‘I can get you through eastern Pelosia and well into Zemoch, friend Sparhawk,’ Kring said. ‘If the Zemochs are all spread out, my horsemen can ride right through them. We’ll leave a swath of bodies five miles wide from Paler to the Zemoch border – all minus their right ears of course.’ Kring’s broad grin was wolfish. He looked around in a self-congratulatory way. Then he saw Mirtai, who sat demurely beside Ehlana. His eyes went wide, and he first went pale and then bright red. Then he sighed lustily.

‘I wouldn’t, if I were you,’ Sparhawk warned him.

‘What?’

‘I’ll explain later.’

‘I hate to admit it,’ Bevier said, ‘but this plan’s looking better and better. We really shouldn’t have much trouble at all getting to Otha’s capital.’

‘We?’ Kalten asked.

‘We were going to go along, weren’t we, Kalten?’

‘Has it got any chance at all of working, little mother?’ Vanion asked.

‘No, Lord Vanion, it hasn’t!’ Ehlana interrupted him. ‘Sparhawk can’t go to Zemoch and use Bhelliom to kill Azash because he doesn’t have both rings. I’ve got one of them, and he’ll have to kill me to get it away from me.’

That was something Sparhawk had not considered. ‘My Queen –’ he began.

‘I have not given you leave to speak, Sir Sparhawk!’ she told him. ‘You will not pursue this vain and foolhardy scheme! You will not throw your life away! Your life is mine, Sparhawk! Mine! You do not have our permission to take it from us!’

‘That’s plain enough,’ Wargun said, ‘and it takes us right back to where we started from.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Dolmant said quietly. He rose to his feet. ‘Queen Ehlana,’ he said sternly, ‘will you submit to the will of our holy mother, the Church?’

She looked at him defiantly.

‘Will you?’

‘I am a true daughter of the Church,’ she said sullenly.

‘I’m delighted to hear it, my child. It is the command of the Church that you surrender this trinket into her hands for some brief time that she may use it in furtherance of her work.’

‘That’s not fair, Dolmant,’ she accused.

‘Will you defy the Church, Ehlana?’

‘I – I can’t!’ she wailed.

‘Then give me the ring.’ He held out his hand.

Ehlana burst into tears. She clutched his arms and buried her face in his robe.

‘Give me the ring, Ehlana,’ he repeated.

She looked up at him, dashing the tears from her eyes with one defiant hand.

‘Only on one condition, Sarathi,’ she countered.

‘Will you try to bargain with our holy mother?’