Chapter 8

The weather had turned cold, and the sullen afternoon sky was spitting pellets of hard-frozen snow. A hundred cloaked and black-armoured Pandion Knights rode at a jingling trot through the heavily forested region near the Arcian border with Sparhawk and Sephrenia in the lead. They had been travelling for five days.

Sparhawk glanced up at the sky and reined in the black horse he was riding. The horse reared, pawing at the air with his front hooves. ‘Oh, stop that,’ Sparhawk told him irritably.

‘He’s very enthusiastic, isn’t he?’ Sephrenia said. ‘He’s also not very bright. I’ll be glad when we catch up with Kalten and I can get Faran back.’

‘Why are we stopping?’

‘It’s close to evening, and that grove over there seems to be fairly clear of undergrowth. We may as well set up our night’s encampment here.’ He raised his voice then, calling back over his shoulder. ‘Sir Parasim,’ he shouted.

The young knight with the butter-coloured hair rode forward. ‘Yes, my Lord Sparhawk?’ he said in his light tenor voice.

‘We’ll stop for the night here,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘As soon as the wagons get here, set up Sephrenia’s tent for her and see to it that she has everything she needs.’

‘Of course, my Lord.’

The sky had turned a chill purple by the time Sparhawk had overseen the setting up of their encampment and had posted sentries. He walked past the tents and the flickering cooking fires to join Sephrenia at the small fire before her tent, which was set slightly apart from the rest of the camp. He smiled when he saw her ever-present tea-kettle hanging from a metal tripod which she had set over the flames.

‘Something amusing, Sparhawk?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not really’ He looked back towards the youthful knights moving around their cooking fires. ‘They all seem so young,’ he said almost as if to himself, ‘hardly more than boys.’

‘That’s the nature of things, Sparhawk. The old make the decisions, and the young carry them out.’

‘Was I ever that young?’

She laughed. ‘Oh yes, dear Sparhawk,’ she told him. ‘You couldn’t begin to believe how young you and Kalten were when you came to me for your first lessons. I felt as if a pair of babies had been placed in my care’

He made a rueful face ‘I guess that answers that question, doesn’t it?’ He held out his hands to the warmth of her fire. ‘It’s a cold night. I think my blood thinned out while I was in Jiroch. I haven’t been really warm since I came back to Elenia. Did Parasim bring you your supper?’

‘Yes. He’s a very nice boy, isn’t he?’

Sparhawk laughed. ‘He’d probably be offended if he heard you say that.’