They galloped south through the desolate countryside of western Darshiva with Velvet once again leading Ce’Nedra’s horse. The little queen clung to the side of the carriage with one hand and kept the other on her amulet. “The Darshivans still don’t know that Urvon’s waiting in ambush for them,” she called.
“I’d imagine they’ll find out before too long,” Silk called back.
“How far is it to the border of Gandahar?” Garion asked Zakath.
“I’d guess about twenty leagues.”
“Grandfather,” Garion said, “do we really have to go that far south?”
“Probably not,” the old man replied. “Beldin’s on up ahead. As soon as we’re well past Urvon’s scouts, he’ll lead us up into the mountains. I don’t have any particular urge to explore Gandahar, do you?”
“Not really, no.”
They rode on.
The overcast grew perceptibly thicker, and Garion felt the first drops of a chill rain striking his face.
They crested a hill, and Belgarath rose in his stirrups the better to see what lay ahead. “There,” he said, pointing. “He’s circling.”
Garion peered out across the shallow valley on the far side of the hill. A solitary bird, hardly more than a minuscule black speck in the distance, swung almost lazily in the air. They plunged down the hill, and the bird veered and flew off toward the west with slow strokes of his wings. They turned and followed.
The intermittent rain turned to a chilly drizzle, obscuring the surrounding countryside with its filmy haze.
“Don’t you just love to ride in the rain?” Silk said with heavy irony.
“Under the circumstances, yes,” Sadi replied. “Rain’s not quite as good as fog, but it does cut down the visibility, and there are all manner of people looking for us.”
“You’ve got a point there,” Silk admitted, pulling his cloak tighter about him.
The terrain grew increasingly rugged with outcroppings of weathered stone jutting up out of the ground. After about a half-hour of hard riding, Beldin led them into a shallow gully. They rode on, and the gully walls grew progressively steeper and higher. Soon they were riding up a narrow, rocky ravine.
It was midafternoon by now, and they were all thoroughly soaked. Garion wiped his face and peered ahead. The sky to the west appeared to be growing lighter, giving promise of clearing. He had perhaps not even been aware of how much the prevailing gloom hanging over Darshiva had depressed him. He urged Chretienne into a run. Somehow he seemed to feel that once they reached the sunlight again, they would be safe.
He rounded a bend in the ravine and saw Beldin standing in the trail ahead of them. The dwarfs matted hair hung in scraggly wet strands about his shoulders, and his beard was dripping. “You’d better slow down,” he growled at them. “I could hear you coming for a mile, and we’re not alone in these foothills.”
Regretfully, Garion reined Chretienne in.
“Exactly where does this ravine lead?” Belgarath asked die hunchback.
“It twists and turns a lot, but eventually it opens out onto a ridge top. The ridge runs north and south. If we follow it north, we’ll come to the main caravan route. That’s the fastest way down into Dalasia.”
“Everybody else knows that, too.”
“That’s all right. We’ll be at least a day ahead of them. They still have a battle to fight.”
“Are you going to scout ahead again?”
“Not until the rain lets up. My feathers are wet. It’d take a derrick to get me off the ground again. Oh, one other thing. When we get to that ridge, we’re going to have to be careful. A couple leagues north, it runs just a few miles above the spot where Nahaz has his ambush set up.”
“Your choice of a route leaves a lot to be desired,” Belgarath said. “If someone down there happens to look up, we’ll have half of Urvon’s army all over us.”
“Not unless they can fly. An earthquake went through here a few thousand years ago and it sliced off the side of that ridge. It’s a very steep cliff now.”
“How high?”
“High enough—a thousand feet or so.”
“How far is it to the caravan route?”
“About fifteen leagues from the place where we’ll come out on the ridge.”
“North of Urvon’s army, then?”
“Quite a bit north, yes.”
“Why did Nahaz pass it by? Why didn’t he just turn west?”
“He probably didn’t want the Darshivans and their elephants coming up behind him. Besides, he’s a demon. I’d guess he just couldn’t bring himself to pass up the chance for a mass slaughter.”
“Maybe. Do you think the battle’s going to start this afternoon?”
“I doubt it. Elephants don’t move all that fast, and the Darshivans are moving cautiously. They’ll stop for the night soon. First thing tomorrow morning, though, things are going to start getting noisy.”
