"It could be a little early to say for sure."
"At least it's a start."
The damp forest on the far side of the river was composed of mossy old cedars with low-swooping green boughs, and the trail leading into it was poorly marked.
"Well?" Sparhawk said to Sephrenia.
"They're here," she told him. "They're watching us."
They'll hide when we approach their village, won't they?"
"Probably. Styrics have little reason to trust armed Elenes. I should be able to persuade at least some of them to come out, though."
Like all Styric villages, the place was rude. The thatch roofed huts were scattered haphazardly in a clearing, and there was no street of any kind. As Sephrenia had predicted, there was no one about. The small woman leaned over and spoke briefly to Flute in that Styric dialect Sparhawk did not understand. The little girl nodded, lifted her pipes and began to play.
At first nothing happened.
"I think I just saw one of them back in the trees," Kalten said after a few moments.
Timid, aren't they?" Talen said.
"They have reason to be," Sparhawk told him. "Elenes don't treat Styrics very well."
Flute continued to play, and after a time a white bearded man in a smock made of unbleached homespun emerged hesitantly from the forest. He put his hands together in front of his chest and bowed respectfully to Sephrenia, speaking to her in Styric. Then he looked at Flute, and his eyes widened. He bowed again, and she gave him an impish little smile.
"Aged one," Sephrenia said to him, "do you perchance speak the language of the Elenes?"
"I have a passing familiarity with it, my sister," he replied. "Good. These knights have a few questions, and then we'll leave your village and trouble you no more."
"I will answer as best I can."
"Some time back," Sparhawk began, "we chanced upon a tinker who told us something a bit disquieting. He said that Styrics have been digging in the battlefield at Lake Randera for centuries, searching for a treasure. That doesn't seem like the sort of thing Styrics would do."
"It is not, My Lord," the old man said flatly. "We have no need of treasure, and we would most certainly not violate the graves of those who sleep there."
"I thought that might be the case. Have you any idea of who those Styrics might be?"
"They are not of our kindred, Sir Knight, and they serve a God whom we despise."
"Azash?" Sparhawk guessed.
The old man blanched slightly. "I will not speak His name aloud, Sir Knight, but you have hit upon my meaning."
"Then the men digging at the lake are Zemochs?"
The old man nodded. "We have known of their presence there for centuries. We do not go near them, for they are unclean."
"I think we'd all agree to that," Tynian said. "Have you got any idea of what they're looking for?"
"Some ancient talisman that Otha craves for his God."
"The tinker we spoke with said that most people around here believe there's a vast treasure there somewhere."
The old man smiled. "Elenes tend to exaggerate things," he said. "They cannot believe that the Zemochs would devote so much effort to the finding of one single thing - although the thing they seek is of greater worth than all the treasure in the world."
That answers that question, doesn't it?" Kalten noted.
"Elenes have an indiscriminate lust for gold and -precious gems," the old Styric went on, "and so it's entirely possible that they don't even know what they're looking for. They expect huge chests of treasure, but "there are no such chests to be found on that field. It's not impossible that some one of them might already have found the object and cast it aside, not knowing its worth."
"No, aged master," Sephrenia disagreed. "The talisman of which you speak has not yet been found. Its uncovering would ring like a giant bell through all the world."
"It may be as you say, my sister. Do you and your companions also journey to the lake in search of the talisman?"
"Such is our intent," she replied, "and our quest is of some urgency. If nothing else, we must deny possession of the talisman to Otha's God."
"I shall pray to my God for your success then." The old Styric looked back at Sparhawk. "How fares it with the head of the Elene Church?" he asked carefully.
The Archprelate is very old," Sparhawk told him truthfully, "and his health is failing."
The old man sighed. "It is as I feared," he said.
"Although I am sure he would not accept the good wishes of a Styric, I nonetheless also pray to my God that he will live for many more years."
"Amen to that," Ulath said.
The white-bearded Styric hesitated. "Rumour states that the Primate of a place called Cimmura is most likely to become the head of your Church," he said cautiously.
