The Ruby Knight (29 page)

‘The Seeker was watching us while we were in the lake,' Sparhawk replied. ‘One of its men found Bhelliom, but Ghwerig the Troll took it away from him. Now we have to go and find Ghwerig.'

‘That might be a little difficult, Sir Sparhawk. There's fog rolling in off the lake.'

‘Hopefully, it'll burn off before Ghwerig gets this far north.'

The others came out of the inn. ‘Let's all get mounted,' Sparhawk said to them. ‘Which way do we go, Flute?'

‘North for now,' she replied as Kurik lifted her up to Sephrenia.

Berit blinked. ‘She knows how to talk!' he exclaimed.

‘Please, Berit,' she said to him, ‘don't repeat the obvious. Let's go, Sparhawk. I can't pinpoint Bhelliom's location until we get away from here.'

They rode out of the innyard and into the foggy street. The fog was thick, hovering just this side of rainy drizzle, and it carried with it the acidic reek of the peat-bogs which surrounded the lake.

‘This isn't a good night for coming up against a Troll,' Ulath said, falling in beside Sparhawk.

‘I doubt very much that we'll run across Ghwerig tonight,' Sparhawk said. ‘He's on foot, and it's a long way from here to where he found Bhelliom – that's assuming he's even coming this way.'

‘He almost has to, Sparhawk,' the Genidian said. ‘He wants to get to Thalesia, and that means he's got to get to a seaport on the north coast.'

‘We'll know better which way he's moving once we get Sephrenia and Flute out of town.'

‘My guess would be Nadera,' Ulath speculated. ‘It's a bigger seaport than Apalia, and there are more ships there. Ghwerig's going to have to sneak on board one. It's not likely that he could book passage. Most sea-captains are superstitious about sailing with Trolls aboard.'

‘Would Ghwerig understand enough of our language to find out which ships are going to Thalesia by eavesdropping?'

Ulath nodded. ‘Most Trolls have a smattering of Elene and even Styric. They usually can't speak any language but their own, but they can understand a few words of ours.'

They passed through the city gate and reached the fork in the road north of Venne shortly before daybreak. They looked dubiously at the rutted track that led up into the mountains towards Ghasek and ultimately to the seaport at Apalia. ‘I hope he doesn't decide to go that way,' the white-cloaked Bevier said with a shudder. ‘I don't really want to go back to Ghasek.'

‘Is he moving at all?' Sparhawk asked Flute.

‘Yes,' she replied. ‘He's coming north along the lake-shore.'

‘I don't quite understand this,' Talen said to the little girl. ‘If you can sense where Bhelliom is, why didn't we just stay at the inn until he got closer with it?'

‘Because there are too many people in Venne,' Sephrenia told him. ‘We can't get a clear picture of Bhelliom's location in the middle of all that welter of thoughts and emotions.'

‘Oh,' the boy said, ‘that makes sense – I suppose.'

‘We could ride down the lake-shore and meet him,' Kalten suggested. ‘Save us all a lot of time.'

‘Not in the fog,' Ulath said firmly. ‘I want to be able to see him coming. I don't want to get surprised by a Troll.'

‘He's going to have to pass through here,' Tynian said, ‘- or at least very close to here – if he's headed towards the north coast. He can't swim across the lake, and he can't go into Venne. Trolls are a little conspicuous, or so I'm told. When he gets closer, we can ambush him.'

‘It's got some possibilities, Sparhawk,' Kalten said. ‘If we've got his probable line of travel pinpointed, we can catch him unawares up here. We can kill him and be half-way to Cimmura with Bhelliom before anyone is any the wiser.'

‘Oh, Kalten,' Sephrenia sighed.

‘Killing is what we do, little mother,' he told her. ‘You don't have to watch if you don't want to. One Troll more or less in the world isn't going to make all that much difference.'

‘There could be a problem, though,' Tynian said to Flute. ‘The Seeker's going to be hot on Ghwerig's heels just as soon as it gathers up enough men, and it can probably sense Bhelliom in the same way you and Sephrenia can, can't it?'

‘Yes,' she admitted.

‘Then you're forgetting that we may have to face it just as soon as we dispose of Ghwerig, aren't you?'

‘And you're forgetting that we'll have Bhelliom at that point and that Sparhawk has the rings.'

