but black, dry and crusty. What kind of spell could do that, Sparhawk?’
Tynian demanded. ‘I have no idea,’ Sparhawk replied in some bafflement.
‘Someone’s playing, and I don’t think I like the game.’
‘Bronze!’ Bevier exclaimed from nearby. The young Cyrinic Knight had
dismounted and was examining the armour of one of the shrivelled dead.
‘They’re wearing bronze armour, Sparhawk. Their weapons and helmets are
steel, but this mail shirt’s made out of bronze.’
‘What’s going on here?’ Kalten demanded. ‘Berit,’ Sparhawk said, ‘ride
back to the mother house at Demos. Gather up every brother who can still
wear armour. I want them here before noon.’
‘Right,’ Berit replied crisply. He wheeled his horse and galloped back the
way they had come. Sparhawk looked around quickly. ‘Up there,’ he said,
pointing at a steep hill on the other side of the road. ‘Let’s gather up
this crowd and get them to the top of that hill. Put the courtiers and
grooms and footmen to work. I want ditches up there, and I want to see a
forest of sharpened stakes sprouting on the sides of that hill. I don’t
know where those men in bronze armour went, but I want to be ready in case
they come back.’
‘You can’t order me around like that!’ an overdressed courtier exclaimed to
Khalad in an outraged tone of voice. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’
‘Of course I do,’ Sparhawk’s young squire replied in an ominous tone of
voice. ‘You’re the man who’s going to pick up that shovel and start
digging. Or if you prefer, you can be the man who’s crawling around on his
hands and knees picking up his teeth.’ Khalad showed the courtier his fist.
The courtier could hardly miss seeing it, since it was about an inch in
front of his nose. ‘It’s almost like old times, isn’t it?’ Kalten laughed.
‘Khalad sounds exactly like Kurik.’ Sparhawk sighed. ‘Yes,’ he agreed
soberly, ‘I think he’s going to work out just fine. Get the others, Kalten.
We need to talk.’ They gathered beside Ehlana’s carriage. The queen was a
bit pale, and she was holding her daughter in her arms. ‘All right,’
Sparhawk said. ‘Who were they?’
‘Lamorks, evidently,’ Ulath said. ‘I doubt that anybody else would be able
to speak Old Lamork.’
‘But why would they be speaking in that language?’ Tynian asked. ‘Nobody’s
spoken in Old Lamork for a thousand years.’
‘And nobody’s worn bronze armour for even longer,’ Bevier added.
‘Somebody’s using a spell I’ve never even heard of before,’ Sparhawk said.
‘What are we dealing with here?’
‘isn’t that obvious!’ Stragen said. ‘Somebody’s reaching back into the
past – the same way the Troll-Gods did in Pelosia. We’ve got a powerful
magician of some kind out there who’s playing games.’
‘It fits,’ Ulath grunted. ‘They were speaking an antique language, they
had antique weapons and equipment, they weren’t familiar with modern
tactics, and somebody obviously used magic to send them back to wherever
they came from – except for the dead ones.’
‘There’s something else too,’ Bevier added thoughtfully. ‘They were
Lamorks, and part of the upheaval in Lamorkand right now revolves around
the stories that Drychhtnath’s returned. This attack makes it appear that
those stories aren’t just rumours and wild concoctions dreamed up late at
night in some ale-house. Could Count Gerrich be getting some help from a
Styric magician? If Drychnath himself has actually been brought into the
present, nothing’s going to pacify the Lamorks. They go up in flames at
just the mention of his name.’ That’s all very interesting, gentlemen,’
Ehlana told them, ‘but this wasn’t just a random attack. We’re a goodly
distance from Lamorkand, so these antiques of yours went to a great deal of
trouble to attack us specifically. The real question here is why?’
‘We’ll work on finding an answer for you, your Majesty,’ Tynian promised
her. Berit returned shortly before noon with three hundred armoured
Pandions, and the rest of the journey to Chyrellos had some of the air of a
military expedition. Their arrival in the Holy City and their stately march
through the streets to the Basilica was very much like a parade, and it
caused quite a stir. The Archprelate himself came out onto a second-floor
balcony to watch their arrival in the square before the Basilica. Even from
this distance, Sparhawk could clearly see that Dolmant’s nostrils were
white and his jaw was clenched. Ehlana’s expression was regal and coolly
defiant. Sparhawk lifted his daughter down from the carriage. ‘Don’t wander
off,’ he murmured into her small ear. ‘There’s `something I need to talk
with you about.’
