"This is the one we want," a rough voice husked as Garion sank into unconsciousness.
He was being carried - that much was certain. He could feel the strong arms under him. He didn't know how long it had been since he had been struck on the head. His ears still rang, and he was more than a little sick to his stomach. He stayed limp, but carefully opened one eye. His vision was blurred and uncertain, but he could make out Barak's bearded face looming above him in the darkness, and merged with it, as once before in the snowy woods outside Val Alorn, he seemed to see the shaggy face of a great bear. He closed his eyes, shuddered, and started to struggle weakly.
"It's all right, Garion," Barak said, his voice sunk in a kind of despair. "It's me."
Garion opened his eyes again, and the bear seemed to be gone. He wasn't even sure he had ever really seen it.
"Are you all right?" Barak asked, setting him on the ground.
"They hit me on the head," Garion mumbled, his hand going to the swelling behind his ear.
"They won't do it again," Barak muttered, his tone still despairing. Then the huge man sank to the ground and buried his face in his hands. It was dark and difficult to see, but it looked as if Barak's shoulders were shaking with a kind of terrible suppressed grief - a soundless, wrenching series of convulsive sobs.
"Where are we?" Garion asked, looking around into the darkness.
Barak coughed and wiped at his face.
"Quite a ways from the tents. It took me a little while to catch up to the two who were carrying you off."
"What happened?" Garion was still a bit confused.
"They're dead. Can you stand up?"
"I don't know." Garion tried to get up, but a wave of giddiness swept over him, and his stomach churned.
"Never mind. I'll carry you," Barak said in a now grimly practical voice. An owl screeched from a nearby tree, and its ghostly white shape drifted off through the trees ahead of them. As Barak lifted him, Garion closed his eyes and concentrated on keeping his stomach under control.
Before long they came out into the clearing and its circle of firelight.
"Is he all right?" Aunt Pol asked, looking up from bandaging a cut on Durnik's arm.
"A bump on the head is all," Barak replied, setting Garion down.
"Did you run them off?"
His voice was harsh, even brutal.
"Those that could still run," Silk answered, his voice a bit excited and his ferret eyes bright. "They left a few behind." He pointed at a number of still shapes lying near the edge of the firelight.
Lelldorin came back into the clearing, looking over his shoulder and with his bow half drawn. He was out of breath, his face was pale, and his hands were shaking. "Are you all right?" he asked as soon as he saw Garion.
Garion nodded, gently fingering the lump behind his ear.
"I tried to find the two who took you," the young man declared, "but they were too quick for me. There's some kind of animal out there. I heard it growling while I was looking for you - awful growls."
"The beast is gone now," Barak told him flatly.
"What's the matter with you?" Silk asked the big man.
"Nothing."
"Who were these men?" Garion asked.
"Robbers, most likely," Silk surmised, putting away his dagger. "It's one of the benefits of a society that holds men in serfdom. They get bored with being serfs and go out into the forest looking for excitement and profit."
"You sound just like Garion," Lelldorin objected. "Can't you people understand that serfdom's part of the natural order of things here? Our serfs couldn't take care of themselves alone, so those of us in higher station accept the responsibility of caring for them."
"Of course you do," Silk agreed sarcastically. "They're not so well fed as your pigs nor as well-kenneled as your dogs, but you do care for them, don't you?"
"That'll do, Silk," Aunt Pol said coolly. "Let's not start bickering among ourselves." She tied a last knot on Durnik's bandage and came over to examine Garion's head. She touched her fingers gently to the lump, and he winced.
"It doesn't seem too serious," she observed.
"It hurts all the same," he complained.
"Of course it does, dear," she said calmly. She dipped a cloth in a pail of cold water and held it to the lump. "You're going to have to learn to protect your head, Garion. If you keep banging it like this, you're going to soften your brains."
Garion was about to answer that, but Hettar and Mister Wolf came back into the firelight just then.
"They're still running," Hettar announced. The steel discs on his horsehide jacket gleamed red in the flickering light, and his sabre was streaked with blood.