‘Would Bhelliom eliminate the Seeker?'

‘Quite easily.'

‘Let's pull back into those trees a ways,' Sparhawk suggested. ‘I don't know how long it's going to take Ghwerig to get here, and I don't want him coming up on
us while we're all standing in the middle of the road talking about the weather and other things.'

They withdrew into the shadowy cover of a stand of trees and dismounted.

‘Sephrenia,' Bevier said in a puzzled tone of voice, ‘if Bhelliom can destroy the Seeker with magic, couldn't you use ordinary Styric magic to do the same thing?'

‘Bevier,' she replied patiently, ‘if I could do that, don't you think I'd have done it a long time ago?'

‘Oh,' he said, sounding a bit abashed, ‘I didn't think of that, I suppose.'

The sun came up blearily that morning. The pervading fog from the lake and the heavy mist out of the forest to the north half-clouded the air at ground-level, although the sky above was clear. They set out watches and checked over saddles and equipment. After that, most of them dozed in the muggy heat, frequently changing watch. A man on short sleep in sultry weather is not always very alert.

It was not long after noon when Talen woke Sparhawk. ‘Flute wants to talk to you,' he said.

‘I thought she'd be asleep.'

‘I don't think she ever really sleeps,' the boy said. ‘You can't get near her without her eyes popping open.'

‘Someday maybe we'll ask her about that.' Sparhawk threw off his blanket, rose to his feet and splashed some water from a nearby spring on his face. Then he went to where Flute cuddled comfortably next to Sephrenia.

The little girl's huge eyes opened immediately. ‘Where have you been?' she asked.

‘It took me a moment to get fully awake.'

‘Stay alert, Sparhawk,' she said. ‘The Seeker's coming.'

He swore and reached for his sword.

‘Oh, don't do that,' she said disgustedly. ‘It's still a mile or so away.'

‘How did it get this far north so fast?'

‘It didn't stop to pick up any people the way we thought it would. It's alone, and it's killing its horse. The poor beast is dying right now.'

‘And Ghwerig's still a good distance away?'

‘Yes, Bhelliom's still south of the city of Venne. I can get snatches of the Seeker's thought.' She shuddered. ‘It's hideous, but it has much the same idea that we have. It's trying to get far enough ahead of Ghwerig to set up an ambush for him. It can pick up local people to do its work for it up here. I think we'll have to fight it.'

‘Without Bhelliom?'

‘I'm afraid so, Sparhawk. It doesn't have any people to help it, and that might make it easier to deal with.'

‘Can we kill it with ordinary weapons?'

‘I don't think so. There's something that might work, though. I've never tried it, but my older sister told me how to do it.'

‘I didn't think you had any family.'

‘Oh, Sparhawk,' she laughed, ‘my family is far, far larger than you could possibly imagine. Get the others. The Seeker will be coming up that road in just a few minutes. Confront it, and I'll bring Sephrenia. It will stop to think – which is to say that Azash will, since Azash is really its mind. But Azash is far too arrogant to avoid a chance to taunt Sephrenia, and that's when I'll strike at the Seeker.'

‘Are you going to kill it?'

‘Of course not. We don't kill things, Sparhawk. We let nature do that. Now go. We don't have much time.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘You don't have to. Just go and get the others.'

They ranged out across the road at the fork, their lances set.

‘Does she really know what she's talking about?' Tynian asked dubiously.

‘I certainly hope so,' Sparhawk murmured.

And then they heard the laboured breathing of a horse very near to fatal exhaustion, the unsteady thudding of staggering hooves and the savage whistle and crack of a whip. The Seeker, black-robed and hunched in its saddle, came around the bend, flogging its dying horse unmercifully.

‘Stay, hound of hell,' Bevier cried out in a ringing voice, ‘for here ends your reckless advance!'

‘We're going to have to talk to that boy someday,' Ulath muttered to Sparhawk.

The Seeker, however, had reined in cautiously.

Then Sephrenia, with Flute at her side, stepped out of the trees. The small Styric woman's face was even paler than usual. Oddly enough, Sparhawk had never fully realized how tiny his teacher really was – scarcely taller than Flute herself. Her presence had always been so commanding that somehow in his mind she had seemed even taller than Ulath. ‘And is this the meeting thou hast promised, Azash?' she demanded contemptuously. ‘If so, then I am ready.'

