"But-"
"No, Ce'Nedra," he said firmly.
"Garion‑" she appealed, her voice anguished.
"He's right, dear."
"But‑"
"Never mind, Ce'Nedra,"
The fire had burned down to a bed of glowing coals.
Garion awoke with a start, sitting up suddenly. He was covered with sweat and trembling violently. Once again he had heard the wailing cry that he had heard the previous day, and the sound of it wrenched at his heart. He sat for a long time staring at the fire. In time, the sweat dried and his trembling subsided.
Ce'Nedra's breathing was regular as she lay beside him, and there was no other sound in their well‑shielded encampment. He rolled carefully out of his blankets and walked to the edge of the grove of cedars to stare bleakly out across the fields lying dark and empty under an inky sky. Then, because there was nothing he could do about it, he returned to his bed and slept fitfully until dawn.
It was drizzling rain when he awoke. He got up quietly
and went out of the tent to join Durnik, who was up the fire. "Can I borrow your axe?" he asked his friend.
Durnik looked up at him.
"I guess I'm going to need a lance to go with all that." He looked rather distastefully at the helmet and shield lying atop his mail shirt near the packs and saddles.
"Oh," the smith said. "I almost forgot about that. Is one going to be enough? They break sometimes, you know ‑at least Mandorallen's always did."
"I'm certainly not going to carry more than one." Garion jabbed his thumb back over his shoulder at the hilt of his sword." Anyway, I've always got this big knife to fall back on."
The chill drizzle that had begun shortly before dawn was the kind of rain that made the nearby fields hazy and indistinct. After breakfast, they took heavy cloaks out of their packs and prepared to face a fairly unpleasant day. Garion had already put on his mail shirt, and he padded the inside of his helmet with an old tunic and jammed it down on his head. He felt very foolish as he clinked over to saddle Chretienne. The mail already smelled bad and it seemed, for some reason, to attract the chill of the soggy morning. He looked at his new‑cut lance and his round shield. "This is going to be awkward," he said.
"Hang the shield from the saddle bow, Garion," Durnik suggested, "and set the butt of your lance in the stirrup beside your foot. That's the way Mandorallen does it."
"I'll try it," Garion said. He hauled himself up into his saddle, already sweating under the weight of his mail.
Durnik handed him the shield, and he hooked the strap of it over the saddle bow. Then he took his lance and jammed its butt into his stirrup, pinching his toes in the process.
"You'll have to hold it," the smith told him. "It won't stay upright by itself."
Garion grunted and took the shaft of his lance in his right hand.
"You look very impressive, dear," Ce'Nedra assured him.
"Wonderful," he replied dryly.
They rode out of the cedar grove into the wet, miserable morning with Garion in the lead, feeling more than a little absurd in his warlike garb. The lance, he discovered almost immediately, had a stubborn tendency to dip its point toward the ground. He shifted his grip on it, sliding his hand up until he found its center of balance. The rain collected on the shaft of the lance, ran down across his clammy hand, and trickled into his sleeve. After a short while, a steady stream of water dribbled from his elbow. "I feel like a downspout," he grumbled.
"Let's pick up the pace," Belgarath said to him. "It's a long way to Ashaba, and we don't have too much time."
Garion nudged Chretienne with his heels, and the big gray moved out, at first at a trot and then in a rolling canter. For some reason that made Garion feel a bit less foolish.
The road which Feldegast had pointed out to them the previous evening was little traveled and this morning it was deserted. It ran past abandoned farmsteads, sad, bramble‑choked shells with the moldy remains of their thatched roofs all tumbled in. A few of the farmsteads had been burned, some only recently.
The road began to turn muddy as the earth soaked up the steady rain. The cantering hooves of their horses splashed the mud up to coat their legs and bellies and to spatter the boots and cloaks of the riders.
Silk rode beside Garion, his sharp face alert, and just before they reached the crest of each hill, he galloped on ahead to have a quick look at the shallow valley lying beyond.
