Durnik, who had just come into the kitchen, stopped and stood staring at them.
"Things aren't what they seem here," he said. "What manner of folk are you, and how is it that you have such dangerous enemies?"
"That's a long story, good Durnik," Wolf said, "but I'm afraid there's no time to tell it now. Make our apologies to Faldor, and see if you can't detain Brill for a day or so. I'd like our trail to be quite cold before he or his friends try to find it."
"Someone else is going to have to do that," Durnik said slowly. "I'm not sure what this is all about, but I am sure that there's danger involved in it. It appears that I'll have to go with you—at least until I've gotten you safely away from here."
Aunt Pol suddenly laughed.
"You, Durnik? You mean to protect us?"
He drew himself up.
"I'm sorry, Mistress Pol," he said. "I will not permit you to go unescorted."
"Will not permit?" she said incredulously.
"Very well," Wolf said, a sly look on his face.
"Have you totally taken leave of your senses?" Aunt Pol demanded, turning on him.
"Durnik has shown himself to be a useful man," Wolf said. "If nothing else, he'll give me someone to talk with along the way. Your tongue has grown sharper with the years, Pol, and I don't relish the idea of a hundred leagues or more with nothing but abuse for companionship."
"I see that you've finally slipped into your dotage, Old Wolf," she said acidly.
"That's exactly the sort of thing I meant," Wolf replied blandly. "Now gather a few necessary things, and let's be away from here. The night is passing rapidly."
She glared at him a moment and then stormed out of the kitchen.
"I'll have to fetch some things too," Durnik said. He turned and went out into the gusty night.
Garion's mind whirled. Things were happening far too fast.
"Afraid, boy?" Wolf asked.
"Well-" Garion said. "It's just that I don't understand. I don't understand any of this at all."
"You will in time, Garion," Wolf said. "For now it's better perhaps that you don't. There's danger in what we're doing, but not all that great a danger. Your Aunt and I—and good Durnik, of course—will see that no harm comes to you. Now help me in the pantry." He took a lantern into the pantry and began loading some loaves of bread, a ham, a round yellow cheese and several bottles of wine into a sack which he took down from a peg.
It was nearly midnight, as closely as Garion could tell, when they quietly left the kitchen and crossed the dark courtyard. The faint creak of the gate as Durnik swung it open seemed enormously loud.
As they passed through the gate, Garion felt a momentary pang. Faldor's farm had been the only home he had ever known. He was leaving now, perhaps forever, and such things had great significance. He felt an even sharper pang at the memory of Zubrette. The thought of Doroon and Zubrette together in the hay barn almost made him want to give the whole thing up altogether, but it was far too late now.
Beyond the protection of the buildings, the gusty wind was chill and whipped at Garion's cloak. Heavy clouds covered the moon, and the road seemed only slightly less dark than the surrounding fields. It was cold and lonely and more than a little frightening. He walked a bit closer to Aunt Pol.
At the top of the hill he stopped and glanced back. Faldor's farm was only a pale, dim blur in the valley behind. Regretfully, he turned his back on it. The valley ahead was very dark, and even the road was lost in the gloom before them.
Chapter Six
THEY HAD WALKED for miles, how many Garion could not say. He nodded as he walked, and sometimes stumbled over unseen stones on the dark road. More than anything now he wanted to sleep. His eyes burned, and his legs trembled on the verge of exhaustion.
At the top of another hill—there always seemed to be another hill, for that part of Sendaria was folded like a rumpled cloth—Mister Wolf stopped and looked about, his eyes searching the oppressive gloom.
"We turn aside from the road here," he announced.
"Is that wise?" Durnik asked. "There are woods hereabout, and I've heard that there may be robbers hiding there. Even if there aren't any robbers, aren't we likely to lose our way in the dark?" He looked up at the murky sky, his plain face, dimly seen, troubled. "I wish there was a moon."
"I don't think we need to be afraid of robbers," Wolf said confidently, "and I'm just as happy that there isn't a moon. I don't think we're being followed yet, but it's just as well that no one happens to see us pass. Murgo gold can buy most secrets." And with that he led them into the fields that lay beside the road.
For Garion the fields were impossible. If he had stumbled now and then on the road, the unseen furrows, holes, and clumps in the rough ground seemed to catch at his feet with every step. At the end of a mile, when they reached the black edge of the woods, he was almost ready to weep with exhaustion.
"How can we find our way in there?" he demanded, peering into the utter darkness of the woods.
"There's a woodcutter's track not far to this side," Wolf said, pointing. "We only have a little farther to go." And he set off again, following the edge of the dark woods, with Garion and the others stumbling along behind him. "Here we are," he said finally, stopping to allow them to catch up. "It's going to be very dark in there, and the track isn't wide. I'll go first, and the rest of you follow me."
"I'll be right behind you, Garion," Durnik said. "Don't worry. Everything will be all right." There was a note in the smith's voice, however, that hinted that his words were more to reassure himself than to calm the boy.
It seemed warmer in the woods. The trees sheltered them from the gusty wind, but it was so dark that Garion could not understand how Wolf could possibly find his way. A dreadful suspicion grew in his mind that Wolf actually did not know where he was going and was merely floundering along blindly, trusting to luck.