“Maybe we can get past the place where the ambush is set up during the night.”
“I wouldn’t advise it. You won’t be able to light any torches, and that cliffs a sheer drop. If you ride off the edge of it, you’ll bounce all the way back to the Magan.”
Belgarath grunted. “Are you sure you can’t fly?”
“Not a chance. Right now you couldn’t get me into the air with a catapult.”
“Why don’t you change into a duck?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?”
“All right, Garion,” Belgarath said with some resignation, “I guess it’s up to us, then.” He slid down out of his saddle and walked on up the ravine. Garion sighed, dismounted, and followed him.
They ranged out ahead, searching the soggy terrain with their ears and noses. It was almost evening when the walls of the ravine began to fan out, and they could see the line of the ridge top ahead. They reached it and loped north through the gradually diminishing drizzle.
“Grandfather,” Garion said, “I think that’s a cave over there.” He pointed with his muzzle at an opening in the rock.
“Let’s look.”
The opening of the cave was narrow, not much more than a wide crack, and the cavern did not open up noticeably inside. It was deep, however, running far back into the rock. It seemed more like a long corridor than a room.
“What do you think?” Garion asked as the two of them stood at the entrance peering back into the darkness.
“It’s a place to get in out of the weather, and it’s a good place to hide for the night. Go get the others, and I’ll see if I can get a fire started.”
Garion turned and loped back down the ridge. The rain was definitely slacking off now, but the wind was coming up, and it was getting colder.
The others were coming warily up out of the ravine when Garion reached them.
“Another cave?” Silk said plaintively when Garion told them what he and Belgarath had found.
“I’ll hold your hand, Kheldar,” Velvet offered.
“I appreciate the gesture, Liselle, but I don’t think it’s going to help very much. I loathe caves.”
“Someday you’ll have to tell me why.”
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t even like to think about it.”
Garion led them to the narrow track atop the ridge. Ce’Nedra’s carriage jolted over the rocky ground. The smug look that had come over her face when she had expropriated the vehicle had evaporated, and she rode with resignation, wincing at every bump.
“That’s not much of a cave,” Beldin said critically when they reached the opening in the rock.
“Feel free to sleep outside,” Belgarath told him.
“We’re going to have to put blinders on the horses to get them inside,” Durnik noted. “They’ll take one look at that opening and flatly refuse even to try it.”
“I feel much the same way myself,” Silk said. “Sometimes it’s surprising just how intelligent horses really are.”
“We’re not going to be able to get the carriage inside,” Sadi said.
“We can cover it with tent canvas and sprinkle dirt over it,” Durnik said. “It won’t be really visible—at least not in the dark.”
“Let’s get started,” Belgarath said. “I think we want to be inside before it gets much darker.”
It took the better part of half an hour to get the balky horses into the narrow cave. Then Durnik covered the entrance with tent canvas and went back outside to help Eriond and Toth conceal the carriage.
The she-wolf had limped into the cave, followed by her frolicsome pup. Now that he was being fed regularly, the previously listless animal had turned playful. His mother, too, Garion noted, had begun to fill out again, and her fur was glossy and less matted. “An excellent den,” she observed. “Will we hunt from here?”
“No, little sister,” Polgara replied, stirring the small pot of simmering herbs on the fire. “We have things that must be done in another place. Let me have a look at your hurt.”
Obediently, the wolf lay down by the fire and extended her injured paw. Polgara gently unwrapped it and examined the ulcers. “Much better,” she said. “It’s nearly healed. Does it still cause you pain?”
“Pain is to be endured,” the wolf replied indifferently. “It is of no moment.”
“The amount of pain, however, tells us how much longer it will be until the hurt is gone.”
“That is true,” the wolf admitted. “I have observed the same thing myself in times past. The pain is less now. The hurt is going away, I think.”
Polgara bathed the injured paw in the pungent juice from her pot, then mixed the pulped herbs with soap and sugar again, packed it over the wound, and replaced the bandage. “We will not have to do this again, little sister,” she told her patient. “The hurt is nearly gone.”
“I am grateful,” the wolf said simply. “Will I be able to walk when it grows light again? The thing which runs on round feet is most uncomfortable to sit in, and the she who makes it run talks much.”
