The Ruby Knight

Ulath.
    ‘Yours.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Yes.’
    They roused the others, and Sparhawk got the cooking utensils out of one of the packs.
    After they had eaten, Kurik and Berit cut spare lances from a nearby thicket while Sparhawk and Ulath helped their injured friends into Talen’s rickety wagon.
    ‘What’s wrong with the ones we’ve got?’ Ulath asked when Kurik returned with the lances.
    ‘They tend to break,’ Kurik said, tying the poles to the side of the wagon, ‘particularly in view of the way you gentlemen use them. It never hurts to have extra ones.’
    ‘Sparhawk,’ Talen said quietly, ‘there are some more of those people in white smocks out there. They’re hiding in that brush along the edge of the field.’
    ‘Could you tell what kind they were?’
    ‘They had swords,’ the boy replied.
    ‘Zemochs then. How many of them are there?’
    ‘I saw four.’
    Sparhawk went over to Sephrenia. ‘There’s a small group of Zemochs hiding at the edge of the field. Would the Seeker’s people try to hide?’
    ‘No. They’d attack immediately.’
    ‘That’s what I thought.’
    ‘What are you going to do?’ Kalten asked.
    ‘Run them off. I don’t want any of Otha’s men trailing along behind us. Ulath, let’s mount up and chase those people for a while.’
    Ulath grinned and hauled himself into his saddle.
    ‘You want your lances?’ Kurik asked.
    ‘Not for a job this small,’ Ulath grunted, drawing his axe.
    Sparhawk climbed up onto Faran’s back, strapped on his shield and drew his sword. He and Ulath set out at a menacing walk. After a few moments, the hidden Zemochs broke from their cover and fled, crying out in alarm. ‘Let’s run them for a bit,’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘I want them to be too winded to turn around and come back.’
    ‘Right,’ Ulath agreed, pushing his horse into a canter.
    The two mounted knights crashed through the bushes at the edge of the field and pursued the fleeing Zemochs across a broad stretch of ploughed ground.
    ‘Why not just kill them?’ Ulath shouted to Sparhawk.
    ‘It’s probably not really necessary,’ Sparhawk shouted back. ‘There are only four of them, and they don’t pose much of a threat.’
    ‘You’re getting soft, Sparhawk.’
    ‘Not really.’
    They pursued the Zemochs for perhaps twenty minutes, then reined in.
    ‘They run very well, don’t they?’ Ulath chuckled. ‘Why don’t we go on back now? I’m getting tired of looking at this place.’
    They rejoined the others, and they all set out, going north along the lake. They saw peasants in the fields, but no signs of any other Zemochs. They rode at a walk with Ulath and Kurik in the lead.
    ‘Any guesses about what those people were up to?’ Kalten asked Sparhawk. The blond knight was driving the wagon, the reins held negligently in one hand and with the other pressed against his injured ribs.
    ‘I’d imagine that Otha’s having his men keep an eye on anybody poking around the battlefield,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘If somebody happens to stumble across Bhelliom, he’d definitely want to know about it.’
    ‘There may be more, then. It might not hurt to keep our eyes open.’
    The sun grew warmer as the day progressed, and Sparhawk began almost to wish for a return of the clouds and rain of the past week or more. Grimly, he rode on, sweltering in his black-enamelled armour.
    They camped that night in a grove of stately oaks not far from the Pelosian border and rose early the following morning. The guards posted at the boundary stood aside for them respectfully, and by mid-afternoon they crested a hill and looked down on the Pelosian city of Paler.
    ‘We made better time than I thought we would,’ Kurik noted as they rode down the long slope towards the city. ‘Are you sure that map of yours is accurate, Sparhawk?’
    ‘No map is entirely accurate. About the best you can hope for is an approximation.’
    ‘Knew a map-maker in Thalesia once,’ Ulath said. ‘He set out to map the country between Emsat and Husdal. At first he paced everything off very carefully, but after a day or so he bought himself a good horse and started guessing. His map doesn’t even come close, but everybody uses it because nobody wants to take the trouble of drawing a new one.’
    The guards at the south gate of the city passed them after only the briefest of questions, and Sparhawk obtained the name and location of a respectable inn from one of them. ‘Talen,’ he said, ‘do you