By midmorning, Garion was soaked through, and he rode on bleakly, enduring the discomfort and the smell of new rust, wishing fervently that the rain would stop.
Silk came back down the next hill after scouting on ahead. His face was tight with a sudden excitement, and he motioned them all to stop.
"There are some Grolims up ahead," he reported tersely.
"How many?" Belgarath asked.
" About two dozen. They're holding some kind of religious ceremony."
The old man grunted. "Let's take a look." He looked at Garion. "Leave your lance with Durnik," he said. "It sticks up too high into the air, and I'd rather not attract attention."
Garion nodded and passed his lance over to the smith, then followed Silk, Belgarath, and Feldegast up the hill.
They dismounted just before they reached the crest and moved carefully to the top, where a brushy thicket offered some concealment.
The black‑robed Grolims were kneeling on the wet grass before a pair of grim altars some distance down the hill. A limp, unmoving form lay sprawled across each of them, and there was a great deal of blood. Sputtering braziers stood at the end of each altar, sending twin columns of black smoke up into the drizzle. The Grolims were chanting in the rumbling groan Garion had heard too many times before. He could not make out what they were saying.
"Chandim?" Belgarath softly asked the juggler.
" 'Tis hard t' say fer certain, Ancient One," Feldegast replied. "The twin altars would suggest it, but the practice might have spread. Grolims be very quick t' pick up changes in Church policy. But Chandim or not, 'twould be wise of us t' avoid 'em. There be not much point in engagin' ourselves in casual skirmishes with Grolims."
"There are trees over on the east-side of the valley," Silk said, pointing. "If we stay in among them, we'll be out of sight."
Belgarath nodded.
"How much longer are they likely to be praying?" Garion asked.
"Another half hour at least," Feldegast replied.
Garion looked at the pair of altars, feeling an icy rage building up in him. "I'd like to cap their ceremony with a little personal visit," he said.
"Forget it," Belgarath told him. "You're not here to ride around the countryside righting wrongs. Let's go back and get the others. I'd like to get around those Grolims before they finish with their prayers."
They picked their way carefully through the belt of dripping trees that wound along the eastern rim of the shallow valley where the Grolims were conducting their rites and returned to the muddy road about a mile beyond. Again they set out at the same distance‑eating canter, with Garion once more in the lead.
Some miles past the valley where the Grolims had sacrificed the two unfortunates, they passed a burning village that was spewing out a cloud of black smoke. There seemed to be no one about, though there were some signs of fighting near the burning houses.
They rode on without stopping.
The rain let up by midafternoon, though the sky remained overcast. Then, as they crested yet another hilltop in the rolling countryside, they saw another rider on the far side of the valley. The distance was too great to make out details, but Garion could see that the rider was armed with a lance.
"What do we do?" he called back over his shoulder at the rest of them.
"That's why you're wearing armor and carrying a lance, Garion," Belgarath replied.
"Shouldn't I at least give him the chance to stand aside?"
"To what purpose?" Feldegast asked. "He'll not do it. Yer very presence here with yer lance an' yer shield
be a challenge, an' he'll not be refusin' it. Ride him down, young Master. The day wears on, don't y' know."
" All right," Garion said unhappily. He buckled his shield to his left arm, settled his helmet more firmly in place, and lifted the butt of his lance out of his stirrup.
Chretienne was already pawing at the earth and snorting defiantly.
"Enthusiast," Garion muttered to him. "All right, let's go, then."
The big gray's charge was thunderous. It was not a gallop, exactly, nor a dead run, but rather was a deliberately implacable gait that could only be called a charge.
The armored man across the valley seemed a bit startled by the unprovoked attack, there having been none of the customary challenges, threats, or insults. After a bit of fumbling with his equipment, he managed to get his shield in place and his lance properly advanced. He seemed to be quite bulky, though that might have been his armor. He wore a sort of chain‑mail coat reaching to his knees. His helmet was round and fitted with a visor, and he had a large sword sheathed at his waist. He clanged down his visor, then sank his spurs into his horse's flanks and also charged.
