"is he hurt!' Bevier asked, dismounting and coming
towards them, his face showing his concern.
"I think he'll be all right.' Then Sparhawk rose,
controlling his temper with some effort. 'Sir Bevier,' he
said rather formally, 'you've had training in this sort of
thing. You know what you're supposed to do when
you're under attack. What possessed you to dash into the
middle of them like that?'
"I didn't think there were all that many of them,
Sparhawk,' Bevier replied defensively.
'There were enough. It only takes one to kill you.'
'You're vexed with me, aren't you, Sparhawk?'
Beviers voice was mournful.
Sparhawk looked at the young knight's earnest face for
a moment. Then he sighed. 'No, Bevier, I suppose not.
you just startled me, that's all. Please, for the sake of my
nerves, don't do unexpected things any more. I'm not
getting any younger, and surprises age me.'
'Perhaps I didn't consider the feelings of my comrades,'
Bevier admitted contritely. "I promise it will not
happen again.'
"I appreciate that, Bevier. Let's help Kalten back down
the hil. I want Sephrenia to take a look at him, and I'm
sure she'll want to have a taUc with him - a nice long one . '
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Kalten winced. "I don't suppose I could talk you into
leaving me here? This is nice soft dirt.'
'Not a chance, Kalten,' Sparhawk replied ruthlessly.
'Don't worry, though. She likes you, so she probably
won't do anything to you - nothing permanent,
anyway. '
*Chapter3
Sephrenia was tending a large, ugly-looking bruise on
Berit's upper arm when Sparhawk and Bevier helped the
weakly protesting Kalten down the hill to her.
"is it bad?' Sparhawk asked the young novice.
"It's nothing, My Lord,' Berit said bravely, although his
face was pale.
"is that the very first thing they teach you Pandions?'
Sephrenia asked acidly, ' - to make light of your injuries?
Berits mail-shirt stopped most of the blow, but in about
an hour his arm's going to be purple from elbow to
shoulder. He'll barely be able to use it.'
"you're in a cheerful humour this afternoon, little
mother,' Kalten said to her.
She pointed a threatening finger at him. 'Kalten,' she
said, 'sit. I'll deal with you after I've tended Berit's arm.'
Kalten sighed and slumped down onto the ground.
Sparhawk looked around. 'Where are ulath, Tynian
and Kurik?' he asked.
"They're scouting around to make sure there aren't any
more ambushes laid for us, Sir Sparhawk,' Berit replied.
"Good idea.'
That creature didn't look so very dangerous to me,'
Bevier said, ' - a little mysterious perhaps, but not all
that dangerous.'
"It didn't hit you,' Kalten told him. "It's dangerous, all
right. Take my word for it.'
"It's more dangerous than you could possibly imagine
Sephrenia said. "It can send whole armies after us.'
"if it's got the kind of power that knocked me off my
horse, it doesn't need armies."
'You keep forgetting, Kalten. Its mind is the mind of
Azash. The Gods prefer to have humans do their work
for them.'
'The men who came down that hill were like sleepwalkers,'
Bevier said, shuddering. 'We cut them to
pieces, and they didn't make a sound.' He paused,
frowning. 'I didn't think Styrics were so aggressive,' he
added. 'I've never seen one with a sword in his hand
before.'
'Those weren't western Styrics,' Sephrenia said, tying
off the padded bandage around Berit's upper arm. 'Try
not to use that too much,' she instructed. 'Give it time to
heal.'
'Yes, ma'am,' Berit replied. 'Now that you mention it,
though, it is getting a little sore.'
She smiled and put an affectionate hand on his
shoulder.
This one may be all right, Sparhawk. His head
isn't quite solid bone - like some I could name.' She
'Sephrenia,' the blond knight protested.
'Get out of the mail-shirt,' she told him crisply. 'i want
to see if you've broken anything.'
'You said the Styrics in that group weren't western
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Styrics,' Bevier said to her.
'No. They were Zemochs. It's more or less what we
guessed at back at that inn. The Seeker wil use anybody,
but a western Styric is incapable of using weapons made
of steel. If they'd been local people, their swords would
have been bronze or copper.' She looked critically at
Kalten, who had just removed his mail-shirt. She shuddered.
'you look like a blond rug,' she told him.
'it's not my fault, little mother,' he said, suddenly
blushing. 'All the men in my family have been hairy.'
Bevier looked puzzled. 'What finally drove that
creature off?' he asked.
'Flute,' Sparhawk replied. "She's done it before. She
even ran off the Damork once with her pipes.'
'This tiny child?' Bevier's tone was incredulous.
'There's more to Flute than meets the eye,' Sparhawk
told him. He looked out across the slope of the hill.
'Talen,' he shouted, 'stop that.'
