Ce’Nedra wrinkled her nose as he approached the shady spot where the ladies had been waiting. ‘What on earth have you been doing, Garion?’ she asked. ‘You smell awful.’
‘I was getting acquainted with a pig.’
‘A pig?’ she exclaimed. ‘Whatever for?’
‘You almost had to have been there.’
As they rode along exchanging the information they had gleaned, it became evident that the owner of the pig had offered a surprisingly complete and succinct perception of the situation in Voresebo. Garion repeated the conversation, complete with dialect.
‘He didn’t really talk that way, did he?’ Velvet giggled incredulously.
‘Why, no’m,’ Garion said, exaggerating just a bit, ‘when you get right down to the core of it, he didn’t. There was “theses” and “thoses” and “themses” that I can’t quite get the hang of. Me and the pig got along good, though.’
‘Garion,’ Polgara said a bit distantly, ‘do you suppose you could ride back there a ways?’ She gestured toward the rear of the column. ‘Several hundred yards or so, I’d say.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. He reined Chretienne in. The big gray horse, he noted, also seemed a bit offended by something in the air.
By general request, Garion bathed that night in a shockingly cold mountain stream. When he returned, shivering, to the fire, Belgarath looked at him and said, ‘I think you’d better put your armor back on. If half of what your friend with the pig said is true, you might need it.’
‘Peg,’ Garion corrected.
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’
The next morning dawned clear and definitely chilly. The mail coat felt clammy even through the padded tunic Garion always wore under it, and it was heavy and uncomfortable. Durnik cut him a lance from a nearby thicket and leaned it against a tree near where the horses were picketed.
Belgarath came back from a small hilltop where he had been surveying the plains below. ‘From what I can see, the turmoil is fairly general down there, so there isn’t much point in trying to avoid people. The quicker we get past Voresebo, the better, so we might as well ride straight on through. We’ll try to talk our way out of any difficulties first; and, if that doesn’t work, we’ll do it the other way.’
‘I suppose I’d better go find another club.’ Sadi sighed.
They rode out with Garion jingling along in the lead. His helmet was in place, and his shield was strapped to his left arm. The butt of his lance rested beside his foot in his stirrup, and he affected a menacing scowl. The sword strapped across his back pulled steadily at him, indicating that they were still on the trail of Zandramas. When they reached the edge of the foothills, the winding mountain track became a narrow, rutted road stretching off toward the southeast. They picked up their pace and moved along the road at a brisk trot.
A few miles out onto the plain, they passed a burning village set back about a half mile from the road. They did not stop to investigate.
About noon, they encountered a party of armed men on foot. There were about fifteen of them, and they wore clothing which vaguely resembled uniforms.
‘Well?’ Garion said back over his shoulder, tightening his grip on his lance.
‘Let me talk to them first,’ Silk said, moving his horse forward. ‘Try to look dangerous.’ The little man walked his horse toward the strangers. ‘You’re blocking the road,’ he told them in a flat, unfriendly tone.
‘We have orders to check everyone who passes,’ one of them said, looking at Garion a little nervously.
‘All right, you’ve checked us. Now stand aside.’
‘Which side are you on?’
‘Now, that’s a stupid question, man,’ Silk replied. ‘Which side are you on?’
‘I don’t have to answer that.’
‘Then neither do I. Use your eyes, man. Do I look like a Karand—or a Temple Guardsman—or a Grolim?’
‘Do you follow Urvon or Zandramas?’
‘Neither one. I follow money, and you don’t make money by getting mixed up in religion.’
The roughly dressed soldier looked even more uncertain. ‘I have to report which side you’re on to my captain.’
‘That’s assuming that you’ve seen me,’ Silk told him, bouncing a purse suggestively on the palm of his hand. ‘I’m in a hurry, friend. I have no interest in your religion. Please do me the same courtesy.’
The soldier was looking at the purse in Silk’s hand with undisguised greed.
