The Ruby Knight Part 18

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 took real pleasure in it - not havin' nothin' else to do, him bein' so crippled up an' all, don't y' know. An" he pa.s.sed all the old tales down't' me - me bein' his favourite an' all, on accounta I used't' bring him his bucket of beer from this very tap-room." He looked at Ulath. "No, sir," he said. "None of the old stories ever heard say nothing about no king such as you described, but like I say, it was a awful big battle, an' the local folk stayed a long way back from it. It could be that this here king of yers was there, but n.o.body I ever knew mentioned it."

"And this battle took place a couple or so leagues north of here, you say?" Sparhawk prompted.

"Maybe as much as seven mile," the old fellow replied, taking a long drink from the fresh tankard the broadhipped serving-wench had brought him. "T" be downright honest with "ee, young master, I been a bit stove up of late, an' I don't walk out so far no more." He squinted at them appraisingly. "If y' don't mind me sayin' it, young masters, y' seem't' have a powerful curiosity about that there long ago King of Thalesia an' what not."

"It's fairly simple, grandfather," Ulath said easily. "King Sarak of Thalesia was one of our national heroes. If I can track down what really happened to him, I'll get a great deal of credit out of it. King Wargun might even reward me with an earldom - that's if he ever gets sober enough."

The old man cackled. "I heered of him," he said. "Does he really drink as much as they say?"

"More, probably."

"Well, now - an earldom, y say? Now, that's a goal that's worth goin' after. What y might want to do, yer earls.h.i.+p, is go on up't' that there battlefield an' poke around a bit. Might could be that ye kin turn up somethin' as'll give 'ee a clue. A man seven feet tall - an' a king to boot - well, sir, he'd have some mighty impressive armour an' such. I know a farmer up there - name of Wat. He's fond of the old tales same as me, an' that there battle-ground is in his back yard, so te speak. If anybody's turned up anythin' that might lead ye't' what yer lookin' fer, he'd know it."

"The man's name is Wat, you say?" Sparhawk asked trying to sound casual.

"Can't miss him, young master. Wall-eyed feller Scratches hisself a lot. He's had the seven year itch fer about thirty year now." He shook his tankard hopefully.

"Ho there, my girl," Ulath called, fis.h.i.+ng several coins out of the pouch at his belt. "Why don't you keep our old friend here drinking until he falls under the table?"

"Why, thankee, yer earls.h.i.+p," the old man grinned.

"After all, grandfather," Ulath laughed, "an earldom ought to be spread around, shouldn't it?"

"I couldn't of put it better meself, Me Lord."

They left the tap-room and started up the stairs. "That worked out rather well, didn't it?" Kurik said.

"We were lucky," Kalten said. "What if that old fellow hadn't been in the tap-room tonight?"

"Then someone would have directed us to him. Common people like to be helpful to the ones buying the beer."

"I think we'll want to remember the story Ulath told the old fellow," Tynian said. "If we tell people that we want the king's bones to take back to Thalesia, they won't start speculating about our real reason for being so curious about where he's buried."

"Isn't that the same as lying?" Berit said.

"Not really," Ulath told him. "We do plan to rebury him after we get his crown, don't we?"

"Of course."

"Well, there you are, then."

Berit looked a little dubious about that. "I'll go see about supper," he said, "but I think there's a hole in your logic, Sir Ulath."

"Really?" Ulath said, looking surprised.

It was still raining the following morning. At some time during the night, Kalten had slipped from the room he shared with Sparhawk. Sparhawk had certain suspicions about his friend's absence in which the broadhipped and very friendly barmaid Nima figured rather prominently. He did "not press the issue, however.

Sparhawk was, after all, a knight and a gentleman.

They rode north for the better part of two hours until they came to a broad meadow dotted with gra.s.s-covered burial mounds. "I wonder which one I should try first," Tynian said as they all dismounted.

