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the slowest horse.’
    ‘I know that, Sparhawk,’ Vanion replied patiently. ‘You won’t need to stay with them for very long. Wait until you’re out in open country and the sun comes up. Make sure nobody’s too close behind you and then slip away from the column. The knights will ride on to Demos. If anybody’s following, they won’t know you aren’t still in the middle of the column.’
    Sparhawk grinned. ‘Now I know how you got to be Preceptor, my friend. Who’s leading the column?’
    ‘Olven.’
    ‘Good. Olven’s dependable.’
    ‘Go with God, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said, clasping the big knight’s hand, ‘and be careful.’
    ‘I’m certainly going to try.’
    Sir Olven was a bulky Pandion Knight with a number of angry red scars on his face. He came out of the chapterhouse wearing full armour, enamelled black. His men trailed out behind him. ‘Good to see you again, Sparhawk,’ he said as Vanion went back inside. Olven spoke very quietly to avoid alerting the church soldiers camped outside the front gate. ‘All right,’ he went on, ‘you and the others ride in the middle of us. With this fog, those soldiers probably won’t see you. We’ll drop the drawbridge and go out fast. We don’t want to be in sight for more than a minute or two.’
    ‘That’s more words than I’ve heard you use at one time in the last twenty years,’ Sparhawk said to his normally silent friend.
    ‘I know,’ Olven agreed. ‘I’ll have to see if I can’t cut back a little.’
    Sparhawk and his friends wore mail-shirts and travellers’ cloaks, since formal armour attracts attention out in the countryside. Their armour, however, was carefully stowed in packs on the string of a half-dozen horses Kurik would lead. They mounted, and the armoured men formed up around them. Olven made a signal to the men at the windlass that raised and lowered the drawbridge, and the men slipped the rachets, allowing the windlass to run freely. There was a noisy rattle of chain, and the drawbridge dropped with a huge boom. Olven was galloping across it almost before it hit the far side of the fosse.
    The dense fog helped enormously. As soon as he had galloped across the bridge, Olven cut sharply to the left, leading the column across the open field towards the Demos road. Behind them, Sparhawk could hear startled shouts as the church soldiers ran out of their tents to stare after the column in chagrin.
    ‘Slick,’ Kalten said gaily. ‘Across the drawbridge and into the fog in under a minute.’
    ‘Olven knows what he’s doing,’ Sparhawk said, ‘and what’s even better is that it’s going to be at least an hour before the soldiers can mount any kind of pursuit.’
    ‘Give me an hour’s head start, and they’ll never catch me,’ Kalten laughed delightedly. ‘This is starting out very well, Sparhawk.’
    ‘Enjoy it while you can. Things will probably start to go wrong later on.’
    ‘You’re a pessimist, do you know that?’
    ‘No. I’m just used to little disappointments.’
    They slowed to a canter when they reached the Demos road. Olven was a veteran, and he always tried to conserve his horses. Speed might be necessary later, and Sir Olven took very few chances.
    A full moon hung above the fog, and it made the thick mist deceptively luminous. The glowing white fog around them confused the eye and concealed far more than it illuminated. There was a chill dampness in the air, and Sparhawk pulled his cloak about him as he rode.
    The Demos road swung north towards the city of Lenda before turning south-easterly again to Demos, where the Pandion Mother-house was located. Although he could not see it, Sparhawk knew that the countryside along the road was gently rolling and that there were large patches of trees out there. He was counting on those trees for concealment once he and his friends left the column.
    They rode on. The fog had dampened the dirt surface of the road, and the sound of their horses’ hooves was