“Sit in it one more time while it is light,” Polgara advised. “Give the hurt that much more time to go away.”
The wolf sighed and laid her chin on her paws.
They carried water from a nearby spring, and Polgara cooked supper. After they had eaten, Belgarath rose to his feet. “Let’s have a look around,” he said to Garion. “I want to get an idea of what we’re dealing with.”
Garion nodded and stood up. The two of them went outside the cave, carrying Silk’s supper out to him. The little man had volunteered, enthusiastically, Garion thought, to stand watch. “Where are you going?” he asked, sitting down on a rock to eat.
“We’re going to nose around a bit,” Belgarath replied.
“Good idea. You want me to come along?”
“No. You’d better stay here and keep your eyes open. Warn the others if anybody comes up the ridge.” Then the old man led Garion a few hundred feet up the ridge line, and the two of them made the change into their other forms. Garion had changed back and forth so many times in the past few months that at times the distinction between the two shapes had begun to blur and, oftentimes, even when he was in his human form, he found himself thinking in the language of wolves. He loped along behind the great silver wolf, considering this peculiar loss of identity.
Belgarath stopped. “Keep your mind on what we’re doing,” he said. “Your ears and nose won’t be much good to us if you’re wool-gathering.”
“Yes, revered pack-leader,” Garion replied, feeling very embarrassed. Wolves seldom needed reprimanding and they were covered with shame when it happened.
When they reached the spot where the side of the ridge had been sheared away by the earthquake, they stopped. The foothills that sloped down toward the plain were dark. Urvon’s army was obviously under orders to build no fires. Out on the plain itself, however, the watch fires twinkled in profusion like small orange stars.
“Zandramas has a big army,” Garion sent his thought quietly to his grandfather.
“Yes,” the old man agreed. “That battle tomorrow morning might take quite a while. Even Nahaz’s demons are going to need a lot of time to kill that many people.”
“The longer the better. They can take all week, if they want to. We could be halfway to Kell by then.”
Belgarath looked around. “Let’s go on up the ridge a ways and have a look.”
“All right.”
Despite Beldin’s warning that there might be scouts from the two armies here in the higher foothills, the two wolves encountered no one. “They probably went back to report,” Garion heard Belgarath’s voice speaking in his mind. “They’ll be out again first thing in the morning, most likely. Let’s go on back to the cave and get some sleep.”
They rose early the following morning, long before first light. They were all subdued as they ate breakfast. Although the two armies facing each other below them were composed entirely of enemies, none of them took any particular pleasure in the prospect of the bloodshed the day would bring. After breakfast, they carried out the packs and their saddles and, last of all, they led out the horses.
“You’re quiet this morning, Garion,” Zakath said as the two were saddling their mounts.
“I was just wondering if mere might be some way to stop what’s going to happen today.”
“Not really,” Zakath told him. “Their positions are too firmly fixed. It’s too late to turn it back now. The Darshivans will advance, and Urvon’s army will ambush them. I’ve organized enough battles to know that at a certain point tilings become inevitable.”
“The way Thull Mardu was?”
“Thull Mardu was a blunder,” Zakath admitted. “I should have gone around Ce’Nedra’s army instead of trying to go through it. The Grolims had me convinced that they could hold that fog in place all day. I should have known better than to believe them. And I definitely shouldn’t have underestimated the Asturian bowmen. How can they possibly shoot arrows that fast?”
“There’s a knack to it. Lelldorin showed me how it’s done.”
“Lelldorin?”
“An Asturian friend of mine.”
“We’ve always been told that Arends are stupid to the point of imbecility.”
“They’re not overly bright,” Garion admitted. “Maybe that’s what makes them such good soldiers. They don’t have enough imagination to be afraid.” He smiled in the darkness. “Mandorallen can’t even conceive of the possibility that he could lose a fight. He’d attack your whole army—all by himself.”
“The Baron of Vo Mandor? I know his reputation.” Zakath laughed wryly. “It’s entirely possible that he’d win, you know.”
“Don’t ever tell him that. He has enough problems as it is.” Garion sighed. “I wish he were here, though—and Barak and Hettar and even Relg.”
“Relg?”
“He’s an Ulgo mystic. He walks through rock.”
Zakath stared at him.