"They seemed to be awfully good at that part of it," Wolf said. "Is everyone all right?"
"A few bumps and bruises is about all," Aunt Pol told him. "It could have been much worse."
"Let's not start worrying about what could have been."
"Shall we remove those?" Barak growled, pointing at the bodies littering the ground near the brook.
"Shouldn't they be buried?" Durnik asked. His voice shook a little, and his face was very pale.
"Too much trouble," Barak said bluntly. "Their friends can come back later and take care of it - if they feel like it."
"Isn't that just a little uncivilized?" Durnik objected.
Barak shrugged. "It's customary."
Mister Wolf rolled one of the bodies over and carefully examined the dead man's gray face.
"Looks like an ordinary Arendish outlaw," he grunted. "It's hard to say for sure, though."
Lelldorin was retrieving his arrows, carefully pulling them out of the bodies.
"Let's drag them all over there a ways," Barak said to Hettar. "I'm getting tired of looking at them."
Durnik looked away, and Garion saw two great tears standing in his eyes.
"Does it hurt, Durnik?" he asked sympathetically, sitting on the log beside his friend.
"I killed one of those men, Garion," the smith replied in a shaking voice. "I hit him in the face with my axe. He screamed, and his blood splashed all over me. Then he fell down and kicked on the ground with his heels until he died."
"You didn't have any choice, Durnik," Garion told him. "They were trying to kill us."
"I've never killed anyone before," Durnik said, the tears now running down his face. "He kicked the ground for such a long time - such a terribly long time."
"Why don't you go to bed, Garion?" Aunt Pol suggested firmly. Her eyes were on Durnik's tear-streaked face.
Garion understood.
"Good night, Durnik," he said. He got up and started toward one of the tents. He glanced back once. Aunt Pol had seated herself on the log beside the smith and was speaking quietly to him with one of her arms comfortingly about his shoulders.
Chapter Five
The fire had burned down to a tiny orange flicker outside the tent, and the forest around the clearing was silent. Garion lay with a throbbing head trying to sleep. Finally, long past midnight, he gave it up. He slid out from under his blanket and went searching for Aunt Pol.
Above the silvery fog a full moon had risen, and its light made the mist luminous. The air around him seemed almost to glow as he picked his way carefully through the silent camp. He scratched on the outside of her tent flap and whispered, "Aunt Pol?" There was no answer. "Aunt Pol," he whispered a bit louder, "it's me, Garion. May I come in?" There was still no answer, nor even the faintest sound. Carefully he pulled back the flap and peered inside. The tent was empty.
Puzzled, even a bit alarmed, he turned and looked around the clearing. Hettar stood watch not far from the picketed horses, his hawk face turned toward the foggy forest and his cape drawn about him. Garion hesitated a moment and then stepped quietly behind the tents. He angled down through the trees and the filmy, luminous fog toward the brook, thinking that if he bathed his aching head in cold water it might help. He was about fifty yards from the tents when he saw a faint movement among the
trees ahead. He stopped.
A huge gray wolf padded out of the fog and stopped in the center of a small open space among the trees. Garion drew in his breath sharply and froze beside a large, twisted oak. The wolf sat down on the damp leaves as if he were waiting for something. The glowing fog illuminated details Garion would not have been able to see on an ordinary night. The wolf's ruff and shoulders were silvery, and his muzzle was shot with gray. He carried his age with enormous dignity, and his yellow eyes seemed calm and very wise somehow.
Garion stood absolutely still. He knew that the slightest sound would instantly reach the sharp ears of the wolf, but it was more than that. The blow behind his ear had made him light-headed, and the strange glow of moon-drenched fog made this encounter seem somehow unreal. He found that he was holding his breath.
A large, snowy white owl swooped over the open space among the trees on ghosting wings, settled on a low branch and perched there, looking down at the wolf with an unblinking stare. The gray wolf looked calmly back at the perched bird. Then, though there was no breath of wind, it seemed somehow that a sudden eddy in the shimmering fog made the figures of the owl and the wolf hazy and indistinct. When it cleared again, Mister Wolf stood in the center of the opening, and Aunt Pol in her gray gown was seated rather sedately on the limb above him.
