"Sorry. I'll go and talk with Ulath. I want to find out exactly how to go about attacking a Troll."
He found the big Genidian Knight dozing under a tree.
"What's happening?" Ulath said, one of his blue eyes opening.
"Flute says that Ghwerig's probably hiding right now.
He's not moving, at any rate. He's likely to come past here sometime tonight."
Ulath nodded. "Trolls like to move around in the dark," he said. "It's their customary hunting time."
"What's the best way to deal with him?"
"Lances might work - if we all charge him at the same time. One of us might be able to get in a lucky thrust."
"This is a little too serious to be trusting to luck."
"It's worth a try - for a start, anyway. We'll probably still have to fall back on swords and axes. We'll need to be very careful, though. You have to watch out for a Troll's arms. They're very long, and Trolls are much more agile than they look."
"You seem to know a great deal about them. Have you ever fought one?"
"A few times, "yes. It's not really the sort of thing you want to make a habit of. Has Berit still got that bow of his?"
"I think so, yes."
"Good. That's usually the best way to start on a Troll slow him down with a few arrows and then move in to finish up."
"Will he have any weapons?"
"Maybe a club. Trolls don't really have the knack of working in iron or steel."
"How did you ever learn their language?"
"We had a pet Troll in our chapterhouse at Heid. Found him when he was a cub, but Trolls are born knowing how to speak their language. He was an affectionate little rascal at least at first. Turned mean on us later on, though. I learned the language from him while he was growing up."
"You say he turned mean?"
"It wasn't really his fault, Sparhawk. When a Troll grows up, he starts to get these urges, and we didn't have time to hunt down a female for him. And then his appetite started to get out of hand. He'd eat a couple of cows or a horse every week."
"What finally happened to him?"
"One of our brothers went out to feed him, and he attacked. The brothers couldn't have that, so we decided that we'd have to kill him. It took five of us, and most of us had to take to our beds for a week or so afterwards."
"Ulath," Sparhawk said suspiciously, "are you pulling my leg?"
"Would I do that? Trolls aren't really too bad - as long as you've got plenty of armed men around you. An arrow in the belly usually makes them kind of cautious. It's the Ogres you've got to watch out for. They don't have enough brains to be cautious." He scratched at his cheek.
"There was an Ogress once who developed an unreasoning Passion for one of the brothers at Heid," he said. "She wasn't too bad-looking - for an Ogress. She kept her fur fairly clean and her horns shiny. She even used to polish her fangs. They chew granite to do that, you know.
Anyhow, as I was saying, she was wildly in love with this knight at Heid. She used to lurk in the woods and sing to him - most awful sound you ever heard. She could sing all the needles off a pine tree at a hundred paces. The knight finally couldn't stand it any more, and he entered a monastery. She just pined away after that."
"Ulath, I know you're pulling my leg now."
"Why, Sparhawk," Ulath protested mildly.
Then the best way to get Ghwerig out of the way is to stand back and shoot him full of arrows?"
"For a start. We'll still have to get in close though. Trolls have very tough hide and thick fur. Arrows don't usually penetrate very deep, and trying to do it in the dark is going to make it very tricky."
"Flute says she can make enough light for us."
"She's a very strange person, isn't she? - even for a Styric?"
"That she is, my friend."
"How old do you think she really is?"
"I have no idea. Sephrenia won't even give me a clue. I do know that she's much, much older than she appears to be, and much wiser than any of us can guess."
"After the way she got that Seeker off our backs, I don't think it would hurt us to do as she says for a while."
"I'd agree to that," Sparhawk said.
"Sparhawk," the little girl called sharply, "come here."
"I just wish she wouldn't be so imperious all the time," Sparhawk muttered, turning around to answer the summons.
"Ghwerig's doing something I don't understand," she said when he rejoined her.
"What's that?"
"He's moving out onto the lake."
"He must have found a boat," Sparhawk said. "Ulath tells us that he can't swim. Which way's he going?"
She closed her eyes in concentration. "More or less to the north-west. He'll miss the city of Venne and come out on the west side of the lake. We're going to have to ride on down there if we're going to intercept him."
