They rose late that morning. The turmoil of the past several weeks seemed finally to have caught up with Garion, and, even though he could tell by the light streaming in through the front of the tent that the sun was already high, he was reluctant to move. He could hear the clinking of Polgara’s cooking utensils and the murmur of voices. He knew that he was going to have to get up soon anyway. He considered trying to doze off to catch a last few moments of sleep, but he decided against it. He moved carefully to avoid waking Ce’Nedra as he slid out from under their blankets. He leaned over and gently kissed her hair, then he pulled on his rust-colored tunic, picked up his boots and sword, and ducked out of the tent.
Polgara, in her gray traveling dress, was by her cook-fire. As usual, she hummed softly as she worked. Silk and Belgarath were talking quietly nearby. Silk had, for some reason, changed clothes and he now wore the soft, pearl-gray doublet which marked him as a prosperous businessman. Belgarath, of course, still wore his rust-colored tunic, patched hose, and mismatched boots. Durnik and Toth were fishing, lacing the blue surface of the little mountain lake with their lines, and Eriond was brushing the gleaming chestnut coat of his stallion. The rest of their friends had apparently not arisen yet.
“We thought you were going to sleep all day,” Belgarath said as Garion sat on a log to pull on his boots.
“I gave it some thought,” Garion admitted. He stood up and looked across the sparkling lake. There was a grove of aspens on the far side, their trunks the color of new snow. The leaves had begun to turn and they shimmered in the morning sun like beaten gold. The air was cool and slightly damp. Suddenly he wished that they could stay here for a few days. He sighed and walked over to join his grandfather and Silk near the fire. “Why the fancy clothes?” he asked the rat-faced little Drasnian.
Silk shrugged. “We’re moving into an area where I’m fairly well known,” he replied. “We might be able to take advantage of that—as long as people recognize me. Are you absolutely sure the trail goes toward the southeast?”
Garion nodded. “There was a little confusion right at first, but I got it sorted out.”
“Confusion?” Belgarath asked.
“The Sardion was here, too—a long time ago. For a few moments, the Orb seemed to want to follow both trails at the same time. I had to speak with it rather firmly about that.” Garion draped the sword belt over his shoulder and buckled it. Then he shifted the scabbard slightly until it was more comfortable. The Orb on the pommel of the sword was glowing a sullen red color.
“Why’s it doing that?” Silk asked curiously.
“Because of the Sardion,” Garion told him. He looked over his shoulder at the glowing stone. “Stop that,” he said.
“Don’t hurt its feelings,” Silk warned. “We could be in a great deal of trouble if it decides to start sulking.”
“What lies off to the southeast?” Belgarath asked the little man.
“Voresebo,” Silk replied. “There isn’t much there except some caravan tracks and a few mines up in the mountains. There’s a seaport at Pannor. I land there sometimes on my way back from Melcena.”
“Are the people there Karands?”
Silk nodded. “But they’re even cruder than the ones back in the central kingdoms—if that’s possible.”
The blue-banded hawk came spiraling out of a bright morning sky, flared, and shimmered into the form of Beldin as soon as the talons touched the ground. The hunchbacked little sorcerer was dressed in his usual rags tied on with bits of thong, and twigs and straw clung to his hair and beard. He shivered. “I hate to fly when it’s cold,” he grumbled. “It makes my wings ache.”
“It’s not really that cold,” Silk said.
“Try it a couple thousand feet up.” Beldin pointed toward the sky, then turned, and spat out a couple of soggy gray feathers.
“Grazing again, uncle?” Polgara asked from her cook-fire.
“Just a bite of breakfast, Pol,” he replied. “There was a pigeon that got up too early this morning.”
“You didn’t have to do that, you know.” She tapped meaningfully on the side of her bubbling pot with a long-handled wooden spoon.
Beldin shrugged. “The world isn’t going to miss one pigeon.”
Garion shuddered. “How can you stand to eat them raw like that?”
