‘No. Practical. You’ve given me something to think about beside killing Murgos. It’s probably going to take me a while to get used to the idea, but after I’ve thought it over, we’ll definitely need to talk.’
She bit her lip and tried to hide her face. ‘What a stupid mess I’ve made of things,’ she said. ‘If I were somebody else, I’d laugh at me. It would really be better if we didn’t see each other again.’
‘No,’ he said firmly, still holding her hand, ‘it wouldn’t. And don’t try to hide from me, because I’ll find you – even if I have to have every horse in Algaria go looking for you.’
She gave him a startled look.
‘I am a Sha-dar, remember? Horses do what I tell them to.’
‘That’s not fair,’ she objected.
He gave her a quizzical little smile. ‘And trying to have Garion use sorcery on me was?’ he asked her.
‘Oh, dear!’ She blushed.
‘She must rest now,’ Ariana told them. ‘Thou canst speak with her further on the morrow.’
When they were back out in the hallway, Ce’Nedra turned on the tall man. ‘You might have said something a bit more encouraging,’ she scolded him.
‘It would have been premature,’ he replied. ‘We’re a rather reserved people, Princess. We don’t say things just to be talking. Adara understands the situation.’ Hettar seemed as fierce as ever, his sharp-angled face hard, and his manelike scalp lock flowing over one leather-armored shoulder. His eyes, however, had softened slightly, and there was a faintly puzzled crease between his brows. ‘Didn’t Polgara want to see you?’ he asked. It was polite, but it was a dismissal nonetheless.
Ce’Nedra stalked away, muttering to herself about the lack of consideration that seemed to infect the male half of the population.
Lady Polgara sat quietly in her room, waiting. ‘Well?’ she said when the princess entered. ‘Would you care to explain?’
‘Explain what?’
‘The reason for the idiocy that almost cost Adara her life.’
‘Surely you don’t think it was my fault,’ Ce’Nedra protested.
‘Whose fault was it, then? What were you doing out there?’
‘We just went for a little ride. It’s so boring being cooped up all the time.’
‘Boring. What a fascinating reason to kill your friends.’
Ce’Nedra gaped at her, her face suddenly very pale.
‘Why do you think we built these fortifications to begin with, Ce’Nedra? It was to provide us with some measure of protection.’
‘I didn’t know there were Murgos out there,’ the princess wailed.
‘Did you bother to find out?’
The entire implication of what she had done quite suddenly came crashing in on Ce’Nedra. She began to tremble violently, and her shaking hand went to her mouth. It was her fault! No matter how she might twist and turn and try to evade the responsibility, her foolishness had nearly killed one of her dearest friends. Adara had almost paid with her life for a bit of childish thoughtlessness. Ce’Nedra buried her face in her hands in a sudden storm of weeping.
Polgara let her cry for several moments, giving her ample time to accept her guilt; and when she finally spoke, there was no hint of forgiveness in her voice. ‘Tears won’t wash out blood, Ce’Nedra,’ she said. ‘I thought I could at least begin to trust your judgment, but it appears that I was wrong. You may leave now. I don’t believe I have anything more to say to you this evening.’
Sobbing, the princess fled.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Is this place all like this?’ King Anheg asked as the army trudged through one of the flat, gravel-strewn valleys with the bare, sun-baked mountains around it dancing in the shimmering heat. ‘I haven’t seen a tree since we left the forts.’
‘The country changes about twenty leagues out, your Majesty,’ Hettar replied quietly, lounging in his saddle as they rode in the blazing sunlight. ‘We start to hit trees when we begin coming down out of the uplands. They’re a kind of low, scraggly spruce, but they break up the monotony a bit.’
The column behind them stretched out for miles, dwarfed into a thin line by the enormous emptiness and marked more by the cloud of yellow dust raised by thousands of feet than by the presence of men and horses. The Cherek ships, covered with canvas, jolted along over the rocky ground on their low, wheeled cradles, and the dust hung over them in the stifling heat like a gritty blanket.
‘I’d pay a lot for a breeze right now,’ Anheg said wistfully, wiping his face.
‘Just leave things the way they are, Anheg,’ Barak advised him. ‘It wouldn’t take much to start a dust storm.’