“I don’t know how, so don’t ask me. I saw him stick a Grolim into a large boulder once. Then he just left him there with only his hands sticking out.”
Zakath shuddered.
They mounted and rode slowly up the ravine with Ce’Nedra’s carriage jolting along behind them. The sky gradually grew lighter overhead, and Garion saw that they were approaching the edge of the cliff that overlooked the site of the impending battle.
“Belgarath,” Zakath said quietly, “would you mind a suggestion?”
“I’ll always listen to suggestions.”
“This is probably the only place where we’ll be able to see what’s going on down below. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to stop and make sure that the armies down there are fully engaged before we move on? If the Darshivans outflank Urvon’s ambush, we’ll have them no more than a few leagues behind us. We’ll need to run at that point.”
Belgarath frowned. “You might be right,” he conceded. “It never hurts to know the whole situation.” He reined in. “All right,” he said, “we’ll stop here and go ahead on foot. There’s cover enough at the edge of that cliff so that we can watch without being seen.” He swung down from his horse.
“The ladies and I will wait here, father,” Polgara told him. “We’ve seen battles before. I don’t think we need to watch another one.” She glanced at Eriond. “You stay with us, too,” she told him.
“Yes, Polgara.”
The rest of them moved forward at a crouch and took cover behind the few boulders at the edge of the cliff. The gloomy overcast that hung perpetually over Darshiva covered the blasted and decaying plain below with a sullen twilight. Out on the plain, Garion could make out tiny-appearing figures moving forward at what seemed no more than a crawl.
“I think I’ve detected a flaw in what was otherwise an excellent plan,” Zakath said wryly. “They’re too far away to make out any details.”
“I can take care of that,” Beldin growled. “A hawk’s eyes are about ten times more acute than a man’s. I can circle over them at a few hundred feet and pick out every detail.”
“Are you sure your feathers are dry?” Belgarath asked.
“That’s why I slept near the fire last night.”
“All right. Keep me advised.”
“Naturally,” The grim hunchback crouched and blurred. With an agile leap the hawk settled atop a boulder, his fierce eyes looking out over the plain. Then he spread his wings and dropped headlong off the cliff.
“You people always take that so casually,” Zakath noted.
“It’s not really that,” Sadi murmured, rubbing his scalp. “It’s just that we’re numb. The first time I saw him do it, my hair stood on end, and for me that’s a neat trick.”
“Urvon’s army’s hiding in shallow pits along the ridge tops on either side of that long gorge,” Belgarath repeated the silent words of the hawk soaring through the murky air for below them, “and the elephants are moving directly toward the same gorge.”
Zakath leaned out over the edge and looked down.
“Careful,” Garion said, catching the Mallorean’s arm with one hand.
“It is a long way down,” Zakath agreed. “All right then,” he said. “Now I see why the Darshivans are making for that gorge. It branches at the foot of this cliff, and one branch goes north. It probably connects with the main caravan route.” He thought about it. “It’s actually a good strategy. If Nahaz hadn’t driven his troops so hard, the Darshivans would have reached the caravan route first, and they could have set up an ambush of their own.” He pulled back away from the edge of the cliff. “That’s one of the reasons I always hate to operate in rough terrain. I got a number of very nasty surprises in Cthol Murgos.”
“The elephants are starting to form up into a column,” Belgarath reported, “and the rest of the Darshivans are strung out behind them.”
“Are they putting out scouts?” Zakath asked.
“Yes, but they’re only scouting along the floor of the gorge. A few of them went up to the ridge tops, but the Hounds eliminated those.”
They waited as Beldin circled above the two armies.
“They’re committed now,” Belgarath said sadly. “The elephants are starting into the gorge.”
“I feel a little sorry for the elephants,” Durnik said. “They didn’t volunteer for this. I wish they didn’t plan to fire on them.”
“It’s fairly standard, Goodman,” Zakath said calmly.
“Fire’s the only thing elephants are really afraid of. They’ll stampede back down the gorge.”
“Right through the Darshivans,” Silk added in a slightly sick voice. “Nahaz should get his fill of blood today.”
“Do we really have to watch this?” Durnik asked.
“We have to wait until it gets started,” Belgarath replied.
“I think I’ll go back and wait with Pol,” the smith said, edging back from the cliff top. Then he and Toth went on down the ridge.