‘Ssso, Sssephrenia,' the hateful voice said, ‘we meet again and all unexsspectedly. Thisss may be thy lassst day of life.'

‘Or thine, Azash,' she replied with calm courage.

‘Thou canssst not dessstroy me.' The laugh was hideous.

‘Bhelliom can,' she told the thing, ‘and we will deny Bhelliom unto thee and turn it to our own ends. Flee, Azash, if thou wouldst cling to thy life. Pull the rocks of this world over thine head and cower in fear before the wrath of the Younger Gods.'

‘Isn't she pushing this a little?' Talen said in a strangled voice.

‘They're up to something,' Sparhawk murmured, ‘-
Sephrenia and Flute. They're deliberately goading that thing into doing something rash.'

‘Not while I have breath!' Bevier declared fervently, couching his lance.

‘Hold your ground, Bevier!' Kurik barked. ‘They know what they're doing! God knows, none of the rest of us do.'

‘And art thou ssstill continuing thine unwholesssome dalliencsse with these Elene children, Sssephrenia?' the voice of Azash said. ‘If thine appetite isss ssso vassst, come thou unto me, and I ssshall give thee sssurfeit.'

‘That is no longer within thy power, Azash, or hast thou forgotten thy unmanning? Thou art an abomination in the sight of all the Gods, and that is why they cast thee out, emasculated thee and confined thee in thy place of eternal torment and regret.'

The thing on the exhausted horse hissed in fury, and Sephrenia nodded calmly to Flute. The little girl lifted her pipes to her lips and began to play. Her melody was rapid, a series of skittering, discordant notes, and the Seeker seemed to shrink back. ‘It ssshall avail thee not, Sssephrenia,' Azash declared in a shrill voice. ‘There isss yet time.'

‘Thinkest thou so, mighty Azash?' she said in a taunting voice. ‘Then thy endless centuries of confinement have bereft thee of thy wits as well as thy manhood.'

The Seeker's shriek was one of sheer rage.

‘Impotent godling,' Sephrenia continued her goading, ‘return to foul Zemoch and gnaw upon thy soul in vain regret for the delights now eternally denied thee.'

Azash howled, and Flute's song grew even faster.

Something was happening to the Seeker. Its body seemed to be writhing under its black robe, and terrible, inarticulate noises came out from under its hood. With an
awful jerking motion it clambered down from its dying horse. It half staggered forward, its scorpion claws extended.

Instinctively, the Church Knights moved to protect Sephrenia and the little girl.

‘Stay back!' Sephrenia snapped. ‘It cannot stop what is happening now.'

The Seeker fell squirming to the road, tearing off the black robe. Sparhawk suppressed a powerful urge to retch. The Seeker had an elongated body divided in the middle by a waist like that of a wasp, and it glistened with a pus-like greyish slime. Its spindly limbs were jointed in many places, and it did not have what one could really call a face, but only two bulging eyes and a gaping maw surrounded by a series of sharp-pointed, fang-like appendages.

Azash shrieked something at Flute. Sparhawk recognized the inflections as Styric, but – and he was forever grateful for the fact – he recognized none of the words.

And then the Seeker began to split apart with an awful ripping sound. There was something inside it, something that squirmed and wriggled, trying to break free. The rip in the Seeker's body grew wider, and that which was inside began to emerge. It was shiny black and wet. Translucent wings hung from its shoulders. It had two huge protruding eyes, delicate antennae and no mouth. It shuddered and struggled, pulling itself free of the now-shrunken husk of the Seeker. Then, finally fully emerging, it crouched in the dirt of the road, rapidly fanning its insect wings to dry them. When the wings were dry and flushed with something that might even have been blood, they began to whir, moving so rapidly now that they seemed to blur, and the creature that had been so hideously born before their eyes rose into the air and flew off towards the east.

‘Stop it!' Bevier shouted. ‘Don't let it get away!'

‘It's harmless now,' Flute told him calmly, lowering her pipes.

‘What did you do?' he asked in awe.

‘The spell simply speeded up its maturing,' she replied. ‘My sister was right when she taught me that spell. It's an adult now, and all of its instincts are bent on breeding. Not even Azash can override its desperate search for a mate.'

‘What was the purpose of that little exchange of insults?' Kalten asked Sephrenia.