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 passed 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 nobody 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 earlship, 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, fishing several coins
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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 earlship,' 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 grass-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
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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.
Astonishingly, 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
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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 Bhelliom 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.
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Eddings, David - Elenium 2 - The Ruby Knight.txt
'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 c
hickens - 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
*Chapter10
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
shaggy-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 tirn
out very well, did it, Sparhawk?' he said morosely.
'We've got three men down, and we're still not any closer
to finding Bhelliom.'
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
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something - and fairly soon - his mind will slip away.'
Sparhawk shuddered at that. 'Can't you do anything
at all?'
She pursed her lips. "I've been thinking it over. The
mind is a much more difficult thing to work with than the
body. You have to be very careful.'
'What actually happened to him?' Ulath asked her. "I
didn't quite follow what you said before.'
'At the end of his incantation, he was totally open to
that creature from the mound. The dead usually wake
slowly, so you've got time to put up your defences. The
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