The Ruby Knight (38 page)

‘You really think they'll try to follow us?' Kurik asked.

‘I know Dorga. He may not know exactly who we are, but he definitely doesn't want us to get to the authorities in Heid. Dorga's very nervous about the notion of having large groups of the sheriff's men sweeping through these mountains. They have a very stout gallows in Heid.'

‘Is that forest down there safe?' Sparhawk asked, pointing down the road.

Tel nodded. ‘The brush is too thick to make ambushes feasible. That ravine was the last stretch that's really dangerous on this side of the mountains.'

‘Sephrenia,' Sparhawk said, ‘ride on down there. Kurik, you go with her.'

Kurik's face showed that he was about to protest, but he said nothing. He led Sephrenia and the children on down the road towards the safety of the forest.

‘They'll come fast,' Tel said. ‘We went past them at a dead run, and they'll be trying to catch up.' He looked at the ruffian with the longbow. ‘How fast can you shoot that thing?' he asked.

‘I can have three arrows in the air at the same time,' the fellow shrugged.

‘Try for four. It doesn't matter if you hit the horses. They'll fall off the edge of the cliff and take their riders with them. Get as many as you can, and then the rest of us will charge. Does that sound all right, Sparhawk?'

‘It's workable,' Sparhawk agreed. He shifted the shield on his left arm and then drew his sword.

Then they heard the clatter of horses' hooves coming fast along the rocky ledge on the other side of the sharp curve. Tel's archer climbed down from his horse and hung his quiver of arrows on a stunted tree at the roadside where they would be close at hand. ‘These are going to cost you a quarter-crown apiece, Tel,' he said calmly, drawing an arrow from the quiver and setting it to his bowstring. ‘Good arrows are expensive.'

‘Take your bill to Stragen,' Tel suggested.

‘Stragen pays very slowly. I'd rather collect from you and let you argue with him.'

‘All right.' Tel's tone was slightly sulky.

‘Here they come,' one of the other cut-throats said without any particular excitement.

The first two brigands to come around the curve probably didn't even see them. Tel's laconic archer was at least as good as he had claimed to be. The two men fell from their saddles, one at the side of the road and the other vanishing into the gorge. Their horses ran on a few yards and then pulled up when they saw Tel's mounted men blocking the road.

The archer missed one of the next pair that came around the sharp curve. ‘He ducked,' he said. ‘Let's see him try to get out of the way of this one.' He pulled his bow and shot again, and his arrow took the fellow in the forehead. The man tumbled over backwards and lay in the road kicking.

Then the brigands came around the curve in a cluster. The archer loosed several arrows into their midst. ‘You'd better go now, Tel,' he said. ‘They're coming on a little too fast.'

‘Let's ride!' Tel shouted, settling his pike under his arm in a manner curiously reminiscent of that used by
armoured knights. Tel's men had a peculiar assortment of weapons, but they handled them in a professional manner.

Because Faran was by far the strongest and fastest horse they had, Sparhawk outdistanced the others in the fifty-pace intervening stretch of road. He crashed into the centre of the startled group of men, swinging his sword to the right and left in broad overhand strokes. The men he was attacking wore no mail to protect them, and so Sparhawk's blade bit deep into them. A couple of them feebly tried to hold rusty swords up to ward off his ruthless blows, but Sparhawk was a trained swordsman who could alter his point of aim even in mid-swing, and the two fell howling into the road, clutching at the stumps of missing right hands.

A red-bearded man had been riding at the pack of ambushers. He turned to flee, but Tel plunged past Sparhawk, his blond hair flying, his pike lowered, and the two disappeared around the curve.

Tel's men followed along behind Sparhawk, cleaning up with brutal efficiency.

Sparhawk trotted Faran around the curve. Tel, it appeared, had picked the red-bearded man out of the saddle with his pike, and the fellow lay writhing on the road with the pike protruding from his back. Tel dismounted and squatted beside the mortally wounded man. ‘It didn't turn out so well, did it, Dorga?' he said in an almost friendly tone. ‘I told you a long time ago that waylaying travellers was a risky business.' Then he pulled the pike out of his former chieftain's back and calmly kicked him off the edge of the cliff. Dorga's despairing shriek faded down into the gorge.