‘It would be worth quite a bit to me not to be delayed,’ Silk suggested slyly. He theatrically wiped his brow. ‘It’s getting hot out here,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you and your men go find some shade to rest in? I’ll “accidentally” drop this purse here, and you can “find” it later. That way, you make a nice profit, and I get to move along without interference and without having someone in authority find out that I’ve passed.’
‘It is getting warm out here,’ the soldier agreed.
‘I thought you might have noticed that.’
The other soldiers were grinning openly.
‘You won’t forget to drop the purse?’
‘Trust me,’ Silk said.
The soldiers trooped across the field toward a grove of trees. Silk negligently tossed the purse into the ditch beside the road and motioned for the others to come ahead. ‘We might want to move right along,’ he suggested.
‘Another purse full of pebbles?’ Durnik grinned.
‘Oh, no, Durnik. The purse has real money in it—Mallorean brass halfpennies. You can’t buy very much with them, but they’re real money right enough.’
‘What if he’d asked to see what was inside?’
Silk grinned and held up his cupped hand. Tightly wedged between the folds of skin in his palm were several silver coins. ‘I like to be ready for eventualities,’ he said. Then he looked back over his shoulder. ‘I think we should leave now. The soldiers are coming back to the road.’
The next encounter was a bit more serious. Three Temple Guardsmen blocked the road. Their shields were in front of them and their lances were at the ready. Their faces were devoid of thought. ‘My turn,’ Garion said, settling his helmet more firmly in place and shifting his shield. He lowered his lance and thumped Chretienne with his heels. As he charged, he could hear another horse pounding along behind him, but he did not have time to look back. It was all so stupid, but he felt that surge in his blood again. ‘Idiocy,’ he muttered. Then he easily unhorsed the Guardsman in the center. Durnik, he noted, had cut his lance perhaps two feet longer than was standard. With a quick flick of his shield, he deflected the lances of the other two Guardsmen and thundered on between them. Chretienne’s hooves slammed down into the still-tumbling body of the fallen Guardsman. Garion reined in sharply and whirled the big gray to face the two he had left behind. But there was no need. The man riding behind him was Toth, and the two Guardsmen had already tumbled limply from their saddles.
‘I could find work for you in Arendia, Toth,’ he said to the huge man. ‘Somewhere there has to be someone to convince them that they’re not invincible.’
Toth grinned at him in a soundless laugh.
Central Voresebo was in total chaos. Pillars of smoke rose from burning villages and farms. Crops had been put to the torch, and bands of armed men savagely attacked each other. One such skirmish was taking place in a burning field, and both sides were caught up in such a frenzy that they paid no attention to the wall of flame sweeping down on them.
Mutilated bodies seemed to be everywhere, and there was no way Garion could shield Ce’Nedra from the horrors littering the ditches and even the road itself.
They galloped on.
As dusk descended over the stricken countryside, Durnik and Toth turned aside from the road to seek shelter for the night. They returned to report that they had discovered a low thicket lying in a gully a mile or so back from the road. ‘We won’t be able to build any fires,’ Durnik said soberly, ‘but if we stay f
airly quiet, I don’t think anybody’s going to find us.’
The night was not pleasant. They took a cold supper in the thicket and tried for what scant shelter they could make out of what was available, since they could not erect their tents in the dense brush. Autumn was in the air, and it was cold, once the sky turned dark. As the first light of dawn touched the eastern horizon, they rose, ate a hasty breakfast, and rode on.
The cold, miserable night and the senseless slaughter all around them made Garion angry, and he grew angrier with each passing mile. About midmorning he saw a black-robed Grolim standing beside an altar several hundred yards out in a field to the right of the road. A band of roughly dressed soldiers were dragging three terrified villagers toward the altar by ropes tied about the victims’ necks. Garion did not even stop to think. He discarded his lance, drew Iron-grip’s sword, cautioned the Orb to avoid display, and then charged.
The Grolim was apparently so caught up in his religious frenzy that he neither heard nor saw Garion bearing down on him. He screamed once as Chretienne thundered over the top of him. The soldiers took one startled look at Garion, threw away their weapons, and fled. That did not seem to satisfy his anger, however. Implacably, he pursued them. His anger was not so great, though, as to goad him into killing unarmed men. Instead, he simply rode them down one by one. When the last had tumbled beneath the big gray’s hooves, Garion wheeled, freed the prisoners, and cantered back to the road.