"It's been a long time since we've hunted together, Polgara," the old man said.
"Yes, it has, father." She raised her arms and pushed her fingers through the long, dark weight of her hair. "I'd almost forgotten what it was like." She seemed to shudder then with a strange kind of pleasure. "It's a very good night for it."
"A little damp," he replied, shaking one foot.
"It's very clear above the treetops, and the stars are particularly bright. It's a splendid night for flying."
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. Did you happen to remember what you were supposed to be doing?"
"Don't be sarcastic, father."
"Well?"
"There's no one in the vicinity but Arends, and most of them are asleep."
"You're sure?"
"Of course. There isn't a Grolim for five leagues in any direction. Did you find the ones you were looking for?"
"They weren't hard to follow," Wolf answered. "They're staying in a cave about three leagues deeper into the forest. Another one of them died on their way back there, and a couple more probably won't live until morning. The rest of them seemed a little bitter about the way things turned out."
"I can imagine. Did you get close enough to hear what they were saying?"
He nodded. "There's a man in one of the villages nearby who watches the road and lets them know when somebody passes by who might be worth robbing."
"Then they're just ordinary thieves?"
"Not exactly. They were watching for us in particular. We'd all been described to them in rather complete detail."
"I think I'll go talk to this villager," she said grimly. She flexed her fingers in an unpleasantly suggestive manner.
"It's not worth the time it would take," Wolf told her, scratching thoughtfully at his beard. "All he'd be able to tell you is that some Murgo offered him gold. Grolims don't bother to explain very much to their hirelings."
"We should attend to him, father," she insisted. "We don't want him lurking behind us, trying to buy up every brigand in Arendia to send after us."
"After tomorrow he won't buy much of anything," Wolf replied with a short laugh. "His friends plan to lure him out into the woods in the morning and cut his throat for him - among other things."
"Good. I'd like to know who the Grolim is, though."
Wolf shrugged. "What difference does it make? There are dozens of them in northern Arendia, all stirring up as much trouble as they can. They know what's coming as well as we do. We can't expect them to just sit back and let us pass."
"Shouldn't we put a stop to it?"
"We don't have the time," he said. "It takes forever to explain things to Arends. If we move fast enough, maybe we can slip by before the Grolims are ready."
"And if we can't?"
"Then we'll do it the other way. I've got to get to Zedar before he crosses into Cthol Murgos. If too many things get in my way, I'll have to be more direct."
"You should have done that from the beginning, father. Sometimes you're too delicate about things."
"Are you going to start that again? That's always your answer to everything, Polgara. You're forever fixing things that would fix themselves if you'd just leave them alone, and changing things when they don't have to be changed."
"Don't be cross, father. Help me down."
"Why not fly down?" he suggested.
"Don't be absurd."
Garion slipped away among the mossy trees, trembling violently as he went.
When Aunt Pol and Mister Wolf returned to the clearing, they roused the others. "I think we'd better move on," Wolf told them. "We're a little vulnerable out here. It's safer on the highway, and I'd like to get past this particular stretch of woods."
The dismantling of their night's encampment took less than an hour, and they started back along the woodcutter's track toward the Great West Road. Though it was still some hours before dawn, the moonbathed fog filled the night with misty luminosity, and it seemed almost as if they rode through a shining cloud that had settled among the dark trees. They reached the highway and turned south again.
"I'd like to be a good way from here when the sun comes up," Wolf said quietly, "but we don't want to blunder into anything, so keep your eyes and ears open."
They set off at a canter and had covered a good three leagues by the time the fog had begun to turn a pearly gray with the approach of morning. As they rounded a broad curve, Hettar suddenly raised his arm, signaling for a halt.
"What's wrong?" Barak asked him.
"Horses ahead," Hettar replied. "Coming this way."