‘Well,' Tel said to Sparhawk, ‘I guess that takes care of all this. Let's go on down. It's still some distance to Heid.'

Tel's men were disposing of the bodies of the dead and wounded ambushers by casually throwing them into the gorge.

‘It's safe now,' Tel told them. ‘Some of you stay here and round up those people's horses. We ought to be able to get a good price for them. The rest of you, come with us. Coming, Sparhawk?' and he led the way on down the road.

The days seemed to drag on as they moved through the unpopulated mountains of central Thalesia. At one point, Sparhawk reined Faran back to ride beside Sephrenia and Flute. ‘To me it seems as if we've been out here on this road for five days at least,' he said to the little girl. ‘How long has it really been?'

She smiled and raised two fingers.

‘You're playing with time again, aren't you?' he accused.

‘Of course,' she said. ‘You didn't buy me that kitten the way you promised you would, so I have to play with something.'

He gave up at that point. Nothing in the world is more immutable than the rising and setting of the sun, but Flute seemed able to alter those events at will. Sparhawk had seen Bevier's consternation when she had patiently explained the inexplicable to him. He decided that he did not wish to experience that himself.

It seemed to be several days later – though Sparhawk would not have taken an oath to that effect – when at sunset the flaxen-haired Tel pulled his horse in beside Faran. ‘That smoke down there is coming from the chimneys at Heid,' he said. ‘My men and I'll be turning back here. I believe there's still a price on my head in Heid. It's all a misunderstanding, of course, but explanations are tiresome – particularly when you're standing on a ladder with a noose around your neck.'

‘Flute,' Sparhawk said back over his shoulder, ‘has Talen done what he came here to do?'

‘Yes.'

‘I rather thought so. Tel, would you do me a favour and take the boy back to Stragen? We'll pick him up on our way back. Tie him very tightly and loop a rope about his ankles and under his horse's belly. Jump him from behind and be careful, he's got a knife in his belt.'

‘There's a reason, I suppose,' Tel said.

Sparhawk nodded. ‘Where we're going is very dangerous. The boy's father and I would rather not expose him to that.'

‘And the little girl?'

‘She can take care of herself – probably better than any of the rest of us.'

‘You know something, Sparhawk,' Tel said sceptically, ‘when I was a boy, I always wanted to become a Church Knight. Now I'm glad I didn't. You people don't make any sense at all.'

‘It's probably all the praying,' Sparhawk told him. ‘It tends to make a man a little vague.'

‘Good luck, Sparhawk,' Tel said shortly. Then he and two of his men roughly jerked Talen from his saddle, disarmed him and tied him on the back of his horse. The names Talen called Sparhawk as he and his captors rode off to the south were wide-ranging and, for the most part, very unflattering.

‘She doesn't really understand all those words, does she?' Sparhawk asked Sephrenia, looking meaningfully at Flute.

‘Will you stop talking as if I weren't here?' the little girl snapped. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know what the words mean, but Elene is such a puny language to swear in. Styric is more satisfying, but if you really want to curse, try Troll.'

‘You speak Troll?' He was surprised.

‘Of course. Doesn't everyone? There's no point in going into Heid. It's a depressing place – all mud and rotting logs and mildewed thatching. Circle it to the west, and we'll find the valley we want to follow.'

They by-passed Heid and moved up into steeper mountains. Flute watched intently and finally pointed one finger. ‘There,' she said, ‘we turn left here.'

They stopped at the entrance to the valley and peered with some dismay at the track to which she had directed them. It was a path more than a road, and it seemed to wander quite a bit.

‘It doesn't look too promising,' Sparhawk said dubiously, ‘and it doesn't look as if anybody's been on it for years.'

‘People don't use it,' Flute told him. ‘It's a game-trail – sort of.'

‘What kind of game?'

‘Look there.' She pointed.

It was a boulder with one flat side into which an image had been crudely chiselled. The image looked very old and weathered, and it was hideous.

‘What's that?' Sparhawk asked.

‘It's a warning,' she replied calmly. ‘That's a picture of a Troll.'