“He’s a very gentle person, isn’t he?” Zakath said.
“Usually,” Garion replied. “When it’s necessary, though, he can do what needs doing.”
“You remember the time he chased that Murgo into a quicksand bog,” Silk said with a shudder, “and then watched him sink?”
“It shouldn’t be too long now,” Belgarath said tensely. “The last of the elephants just entered the gorge.”
They waited. For some reason, Garion felt suddenly cold.
Then, even though what was happening was more than a league away, they heard a thunderous rumbling sound as Urvon’s troops began to roll huge boulders down on the advancing elephants. Faintly they could hear the agonized screams of the huge beasts. Then, smoke and flame began to boil up out of the gorge as the brutish Karands rained huge piles of burning brush down on the helpless animals.
“I think I’ve seen enough,” Sadi said. He rose and went back down the ridge.
The surviving elephants, looking almost like ants in the distance, wheeled and fled in panic back down the gorge, and the agonized squeals of the animals were suddenly accompanied by human screams as the great beasts crushed their way through rank after rank of Darshivan soldiers.
Beldin came soaring up from below and settled back on the boulder from which he had started.
“What’s that?” Silk exclaimed. “There at the mouth of the gorge.”
There seemed to be some vast disturbance in the murky air at the edge of the plain, a sort of shimmering filled with flickering, rainbow-hued light and sullen flashes of heat lightning. Then, quite suddenly, the disturbance coalesced into a nightmare.
“Belar!” Silk swore. “It’s as big as a barn!”
The thing was hideous. It had a dozen or more snakelike arms that writhed and lashed at the air. It had three blazing eyes and a vast muzzle filled with great fangs. It towered over the elephants and kicked them aside contemptuously with huge, clawed feet. Then with thunderous stride, it started up the gorge, walking indifferently through the flames and paying no more attention to the boulders bouncing off its shoulders than it might have to snowflakes.
“What is that thing?” Zakath asked in a shaken voice.
“That’s Mordja,” Belgarath told him. “I’ve seen him before—in Morindland—and that’s not the sort of face one forgets.”
The demon in the gorge was reaching out with his many arms now, catching whole platoons of Karands in his clawed hands and almost casually hurling them with terrific force against the surrounding rocks.
“It looks to me as if the tide of battle just turned,” Silk said. “What’s our general feeling about leaving—along about right now?”
The Demon Lord Mordja raised his huge muzzle and thundered something in a language too hideous for human comprehension.
“Stay put!” Belgarath ordered, catching Silk’s arm. “This isn’t played out yet. That was a challenge, and Nahaz won’t be able to refuse it.”
Another of those flickering disturbances appeared in the air above the upper end of the gorge, and another towering form appeared out of its center. Garion could not see its face, a fact for which he was profoundly grateful, but it, too, had snaky arms growing in profusion from its vast shoulders. “Thou darest to face me, Mordja?” it roared in a voice which shook the nearby mountains.
“I do not fear thee, Nahaz,” Mordja bellowed back. “Our enmity hath endured for a thousand thousand years. Let it end here. I shall carry word of thy death back to the King of Hell and bear thy head with me as proof of my Swords.”
“My head is thine,” Nahaz said with a chilling laugh. “Come and take it—if thou canst.”
“And thou wouldst bestow the stone of power on the mad Disciple of maimed Torak?” Mordja sneered.
“Thy sojourn in the land of the Morindim hath bereft thee of thy wits, Mordja. The stone of power shall be mine, and I shall rule these ants that creep upon the face of this world. I will raise them like cattle and feed upon them when I hunger. “
“How wilt thou feed, Nahaz—without thy head? It is I who will rule and feed here, for the stone of power shall lie in my hand.”
“That we will soon discover, Mordja. Come. Let us contend for a head and for the stone we both desire.” Suddenly Nahaz spun about, his baleful eyes searching the top of the cliff where Garion and his friends lay hidden. A volcanic hiss burst from the demon’s distorted lips. “The Child of Light!” he roared. “Praise the name of the King of Hell, who hath brought him within my reach. I will rend him asunder and seize the stone which he carries. Thou art doomed, Mordja. That stone in my hand shall be thy undoing.” With hideous speed the Demon Lord Nahaz clambered over the tumbled rocks at the foot of the cliff and reached out with his dozens of clawed hands at the sheer rock face. His vast shoulders heaved.