"That could be a bit exaggerated," Sparhawk told him.
"There are many in the Church who oppose the ambitions of Primate Annias. A part of our own purpose is to thwart him as well."
"Then I shall pray for you doubly, Sir Knight. Should Annias reach the throne in Chyrellos, it will be a disaster for Styricum."
"And for just about everybody else as well," Ulath grunted.
"It will be far more deadly for Styrics, Sir Knight. The feelings of Annias of Cimmura about our race are widely known. The authority of the Elene Church has kept the hatred of the Elene commons in check, but should Annias succeed, he will probably remove that restraint, and I fear Styricum will be doomed."
"We will do all we can to prevent his reaching the throne," Sparhawk promised.
The old Styric bowed. "May the hands of the Younger Gods of Styricum protect you, my friends." He bowed again to Sephrenia and then to flute.
"Let's move on," Sephrenia said. "We're keeping the other villagers away from their homes."
They rode out of the village and back into the forest.
"So the people digging up the battlefield are Zemochs," Tynian mused. "They're creeping all over western Eosia, aren't they?"
"We have known that it's all part of Otha's plan for generations," Sephrenia said. "Most Elenes cannot tell the difference between western Styrics and Zemochs. Otha does not want any kind of alliance or reconciliation between western Styrics and Elenes. A few well-placed atrocities have kept the prejudices of the Elene common people inflamed, and the stories of such incidents grow with every telling. This has been the source of centuries of general oppression and random massacres."
"Why does the possibility of an alliance worry Otha so much?" Kalten sounded puzzled. "There aren't enough Styrics in the west to pose that much of a threat, and since they won't touch steel weapons, they wouldn't be of much use if war breaks out again, would they?"
The Styrics would fight with magic, not steel, Kalten," Sparhawk told him, "and Styric magicians know a lot more about it than the Church Knights."
"The fact that the Zemochs are at Lake Randera is promising, though," Tynian said.
"How so?" Kalten asked.
"If they're still digging, it means they haven't found Bhelliom yet. It also hints at the fact that we're going to the right place."
"I'm not so sure," Ulath disagreed. "If they've been looking for Bhelliom for the last five hundred years and still haven't found it, maybe Lake Randera's not the right place."
"Why haven't the Zemochs tried necromancy? The way we're going to?" Kalten asked.
"Thalesian spirits would not respond to a Zemoch necromancer," Ulath replied. "They'll probably talk to me, but not to anybody else."
"It's a good thing you're along then, Ulath," Tynian said. "I'd hate to go to all the trouble of raising ghosts and then find out that they won't talk to me."
"If you raise them, I'll talk with them."
"You didn't ask him about the Seeker," Sparhawk said to Sephrenia.
"There was no need. It would only have frightened him. Besides, if those villagers had known the Seeker was in this part of the world, the village would have been abandoned."
"Maybe we should have warned him."
"No, Sparhawk. Life is hard enough for those people without turning them into vagabonds. The Seeker is looking for us. The villagers are in no danger."
It was late afternoon by the time they reached the edge of the woods. They halted there and peered out over seemingly deserted fields. "Let's camp back here among the trees," Sparhawk said. "That's awfully open ground out there. I'd rather not have anyone see our fire if I can avoid it."
They rode back among the trees a short way and set up camp for the night. Kalten walked out to the edge of the wood to keep watch. Shortly after dark, he returned.
"You'd better hide that fire a little better," he told Berit.
"You can see it from the edge of the trees."
"Right away, Sir Kalten," the young novice replied. He took a spade and banked more earth around their small cook-fire.
"We're not the only ones around here, Sparhawk," the big blond Pandion said seriously. "There are a couple of fires about a mile out there in those fields."
"Let's go and have a look," Sparhawk said to Tynian and Ulath. "We'll need to pinpoint the locations so we can slip around them in the morning. Even if the Seeker won't be a problem for several more days, there are still other people trying to keep us away from the lake. Coming, Kalten?"