"I'll tell the others." Sparhawk said. "How fast is he moving?"
"Very slowly right now. I don't think he knows how to row a boat very well."
"That might give us a little time to get there before he does."
They broke their minimal encampment and rode south on the Alaris road along the west side of Lake Venne as twilight settled over western Pelosia.
"Will you be able to pinpoint his approximate landing place from the sense you're picking up from Bhelliom?"
Sparhawk asked Flute, who rode in Sephrenia's arms.
"To within a half-mile or so," she replied. "It gets more precise as he gets closer to shore. There are currents and winds and that sort of thing, you understand."
"Is he still moving slowly?"
"Even more so. Ghwerig has certain difficulties with his shoulders and hips. It makes rowing very difficult for him."
"Can you make any kind of guess about when he'll make it to shore here on the west side of the lake?"
"In his present condition, not until well after daybreak tomorrow. At this point he's fishing. He needs food."
"With his hands?"
Trolls are very, very fast with their hands. The lake surface confuses him. Most of the time, he's not even sure which way he's going. Trolls have a very poor sense of direction - except for north. They can feel the pull of the pole through the earth. On water, though, they're almost helpless."
"We've got him then."
"Don't plan the victory celebration until after you've won the fight, Sparhawk," she said tartly.
"You're a very disagreeable little girl, Flute. Do you know that?"
"But you do love me, don't you?" she said with disarming ingenuousness.
"What can you do?" he asked Sephrenia, helplessly.
"She's impossible."
"Answer her question, Sparhawk," she suggested.
"It's more important than you realize."
"Yes, God help me," he said to Flute, "I do. There are times when I want to spank you, but I do love you."
"That's all that's important," she sighed. Then she snuggled up in Sephrenia's protective robe and went promptly to sleep.
They patrolled a long stretch of the western shore of Lake Venne, peering out into the darkness that had settled over the lake. Gradually during the long night, Flute narrowed the area of their patrol, bringing them closer and closer together.
"How can you tell?" Kalten demanded of her a few hours past midnight."
"Would he understand?" Flute asked Sephrenia.
"Kalten? Probably not, but you can try to explain it, if you'd like." Sephrenia smiled. "We all need a bit of frustration in our lives from time to time."
"It feels differently when Bhelliom's moving at a diagonal than when it's coming at you head-on," Flute tried.
"Oh," he said dubiously, "that makes sense, I suppose."
"See," Flute said triumphantly to Sephrenia, "I knew I could make him understand."
"Only one question," Kalten added. "What's diagonal?"
"Oh dear," she said, pressing her face against Sephrenia in a gesture of despair.
"Well, what is it?" Kalten appealed to his fellow knights. "Let's swing south a bit, Kalten, and keep an eye on the lake," Tynian said. "I'll explain it to you as we go along."
"You," Sephrenia said to Ulath, who had a faint smile on his face, "not a word."
"I didn't say anything."
Sparhawk turned Faran and rode slowly back towards the north, looking out at the dark waters.
The moon rose late that night, and it cast a long, glittering path across the surface of the lake. Sparhawk relaxed a bit then. Looking for a Troll in the dark had been a very tense business. It seemed somehow almost too easy now. All they had to do was wait for Ghwerig to reach the lake-shore. After all the difficulties and setbacks that had dogged them since they had set out in search of Bhelliom, the idea of just being able to sit and wait for it to be delivered to them made Sparhawk a little uneasy. He had an ominous suspicion that something was going to go wrong. If all the things that had happened in Lamorkand and here in Pelosia were any indication, something was bound to go wrong. Their quest had been dogged by near-disaster almost from the moment they had left the chapterhouse at Cimmura, and Sparhawk saw no reason to hope that this situation would be any different.
Once again the sun rose in a rusty sky, a coppery disc hanging low over the brown-stained waters of the lake.
Sparhawk rode wearily back through the grove of trees from which they kept watch to where Sephrenia and the children were waiting. "How far away is he now!" he asked flute.
"He's about a mile out in the lake," she replied. "He's stopped again."