“You get used to it. I’ve never had much luck trying to build a cook-fire with my talons.” He looked at Belgarath. “There’s some trouble up ahead,” he said, “a lot of smoke and groups of armed men wandering around.”
“Could you see who they were?”
“I didn’t get that close. There’s usually a bored archer or two in any crowd like that, and I’d prefer not to have my tail feathers parted with an arrow just because some idiot wants to show off his skill.”
“Has that ever happened?” Silk asked curiously.
“Once—a long time ago. My hip still aches in cold weather.”
“Did you do something about it?”
“I had a chat with the archer. I asked him not to do it any more. He was breaking his bow across his knee when I left.” He turned back to Belgarath. “Are we sure the trail goes on down to that plain?”
“The Orb is.”
“Then we’ll have to chance it.” The little man looked around. “I thought you’d have struck the tents by now.”
“I decided it might not hurt to let everybody get some sleep. We’ve been traveling hard and we’re going to have to do it some more, I think.”
“You always want to pick these idyllic spots for your rest stops, Belgarath,” Beldin observed. “I think you’re secretly a romantic.”
Belgarath shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect.”
“Garion,” Polgara called.
“Yes, Aunt Pol?”
“Why don’t you wake the others? Breakfast’s almost ready.”
“Right away, Aunt Pol.”
After breakfast, they broke camp and started out about midmorning with Beldin flying on ahead to scout out possible trouble. It was pleasantly warm now, and there was the pungent smell of evergreens in the air. Ce’Nedra was strangely quiet as she rode along beside Garion with her dark gray cloak pulled tightly around her.
“What’s the matter, dear?” he asked her.
“She didn’t have Geran with her,” the little queen murmured sadly.
“Zandramas, you mean? No, she didn’t, did she?”
“Was she really there, Garion?”
“In a way, but in a way she wasn’t. It was sort of the way Cyradis was here and not here at the same time.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was more man a projection, but less than actually being there. We talked it over last night, and Beldin explained it. I didn’t understand very much of what he said. Beldin’s explanations get a little obscure sometimes.”
“He’s very wise, isn’t he?”
Garion nodded. “But he’s not a very good teacher. He gets impatient with people who can’t keep up with him. Anyway, this business of being somewhere between a projection and the real thing makes Zandramas very dangerous. We can’t hurt her, but she can hurt us. She came very close to killing you yesterday, you know—until Poledra stopped her. She’s very much afraid of Poledra.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen your grandmother.”
“No, actually it’s not. She was there at Aunt Pol’s wedding, remember? And she helped us in Ulgoland when we had to fight the Eldrak.”
“But one time she was an owl, and the other time she was a wolf.”
“In Poledra’s case, I don’t think that really matters.”
Ce’Nedra suddenly laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“When this is all over and we’re back home with our baby, why don’t you change into a wolf for a while?” she suggested.
“Why?”
“It might be nice having a big gray wolf lying before the fire. And then on cold nights, I could burrow my feet into your fur to keep them warm.”
He gave her a long steady look.
“I’d scratch your ears for you, Garion,” she offered by way of inducement, “and get you nice bones from the kitchen to chew on.”
“Never mind,” he said flatly.
“But my feet get cold.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Just ahead of them as they rode up through a shady mountain pass, Silk and Sadi were engaged in a heated discussion. “Absolutely not,” Silk said vehemently.
“I really think you’re being unreasonable about this, Kheldar,” Sadi protested. The eunuch had discarded his iridescent silk robe and now wore western-style tunic and hose and stout boots. “You have the distribution system already in place, and I have access to unlimited supplies. We could make millions.”
“Forget it, Sadi. I won’t deal in drugs.”
“You deal in everything else, Kheldar. There’s a market out there just waiting to be tapped. Why let scruples stand in the way of business?”
“You’re Nyissan, Sadi. Drugs are a part of your culture, so you wouldn’t understand.”
“Lady Polgara uses drugs when she treats the sick,” Sadi pointed out defensively.
“That’s different.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I could never explain it to you.”