The wet fields at the side of the road seemed to blur as Garion crouched behind his shield with his lance lowered and aimed directly at his opponent. He had seen Mandorallen do this often enough to understand the basics. The distance between him and the stranger was narrowing rapidly, and Garion could clearly see the mud spraying out from beneath the hooves of his opponent's horse. At the last moment, just before they came together, Garion raised up in his stirrups as Mandorallen had instructed him, leaned forward so that his entire body was braced for the shock, and took careful aim with his lance at the exact center of the other man's shield.
There was a dreadful crashing impact, and he was suddenly surrounded by flying splinters as his opponent's lance shattered. His own lance, however, though it was as stout as that of the Guardsman, was a freshly cut cedar pole and it was quite springy. It bent into a tight arch like a drawn bow, then snapped straight again. The startled stranger was suddenly lifted out of his saddle. His body described a high, graceful arc through the air, which ended abruptly as he came down on his head in the middle of the road.
Garion thundered on past and finally managed to rein in his big gray horse. He wheeled and stopped. The other man lay on his back in the mud of the road. He was not moving. Carefully, his lance at the ready, Garion walked Chretienne back to the splinter‑littered place where the impact had occurred.
"Are you all right?" he asked the Temple Guardsman lying in the mud.
There was no answer.
Cautiously, Garion dismounted, dropped his lance, and drew Iron‑grip's sword. "I say, man, are you all right?" he asked again. He reached out with his foot and nudged the fellow.
The Guardsman's visor was closed, and Garion put the tip of his sword under the bottom of it and lifted. The eyes were rolled back in his head until only the whites showed, and there was blood gushing freely from his nose.
The others came galloping up, and Ce'Nedra flung herself out of the saddle almost before her horse and stopped and hurled herself into her husband's arms. "You were magnificent, Garion! Absolutely magnificent!"
"It did go rather well, didn't it?" he replied modestly, trying to juggle sword, shield, and wife all at the same time. He looked at Polgara, who was also dismounting.
"Do you think he's going to be all right, Aunt Pol?" he asked. "I hope I didn't hurt him too much."
She checked the limp man lying in the road. "He'll be fine, dear," she assured him. "He's just been knocked senseless, is all."
"Nice job," Silk said.
Garion suddenly grinned broadly. "You know something," he said. "I think I'm starting to understand why Mandorallen enjoys this so much. It is sort of exhilarating."
"I think it has t' do with the weight of the armor," Feldegast observed sadly to Belgarath. "It bears down on 'em so much that it pulls all the juice out of their brains, or some such."
"Let's move on," Belgarath suggested.
By midmorning the following day, they had moved into the broad valley which was the location of Mal Yaska, the ecclesiastical capital of Mallorea and the site of the Disciple Urvon's palace. Though the sky remained overcast, the rain had blown on through, and a stiff breeze had begun to dry the grass and the mud which had clogged the roads. There were encampments dotting the valley, little clusters of people who had fled from the demons to the north and the plague to the south. Each group was fearfully isolated from its neighbors, and all of them kept their weapons close at hand.
Unlike those of Mal Rakuth, the gates of Mal Yaska stood open, though they were patrolled by detachments of mail‑armored Temple Guardsmen.
"Why don't they go into the city?" Durnik asked, looking at the clusters of refugees.
"Mal Yaska's not the sort of place ye visit willin'ly, Goodman," Feldegast replied. "When the Grolims be lookin' fer people t' sacrifice on their altars, 'tis unwise t' make yerself too handy." He looked at Belgarath. "Would ye be willin' t' accept a suggestion, me ancient friend?" he asked.
"Suggest away."
"We'll be needin' information about what's happenin' up there." He pointed at the snow ‑capped mountains looming across the northern horizon. "Since I know me way about Mal Yaska an' know how t' avoid the Grolims, wouldn't ye say that it might be worth the investment of an hour or so t' have me nose about the central marketplace an' see what news I kin pick up?"
"He's got a point, Belgarath," Silk agreed seriously, "I don't like riding into a situation blind."