‘How much farther is it to the river?’ King Rhodar asked plaintively, looking at the unchanging landscape. The heat was having a brutal effect on the corpulent monarch. His face was beet red, and he was soaked and dripping with sweat.
‘Still about forty leagues,’ Hettar replied.
General Varana, mounted on a roan stallion, cantered back from the vanguard of the column. The general wore a short leather kilt and a plain breastplate and helmet bearing no marks of his rank. ‘The Mimbrate knights just flushed out another pocket of Murgos,’ he reported.
‘How many?’ King Rhodar asked.
‘Twenty or so. Three or four got away, but the Algars are chasing them.’
‘Shouldn’t our patrols be farther out?’ King Anheg fretted, mopping his face again. ‘Those ships don’t look that much like wagons. I’d rather not have to fight my way down the River Mardu – if we ever get there.’
‘I’ve got people moving around out there, Anheg,’ King Cho-Hag assured him.
‘Has anyone run across any Malloreans yet?’ Anheg asked.
‘Not so far,’ Cho-Hag replied. ‘All we’ve seen so far are Thulls and Murgos.’
‘It looks as if ‘Zakath is holding firm at Thull Zelik,’ Varana added.
‘I wish I knew more about him,’ Rhodar said.
‘The Emperor’s emissaries report that he’s a very civilized man,’ Varana said. ‘Cultured, urbane, very polite.’
‘I’m sure there’s another side to him,’ Rhodar disagreed. ‘The Nadraks are terrified of him, and it takes a lot to frighten a Nadrak.’
‘As long as he stays at Thull Zelik, I don’t care what kind of man he is,’ Anheg declared.
Colonel Brendig rode forward from the toiling column of infantry and wagons stretched out behind them. ‘King Fulrach asks that we halt the column for a rest period,’ he reported.
‘Again?’ Anheg demanded irritably.
‘We’ve marched for two hours, your Majesty,’ Brendig pointed out. ‘Marching in all this heat and dust is very exhausting for infantry. The men won’t be much good in a fight if they’re all wrung out from walking.’
‘Halt the column, Colonel,’ Polgara told the Sendarian baronet. ‘We can rely on Fulrach’s judgment in these matters.’ She turned to the King of Cherek. ‘Stop being so peevish, Anheg,’ she chided him.
‘I’m being broiled alive, Polgara,’ he complained.
‘Try walking for a few miles,’ she told him sweetly. ‘That may give you some insight into how the infantry feels.’
Anheg scowled, but remained silent.
Princess Ce’Nedra pulled in her sweating mount as the column halted. The princess had spoken very little since Adara had been wounded. The dreadful sense of her responsibility for her friend’s nearly fatal injury had sobered her enormously, and she had retreated into a kind of shell that was totally unnatural for her. She removed the loose-woven straw hat that a captive Thull had made for her back at the fort and squinted at the blistering sky.
‘Put the hat back on, Ce’Nedra,’ Lady Polgara told her. ‘I don’t want you getting sunstroke.’
Ce’Nedra obediently put her hat back on. ‘He’s coming back,’ she reported, pointing at a speck in the sky high above them.
‘Will you excuse me?’ General Varana said, turning his horse to leave.
<
br /> ‘You’re being absurd, Varana,’ King Rhodar told the Tolnedran. ‘Why do you insist on refusing to admit he can do things you don’t want to believe in?’
‘It’s a matter of principle, your Majesty,’ the general replied. ‘Tolnedrans do not believe in sorcery. I am a Tolnedran, therefore I do not admit that it exists.’ He hesitated. ‘I must concede, however, that his information is surprisingly accurate – however he gets it.’
A large, blue-banded hawk fell suddenly out of the broiling air like a stone, flared his wings at the last moment, and settled on the ground directly in front of them.
General Varana resolutely turned his back and stared with apparently deep interest at a featureless hill some five miles distant.
The hawk began to shimmer and change even as he folded his wings. ‘Are you stopping again?’ Beldin demanded irascibly.
‘We have to rest the troops, Uncle,’ Polgara replied.
‘This isn’t a Sunday stroll, Pol,’ Beldin retorted. He began to scratch one armpit, befouling the air around him with a string of rancid curses.
‘What’s the matter?’ Polgara asked mildly.
‘Lice,’ he grunted.
