The Ruby Knight

farmer’s name is Wat. He’s a wall-eyed fellow who scratches a lot. It seems to me that when I was outside the tap-room door last night somebody was saying that he might possibly be significant for some reason.’

Ghasek



Chapter 10

    The rain was slackening, and a fitful breeze was coming in off the lake. It scattered the rain in gusty sheets across the surface of the pools of standing water lying in the muddy field. Kurik and Berit had built a fire in the centre of their circle of tents and set a canvas sheet on poles to the windward side, in part to protect the blaze from being quenched, but also in part to deflect its heat into the tent where the injured knights lay.
    Ulath came out of one of the other tents wrapping a dry cloak about his huge mailed shoulders. He raised his shaggy-browed face towards the sky. ‘It seems to be letting up,’ he said to Sparhawk.
    ‘We can hope,’ Sparhawk said. ‘I don’t think putting Tynian and the others in that wagon in a rainstorm would do them much good.’
    Ulath grunted his agreement. ‘This really didn’t turn out very well, did it, Sparhawk?’ he said morosely. ‘We’ve got three men down, and we’re still not any closer to finding Bhelliom.’
    There was not much Sparhawk could say to that. ‘Let’s go and see how Sephrenia’s doing,’ he suggested.
    They went around the fire and entered the tent where the small Styric woman hovered over the injured. ‘How are they coming along?’ Sparhawk asked her.
    ‘Kalten’s going to be all right,’ she replied, pulling a red wool blanket up under the blond Pandion’s chin. ‘He’s had bones broken before, and he mends fast. I gave Bevier something that may stop the bleeding. It’s Tynian that worries me the most, though. If we can’t do something – and fairly soon – his mind will slip away.’
    Sparhawk shuddered at that. ‘Can’t you do anything at all?’
    She pursed her lips. ‘I’ve been thinking it over. The mind is a much more difficult thing to work with than the body. You have to be very careful.’
    ‘What actually happened to him?’ Ulath asked her. ‘I didn’t quite follow what you said before.’
    ‘At the end of his incantation, he was totally open to that creature from the mound. The dead usually wake slowly, so you’ve got time to put up your defences. The beast isn’t really dead, so it came at him before he had time to protect himself.’ She looked down at Tynian’s ashen face. ‘There’s one thing that might work,’ she mused doubtfully. ‘It’s worth a try, I suppose. I don’t think anything else will save his sanity. Flute, come here.’
    The little girl rose from where she had been sitting cross-legged on the canvas ground-sheet of the tent. Her bare feet were grass-stained, Sparhawk noted absently. Even in spite of all the mud and wet, Flute’s feet always seemed to have those greenish stains on them. She softly crossed the tent to Sephrenia, her dark eyes questioning.
    Sephrenia spoke to her in that peculiar Styric dialect.
    Flute nodded.
    ‘All right, gentlemen,’ Sephrenia said to Sparhawk and Ulath, ‘there’s nothing you can do here, and at the moment you’re just underfoot.’
    ‘We’ll wait outside,’ Sparhawk said, feeling slightly abashed at the crisp way they had been dismissed.
    ‘I’d appreciate it.’
    The two knights went out of the tent. ‘She can be very abrupt, can’t she?’ Ulath noted.
    ‘When she has something serious on her mind.’
    ‘Has she always treated you Pandions this way?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Then they heard the sound of Flute’s pipes coming from inside the tent. The melody was much like the peculiarly drowsy one she had played to lull the attention of the spies outside the chapterhouse and the soldiers on the docks at Vardenais. There were slight differences, however, and Sephrenia was speaking sonorously in Styric as a sort of counterpoint. Suddenly, the tent began to glow with a peculiar golden light.
    ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that spell before,’ Ulath admitted.
    ‘Our instruction only covers the things we’re likely to need to know,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘There are whole realms of Styric magic we don’t even know exist. Some are too difficult, and some are too dangerous.’ Then he raised his voice. ‘Talen,’ he called.
    The young thief poked his head out of one of the other tents. ‘What?’ he said flatly.
    ‘Come here. I want to talk to you.’
    ‘Can’t you do it inside? It’s