‘You're taking us into Troll country?' he asked in alarm.

‘Sparhawk, Ghwerig's a Troll. Where else did you think he'd live?'

‘Isn't there any other way to get to his cave?'

‘No, there isn't. I can frighten off any Trolls we happen to run across, and the Ogres don't come out in the daytime, so they shouldn't be any problem.'

‘Ogres too?'

‘Of course. They always live in the same country with Trolls. Everybody knows that.'

‘I didn't.'

‘Well now you do. We're wasting time, Sparhawk.'

‘We'll have to go in single file,' the knight told Kurik and Sephrenia. ‘Stay as close behind me as you can. Let's not get spread out.' He started up the trail at a trot, with the spear of Aldreas in his hand.

The valley to which Flute had led them was narrow and gloomy. The steep walls were covered with tall fir trees so dark as to look nearly black, and the sides of the valley were so high that the sun seldom shone into this murky place. A mountain river rushed down the centre of the narrow gap, roaring and foaming. ‘This is worse than the road to Ghasek,' Kurik shouted over the noise of the river.

‘Tell him to be still,' Flute told Sparhawk. ‘Trolls have very sharp ears.'

Sparhawk turned in his saddle and laid a finger across his lips. Kurik nodded.

There seemed to be an inordinate number of dead white snags dotting the dark forest, rising steeply on either side. Sparhawk leaned forward and put his lips close to Flute's ear. ‘What's killing the trees?' he asked.

‘Ogres come out at night and gnaw on the bark,' she said. ‘Eventually the tree dies.'

‘I thought Ogres were meat-eaters.'

‘Ogres eat anything. Can't you go any faster?'

‘Not through here I can't. This is a very bad trail. Does it get any better on up ahead?'

‘After we go up out of this valley, we'll come to a flat place in the mountains.'

‘A plateau?'

‘Whatever you want to call it. There are a few hills, but we can go around those. It's all covered with grass.'

‘We'll be able to make better time there. Does the plateau stretch all the way to Ghwerig's cave?'

‘Not quite. After we cross that, we'll have to go up into the rocks.'

‘Who brought you all the way up here? You said you'd been here before.'

‘I came alone. Somebody who knew the way told me how to get to the cave.'

‘Why would you want to?'

‘I had something to do there. Do we really have to talk so much? I'm trying to listen for Trolls.'

‘Sorry.'

‘Hush, Sparhawk.' She put her finger to his lips.

It was a day later when they reached the plateau. As Flute had told them, it was a vast, rolling grassland with snow-covered peaks lining the horizon on all sides.

‘How long is it going to take us to get across this?' Sparhawk asked.

‘I'm not sure,' Flute replied. ‘The last time I was here I was on foot. The horses should be able to go much faster.'

‘You were up here alone and on foot? With Trolls and Ogres about?' he asked incredulously.

‘I didn't see any of those. There was a young bear that followed me for a few days, though. I think he was only curious, but I got tired of having him behind me, so I made him go away.'

Sparhawk decided not to ask her any more questions. The answers were far too disturbing.

The high grassland seemed interminable. They rode for hours, but the skyline did not appear to change. The sun sank low above the snowy peaks, and they made their camp in a small clump of stunted pines.

‘It's big country up here,' Kurik said, looking around. He pulled his cloak closer about him. ‘Cold too, once the
sun goes down. Now I can see why most Thalesians wear fur.'

They hobbled the horses to keep them from straying, and built up the fire.

‘There's no real danger here in this meadow,' Flute assured them. ‘Trolls and Ogres like to stay in the forest. The hunting's easier for them when they can hide behind trees.'

The next morning dawned cloudy, and a chilly wind swept down from the mountain peaks, bending the tall grass in long waves. They rode hard that day, and by evening they had reached the foot of the peaks that towered white above them. ‘We can't make any fire tonight,' Flute said. ‘Ghwerig may be watching.'

‘Are we that close?' Sparhawk asked.

‘You see that ravine just ahead?'

‘Yes.'

‘Ghwerig's cave is at the upper end of it.'

‘Why didn't we just go on up there, then?'