Ulath stood up in his stirrups and raised his axe high over his head. The warrior in the winged helmet raised his shield to protect his head, but the huge Thalesian swung his arm back, rolled his shoulder and delivered an underhand blow instead, catching his opponent just under the ribs. The man who seemed to be the leader of the attackers doubled over sharply, clutching at his stomach, and then he fell from his saddle.
A vast groan rolled through the ranks of the attackers still on their feet, and then, like a mist caught by a sudden breeze, they wavered and vanished.
‘Where did they go?’ Berit shouted, looking around with alarm.
But no one could answer. Where there had been two score foot-troops before, there was now nothing, and a sudden silence fell over the field as the shrieking wounded also vanished. Only the dead remained, and even they were strangely altered. The bodies were peculiarly desiccated – dry, shrunken and withered. The blood which had covered their limbs was no longer bright red, 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 Drychtnath’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 Drychtnath 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 Ehlana?’
‘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,’