Enchanter's End Game Part 4

Belgarath reined in sharply, raising his hand as he did. Silk and Garion hauled their horses to a stop. Silk continued to swear.

"Do you suppose you could cut short your eloquence for a moment?" Belgarath asked him. "I'm trying to listen."

Silk muttered a few more choice oaths, then clamped his teeth shut. There were confused shouts far behind them and a certain amount of splashing.

"They're crossing the stream," Belgarath noted. "It looks as if they plan to take the business seriously. Seriously enough to chase us, at any rate."

"Won't they give up when it gets dark?" Garion asked.

"These are Nadrak hunters," Silk said, sounding profoundly disgusted. "They'll follow us for days just for the enjoyment of the hunt."

"There's not much we can do about that now," Belgarath grunted. "Let's see if we can outrun them." And he thumped his heels to his horse.

It was midafternoon as they rode at a gallop through the sunlit forest. The undergrowth was scanty, and the tall, straight trunks of fir and pine rose like great columns toward the blue sky overhead. It was a good day for a ride, but not a good day for being chased. No day was good for that.

They topped a rise and stopped again to listen.

"They seem to be falling behind," Garion noted hopefully.

"That's just the drunk ones," Silk disagreed sourly. "The ones who are serious about all this are probably much closer. You don't shout when you're hunting. See - look back there." He pointed.

Garion looked. There was a pale flicker back among the trees. A man on a white horse was riding in their direction, leaning far over in his saddle and looking intently at the ground as he rode.

"If he's any kind of tracker at all, it will take us a week to shake him off," Silk said disgustedly.

Somewhere, far off among the trees to their right, a wolf howled. "Let's keep going," Belgarath told them.

They galloped on then, plunging down the far side of the rise, threading their way among the trees, The thud of their horses' hoofs was a m.u.f.fled drumming on the thick loam of the forest floor, and clots of half decayed debris spattered out behind them as they fled.

"We're leaving a trail as wide as a house," Silk shouted to Belgarath.

"That can't be helped for now," the old man replied. "We need some more distance before we start playing games with the tracks."

Another howl drifted mournfully through the forest, from the left this time. It seemed a bit closer than the first had been.

They rode on for another quarter of an hour and then they suddenly heard a great babble of confusion to the rear. Men were shouting with alarm, and horses squealed in panic. Garion could also hear savage growls. At Belgarath's signal, they slowed their horses to listen. The terrified squeals of horses rang sharply through the trees, punctuated by their riders' curses and frightened shouts. A chorus of howls rose from all around. The forest seemed suddenly full of wolves. The pursuit behind them disintegrated as the horses of the Nadrak reward hunters bolted with screams of sheer panic in all directions.

With a certain grim satisfaction, Belgarath listened to the fading sounds behind them. Then, his tongue lolling from his mouth, a huge, dark-furred wolf trotted out of the woods about thirty yards away, stopped, and dropped to his haunches, his yellow eyes gazing intently at them.

"Keep a tight grip on your reins," Belgarath instructed quietly, stroking the neck of his suddenly wild-eyed mount.

The wolf did not say anything, but merely sat and watched. Belgarath returned that steady gaze quite calmly, then finally nodded once in acknowledgment. The wolf rose, turned, and started off into the trees. He stopped once, glanced back over his shoulder at them, and raised his muzzle to lift the deep, bell-toned howl that summoned the other members of his pack to return to their interrupted hunt. Then, with a flicker he was gone, and only the echo of his howl remained.

Chapter Four.

THEY RODE EAST for the next several days, gradually descending into a broad, marshy valley where the undergrowth was denser and the air noticeably more humid. A brief summer shower rolled in one afternoon, accompanied by great, ripping crashes of thunder, a deluge of pounding rain, and winds that howled among the trees, bending and tossing them and tearing leaves and twigs from the underbrush to whirl and fly among the dark trunks. The storm soon pa.s.sed, however, and the sun came out again. After that, the weather continued fair, and they made good time.

Garion felt a peculiar sense of incompleteness as he rode and he sometimes caught himself looking around for missing friends. The long journey in search of the Orb had established a sort of pattern in his mind, a sense of rightness and wrongness, and this trip felt wrong. Barak was not with them, for one thing, and the big, red-bearded Cherek's absence made Garion feel oddly insecure. He also missed the hawkfaced, silent Hettar and the armored form of Mandorallen riding always at the front, with the silver-and-blue pennon snapping from the tip of his lance. He was painfully lonely for Durnik the smith and he even missed Ce'Nedra's spiteful bickering. What had happened at Riva became less and less real to him, and all the elaborate ceremony that had attended his betrothal to the impossible little princess began to fade in his memory, like some half forgotten dream.