"Take your pick," Sparhawk replied. "This Wat we heard about might be able to give you more precise information, but let's try it this way first. It might save some time, and we're starting to get short on that."

"You worry about your queen all the time, don't you, Sparhawk?" Bevier asked perceptively.

"Of course. It's what I'm supposed to do."

"I think, my friend, that it might go a bit deeper than that. Your affection for your queen is more than a duty."

"You're being absurdly romantic, Bevier. She's only a child." Sparhawk felt suddenly offended, and at the same time defensive. "Before we get started, gentlemen," he said brusquely, "let's have a look around. I don't want any stray Zemochs watching us, and I definitely don't want any of the Seekers empty-headed soldiers creeping up behind us while we're busy."

"We can deal with them," Kalten said confidently.

"Probably, yes, but you're missing the point. Every time we kill one of them, we announce our general location to the Seeker."

"Otha's bug is beginning to irritate me," Kalten said.

"All this sneaking and skulking is unnatural."

"Maybe so, but I think you'd better get used to it for a while."

They left Sephrenia and the children in the shelter of a propped-up sheet of canvas and scoured the general vicinity. They found no sign of anyone. Then they rode back to the burial mound.

"How about that one?" Ulath suggested to Tynian, pointing at a low earthen mound. "It looks sort of Thalesian."

"It looks as good as any of the others." Tynian shrugged. They dismounted again.

"Don't overdo this," Sparhawk told Tynian. "If you start to get too tired, back away from it."

"We need information, Sparhawk. I'll be all right."

Tynian removed his heavy helmet, dismounted, took his coil of rope and began to lay it out on the top of the mound in the same design as he had the previous day. Then he straightened with a slight grimace. "Well," he said, "here goes. " He threw back his blue cloak and began to speak sonorously in Styric, weaving the intricate gestures of the spell with his hands as he did. Finally, he clapped his hands sharply together. The mound shook violently as if it had been seized by an earthquake, and what came up from the ground this time did not rise slowly. It burst from the ground roaring - and it was not human.

"Tynian!" Sephrenia shouted. "Send it back!"

Tynian, however, stood transfixed, his eyes starting from his head in horror. The hideous creature rushed at them, bowling over the thunderstruck Tynian and falling on Bevier, clawing and biting at his armour.

"Sparhawk!" Sephrenia cried as the big Pandion drew his sword. "Not that. It won't do any good! Use Aldreas's spear instead!"

Sparhawk spun and wrenched the short-handled spear from his saddle-skirt.

The monstrous thing that was attacking Bevier lifted the white-cloaked knight's armoured body as easily as a man might lift a child and smashed it to the ground with terrible force. Then it leapt at Kalten and began wrenching at his helmet. Ulath, Kurik and Berit dashed to their friend's aid, hacking at the monster with their weapons.

Astonis.h.i.+ngly, their heavy axes and Kurik's mace bounced off the thing in great showers of glowing sparks. Sparhawk dashed in, holding the spear low. Kalten was being shaken like a rag doll, and his black helmet was dented and scarred. Deliberately, Sparhawk drove the spear into the monsters side with all his strength. The thing shrieked and turned on him. Again and again Sparhawk struck, and with each blow he felt a tremendous surge of power flowing through the spear. At last he saw an opening, feinted once and then sank the spear directly into the monsters chest. The hideous mouth gaped open, but what gushed forth was not blood, but a kind of black slime. Grimly, Sparhawk twisted the spear inside the creature's body, making the wound bigger. It shrieked again and fell back. Sparhawk jerked his spear free, and the creature fled, howling and clutching at the gaping hole in its chest. It staggered up the side of the burial mound to the place from where it had emerged from the earth and plunged back into the depths. Tynian was on his knees in the mud, clutching at his head and sobbing. Bevier lay motionless on the ground, and Kalten sat moaning. Sephrenia moved quickly to Tynian and, after a quick glance at his face, began to speak rapidly in Styric, weaving the spell with her fingers. Tynian's sobbing lessened, and after a moment, he let out a deep sigh and toppled over on his side. "I'll have to keep him asleep until he recovers," she said, " - if he recovers. Sparhawk, you help Kalten. I'll see to Bevier."