"Are you sure? I don't hear anything."
"Forty at least," Hettar answered firmly.
"There," Durnik said, his head cocked to one side. "Hear that?"
Faintly they all heard a jingling clatter some distance off in the fog. "We could hide in the woods until they've passed," Lelldorin suggested.
"It's better to stay on the road," Wolf replied.
"Let me handle it," Silk said confidently, moving into the lead. "I've done this sort of thing before." They proceeded at a careful walk.
The riders who emerged from the fog were encased in steel. They wore full suits of polished armor and round helmets with pointed visors that made them look strangely like huge insects. They earned long lances with colored pennons at their tips, and their horses were massive beasts, also encased in armor.
"Mimbrate knights," Lelldorin snarled, his eyes going flat.
"Keep your feelings to yourself," Wolf told the young man. "If any of them say anything to you, answer in such a way that they'll think you're a Mimbrate sympathizer - like young Berentain back at your uncle's house."
Lelldorin's face hardened.
"Do as he tells you, Lelldorin," Aunt Pol said. "This isn't the time for heroics."
"Hold!" the leader of the armored column commanded, lowering his lance until the steel point was leveled at them. "Let one come forward so that I may speak with him." The knight's tone was peremptory.
Silk moved toward the steel-cased man, his smile ingratiating. "We're glad to see you, Sir Knight," he lied glibly. "We were set upon by robbers last night, and we've been riding in fear of our lives."
"What is thy name?" the knight demanded, raising his visor, "and who are these who accompany thee?"
"I am Radek of Boktor, my Lord," Silk answered, bowing and pulling off his velvet cap, "a merchant of Drasnia bound for Tol Honeth with Sendarian woolens in hopes of catching the winter market."
The armored man's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Thy party seems overlarge for so simple an undertaking, worthy merchant."
"The three there are my servants," Silk told him, pointing at Ba
rak, Hettar, and Durnik. "The old man and the boy serve my sister, a widow of independent means who accompanies me so that she might visit Tol Honeth."
"What of the other?" the knight pressed. "The Asturian?"
"A young nobleman traveling to Vo Mimbre to visit friends there. He graciously consented to guide us through this forest."
The knight's suspicion seemed to relax a bit. "Thou madest mention of robbers," he said. "Where did this ambush take place?"
"About three or four leagues back. They set upon us after we had made our night's encampment. We managed to beat them off, but my sister was terrified."
"This province of Asturia seethes with rebellion and brigandage," the knight said sternly. "My men and I are sent to suppress such offenses. Come here, Asturian."
Lelldorin's nostrils flared, but he obediently came forward. "I will require thy name of thee."
"My name is Lelldorin, Sir Knight. How may I serve thee?"
"These robbers thy friends spoke of - were they commons or men of quality?"
"Serfs, my Lord," Lelldorin replied, "ragged and uncouth. Doubtless fled from lawful submission to their masters to take up outlawry in the forest."
"How may we expect duty and proper submission from serfs when nobles raise detestable rebellion against the crown?" the knight asserted.
"Truly, my Lord," Lelldorin agreed with a show of sadness that was a trifle overdone. "Much have I argued that selfsame point with those who speak endlessly of Mimbrate oppression and overweening arrogance. My appeals for reason and dutiful respect for His Majesty, our Lord King, however, are greeted with derision and cold despite." He sighed.
"Thy wisdom becomes thee, young Lelldorin," the knight approved. "Regrettably, I must detain thee and thy companions in order that we may verify certain details."
"Sir Knight!" Silk protested vigorously. "A change in the weather could destroy the value of my merchandise in Tol Honeth. I pray you, don't delay me."
"I regret the necessity, good merchant," the knight replied, "but Asturia is filled with dissemblers and plotters. I can permit none to pass without meticulous examination."
There was a stir at the rear of the Mimbrate column. In single file, resplendent in burnished breastplates, plumed helmets and crimson capes, a half a hundred Tolnedran legionnaires rode slowly along the flank of the armored knights.