The Ruby Knight

times to miss it. It’s a Troll, all right, and he’s absolutely enraged about something.’
    ‘Maybe we should build up the fire,’ Sparhawk suggested as the others joined them.
    ‘It wouldn’t do any good,’ Ulath said. ‘Trolls aren’t afraid of fire.’
    ‘You know their language, don’t you?’
    Ulath grunted.
    ‘Why don’t you call to him and tell him that we mean him no harm?’
    ‘Sparhawk,’ Ulath said with a pained look, ‘in this situation, it’s the other way around. If he attacks, try to strike at his legs,’ he warned them all. ‘If you swing at his body, he’ll jerk your weapons out of your hands and feed them to you. All right, I’ll try to talk with him.’ He lifted his head and bellowed something in a horrid, guttural language.
    Something out there in the darkness replied, snarling and spitting.
    ‘What did it say?’ Sparhawk asked.
    ‘He’s cursing. It may take him an hour or so to get finished. Trolls have a lot of swear-words in their language.’ Ulath frowned. ‘He doesn’t really sound all that sure of himself,’ he said, sounding puzzled.
    ‘Perhaps our numbers are making it cautious,’ Bevier suggested.
    ‘They don’t know what the word means,’ Ulath disagreed. ‘I’ve seen a lone Troll attack a walled city.’
    There was another snarling bellow from out in the darkness, this time a little closer.
    ‘Now, what’s that supposed to mean?’ Ulath said in bafflement.
    ‘What?’ Sparhawk asked.
    ‘He’s demanding that we turn the thief over to him.’
    ‘Talen?’
    ‘I don’t know. How could Talen pick a Troll’s pocket? They don’t have pockets.’
    Then they heard the sound of Flute’s pipes coming from Sephrenia’s tent. Her melody was stern and vaguely threatening. After a moment, the beast out in the darkness howled – a sound partially of pain and partially of frustration. Then the howling faded off into the distance.
    ‘Why don’t we all go to Sephrenia’s tent and kiss that little girl about the head and shoulders for a while?’ Ulath suggested.
    ‘What happened?’ Kalten asked.
    ‘Somehow she ran him off. I’ve never seen a Troll run from anything. I saw one try to attack an avalanche once. I think we’d better talk with Sephrenia. Something’s going on here that I don’t understand.’
    Sephrenia, however, was as puzzled as they. She was holding Flute in her arms, and the little girl was crying. ‘Please, gentlemen,’ the Styric woman said softly, ‘just leave her alone for now. She’s very, very upset.’
    ‘I’ll stand watch with you, Ulath,’ Tynian said as they came out of the tent. ‘That bellow froze my blood. I’ll never get back to sleep now.’
    They reached the city of Venne two days later. Once the Troll had been frightened away, they neither saw nor heard any further sign of him. Venne was not a very attractive city. Because local taxes were based on the number of square feet on the ground floor of each house, the citizens had circumvented the law by building overhanging second storeys. In most cases, the overhang was so extreme that the streets were like narrow, dark tunnels, even at noon. They put up at the cleanest inn they could find, and Sparhawk took Kurik and went in search of information.
    For some reason, however, the word ‘Ghasek’ made the citizens of Venne very nervous. The answers Sparhawk and Kurik received were vague and contradictory, and the citizens usually went away from them very fast.
    ‘Over there,’ Kurik said shortly, pointing at a man staggering from the door of a tavern. ‘He’s too drunk to run.’
    Sparhawk looked critically at the reeling man. ‘He could also be too drunk to talk,’ he added.
    Kurik’s methods, however, were brutally direct. He crossed the street, seized the drunkard by the scruff of the neck, dragged him to the end of the street and shoved his head into the fountain that stood there. ‘Now, then,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I think we understand each other. I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to give me the answers – unless you can figure out a way to sprout gills.’
    The fellow was spluttering and coughing. Kurik pounded on his back until the paroxysm passed.
    ‘All right,’ Kurik said, ‘the first question is “Where is Ghasek?”’
    The drunken man’s face went pasty white, and his eyes bulged in horror.
    Kurik shoved his head under water again. ‘This is starting to make me very tired,’ he said conversationally