Sadi sighed. “I’m very disappointed in you, Kheldar. You’re a spy, an assassin, and a thief. You cheat at dice, you counterfeit money, and you’re unscrupulous with married women. You swindle your customers outrageously and you soak up ale like a sponge. You’re the most corrupt man I’ve ever known, but you refuse to transport a few harmless little compounds that would make your customers very happy.”
“A man has to draw the line somewhere,” Silk replied loftily.
Velvet shifted in her saddle to look back at them. “That was one of the more fascinating conversations I’ve ever heard, gentlemen,” she complimented them. “The implications in the field of comparative morality are absolutely staggering.” She gave them a sunny smile with her dimples flashing into view.
“Uh—Margravine Liselle,” Sadi said. “Do you happen to have Zith again?”
“Why, yes, Sadi, as a matter of fact, I do.” The honey-blond girl held up one hand to head off his objections. “But I didn’t steal her this time. She crawled into my tent in the middle of the night and crept into her favorite hiding place all on her own. The poor dear was actually shivering.”
Silk turned slightly pale.
“Would you like to have her back?” Velvet asked the shaved-headed eunuch.
“No,” Sadi sighed, rubbing his hand over his scalp, “I suppose not. As long as she’s happy where she is, we might as well leave her there.”
“She’s very happy. In fact, she’s purring.” Velvet frowned slightly. “I think you should watch her diet just a bit, Sadi,” she said critically. “Her little tummy seems to be getting bigger.” She smiled again. “We wouldn’t want a fat snake on our hands, would we?”
“Well, excuse me!” Sadi said, sounding very offended.
There was a large snag at the top of the pass, and the blue-banded hawk perched on a dead limb, busily preening his feathers with his hooked beak. As they approached, he swooped down, and Beldin stood in the trail in front of them, muttering curses.
“Something wrong, uncle?” Polgara asked him.
“I got caught in a crosswind,” he growled. “It scrambled my feathers a bit. You know how that goes.”
“Oh, goodness yes. It happens to me all the time. Night breezes are so unpredictable.”
“Your feathers are too soft.”
“I didn’t design the owl, uncle, so don’t blame me about the feathers.”
“There’s a crossroads tavern just up ahead,” Beldin said to Belgarath. “Did you want to stop and see if we can find out what’s going on down there on the plain?”
“That might not be a bad idea,” Belgarath agreed. “Let’s not ride into trouble if we don’t have to.”
“I’ll wait for you inside then,” Beldin said and soared away again.
Polgara sighed. “Why must it always be a tavern?” she complained.
“Because people who've been drinking like to talk, Pol,” Belgarath explained in a reasonable tone. “You can gather more information in five minutes in a tavern than you can in an hour in a tearoom.”
“I knew you’d be able to find a reason for it.”
“Naturally.”
They crossed over the top of the wooded pass and on down the shade-splotched trail to the tavern. It was a low building made of logs crudely chinked with mud. The roof was low, and its shingles had curled with the weather and the passage of years. Buff-colored chickens scratched at the dirt in the dooryard, and a large speckled sow lay in a mud puddle, nursing a litter of happily grunting piglets. There were a few spavined nags tied to a hitch rail in front of the tavern, and a Karand dressed in mom-eaten furs snored on the front stoop.
Polgara reined in her horse as they approached the tavern and the first whiff of its reeking interior reached her nostrils. “I think, ladies, that we might prefer to wait over there in the shade.”
“There is a certain fragrance coming out that door, isn’t there?” Velvet agreed.
“You, too, Eriond,” Polgara said firmly. “There’s no need for you to start picking up bad habits this early in life.” She rode over toward a grove of tall fir trees some distance away from the tavern and dismounted in the shade. Durnik and Toth exchanged a quick glance, then joined her there with Velvet, Ce’Nedra, and Eriond.
Sadi started to dismount in front of the tavern. Then he sniffed once and gagged slightly. “This is not my sort of place, gentlemen,” he said. “I think I’ll wait outside as well. Besides, it’s Zith’s feeding time.”