‘Don’t you think that was a little excessive?’ Belgarath demanded angrily.
‘Not under the circumstances, no,’ Garion snapped back. ‘At least I’m fairly sure that one group of soldiers in this stinking country won’t be dragging civilians to the altar—at least not until all the broken bones mend.’
Belgarath snorted in disgust and turned away.
Still enraged, Garion glared belligerently at Polgara. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘I didn’t say anything, dear,’ she said mildly. ‘Next time, though, don’t you think you should let your grandfather know what you’re planning? These little surprises set his teeth on edge sometimes.’
Beldin came flaring in. ‘What happened out there?’ he asked curiously when he had resumed his own form. He pointed at the groaning soldiers dotting the nearby field.
‘My horse needed some exercise,’ Garion said flatly. ‘Those soldiers got in his way.’
‘What’s got you so foul-tempered this morning?’
‘This is all so stupid.’
‘Of course it is, but get ready for some more of it. The border of Rengel is just ahead, and things are just as bad down there as they are here.’
Chapter Three
They paused at the border to consider their alternatives. The guardpost at the boundary was deserted, but black columns of smoke rose from burning villages, and they could clearly see large groups of men moving across the landscape, looking tiny in the distance.
‘Things are a little more organized down here,’ Beldin reported. ‘About all we saw in Voresebo were fairly small bands, and they were more interested in loot than fighting. The groups are bigger on up ahead, and there’s a certain semblance of discipline. I don’t think we’ll be able to bluff our way through Rengel the way we did Voresebo.’
Toth made a series of obscure gestures.
‘What did he say?’ Belgarath asked Durnik.
‘He suggests that we travel at night,’ Durnik replied.
‘That’s an absurd notion, Toth,’ Sadi protested. ‘If things are dangerous in the daytime, they’ll be ten times more dangerous at night.’
Toth’s hands began to move again. For some reason, Garion found that he could almost understand what the huge mute was trying to say.
‘He says that you looked at the idea too fast, Sadi,’ Durnik translated. ‘We’ve got certain advantages.’ The smith frowned slightly, and he looked back at his friend. ‘How did you find out about that?’ he asked.
Toth gestured again.
‘Oh,’ Durnik nodded. ‘I guess she would know, wouldn’t she?’ He turned to the others. ‘He says that Belgarath, Pol, and Garion can lead the way in their other forms. The darkness wouldn’t be that big a problem for a pair of wolves and an owl.’
Belgarath tugged thoughtfully at one earlobe. ‘It’s got possibilities,’ he said to Beldin. ‘We could avoid just about anybody out there that way. Soldiers don’t move around in the dark very much.’
‘They post sentries, though,’ the hunchback pointed out.
‘Garion, Pol, and I wouldn’t have much trouble locating them and leading the rest of you around them.’
‘It’s going to be slow going,’ Velvet said. ‘We won’t be able to travel at a gallop, and we’ll have to detour around every sentry we come across.’
‘You know,’ Silk said, ‘now that I think about it, it’s not such a bad idea. I sort of like it.’
‘You always enjoy sneaking around in the dark, Kheldar,’ Velvet said to him.
‘Don’t you?’
‘Well—’ then she smiled at him. ‘I suppose I do, yes—but then, I’m a Drasnian, too.’
‘It would take too long,’ Ce’Nedra protested. ‘We’re only a little way behind Zandramas. If we try to sneak, she’ll get ahead again.’
‘I don’t see that we’ve got much choice, Ce’Nedra,’ Garion told her gently. ‘If we just try to plow our way across Rengel, sooner or later we’re going to run into more soldiers than we can handle.’
‘You’re a sorcerer,’ she said accusingly. ‘You could wave your hand and just knock them out of our way.’
‘There are limits to that, Ce’Nedra,’ Polgara said. ‘Both Zandramas and Urvon have Grolims in the region. If we tried to do it that way, everybody in Rengel would know exactly where we were.’