‘How did you get lice?’
‘I visited some other birds to ask if they’d seen anything. I think I picked them up in a vulture’s nest.’
‘What could possibly possess you to go consorting with vultures?’
‘Vultures aren’t that bad, Pol. They perform a necessary function, and the chicks do have a certain charm. The she-vulture had been picking at a dead horse about twenty leagues south of here. After she told me about it, I went down to take a look. There’s a Murgo column coming this way.’
‘How many?’ General Varana asked quickly, his back still turned to them.
‘A thousand or so,’ Beldin shrugged. ‘They’re pushing hard. They’ll probably intercept you tomorrow morning.’
‘A thousand Murgos aren’t that much to worry about,’ King Rhodar said, frowning. ‘Not to an army of this size. But what’s the point of throwing a thousand men away? What does Taur Urgas hope to accomplish?’ He turned to Hettar. ‘Do you suppose you could ride ahead and ask Korodullin and the Baron of Vo Mandor to join us. I think we ought to have a conference.’
Hettar nodded and loped his horse ahead toward the gleaming ranks of the Mimbrate knights at the head of the column.
‘Were there any Grolims with the Murgos, Uncle?’ Polgara asked the filthy hunchback.
‘Not unless they were well-hidden,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t probe too much, though. I didn’t want to give myself away.’
General Varana abruptly abandoned his careful study of the hills around them and turned his horse about to join them. ‘My first guess would be that the Murgo column is a token gesture from Taur Urgas. He probably wants to get on the good side of King Gethell; and since the Malloreans won’t leave Thull Zelik, he can pick up some advantage by committing a few troops to aid in the defense of the Thullish towns and villages we’ve been destroying.’
‘That makes sense, Rhodar,’ Anheg agreed.
‘Maybe,’ Rhodar said dubiously. ‘Taur Urgas doesn’t think like a rational man, though.’
King Korodullin, flanked by Mandorallen and the Baron of Vo Ebor, thundered back to join them. Their armor flashed in the sun, and all three were flushed and miserable-looking in their steel casings.
‘How can you stand all that?’ Rhodar asked.
‘Custom, your Majesty,’ Korodullin replied. ‘The armor doth inflict some discomfort, but we have learned to endure it.’
General Varana quickly sketched in the situation for them.
Mandorallen shrugged. ‘It is of no moment. I will take some few dozen men and smash this threat from the south.’
Barak looked at King Anheg. ‘You see what I mean about him?’ he said. ‘Now you can understand why I was so nervous all the time we were chasing across Cthol Murgos.’
King Fulrach had ridden forward to join the conference, and he cleared his throat diffidently. ‘Might I make a suggestion?’ he asked.
‘We eagerly await the practical wisdom of the King of the Sendars,’ Korodullin replied with extravagant courtesy.
‘The Murgo column doesn’t really pose much of a threat, does it?’ Fulrach inquired.
‘Not really, your Majesty,’ Varana replied. ‘At least, now that we know that they’re out there. We think that they’re some kind of minor relief column sent to placate the Thulls. Their presence in our vicinity is probably entirely accidental.’
‘I don’t want them getting close enough to recognize my ships, though,’ Anheg declared firmly.
‘We’ll take care of that, Anheg,’ Rhodar told him.
‘Any one of the elements of our army might easily overcome so slight a threat,’ Fulrach continued, ‘but mightn’t it be better – from a morale standpoint – to give the victory to the entire army?’
‘I don’t quite follow you, Fulrach,’ Anheg said.
‘Instead of letting Sir Mandorallen annihilate these thousand Murgos all by himself, why not select a contingent from each part of the army to deal with them? Not only will that give us some experience in tactical coordination, but it’ll give all the men a sense of pride. An easy victory now will stiffen their backs when we run into more difficult times later.’
‘Fulrach, sometimes you positively amaze me,’ Rhodar declared. ‘I think the whole trouble is that you don’t look that clever.’
The contingents that were to turn south to meet the approaching Murgos were selected by lot, once again at the suggestion of King Fulrach. ‘That way there’ll be no suspicion in the army that this is some kind of elite force,’ he noted.
While the rest of the column pushed on toward the headwaters of the River Mardu, the miniature army under the command of Barak, Hettar, and Mandorallen veered to the south to intercept the enemy spearhead.