“He’s climbing straight up the rock!” Silk exclaimed in a strangled voice. “Let’s get out of here!”
The Demon Lord Mordja stood for a moment in stunned chagrin, then he, too, ran forward and began to claw his way up the face of the cliff.
Garion rose to his feet, looking down at the two vast monsters clambering up the sheer rock. He felt a peculiar detachment as he reached back over his shoulder and drew his sword. He untied the leather sleeve covering the hilt and slipped it off. The Orb glowed, and when he took the sword in both hands, the familiar blue flame ran up the blade.
“Garion!” Zakath exclaimed.
“They want the Orb,” Garion said grimly. “Well, they’re going to have to take it, and I may have something to say about that.”
But then Durnik was there. His face was calm, and he was stripped to the waist. In his right hand he carried an awesome sledgehammer that glowed as blue as Garion’s sword. “Excuse me, Garion,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “but this is my task.”
Polgara had come with him, and her fece showed no fear. She had drawn her blue cloak about her, and the snowy lock at ber brow glowed.
“What’s happening here?” Belgarath demanded.
“Stay out of it, father,” Polgara told him. “This is something that has to happen.”
Durnik advanced to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the two horrors struggling up the sheer face toward him. “I abjure ye,” he said to them in a great voice, “return to the place from whence ye came, lest ye die.” Overlaying his voice was another voice, calm, almost gentle, but with a power in it that shook Garion as a tree is shaken by a hurricane. He knew that voice.
“Begone!” Durnik commanded, emphasizing that word with a dreadful blow of his sledge that shattered a boulder into fragments.
The demons clawing their way up the cliff hesitated.
At first it was barely perceptible. At first it seemed that Durnik was only swelling his chest and shoulders in preparation for an impossible struggle. Then Garion saw his oldest friend begin to grow. At ten feet, the smith was awesome. At twenty, he was beyond belief. The great hammer in his hand grew with him, and the blue nimbus about it grew more intense as he expanded and grew, thrusting the sullen air aside with his massive shoulders. The very rocks seemed to cringe back from him as, with long sweeps of his dreadful, glowing hammer, he loosened his arm.
The Demon Lord Mordja paused, clinging to the rock. His bestial face suddenly showed fear. Again Durnik destroyed whole square yards of rock with a single ringing blow.
Nahaz, however, his eyes ablaze and empty of thought, continued to slather and claw his way up the rock face, screeching imprecations in that dreadful language which only demons know. “So be it, then,” Durnik said, and the voice in which he spoke was not his own, but that other, more profound voice, which rang in Garion’s ears like the very crack of doom.
The Demon Lord Mordja looked up, his terrible face filled with terror. Then suddenly he released his grip on the face of the rock cliff to topple and tumble to the rocks below. Howling, and with his multitudinous arms covering his scabrous head, he fled.
Nahaz, however, his blazing eyes filled with madness, continued to sink his claws into naked rock and to haul his vast body up the cliff.
Almost politely, it seemed, Durnik stepped back from the awful brink and wrapped both enormous hands about the glowing handle of his sledge.
“Durnik!” Silk cried. “No! Don’t let him get his feet under him!”
Durnik did not reply, but a faint smile touched his honest face. Again he tested his vast hammer, swinging it in both hands. The sound of its passage through the air was not a whistle, but a roar.
Nahaz clambered up over the edge of the cliff and rose enormously, clawing at the sky and roaring insanely in the hideous language of the demons.
Durnik spat on his left hand; then on his right. He twisted his huge hands on the handle of his sledge to set them in place, then he swung a vast, overhand blow that took the Demon Lord full in the chest. “Begone!” the smith roared in a voice louder than thunder. The sledge struck fiery sparks from the demon’s body, sullen orange sparks that sizzled and jumped on the ground like burning roaches.
Nahaz screamed, clutching at his chest.
Unperturbed, Durnik swung again.
And again.
