Baron Lathan’s army was just north of Sulturn by now, and the watch-fires made his camp easy to find. I made my last jump to an open hilltop about a half-mile from his picket-lines. Then I looked around carefully, reached into my bodice, and retrieved my champion. I carefully set him down on the grass, reversed the process that’d reduced him, and then said, ‘Wake up, dearest one.’
His eyes opened, and he wiped at his brow. ‘It seemeth to me that I have been in some place that was quite warm,’ he noted.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. I didn’t think it was necessary to tell him exactly where he’d spent the last half-hour. Now that I think about it, it probably had been quite warm there.
He looked around. ‘Precisely where are we, my beloved?’ he asked.
‘Just north of Sultum, dearest,’ I replied. That’s Lathan’s camp down there in the valley.’
‘I have slept long, it would appear.’
‘About a half-hour,’ I said. ‘Don’t start counting miles and minutes, dear heart. It’ll only give you a headache. Let’s just say it was one of “those things” and let it go at that.’
‘I shall be guided by thee in this, beloved.’
‘Good. You’ll have to identify yourself at the picket-line. Throw your rank around if you have to. We must speak with Lathan just as soon as possible.’
He squared his shoulders, offered me his arm, and we went on down the hill. It only took us about ten minutes to bull our way through the Wacite encampment to Baron Lathan’s tent. His orderly recognized Ontrose and immediately awakened our sleeping friend. ‘Ontrose?’ Lathan said, rubbing at his eyes. ‘I had thought that thou wert in Seline.’
‘I was there no more than an hour ago, my friend,’ Ontrose told him. ‘I am the most fortunate of men, for I have at my disposal a miraculous means of transport.’ He smiled fondly at me.
‘Your Grace,’ Lathan said, scrambling out of his cot.
‘Let’s just set aside formalities, Baron,’ I suggested. ‘We have a problem which we must immediately address. Tell him, Ontrose.’
‘Of a certainty, your Grace.’ Then my champion looked at his friend. ‘Our problem is simple to describe, Lathan,’ he said. “The solution may prove more difficult. In short, our revered Lady Polgara here hath applied her incomprehensible talent to the sometimes tedious process of gathering information. She but recently went forth to ascertain the precise location of the Asturian fleet.’
Lathan’s face grew wary at that point.
‘Needless to say,’ Ontrose continued, ‘she did succeed. The location of that fleet, however, doth baffle me. Her Grace doth assure me that Garteon’s ships do stand at anchor no more than ten leagues to the north of Camaar.’
I was watching Lathan closely, and he didn’t really seem all that surprised to me. I was right on the verge of sending out a probing thought.
‘No, Pol,’ mother’s voice interrupted me. ‘Let Ontrose do it. He has to find this out for himself.’
‘Find what out for himself?’ I demanded silently.
‘You’ll see.’ Then she was gone.
‘Her Grace and I have struggled with this at some length,’ Ontrose was saying, ‘and, recalling that thou wert in Asturia and that it wast thou who didst uncover this scheme, did we conclude that thou might be best qualified to unravel this peculiar turn of events. Mine own reasoning is somewhat pedestrian, I fear me. My best surmise gropingly suggested that this pause can only be explained by some grander plan. It seemeth to me that some date must have significance in Garteon’s overall scheme.’
‘I cannot fault thy reasoning, Ontrose,’ Lathan conceded, ‘and indeed I, whilst I was in Vo Astur, did catch some hint of just such a fascination with the calendar. I had not the time, however, to pursue it.’
‘Let us reason together, old friend,’ Ontrose suggested. ‘If a given date doth have such significance that a pause is dictated, doth that not imply that someone else is reading that self-same calendar?’
‘It doth indeed, Ontrose!’ Lathan exclaimed. I seemed to detect a slightly false note in his enthusiasm, however.
Then Ontrose, caught up in the momentum of his own reasoning, pursued it one step further. ‘But to whom would that calendar be of such interest, Lathan? If Garteon’s army is truly on board those ships, who is there left in Asturia to read calendars with such interest?’
Lathan’s change of expression was so slight that I very nearly missed it. It was no more than a slight tightening around his eyes. ‘Look out, Ontrose!’ I shouted.
Clearly, Baron Lathan was about two steps ahead of my champion, and he knew exactly where his friend’s line of thought would take him. He spun quickly and seized his sword from off the bench at the foot of his cot. Then he whirled, raising his sword to strike down my beloved.
I think, however, that Ontrose had not been quite so far behind Lathan as he might have appeared, for even as Lathan’s sword began its fatal descent, the sword of Ontrose came whispering out of its sheath and caught Lathan’s in mid-stroke.
‘And now is all made clear, Lathan,’ Ontrose said sadly. ‘All except why.’
Lathan swung his sword again, and Ontrose easily parried the stroke. Quite obviously, my champion didn’t need any help from me. I stepped back out of the way.
I’d hardly call what happened a fair fight. Lathan’s only chance had been that desperate first attack. After that failed, he didn’t really have any chance at all. Moreover, his expression quite clearly said that he knew he was going to lose. I got the uneasy feeling that he really preferred it that way.
It was noisy. A fight involving broadswords always is. The noise, naturally, attracted attention. My only contribution to the affair involved the tent where it was taking place. It still looked like a canvas tent, but steel is quite a bit softer than that tent was after I ‘modified’ it. I saw to it that there wouldn’t be any interruptions.
The end of the sword fight was announced by a gush of bright blood bursting forth from Baron Lathan’s mouth as my champion’s sword slid smoothly through his right lung. Lathan stiffened, dropped his sword, and then collapsed.
Ontrose was weeping when he knelt at his friend’s side. ‘Why, Lathan, why hast thou done this?’
Lathan coughed up more blood, and I knew from that visible sign that his wound was mortal and that there was nothing I could do to save his life. ‘It was to end my suffering, Ontrose,’ he said in a barely audible voice.