Talen, who had been busily pillaging the dead, looked
up with some consternation. 'But Sparhawk -' he
began. just come away from there. That's disgusting.'
'But - '
'Do as he says!' Berit roared.
Talen sighed and came back down the hill.
'Let's round up the horses, Bevier,' Sparhawk said. 'As
soon as Kurik and the others get back, I think we'll want
to move on. That Seeker is still out there, and it can come
at us with a whole new group of people at any time.'
"It can do that at night as well as in the daylight,
Sparhawk,' Bevier said dubiously, 'and it can follow our
scent.'
"I know. At this point I think speed is our only defence.
We're going to have to try to outrun that thing again.'
Kurik, Ulath and Tynian returned as dusk was settling
over the desolate landscape. 'There doesn't seem to be
anybody else out there,' the squire reported, swinging
, down from his gelding.
'We're going to have to keep going,' Sparhawk told
him.
The horses are right on the verge of exhaustion,
Sparhawk,' the squire protested. He looked at the others.
'And the people aren't in much better shape. None of us
has had very ,much sleep in the last two days.'
'I'll take care of it,' Sephrenia said calmly, looking up
from her examination of Kalten's hairy torso.
'How?' Kalten sounded just a bit grummpy.
She smiled at him and wiggled her fingers under his
nose. 'How else?'
"if there's a spell that counteracts the way we're all
feeling right now, why didn't you teach it to us before?'
; Sparhawk was also feeling somewhat surly, since his
headache had returned.
'Because it's dangerous, Sparhawk,' she replied. "I
know you Pandions. Given certain circumstances, you'd
try to go on for weeks.'
'So? If the spell really works, what difference does it
make?: '
'The spell only makes you feel as if you've rested, but
you have not, in fact. If you push it too far, you'll die.'
'Oh. That stands to reason, I suppose.'
'I'm glad you understand.'
'How's Berit!' Tynian asked.
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'He'll be sore for a while, but he's all right,' she replied.
'The young fellow shows some promise,' Ulath said
'When his arm heals, I'll give him some instruction with
that axe of his. He's got the right spirit, but his technique's
a little shaky.'
'Bring the horses over here,' Sephrenia told them. She
began to speak in Styric, uttering some of the words
under her breath and concealing her moving fingers from
them. Try as he might, Sparhawk could not catch all of
the incantation, nor even guess at the gestures which
enhanced the spell. But suddenly he felt enormously
refreshed. The dull headache was gone, and his mind
was clear. One of the packhorses, whose head had been
drooping and whose legs had been trembling violently,
actually began to prance around like a colt.
'Good spell,' Ulath said laconically. "Shall we get
started?'
They helped Berit into his saddle and rode out in the
luminous twilight. The full moon rose an hour or so later,
and it gave them sufficient light to risk a canter.
'There's a road just over that hill up ahead,' Kurik told
Sparhawk. 'We saw it when we were looking around. It
goes more or less in the right direction, and we could
make better time if we follow it instead of stumbling over
broken ground in the dark.'
"I expect you're right,' Sparhawk agreed, 'and we want
to get out of this area as quickly as possible.'
When they reached the road, they pushed on to the
east at a gallop. It was well past midnight when clouds
moved in from the west, obscuring the night sky.
Sparhawk muttered an oath and slowed their pace.
just before dawn they came to a river, and the road
turned north. They followed it, searching for a bridge or a
ford. The dawn was gloomy under the heavy cloud
cover. They rode upriver a few more miles, and then the
road bent east again and ran down into the river to
emerge on the far side.
Beside the ford stood a small hut. The man who owned
the hut was a sharp-eyed fellow in a green tunic who
demanded a toll to cross. Rather than argue with him,
Sparhawk paid what he asked. 'Tell me, neighbour,' he
said when the transaction was completed, 'how far is the
Pelosian border?'
'About five leagues,' the sharp-eyed fellow replied. "if
you move swiftly, you should reach it by afternoon.'
"thanks, neighbour. You've been most helpful.'
They splashed on across the ford. When they reached
the other side, Talen rode up beside Sparhawk. 'Here's
your money back,' the young thief said, handing over
several coins.
Sparhawk gave him a startled look.
"I don't object to paying a toll to cross a bridge,' Talen
shrugged. 'After all, somebody had to go to the expense of
building it. That fellow was just taking advantage of a
natural shallow place in the river, though. It didn't cost
him anything, so why should he make a profit from it?'
"You cut his purse, then?'
'Naturally. '
'And there was more in it than just my coins?'
'A bit. Let's call it my fee for recovering your money.
After all, I deserve a profit too, don't I?'
'You're incorrigible.'
"I needed the practice.'