Belgarath considered it. "All right," he said to the juggler, "but be careful -and stay out of the alehouses."
Feldegast sighed. "There be no such havens in Mal Yaska, Belgarath. The Grolims there be fearful strict in their disapproval of simple pleasures." He shook the reins of his mule and rode on across the plain toward the black walls of Urvon's capital.
"Isn't he contradicting himself?" Sadi asked. "First he says it's too dangerous to go into the city and then he rides on in anyway."
"He knows what he's doing," Belgarath said. "He's in no danger."
"We might as well have some lunch while we're waiting, father," Polgara suggested.
He nodded, and they rode some distance into an open field and dismounted.
Garion laid aside his lance, pulled his helmet from his sweaty head, and stood looking across the intervening open space at the center of Church power in Mallorea.
The city was large, certainly, though not nearly so large as Mal Zeth. The walls were high and thick, surmounted by heavy battlements, and the towers rising inside were square and blocky. There was a kind of unrelieved ugliness about it, and it seemed to exude a brooding menace as if the eons of cruelty and blood lust had sunk into its very stones. From somewhere near the center of the city, the telltale black column of smoke rose into the air, and faintly, echoing across the plain with its huddled encampments of tightened refugees, he thought he could hear the sullen iron clang of the gong coming from the Temple of Torak. Finally, he sighed and turned his head away.
"It will not last forever," Eriond, who had come up beside him, said firmly. "We're almost to the end of it now. All the altars will be torn down, and the Grolims will put their knives away to rust."
"Are you sure, Eriond?"
"Yes, Belgarion. I'm very sure."
They ate a cold lunch, and, not long after, Feldegast returned, his face somber. " 'Tis perhaps a bit more serious than we had expected, Ancient One," he reported, swinging down from his mule. "The Chandim be in total control of the city, an' the Temple Guardsmen be takin' their orders directly from them. The Grolims who hold t' the old ways have all gone into hidin', but packs of Torak's Hounds be sniffin' out the places where they've hidden an' they be tearin' 'em t' pieces wherever they find 'em."
"I find it very hard to sympathize with Grolims," Sadi murmured.
"I kin bear their discomfort meself," Feldegast agreed, "but 'tis rumored about the marketplace tha
t the Chandim an' their dogs an' their Guardsmen also be movin' about across the border in Katakor."
"In spite of the Karands and Mengha's demons?" Silk asked with some surprise.
"Now that's somethin' I could not get the straight of," the juggler replied. "No one could tell me why or how, but the Chandim an' the Guardsmen seem not t' be concerned about Mengha nor his army nor his demons."
"That begins to smell of some kind of accommodation," Silk said.
"There were hints of that previously," Feldegast reminded him.
"An alliance?" Belgarath frowned.
" 'Tis hard t' say fer sure, Ancient One, but Urvon be a schemer, an' he's always had this dispute with the imperial throne at Mal Zeth. If he's managed t' put Mengha in his pocket, Kal Zakath had better look t' his defenses"
"Is Urvon in the city?" Belgarath asked.
"No. No one knows where he's gone fer sure, but he's not in his palace there."
"That's very strange," Belgarath said.
"Indeed," the juggler replied, "but whatever he's doin' or plannin' t' do, I think we'd better be walkin' softly once we cross the border into Katakor. When ye add the Hounds an' the Temple Guardsmen t' the demons an' Karands already there, 'tis goin' t' be fearful perilous t' approach the House of Torak at Ashaba."
"That's a chance we'll have to take," the old man said grimly. "We're going to Ashaba, and if anything -Hound, human, or demon‑ gets in our way, we'll just have to deal with it as it comes."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The sky continued to lower as they rode past the brooding city of the Grolim Church under the suspicious gaze of the armored Guardsmen at the gate and the hooded Grolims on the walls.
"Is it likely that they'll follow us?" Durnik asked.
"It's not very probable, Goodman," Sadi replied. "Look around you. There are thousands encamped here, and I doubt that either Guardsmen or Grolims would take the trouble to follow them all when they leave."
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