the shoulder. ‘We just have to keep him out of Arcium for a while until we have time to corrupt him. Bevier, you’re my dear brother, but you’re awfully stiff and formal. Try to relax a bit.’
    ‘Am I so very rigid?’ Bevier asked, looking a bit shame-faced.
    ‘We’ll fix it for you,’ Ulath assured him.
    Sparhawk looked across the table at the toothlessly grinning old Lamork. ‘Can you settle this stupid argument for us, grandfather? Did the battle really come this far north?’
    ‘Why, yes indeed it did, young master,’ the old man mumbled, ‘- and even further, if the truth be known. My old gaffer, he tole me as there was fightin’ an’ killin’ as far north as up into Pelosia. Y’see, the hull army of the Thalesians, they come slippin’ around the upper end of the lake an’ fell on them Zemochs from behind. Only thing was that there was a hull lot more of them there Zemochs than there was Thalesians. Well, sir, the way I understand it was that the Zemochs got over their surprise an’ come roarin’ back up this way, killin’ most ever’thin’ in sight. Folks hereabouts hid in their cellars while that was goin’ on, let me tell you.’ He paused to take a long drink from his tankard. ‘Well, sir,’ he continued, ‘the battle seemed t’ be more or less over, the Zemochs havin’ won an’ all, but then a hull bunch of them Thalesian lads, what had probably had to wait around for boats up there in the north country, come chargin’ in an’ done some real awful things to them there Zemochs.’ He glanced at Ulath. ‘Yer people are a real bad-tempered sort, if y’ don’t mind my sayin’ so, friend.’
    ‘I think it has to do with the climate,’ Ulath agreed.
    The old man looked mournfully into his tankard. ‘Could ye maybe see yer way clear to do this again?’ he asked hopefully.
    ‘Of course, grandfather,’ Sparhawk said. ‘See to it, Kalten.’
    ‘Why me?’
    ‘Because you’re on better speaking terms with the barmaid than I am. Go on with your story, grandfather.’
    ‘Well, sir, I been told there was this awful battle that went on about a couple leagues or so north of here. Them Thalesian fellers was real unhappy about what had happened to their friends an’ kinfolk down to the south end of the lake, an’ they went at the Zemochs with axes an’ such. They’s graves up there as has got a thousand or more in ’em – an’ they hain’t all human, I’m told. The Zemochs wasn’t none too particular about who they took up with, or so the story goes. Ye kin see the graves up there in the fields – big heaps of dirt all growed over with grass an’ bushes an’ such like. Local farmers been turnin’ up bones an’ old swords an’ spears an’ axe-heads with their ploughs fer nigh onto five hunnerd years now.’
    ‘Did your gaffer by any chance tell you who led the Thalesians?’ Ulath asked carefully. ‘I had some kin in that battle, and we could never find out what happened to them. Do you think the leader might possibly have been the King of Thalesia?’
    ‘Never heard one way or t’other,’ the old Lamork admitted. “Course, the folks hereabouts wasn’t none too anxious to get right down there in the middle of the killin’ an’ all. Common folk don’t have no business gettin’ mixed up in that sort of thing.’
    ‘He wouldn’t have been too hard to recognize,’ Ulath said. ‘The old legends in Thalesia say that he was near to seven feet tall, and that his crown had a big blue jewel on top of it.’
    ‘Never heard of nobody matchin’ that description – but like I said, the common folk was stayin‘ real far back from the fightin’.’
    ‘Do you think there might be somebody else around here who’s perhaps heard other stories about the battle?’ Bevier asked in a neutral tone.
    ‘It’s possible, I s’pose,’ the old fellow said dubiously, ‘but my old gaffer, he was one of the best story-tellers in these here parts. He got hisself runned over by a wagon when he was fifty or so, an’ it broke up his back real cruel. He used to set hisself on a bench out there on the porch of this very inn, him an’ his cronies. They’d swap the old stories by the hour, an’ he