‘They’ll be all right, won’t they?’ Ce’Nedra nervously asked Polgara as she watched them growing smaller and smaller as they rode off across the arid valley toward the solid line of mountains to the south.
‘I’m certain they will, dear,’ Polgara replied confidently.
The princess, however, did not sleep that night. For the first time, members of her army were committed to a real battle, and she tossed and turned the entire night, imagining all manner of disasters.
About midmorning of the following day, however, the special force returned. There were a few bandages here and there and perhaps a dozen empty saddles, but the look of victory shone on every face.
‘Very nice little fight,’ Barak reported. The huge man was grinning broadly. ‘We caught them just before sundown. They never knew what hit them.’
General Varana, who had accompanied the force to observe, was a bit more precise as he described the engagement to the assembled kings. ‘The general tactics did work pretty much as we’d planned,’ he said. ‘The Asturian archers swept the column with an arrow storm to begin with, and then the infantry units moved into position at the top of a long slope. We interspersed legionnaires, Drasnian pikemen, Sendars and the Arendish serf units evenly along the entire front with the archers behind them to continue harassing the enemy with arrows. As we expected, the Murgos charged. As soon as they’d committed themselves, the Chereks and Rivans moved into position behind them, and the Algars began slashing their flanks. When the Murgo assault began to falter, the Mimbrate knights made their charge.’
‘It was absolutely splendid!’ Lelldorin exclaimed, his eyes very bright. There was a bandage around the young Asturian’s upper arm, but he seemed to have forgotten that it was there as he gesticulated wildly. ‘Just at the point when the Murgos were completely confused, there was a sound like thunder, and the knights came curving around the side of a hill with their lances advanced and their pennons streaming. They bore down on the Murgos – a wave of solid steel – and the hoofs of their horses shook the earth. And then at the last moment, they all lowered their lan
ces. It was like watching a wave break. And then they hit the Murgos with a great crash, and they didn’t even slow down. They rode through them as if they weren’t even there! They absolutely crushed them, and then we all ran in to finish up. It was glorious!’
‘He’s as bad as Mandorallen, isn’t he?’ Barak observed to Hettar.
‘I think it’s in their blood,’ Hettar replied sagely.
‘Did any of them get away?’ Anheg asked.
Barak gave his cousin an evil grin. ‘After it got dark, we could hear a few of them trying to crawl away. That’s when Relg and his Ulgos went out to tidy up. Don’t worry, Anheg. Nobody’s going to report back to Taur Urgas.’
‘He is likely to be waiting for news, isn’t he?’ Anheg grinned.
‘I hope he’s patient, then,’ Barak replied, ‘because he’ll be waiting for a long time.’
Ariana, her face somber, took Lelldorin to task very firmly for his lack of discretion, even as she tended his wound. Her words far surpassed a simple scolding. She grew eloquent, and her lengthy, involuted sentences gave her remonstrance a depth and scope that reduced her young man very nearly to tears. His wound, admittedly minor, became a symbol of his careless lack of regard for her. Her expression grew martyred, and his grew anguished. Ce’Nedra observed how neatly Ariana twisted each of the young man’s lame excuses into an even greater personal injury, and filed this excellent technique away in a compartment of her complex little mind for future use. True, Garion was somewhat brighter than Lelldorin, but the tactic would probably work on him too, if she practiced a little.
Taiba’s meeting with Relg, on the other hand, involved no words. The beautiful Marag woman who had emerged from the slave pens beneath Rak Cthol only to enter a slavery even more profound, flew to the Ulgo fanatic’s side upon his return. With a low cry, she unthinkingly embraced him. Relg flinched away from her, but the almost automatic, ‘Don’t touch me,’ seemed to die on his lips, and his eyes went very wide as she clung to him. Then Taiba remembered his aversion and helplessly let her arms drop, but her violet eyes glowed as they drank in his pale, large-eyed face. Then slowly, almost as if he were putting his arm into a fire, Relg reached out and took her hand. A brief look of incredulity crossed her face, followed almost immediately by a slow blush. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, then walked off together, hand in hand. Taiba’s eyes were demurely downcast, but there hovered about her rich, sensual mouth a tiny little smile of triumph.