It was one evening, however, after the horses had been picketed and supper was over and they had rolled themselves in their blankets to sleep, that Garion, staring into the dying embers of their fire, came at last to face the central vacancy that had entered his life. Aunt Pol was not with them, and he missed her terribly. Since childhood, he had felt that, so long as Aunt Pol was nearby, nothing could really go wrong that she could not fix. Her calm, steady presence had been the one thing to which he had always clung. As clearly as if she stood before him, Garion could see her face, her glorious eyes, and the white lock at her brow; the sudden loneliness for her was as sharp as the edge of a knife.

Everything felt wrong without her. Belgarath was here, certainly, and Garion was fairly sure that his grandfather could deal with any purely physical dangers, but there were other, less obvious perils that the old man either did not consider or chose to ignore. To whom could Garion turn when he was afraid, for example? Being afraid was not the sort of thing that endangered life or limb, but it was still an injury of sorts and sometimes a deeper and more serious kind of injury. Aunt Pol had always been able to banish his fears, but now she was not here, and Garion was afraid and he could not even admit it. He sighed and pulled his blankets more closely about him and slowly drifted into a troubled sleep.

It was about noon some days later when they reached the east fork of the River Cordu, a broad, dirty brown flow running through a brushy valley in a generally southerly direction toward the capital at Yar Nadrak. The pale green, waist-high brush extended back several hundred yards from either bank of the river and was silt-smeared by the high waters of the spring runoff. The sultry air above the brush was alive with clouds of gnats and mosquitoes.

A sullen boatman ferried them across to the village standing on the far bank. As they led their horses off onto the ferry landing, Belgarath spoke quietly. "I think we'll want to change direction here," he told them. "Let's split up. I'll go pick up supplies, and the two of you go find the town tavern. See if you can get some information about pa.s.ses leading up through the north range into the lands of the Morindim. The sooner we get up there, the better. The Malloreans seem to be getting the upper hand here and they could clamp down without much warning. I don't want to have to start explaining my every move to Mallorean Grolims - not to mention the fact that there's a great deal of interest in Silk's whereabouts just now."

Silk rather glumly agreed. "I'd like to get that matter straightened out, but I don't suppose we really have the time, do we?"

"No, not really. The summer is very, very short up north, and the crossing to Mallorea is unpleasant, even in the best weather. When you get to the tavern, tell everybody that we want to try our luck in the gold fields of the north range. There's bound to be somebody around who'll want to show off his familiarity with trails and pa.s.ses-particularly if you offer to buy him a few drinks."

"I thought you said you knew the way," Silk protested.

"I know one way - but it's a hundred leagues east of here. Let's see if there's something a little closer. I'll come by the tavern after I get the supplies." The old man mounted and went off up the dirt street, leading their packhorse behind him.

Silk and Garion had little trouble finding someone in the smelly tavern willing to talk about trails and pa.s.ses. Quite to the contrary, their first question sparked a general debate.

"That's the long way around, Besher," one tipsy gold hunter interrupted another's detailed description of a mountain pa.s.s. "You go left at the falls of the stream. It saves you three days."

"I'm telling this, Varn," Besher retorted testily, banging his fist down on the scarred table. "You can tell them about the way you go when I'm finished."

"It'll take you all day just like that trail you're so fond of. They want to go look for gold, not admire scenery." Varn's long, stubbled jaw thrust out belligerently.

"Which way do we go when we get to the long meadow up on top?" Silk asked quickly, trying to head off the hostilities.

"You go right," Besher declared, glaring at Varn.

Varn thought about that as if looking for an excuse to disagree. Finally he reluctantly nodded. "Of course that's the only way you can go," he added, "but once you get through the juniper grove, you turn left." He said it in the tone of a man antic.i.p.ating contradiction.

"Left?" Besher objected loudly. "You're a blockhead, Varn. You go right again."

"Watch who you're calling a blockhead, you jacka.s.s!"

Without any further discussion, Besher punched Varn in the mouth, and the two of them began to pummel each other, reeling about and knocking over benches and tables.

"They're both wrong, of course," another miner sitting at a nearby table observed calmly, watching the fight with a clinical detachment. "You keep going straight after you get through the juniper grove."

Several burly men, wearing loose-fitting red tunics over their polished mail shirts, had entered the tavern unnoticed during the altercation, and they stepped forward, grinning, to separate Varn and Besher as the two rolled around on the dirty floor. Garion felt Silk stiffen beside him.

"Malloreans!" the little man said softly.

"What do we do?" Garion whispered, looking around for a way of escape. But before Silk could answer, a black-robed Grolim stepped through the door.

"I like to see men who are so eager to fight," the Grolim purred in a peculiar accent. "The army needs such men."

"Recruiters!" Varn exclaimed, breaking away from the red-garbed Malloreans and dashing toward a side door. For a second it looked as if he might escape; but as he reached the doorway, someone outside rapped him sharply across the forehead with a stout cudgel. He reeled back, suddenly rubber-legged and vacant-eyed. The Mallorean who had hit him came inside, gave him a critical, appraising glance, and then judiciously clubbed him in the head again.