Garion recognized the rhythm of his friend’s strokes. Durnik was not fighting; he was hammering with the age-old precision of a man whose tools are but an extension of his arms. Again and again the glowing hammer crashed into the body of the Demon Lord. With each blow, the sparks flew. Nahaz cringed, trying to shield his body from those awful, shattering strokes. Each time Durnik struck, he roared, “Begone!” Gradually, like a man splitting a huge rock, he began to hammer Nahaz into pieces. Pythonlike arms fell writhing into the abyss, and great, craterlike holes appeared in the demon’s chest.
Unable to watch the dreadful work any longer, Garion averted his eyes. Far below, he saw Urvon’s throne. The two dozen bearers who had carried it had fled, and the mad Disciple capered on the rocks howling insanely.
Durnik struck again. “Begone!”
And again. “Begone!”
And again. “Begone!”
Beaten beyond endurance, the Demon Lord Nahaz flinched back, missed his footing, and toppled off the cliff with a howl of rage and despair. Down and down he plunged, glowing with green fire like a streaking comet. As he drove into the earth, one snakelike arm lashed out and caught the last Disciple of Torak in a deathly grip. Urvon, shrieking, was pulled along as Nahaz sank into the earth like a stick into water.
When Garion looked back, Durnik had resumed his normal size. His chest and arms were covered with sweat, and he was breathing hard from his exertions. He held his glowing sledge out at arm’s length, and its fire grew brighter and brighter until it was incandescent. Then the fire gradually faded, and the smith was holding a silver amulet in his hand with its chain draped across the backs of his fingers.
The voice which had overlain Durnik’s during his awful encounter with the Demon Lord now spoke in no more than a whisper. “Know that this good man is also my beloved Disciple, since he was best suited of all of ye for this task.”
Belgarath bowed in the direction the voice was coming from. “It shall be as You say, Master,” he said in a voice thick with emotion. “We welcome him as a brother.”
Polgara came forward with a look of wonder on her face and gently took the amulet from Durnik’s hand. “How very appropriate,” she said softly, looking at the silver disc. She lovingly hung the chain around her husband’s neck, then she kissed him and held him to her tightly.
“Please, Pol,” he objected with flaming cheeks, “we’re not alone, you know.”
She laughed her warm, rich laugh and held him even tighter.
Beldin was grinning crookedly. “Nice job, brother mine,” he said to Durnik. “Hot work though, I’d imagine.” He reached out his hand and took a foaming tankard out of the air and handed it to Aldur’s newest Disciple.
Durnik drank gratefully.
Belgarath clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s been a long, long time since we last had a new brother,” he said. Then he quickly embraced Durnik.
“Oh,” Ce’Nedra said with a little catch in her voice, “that’s just beautiful.”
Wordlessly, Velvet handed her the wispy little handkerchief. “What is that on his amulet?” the blond girl asked, sounding just a bit awed.
“It’s a hammer,” Belgarath told her. “What else could it be?”
“If I might make a suggestion, Ancient One,” Sadi said diffidently, “the armies down there on the plain seem to be in a state of total contusion. Wouldn’t this be an excellent time to depart—before they regain their wits?”
“My thought exactly,” Silk approved, putting his hand on the eunuch’s shoulder.
“They’re right, Belgarath,” Beldin agreed. “We’ve done what we were sent here to do—or Durnik has, at least.” The hunchback sighed and looked over the edge of the cliff. “I really wanted to kill Urvon myself,” he said, “but I suppose this is even better. I hope he enjoys his sojourn in Hell.”
A shrill laugh suddenly came from the top of the ridge, a laugh of triumph. Garion whirled, then stopped, frozen with surprise. Atop the ridge stood the black-robed figure of the Sorceress of Darshiva. Beside her stood a blond little boy. Geran’s features had changed in the year and more since he had been abducted, but Garion knew him instantly. “Ye have done my work well,” Zandramas declared. “I myself could not have found a more fitting end for Torak’s last Disciple. Now, Child of Light, only thou standest between me and Cthrag Sardius. I will await thy coming in the Place Which Is No More. There shall thou be a witness when I raise up a New God over Angorak, whose dominion over all the world shall endure until the end of days!”
Geran reached out his hand imploringly to Ce’Nedra, but then he and Zandramas vanished.
“How remarkable,” the she-wolf said in surprise.
Here ends Book IV of The Malloreon. Book V, The Seeress of Kelt, will take up the final result of the War of Destinies and of the people involved.