Ce’Nedra’s eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip began to tremble. She turned and ran blindly away from the road, sobbing.
‘Go after her, Garion,’ Polgara said. ‘See if you can get her calmed down.’
They took shelter for the rest of the day in a grove of beech trees about a mile from the road. Garion tried to sleep, knowing that the night ahead of them would be very long; but after about an hour, he gave up and wandered restlessly about the camp. He shared Ce’Nedra’s impatience. They were so close to Zandramas now, and moving at night would slow their pace to a crawl. Try though he might, however, he could think of no alternative.
As the sun was going down, they struck camp and waited at the edge of the beech grove for it to get dark.
‘I think I’ve just hit a flaw in the plan,’ Silk said.
‘Oh?’ Belgarath asked.
‘We need the Orb to be able to follow Zandramas. If Garion turns into a wolf, the Orb won’t be able to tell him which way to go—or will it?’
Belgarath and Beldin exchanged a long look. ‘I don’t know,’ Belgarath admitted. ‘Do you?’
‘I haven’t got the slightest idea,’ Beldin said.
‘Well, there’s only one way to find out,’ Garion said. He handed Chretienne’s reins to Durnik and went some distance away from the horses. Carefully, he created the image of the wolf in his mind, then he began to focus his will upon the image. He seemed, as always, to go through a peculiar sensation of melting, and then it was done. He sat on his haunches for a moment, checking himself over to make sure everything was there.
His nose suddenly caught a familiar fragrance. He turned his head and looked back over his shoulder. Ce’Nedra stood there, her eyes very wide and the fingertips of one hand to her lips. ‘I-is that still really you, Garion?’ she stammered.
He rose to his feet and shook himself. There was no way he could answer her. Human words would not fit in the mouth of a wolf. Instead, he padded over to her and licked her hand. She sank to her knees, wrapped her arms about his head, and laid her cheek against his muzzle. ‘Oh, Garion,’ she said in a tone of wonder.
On an impulse born out of sheer mischief, he deliberately licked her face from chin to hairli
ne. His tongue was quite long—and quite wet.
‘Stop that,’ she said, giggling in spite of herself and trying to wipe her face. He momentarily touched his cold nose to the side of her neck. She flinched away. Then he turned and loped off toward the road where the trail was. He paused in the bushes beside the road and carefully peered out, his ears alert and his nose searching for the scent of anyone in the vicinity. Then, satisfied, he slipped out of the bushes with his belly low to the ground to stand in the middle of the road.
It was not the same, of course. There was a subtle difference to the pulling sensation, but it was still there. He felt a peculiar satisfaction and had to restrain an urge to lift his muzzle in a howl of triumph. He turned then and loped back toward where the others were hidden. His toenails dug into the turf, and he exulted in a wild sense of freedom. It was almost with regret that he changed back into his own shape.
‘Well?’ Belgarath asked as he walked toward them in the gathering dusk.
‘No problem,’ Garion replied, trying to sound casual about it. He suppressed the urge to grin, knowing that his offhand manner would irritate his grandfather enormously.
‘Are you really sure we need him along on this trip?’ Belgarath asked his daughter.
‘Ah—yes, father,’ she said. ‘He is sort of necessary.’
‘I was afraid you might feel that way about it.’ He looked at the others. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘This is the way it works. Pol and Durnik can keep in touch with each other over quite some distance, so he’ll be able to warn you if we run across any soldiers—or if the trail moves off the road. Move at a walk to keep down the noise, and be ready to take cover on short notice. Garion, keep your mind in contact with Pol’s and don’t forget that you’ve got a nose and ears as well as eyes. Swing back to the road from time to time to make sure we’re still on the trail. Does anybody have any questions?’
They all shook their heads.
‘All right then, let’s go.’
‘Do you want me to go along?’ Beldin offered.
‘Thanks all the same, uncle,’ Polgara declined, ‘but hawks don’t really see all that well in the dark. You wouldn’t be much help after you’d flown head-on into a few trees.’