"Why does he keep stopping?" Sparhawk was growing increasingly irritated by these periodic halts in the Troll's progress across the lake.
"Would you like to hear a guess?" Talen asked.
"Go ahead."
"I stole a boat once because I had to get across the Cimmura River. The boat leaked. I had to stop every five "minutes or so to bail out the water. Ghwerig's been stopping about every half-hour. Maybe his boat doesn't leak as much as mine did."
Sparhawk stared at the boy for a moment, and then he suddenly burst out laughing. "Thanks, Talen," he said, feeling suddenly much better.
"No charge," the boy replied impudently. "You see, Sparhawk, the easiest answer is usually the right one."
"So, I've got a Troll out there in a leaky boat, and I've got to wait here on shore until he gets all the water out of it."
"That pretty well sums it up, yes."
Tynian rode in at a canter. "Sparhawk," he said quietly, "we've got some riders coming from the west.
"How many?"
"Too many to count with ease."
"Let's take a look." The two rode back through the trees to where Kalten, Ulath and Bevier were sitting their horses looking off to the west. "I've been watching them, Sparhawk," Ulath said. "I think they're Thalesians."
"What are Thalesians doing here in Pelosia?"
"Remember what that innkeeper told you back in Venne?" Kalten said, " - about a war going on down in Arcium? Didn't he say that the western kingdoms are mobilizing?"
"I'd forgotten about that," Sparhawk admitted. "Well, it's none of our concern - at least not for the moment."
Kurik and Berit rode up. "I think we've seen him, Sparhawk," Kurik reported. "At least, Berit has."
Sparhawk looked quickly at the novice.
"I climbed a tree, Sir Sparhawk," Berit explained.
"There's a small boat some distance off-shore. I couldn't make out too many details, but it looks as if it's just drifting, and there seems to be some splashing going on."
Sparhawk laughed wryly. "I guess Talen was right," he said.
"I don't quite follow, Sir Sparhawk."
"He said that Ghwerig Probably stole a leaky boat, and that he has to stop every so often to bail out the water."
"You mean we've been waiting all night while Ghwerig scoops the water out of his boat?" Kalten asked.
"It looks that way," Sparhawk said.
"They're getting closer, Sparhawk," Tynian said, pointing to the west.
"And they're definitely Thalesians," Ulath added.
Sparhawk swore and went to the edge of the trees. The approaching men were formed up in a column and at the head of the column rode a large man in a mail-shirt and a purple cape. Sparhawk recognized him. It was King Wargun of Thalesia, and he appeared to be roaring drunk. Beside him rode a pale, slender man in a highly decorated but somewhat delicate suit of armour.
"The one beside Wargun is King Soros of Pelosia," Tynian said quietly. "I don't think he poses much of a danger. He spends most of his time praying and fasting."
"We do have a problem, though, Sparhawk, " Ulath said gravely. "Ghwerig's going to be coming ashore very shortly, and he's got the royal crown of Thalesia with him. Wargun would give his very soul to get that crown back. I hate to say it, but we'd better lead him away from here before Ghwerig reaches the lake-shore."
Sparhawk began to swear in frustration. His suspicions of the previous night had turned out to be all too correct.
"We'll be all right, Sparhawk," Bevier assured him.
"Flute can follow Bhelliom's trail. We'll get King Wargun some distance away and then take our leave of him. We can come back later and chase down the Troll."
"It doesn't look as if we have much choice," Sparhawk conceded. "Let's go and get Sephrenia and the children and draw Wargun away from here."
They mounted quickly and rode back to where Sephrenia, Talen and Flute were waiting. "We're going to have to leave," Sparhawk said tersely. "There are some Thalesians coming, and King Wargun's with them. Ulath says that if Wargun finds out what we're here for, he'll try to take the crown away from us as soon as we get our hands on it. Let's ride."
They left the trees on the margin of the lake at a gallop, heading north. As they had anticipated, the column of Thalesian troops moved in pursuit. "We need a couple of miles at least," Sparhawk shouted to the others. "We've got to give Ghwerig a chance to get away."