“Suit yourself,” Belgarath shrugged, dismounting and leading the way toward the building. They stepped over the snoring Karand on the stoop and went on inside. “Split up and spread out,” the old man muttered. “Circulate and talk to as many as you can.” He looked at Silk. “We’re not here to make a career out of this,” he cautioned.
“Trust me,” Silk said, moving away.
Garion stood just inside the door, blinking to let his eyes adjust to the dimness. The tavern showed no signs of ever having been cleaned. The floor was covered with moldy straw that reeked of spilled beer, and scraps of rotting food lay in heaps in the corners. A crudely built fireplace smoked at the far end, adding its fumes to the generally unpleasant odor of the place. The tables consisted of rough-hewn planks laid on trellises, and the benches were half logs with sticks drilled into their undersides for legs. Garion saw Beldin talking with several Karands over in one corner and he started over to join him.
As he passed one of the tables, his foot came down on something soft. There was a protesting squeal and a sudden scramble of hoofed feet.
“Don’t step on my pig,” the bleary-eyed old Karand sitting at the table said belligerently. “I don’t step on your pig, do I?” He pronounced it “peg,” and Garion had a little trouble sorting out his dialect.
“Watch yer fate,” the Karand said ominously.
“Fate?” Garion shrank back from that word just a bit.
“Fate. Them thangs you got on the end of yer laigs.”
“Oh. Feet.”
“That’s what I just said—fate.”
“Sorry,” Garion apologized. “I didn’t quite understand.”
“That’s the trouble with you outlanders. You can’t even understand the language when she’s spoke to you plain as day.”
“Why don’t we have a tankard of ale?” Garion suggested. “I’ll apologize to your pig just as soon as he comes back.”
The Karand squinted at him suspiciously. The old man was bearded and he wore clothing made of poorly tanned furs. He wore a hat made from the whole skin of a badger— with the legs and tail still attached. He was very dirty, and Garion could clearly see the fleas peeking out of his beard.
“I’m buying,” Garion offered, sitting down across the table from the pig’s owner.
The old Karand’s face brightened noticeably.
They had a couple of tankards of ale together. Garion noticed that the stuff had a raw, green flavor to it, as if it had been dipped from the vat a week or so too soon. His host, however, smacked his lips and rolled his eyes as if this were the finest brew in the world. Something cold and wet touched Garion’s hand, and he jerked it away. He looked down into a pair of earnest blue eyes fenced in by bristly white eyelashes. The pig had recently been to the wallow and he carried a powerful odor with him.
The old Karand chortled. “That’s just my peg,” he said. “He’s a good-natured young peg, and he don’t hold no grudges.” The fur-clad fellow blinked owlishly. “He’s a orphan, y’know.”
“Oh?”
“His ma made real good bacon, though.” The old man snuffled and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Sometimes I miss her real bad,” he admitted. He squinted at Garion. “Say, that’s a mighty big knife you got there.”
“Yes,” Garion agreed. He absently scratched the half-grown pig’s ears, and the animal closed his eyes in bliss, laid his head in Garion’s lap, and grunted contentedly.
“We were coming down the trail out of the mountains,” Garion said, “and we saw a lot of smoke out on the plain. Is there some kind of trouble out there?”
“The worst kinda trouble there is, friend,” the old man said seriously. He squinted at Garion again. “You’re not one of them Mal-or-eens, are you?”
“No,” Garion assured him, “not Mallorean. I come from farther west,”
“I didn’t know there was anythin’ to the west of the Mal-or-eens. Anyhow, there’s whole bunches of people down there on the plains havin’ some kind of a argument about religion.”
“Religion?”
“I don’t hold much with it myself,” the Karand admitted. “There’s them as do and them as don’t, and I’m one of them as don’t. Let the Gods take care of theirselves, I say. I’ll take care of me and mine, and we’re quits on the whole business.”
“Seems like a good way,” Garion said carefully.