Sparhawk went to Kalten. "Where are you hurt?" he asked.

"I think it cracked some of my ribs," Kalten gasped.

"What was that thing? My sword just bounced off it."

"We can worry about what it was later," Sparhawk said.

"Let's get you out of that armour and wrap those ribs. We don't want one of them jabbing into your lungs."

"I'd agree to that," Kalten winced. "I'm sore all over. I don't need any other problems. How's Bevier?"

"We don't know yet. Sephrenia's looking after him."

Bevier's injuries appeared to be more serious than Kalten's. After Sparhawk had bound a wide linen cloth tightly around his friend's chest and checked him over for any other injuries, he wrapped his cloak about him and then went to check on the Arcian. "How is he?" he asked Sephrenia.

"It's fairly serious, Sparhawk," she replied. "There aren't any cuts or gashes, but I think he may be bleeding inside."

"Kurik. Berit," Sparhawk called. "Set up the tents. We've got to get them in out of the rain." He looked around and saw Talen riding away at a gallop. "Now where's he going?" he demanded in exasperation.

"I sent him off to see if he can find a wagon," Kurik told him. "These men need to get to a physician fast, and they're in no condition to sit on a saddle."

Ulath was frowning. "How did you manage to get your spear into that thing, Sparhawk?" he asked. "My axe just bounced off."

"I'm not sure," Sparhawk admitted.

"It was the rings," Sephrenia said, not looking up from Bevier's unconscious form.

"I thought I felt something happening while I was stabbing at that monster," Sparhawk said. "How is it that they've never seemed to have that sort of power before?"

"Because they were separated," she replied. "But you've got one on your hand and the other is in the socket of the spear. When you put them together like that, they have great power. They're a part of Bh.e.l.liom itself."

"All right," Ulath said, "what went wrong? Tynian was trying to raise Thalesian ghosts. How did he wake up that monstrosity?"

"Apparently he opened the wrong grave by mistake," she said. "Necromancy's not the most precise of the arts, I'm afraid. When the Zemochs invaded, Azash sent certain of His creatures with them. Tynian accidentally raised one of them."

"What's the matter with him?"

"The contact with that being has almost destroyed his mind."

"Is he going to be all right?"

"I don't know, Ulath, I really don't."

Berit and Kurik finished erecting the tents, and Sparhawk and Ulath moved their injured friends inside one of them. "We're going to need a fire," Kurik said, "and that's not going to be easy today, I'm afraid. I've got a little dry wood left, but not enough to last for very long. Those men are wet and cold, and we absolutely have to get them dried out and warm."

"Any suggestions?" Sparhawk asked him.

"I'll work on it."

It was some time after noon when Talen returned, driving a rickety wagon that was hardly more than a cart.

This was the best I could find," he apologized.

"Did you have to steal it?" Kurik asked him.

"No. I didn't want the farmer chasing me. I bought it."

"With what?"

Talen looked slyly at the leather purse hanging from his father's belt. "Don't you feel just a little light on that side, Kurik?"

Kurik swore and looked closely at the purse. The bottom had been neatly slit open.

"Here's what I didn't need, though," Talen said handing over a small handful of coins.

"You actually stole from me?"

"Be reasonable, Kurik. Sparhawk and the others are all wearing armour, and their purses are on the inside. Yours was the only one I could get to."

"What's under that canvas?" Sparhawk asked, looking into the wagon bed.

"Dry firewood," the boy replied. "The farmer had stacks of it in his barn. I picked up a few chickens, too. I didn't steal the wagon," he noted clinically, but I did steal the firewood and the chickens - just to keep in practice. Oh, incidentally, the 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."

PART TWO - 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 s.h.a.ggy-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 Bh.e.l.liom."

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?"