"Well?" the Grolim asked, looking around with amus.e.m.e.nt. "What's it to be? Would any more of you like to run, or would you all prefer to come along quietly?"

"Where are you taking us?" Besher demanded, trying to pull his arm out of the grip of one of the grinning recruiters.

"To Yar Nadrak first," the Grolim replied, "and then south to the plains of Mishrak ac Thull and the encampment of his Imperial Majesty 'Zakath, Emperor of all Mallorea. You've just joined the army, my friends. All of Angarak rejoices in your courage and patriotism, and Torak himself is pleased with you." As if to emphasize his words, the Grolim's hand strayed to the hilt of the sacrificial knife sheathed at his belt.

The chain clinked spitefully as Garion, fettered at the ankle, plodded along, one in a long line of disconsolate-looking conscripts, following a trail leading generally southward through the brush along the riverbank. The conscripts had all been roughly searched for weapons-all but Garion, who for some reason had been overlooked. He was painfully aware of the huge sword strapped to his back as he walked along; but, as always seemed to happen, no one else paid any attention to it.

Before they had left the village, while they were all being shackled, Garion and Silk had held a brief, urgent discussion in the minute finger movements of the Drasnian secret language.

I could pick this lock with my thumbnail-Silk had a.s.serted with a disdainful flip of his fingers. As soon as it gets dark tonight, I'll unhook us and we'll leave. I don't really think military life would agree with me, and it's wildly inappropriate for you to be joining an Angarak army just now - all things considered.

-Where's Grandfather? Garion had asked.

-Oh, I imagine he's about.

Garion, however, was worried, and a whole platoon of "what-ifs" immediately jumped into his mind. To avoid thinking about them, he covertly studied the Malloreans who guarded them. The Grolim and the bulk of his detachment had moved on, once the captives had been shackled, seeking other villages and other recruits, leaving only five of their number behind to escort this group south. Malloreans were somewhat different from other Angaraks. Their eyes had that characteristic angularity, but their bodies seemed not to have the singleness of purpose which so dominated the western tribes. They were burly, but they did not have the broad-shouldered athleticism of the Murgos. They were tall, but did not have the lean, whippetlike frames of the Nadraks. They were obviously strong, but they did not have the thick-waisted brute power of Thulls. There was about them, moreover, a kind of disdainful superiority when they looked at western Angaraks. They spoke to their prisoners in short, barking commands, and when they talked to each other, their dialect was so thick that it was nearly unintelligible. They wore mail shirts covered by coa.r.s.e-woven red tunics. They did not ride their horses very well, Garion noted, and their curved swords and broad, round shields seemed to get in their way as they attempted to manage their reins.

Garion carefully kept his head down to hide the fact that his features - even more than Silk's - were distinctly non-Angarak. The guards, however, paid little attention to the conscripts as individuals, but seemed rather to be more interested in them as numbers. They rode continually up and down the sweating column, counting bodies and referring to a doc.u.ment they carried with concerned, even worried expressions. Garion surmised that unpleasant things would happen if the numbers did not match when they reached Yar Nadrak.

A faint, pale flicker in the underbrush some distance uphill from the trail caught Garion's eye, and he turned his head sharply in that direction. A large, silver-gray wolf was ghosting along just at the edge of the trees, his pace exactly matching theirs. Garion quickly lowered his head again, pretended to stumble, and fell heavily against Silk. "Grandfather's out there," he whispered.

"Did you only just notice him?" Silk sounded surprised. "I've been watching him for the last hour or more."

When the trail turned away from the river and entered the trees, Garion felt the tension building up in him. He could not be sure what Belgarath was going to do, but he knew that the concealment offered by the forest provided the opportunity for which his grandfather had doubtless been waiting. He tried to hide his growing nervousness as he walked along behind Silk, but the slightest sound in the woods around them made him start uncontrollably.

The trail dipped down into a fair-sized clearing, surrounded on all sides by tall ferns, and the Mallorean guards halted the column to allow their prisoners to rest. Garion sank gratefully to the springy turf beside Silk. The effort of walking with one leg shackled to the long chain which bound the conscripts together was considerable, and he found that he was sweating profusely. "What's he waiting for?" he whispered to Silk.

The rat-faced little man shrugged. "It's still a few hours until dark," he replied softly. "Maybe he wants to wait for that."

Then, some distance up the trail, they heard the sound of singing. The song was ribald and badly out of tune, but the singer was quite obviously enjoying himself, and the slurring of the words as he drew closer indicated that he was more than a little drunk.

The Malloreans grinned at each other. "Another patriot, perhaps," one of them smirked, "coming to enlist. Spread out, and we'll gather him up as soon as he comes into the clearing."