‘Later,’ she whispered back to him. ‘i’ll have to make peace between
Dolmant and mother first.’
‘That’ll be a neat trick.’
‘Watch, Sparhawk – and learn.’ The Archprelate’s greeting was chilly just
this side of frigid – and he made it abundantly clear that he was just
dying to have a nice long chat with the Queen of Elenia. He sent for his
first secretary, the Patriarch Emban, and rather airily dropped the problem
of making arrangements for Ehlana’s entourage into the fat churchman’s lap.
Emban scowled and waddled away muttering to himself. Then Dolmant invited
the queen and her prince consort into a private audience chamber. Mirtai
stationed herself outside the door. ‘No hitting,’ she told Dolmant and
Ehlana as they entered. The small audience chamber was draped and carpeted
in blue, and there were a table and chairs in the centre. ‘Strange woman
that one,’ Dolmant murmured looking back over his shoulder at Mirtai. He
took his seat and looked at Ehlana with a firm expression. ‘Let’s get down
to business. Would you like to explain this, Queen Ellana?’
‘Of course, Archprelate Dolmant.’ She pushed his letter across the table
to him. ‘Just as soon as you explain this.’ There was steel in her voice.
He picked up the letter and glanced at it. ‘It seems fairly
straightforward. Which part of it didn’t you understand?’ Things went
downhill from there rather rapidly. Ehlana and Dolmant were on the verge of
severing all diplomatic ties when the ‘Royal Princess Danae entered the
room dragging the Royal Toy rollo by one hind leg. She gravely crossed the
room, climbed up into the Archprelate’s lap and kissed him. Sparhawk had
received quite a few of the kind of kisses his daughter bestowed when she
wanted something, and he was well-aware of just how devastatingly potent
they were. Dolmant didn’t really have much of a chance after that. ‘I
should have read through the letter before I had it dispatched, I suppose,’
he admitted grudgingly. ‘Scribes sometimes overstate things.’
‘Maybe I over-reacted,’ Ehlana conceded. ‘I had a great deal on my mind.’
Dolmant’s excuse had the tone of a peace-offering. , ‘I was irritable on
the day when your letter arrived,’ Ehlana countered. Sparhawk leaned back.
The tension in the room had noticeably relaxed. Dolmant had changed since
his elevation to the Archprelacy. Always before, he had been a
self-effacing’ man, so self-effacing in fact that his colleagues in the
Hierocracy had not even considered him for ‘the highest post in the Church
until Ehlana had pointed out his many sterling qualities to them. The irony
of that fact was not lost on Sparhawk. Now, however, Dolmant seemed to
speak with two voices. The one was the familiar, almost colloquial voice of
their old friend. The other was the voice of the Archprelate, authoritarian
and severe. The institution of his office seemed to be gradually annexing
their old friend. Sparhawk sighed. It was probably inevitable, but he
regretted it all the same. Ehlana and the Archprelate continued to
apologise and offer excuses to each other. After a while they agreed to
respect one another, and they concluded their conference by agreeing to pay
closer attention to little courtesies in the future. Princess Danae, still
seated in the Archprelate’s lap, winked at Sparhawk. There were quite a
number of political and theological implications in what she had just done,
but Sparhawk didn’t really want to think about those. The reason for the
peremptory summons which had nearly led to a private war between Ehlana and
Dolmant had been the arrival of a high-ranking emissary from the Tamul
Empire on the Daresian continent, that vast land-mass lying to the east of
Zemoch. Formal diplomatic relations between the Elene Kingdoms of Eosia and
the Tamul Empire of Daresia did not exist. The Church, however, routinely
dispatched emissaries with ambassadorial rank to the imperial capital at
Matherion, in some measure because the three western-most kingdoms of the
empire were occupied by Elenes, and their religion differed only slightly
from that of the Eosian Church. The emissary was a Tamul, a man of the same
race as Mirtai, although she would have made at least two of him. His skin
was the same golden bronze, his black hair touched with grey and his dark
eyes were uptilted at the corners. ‘He’s very good,’ Dolmant quietly
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