"Go ahead," his friend said. "I haven't eaten yet."
"We might need you to point the fires out to us."
"You can't miss them," Kalten said, filling his wooden bowl. "Whoever built them wants lots of light."
"He's very attached to his stomach, isn't he?" Tynian said as the three knights walked towards the edge of the wood.
"He eats a great deal," Sparhawk admitted, "but he's a big man, so it takes a lot of food to keep him going."
The fires far out in the open fields were clearly visible.
Sparhawk carefully noted the locations. "We'll swing north, I think," he said quietly to the others. "Probably we'll want to stay in the woods until we get well past those camps out there."
"Peculiar," Ulath said.
"What is?" Tynian asked.
Those camps aren't very far apart. If the men out there know each other, why didn't they make just one camp?"
"Maybe they don't like each other."
"Why did they camp so close together then?"
Tynian shrugged. "Who knows why Lamorks do anything?"
"There's nothing we can do about them tonight," Sparhawk said. "Let's go back."
Sparhawk awoke just before dawn. When he went to rouse the others, he found that Tynian, Berit and Talen were missing. Tynian's absence was easily explained. He was on watch at the edge of the woods. The novice and the boy, however, had no business being out of their beds. Sparhawk swore and went to wake Sephrenia.
"Berit and Talen have gone off somewhere," he told her.
She looked around at the darkness pressing in on their well-hidden camp. "We'll have to wait until it gets light," she said. "If they're not back by then, we'll have to go and look for them. Stir up the fire, Sparhawk, and put my tea-kettle near the flame."
The sky to the east was growing lighter when Berit and Talen returned to camp. They both looked excited, and their eyes were very bright.
"Just where have you two been?" Sparhawk demanded angrily.
"Satisfying a curiosity," Talen replied. "We went to pay a visit on our neighbours."
"Can you translate that for me, Berit?"
"We crept across the fields to have a look at the people around those campfires out there, Sir Sparhawk."
"Without asking me first?"
"You were asleep," Talen explained quickly. "We didn't want to wake you."
"They're Styrics, Sir Sparhawk," Berit said seriously, "at least some of them are. There's a fair scattering of Lamork peasants among them, though. The men around the other fire are all church soldiers."
"Could you tell if the ones you saw were western Styrics or Zemochs?"
"I can't tell one kind of Styric from another, but the ones out there have swords and spears." Berit frowned. This might have been my imagination, but all the men out there are sort of numb looking. Do you remember how blank the faces of that group of ambushers back in Elenia were?"
"Yes."
"The people out there look more or less the same, and they're not talking to each other or even sleeping, and they haven't posted any sentries."
"Well, Sephrenia?" Sparhawk said. "Could the Seeker have recovered more quickly than you thought it would?"
"No," she replied, frowning. "It could have set those men in our path before it went on to Cimmura, however. They'd follow any instructions it might have given them, but they wouldn't be able to respond to any new situations without its presence."
"They'd recognize us though, wouldn't they?"
"Yes. The Seeker would have implanted that in their minds."
"And they'd attack us if they saw us?
"Inevitably."
"Then I think we'd better move on," he said. "Those people out there are just a little too close to make me feel entirely comfortable. I don't like riding through strange country before it's full~ light, but under the circumstances - "
Then he turned sternly to Berit. "I appreciate the information you've brought us, Berit, but you shouldn't have gone off without telling me first, and you most definitely should not have taken Talen along. You and I are paid to take certain risks, but you have absolutely no right to endanger him."
"He didn't know I was tagging along behind him, Sparhawk," Talen said glibly. "I saw him get up, and I was curious about what he was doing, so I sneaked after him. He didn't even know I was there until we were almost to those campfires."
That's not precisely true, Sir Sparhawk," Berit disagreed with a pained look. "Talen woke me and suggested that the two of us should go and have a look at those men out there. It seemed like a very good idea at the time. I'm sorry. I didn't even think of the fact that I was putting him in danger."