The singing Nadrak rode into view on a large roan horse. He wore the usual dark, stained leather clothing, and a fur cap perched precariously on one side of his head. He had a scraggly black beard, and he carried a wineskin in one hand. He seemed to be swaying in his saddle as he rode, but something about his eyes showed him not to be quite so drunk as he appeared. Garion stared at him openly as he rode into the clearing with a string of mules behind him. It was Yarblek, the Nadrak merchant they had encountered on the South Caravan Route in Cthol Murgos.

"Ho, there!" Yarblek greeted the Malloreans in a loud voice. "I see you've had good hunting. That's a healthy-looking bunch of recruits you've got there."

"The hunting just got easier." One of the Malloreans grinned at him, pulling his horse across the trail to block Yarblek's way.

"You mean me?" Yarblek laughed uproariously. "Don't be a fool. I'm too busy to play soldier."

"That's a shame," the Mallorean replied.

"I'm Yarblek, a merchant of Yar Turak and a friend of King Drosta himself. I'm acting on a commission that he personally put into my hands. If you interfere with me in any way, Drosta will have you flayed and roasted alive as soon as you get to Yar Nadrak."

The Mallorean looked a trifle less sure of himself "We answer only to 'Zakath," he a.s.serted a bit defensively. "King Drosta has no authority over us."

"You're in Gar og Nadrak, friend," Yarblek pointed out to him, "and Drosta does whatever he likes here. He might have to apologize to 'Zakath after it's all over, but by then the five of you will probably be peeled and cooked to a turn."

"I suppose you can prove that you're on official business?" the Mallorean guard hedged.

"Of course I can," Yarblek replied. He scratched at his head, his face taking on an expression of foolish perplexity. "Where did I put that parchment?" he muttered to himself. Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh, yes," he said, "now I remember. It's in the pack on that last mule. Here, have a drink, and I'll go get it." He tossed the wineskin to the Mallorean, turned his horse and rode back to the end of his pack string. He dismounted and began rummaging through a canvas pack.

"We'd better have a look at his doc.u.ments before we decide," one of the others advised. "King Drosta's not the sort you want to cross."

"We might as well have a drink while we're waiting," another suggested, eyeing the wineskin.

"That's one thing we can agree on," the first replied, working loose the stopper of the leather bag. He raised the skin with both hands and lifted his chin to drink.

There was a solid-sounding thud, and the feathered shaft of an arrow was quite suddenly protruding from his throat, just at the top of his red tunic. The wine gushed from the skin to pour down over his astonished face. His companions gaped at him, then reached for their weapons with cries of alarm, but it was too late. Most of them tumbled from their saddles in the sudden storm of arrows that struck them from the concealment of the ferns. One, however, wheeled his mount to flee, clutching at the shaft buried deep in his side. The horse took no more than two leaps before three arrows sank into the Mallorean's back. He stiffened, then toppled over limply, his foot hanging up in his stirrup as he fell, and his frightened horse bolted, dragging him, bouncing and flopping, back down the trail.

"I can't seem to locate that doc.u.ment," Yarblek declared, walking back with a wicked grin on his face. He turned the Mallorean he had been speaking to over with his foot. "You didn't really want to see it anyway, did you?" he asked the dead man.

The Mallorean with the arrow in his throat stared blankly up at the sky, his mouth agape and a trickle of blood running out of his nose. "I didn't think so." Yarblek laughed coa.r.s.ely. He drew back his foot and kicked the dead man back over onto his face. Then he turned to smirk at Silk as his archers came out of the dark green ferns. "You certainly get around, Silk," he said. "I thought Taur Urgas had finished you back there in stinking Cthol Murgos."

"He miscalculated," Silk replied casually.

"How did you manage to get yourself conscripted into the Mallorean army?" Yarblek asked curiously, all traces of his feigned drunkenness gone now.

Silk shrugged. "I got careless."

"I've been following you for the last three days."

"I'm touched by your concern." Silk lifted his fettered ankle and jingled the chain. "Would it be too much trouble for you to unlock this?"

"You're not going to do anything foolish, are you?"

"Of course not."

"Find the key," Yarblek told one of his archers.

"What are you going to do with us?" Besher asked nervously, eyeing the dead guards with a certain apprehension.

Yarblek laughed. "What you do once that chain's off is up to you," he answered indifferently. "I wouldn't recommend staying in the vicinity of so many dead Malloreans, though. Somebody might come along and start asking questions."

"You're just going to let us go?" Besher demanded incredulously.

"I'm certainly not going to feed you," Yarblek told him.

The archers went down the chain, unlocking the shackles, and each Nadrak bolted into the bushes as soon as he was free.

"Well, then," Yarblek said, rubbing his palms together, "now that that's been taken care of, why don't we have a drink?"

"That guard spilled all your wine when he fell off his horse," Silk pointed out.