From the other side of the river there came a howl of
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anguish. "I'd say he just discovered his loss,' Sparhawk
observed.
"It does sound that way, doesn't it?'
The soil on the far side of the river was not a great deal
better than the scrubby wasteland through which they
had just passed. Occasionally they saw poor farmsteads
where shabby-looking peasants in muddy brown smocks
laboured long and hard to wrest scanty crops from the
unyielding earth. Kurik sniffed disdainfully. 'Amateurs,'
he grunted. Kurik took farming very seriously.
About mid-morning the narrow track they were following
joined a well-travelled road that ran due east. 'A
suggestion, Sparhawk,' Tynian said, shifting his blueblazoned
shield.
"Suggest away.'
"It might be better if we took this road to the border
rather than cutting across country again. Pelosians tend
to be sensitive about people who avoid the manned
border-crossings. They're obsessively concerned about
smugglers. I don't think we'd accomplish very much in a
skirmish with one of their patrols.'
'All right,' Sparhawk agreed. 'Let's stay out of trouble
if we can.'
Not very long after a dreary, sunless noon, they
reached the border and passed without incident into the
southern end of Pelosia. The farmsteads here were even
more run-down than they had been in north-eastern
Elenia. The houses and outbuildings were 'universally
roofed with sod, and agile goats grazed on the roofs.
Kurik looked about disapprovingly, but said nothing.
As evening settled over the landscape, they crested a
hill and saw the twinkling lights of a village in the valley
below. 'An inn perhaps?' Kalten suggested. "I think
Sephrenia's spell is starting to wear off. My horse is
staggering, and I'm in not much better shape.'
"you won't sleep alone in a Pelosian inn,' Tynian
warned. Their beds are usually occupied by all sorts of
unpleasant little creatures.'
"fleas?"" Kalten asked.
'And lice, and bed-bugs the size of mice.'
I suppose we'll have to risk it,' Sparhawk decided.
The horses won't be able to go much farther, and I don't
think the Seeker would attack us inside a building. It
seems to prefer open country.' He led the way down the
hill to the village.
The streets of the town were unpaved, and they were
ankledeep in mud. They reached the town's only inn,
and Sparhawk carried Sephrenia to the porch while
Kurik followed with flute. The steps leading up to the
door were caked with mud, and the boot-scraper beside
the door showed little signs of use. Pelosians, it
appeared, were indifferent to mud. The interior of the
inn was dim and smoky, and it smelled strongly of stale
sweat and spilled food. The floor had at one time been
covered with rushes, but except in the corners, the rushes were buried
in dried mud.
'Are you sure you don
't want to reconsider this?'
Tynian asked Kalten as they entered.
"my stomach's fairly strong,' Kalten replied, 'and I
caught a whiff of beer when we came in.'
The supper the innkeeper provided was at least edible,
although a bit over-garnished with boiled cabbage, and
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the beds, mere straw pallets, were not nearly as bug-infested
as Tynian had predicted.
They rose early the next morning and rode out of the
muddy village in a murky dawn.
'Doesn't the sun ever shine in this part of the world?'
Talen asked sourly. "It's spring,' Kurik told him. "It's always cloudy and
rainy in the spring. It's good for the crops.'
"I'm not a radish, Kurik,' the boy replied. "I don't need
to be watered.'
'Talk to God about it,' Kurik shrugged. "I don't make
the weather.'
'God and I aren't on the best of terms,' Talen said
glibly. 'He's busy, and so am i. We try not to interfere
with each other.'
'The boy is pert,' Bevier observed disapprovingly.
'Young man,' he said, 'it is not proper to speak so of the
Lord of the universe.'
'You are an honoured Knight of the Church, Sir
Bevier,' Talen pointed out. "I am but a thief of the streets.
Different rules apply to us. God's great flower-garden
needs a few weeds to offset the splendour of the roses.
I'm a weed. I'm sure God forgives me for that, since I'm a
part of his grand design.'
Bevier looked at him helplessly, and then began to
laugh. They rode warily across south-eastern Pelosia for the
next several days, taking turns scouting on ahead and
riding to hilltops to survey the surrounding countryside.
The sky remained dreary as they pushed on to the east.
They saw peasants - serfs actually - labouring in the
fields with the crudest of implements. There were birds
nesting in the hedges, and occasionally they saw deer
grazing among herds of scrubby cattle.
While there were people about, Sparhawk and his
friends saw no more church soldiers or Zemochs. They
remained cautious, however, avoiding people when
possible and continuing their scouting, since they all
knew the black-robed Seeker could enlist even normally
timid serfs to do its bidding.
As they came closer to the border of Lamorkand, they
received increasingly disturbing reports concerning termoil
in that kingdom. Lamorks were not the most stable
people in the world. The King of Lamorkand ruled only