“Glad you see it like that. Anyhow, there’s this Grolim named Zandramas down in Darsheeva. This Zandramas, she come up into Voresebo and started talkin’ about this here new God of Angarak—Torak bein’ dead an’ all, y’know. Now, I’m just about as interested in all that as my peg is. He’s a smart peg and he knows when people is talkin' nonsense.”
Garion patted the pig’s muddy flank, and the plump little animal made an ecstatic sound. “Good pig,” Garion agreed. “Peg, that is.”
“I’m fond of him. He’s warm and good to snuggle up against on a cold night—and he don’t hardly snore none at all. Well, sir, this Zandramas, she come up here and started preachin’ and yellin’ and I don’t know what all. The Grolims all gives out a moan and falls down on their faces. Then, a while back, a whole new bunch of Grolims comes over the mountains, and they says that this Zandramas is dead wrong. They says that there’s gonna be a new God over Angarak, right enough, but that this Zandramas don’t have the straight of it. That’s what all the smoke down there on the plains is about. Both sides is a-burnin' and a-killin’ and a-preachin’ about their idea of who the new God’s gonna be. I’m not gonna have anythin’ to do with either side. Me and my peg are gonna go back up in the mountains and let them folks kill each other. When they get it all sorted out, we’ll come back and nod at whichever altar comes out on top as we go by.”
“You keep calling this Zandramas ‘she,’ “ Garion noted.
“Would you believe it’s a woman!” the Karand snorted. “That’s the foolishest thing I ever heard tell of. Women got no business mixin’ up in men’s affairs.”
“Have you ever seen her?”
“Like I say, I don’t mess around in religious stuff. Me and my peg, we just kinda keep to ourselves when it conies to that.”
“Good way to get along,” Garion said to him. “My friends and I have to go through that plain down there, though. Are Grolims all we need to worry about?”
“I can see you’re a stranger,” the Karand said, suggestively looking down into his empty tankard.
“Here,” Garion said, “let’s get another one.” He fished another coin out of the pouch at his waist and signaled the servingman.
“The whole thang, friend,” the garrulous owner of the pig went on, “is that in this part of the country, them Grolims always has troops with ‘em. The ones as follows Zandramas, they got the army of the king of Voresebo with ‘em. The old king, he didn’t hold with none of this religious stuff, but he got hisself de-posed. His son decided the old man was gettin’ too silly to run the country, so he set his pa aside and took the throne for hisself. The son’s a squinty-eyed sort and he’s lookin' to put hisself on the side most likely to win. He’s throwed in with Zandramas, but then this Urvon fella, he comes along, and he’s got this whole army out of Jenno and Ganesia and folks in armor and some real ugly big black dogs with him—not to mention all the Grolims. It’s mean down there on the plains, friend. They’re killin’ and burnin’ and sacrificin’ prisoners on this altar or mat. If it was me, I’d go a long way around all that foolishness.”
“I wish I could, friend,” Garion told him sincerely. “We heard that there were demons up in Jenno—off toward Callida. Have any of them shown up around here?”
“Demons?” The Karand shuddered, making the sign against evil. “None that I ever heard tell of. If I had, me and my peg would already be so far back in the mountains that they’d have to ship daylight in to us by pack train.”
Despite himself, Garion found that he liked this gabby old fellow. There was an almost musical flow to his illiterate speech, a kind of warm inclusiveness that paid no attention to any kind of social distinctions, and a shrewd, even penetrating, assessment of the chaos around him. It was almost with regret that Garion briefly acknowledged Silk’s jerk of the head in the direction of the door. Gently, he removed the pig’s head from his lap. The animal made a small, discontented sound. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to go now,” he told the Karand as he rose to his feet. “I thank you for your company—and the loan of your pig.”
“Peg,” the Karand corrected.
“Peg,” Garion agreed. He stopped the servingman who was going by and handed him a coin. “Give my friend and his peg whatever they’d like,” he said.
“Why, thank you, my young friend.” The old Karand grinned expansively.
“My pleasure,” Garion said. He looked down. “Have a nice day, pig,” he added.
The pig grunted rather distantly and clattered around the table to his master.
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
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 fairly 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.”