"Stop," a rumbling voice suddenly, shockingly, said directly ahead of them. Garion's eyes, accustomed slightly now to the gloom of the woods, saw a vague outline of something so huge that it could not possibly be a man.
"A giant!" he screamed in a sudden panic. Then, because he was exhausted and because everything that had happened that evening had simply piled too much upon him all at one time, his nerve broke and he bolted into the trees.
"Garion!" Aunt Pol's voice cried out after him, "come back!"
But panic had taken hold of him. He ran on, falling over roots and bushes, crashing into trees and tangling his legs in brambles. It seemed like some endless nightmare of blind flight. He ran full tilt into a lowhanging, unseen branch, and sparks flared before his eyes with the sudden blow to his forehead. He lay on the damp earth, gasping and sobbing, trying to clear his head.
And then there were hands on him, horrid, unseen hands. A thousand terrors flashed through his mind at once, and he struggled desperately, trying to draw his dagger.
"Oh, no," a voice said. "None of that, my rabbit." His dagger was taken from him.
"Are you going to eat me?" Garion babbled, his voice breaking.
His captor laughed.
"On your feet, rabbit," he said, and Garion felt himself pulled up by a strong hand. His arm was taken in a firm grasp, and he was half dragged through the woods.
Somewhere ahead there was a light, a winking fire among the trees, and it seemed that he was being taken that way. He knew that he must think, must devise some means of escape, but his mind, stunned by fright and exhaustion, refused to function.
There were three wagons sitting in a rough half circle around the fire. Durnik was there, and Wolf, and Aunt Pol, and with them a man so huge that Garion's mind simply refused to accept the possibility that he was real. His tree-trunk sized legs were wrapped in furs cross-tied with leather thongs, and he wore a chain-mail shirt that reached to his knees, belted at the waist. From the belt hung a ponderous sword on one side and a short-handled axe on the other. His hair was in braids, and he had a vast, bristling red beard.
&
nbsp; As they came into the light, Garion was able to see the man who had captured him. He was a small man, scarcely taller than Garion himself, and his face was dominated by a long pointed nose. His eyes were small and squinted, and his straight, black hair was raggedly cut. The face was not the sort to inspire confidence, and the man's stained and patched tunic and short, wicked-looking sword did little to contradict the implications of the face.
"Here's our rabbit," the small, weasel-like man announced as he pulled Garion into the circle of the firelight. "And a merry chase he led me, too."
Aunt Pol was furious.
"Don't you ever do that again," she said sternly to Garion.
"Not so quick, Mistress Pol," Wolf said. "It's better for him to run than to fight just yet. Until he's bigger, his feet are his best friends."
"Have we been captured by robbers?" Garion asked in a quavering voice.
"Robbers?" Wolf laughed. "What a wild imagination you have, boy. These two are our friends."
"Friends?" Garion asked doubtfully, looking suspiciously at the redbearded giant and the weasel-faced man beside him. "Are you sure?" The giant laughed then too, his voice rumbling like an earthquake.
"The boy seems mistrustful," he boomed. "Your face must have warned him, friend Silk."
The smaller man looked sourly at his burly companion.
"This is Garion," Wolf said, pointing at the boy. "You already know Mistress Pol." His voice seemed to stress Aunt Pol's name. "And this is Durnik, a brave smith who has decided to accompany us."
"Mistress Pol?" the smaller man said, laughing suddenly for no apparent reason.
"I am known so," Aunt Pol said pointedly.
"It shall be my pleasure to call you so then, great lady," the small man said with a mocking bow.
"Our large friend here is Barak," Wolf went on. "He's useful to have around when there's trouble. As you can see, he's not a Sendar, but a Cherek from Val Alorn."
Garion had never seen a Cherek before, and the fearful tales of their prowess in battle became suddenly quite believable in the presence of the towering Barak.
"And I," the small man said with one hand to his chest, "am called Silk—not much of a name, I'll admit, but one which suits me—and I am from Boktor in Drasnia. I am a juggler and an acrobat."
"And also a thief and a spy," Barak rumbled good-naturedly.
"We all have our faults," Silk admitted blandly, scratching at his scraggly whiskers.
"And I'm called Mister Wolf in this particular time and place," the old man said. "I'm rather fond of the name, since the boy there gave it to me."
"Mister Wolf?" Silk asked, and then he laughed again. "What a merry name for you, old friend."
"I'm delighted that you find it so, old friend," Wolf said flatly. "Mister Wolf it shall be, then," Silk said. "Come to the fire, friends. Warm yourselves, and I'll see to some food."
Garion was still uncertain about the oddly matched pair. They obviously knew Aunt Pol and Mister Wolf—and just as obviously by different names. The fact that Aunt Pol might not be whom he had always thought she was was very disturbing. One of the foundation stones of his entire life had just disappeared.
The food which Silk brought was rough, a turnip stew with thick chunks of meat floating in it and crudely hacked off slabs of bread, but Garion, amazed at the size of his appetite, fell into it as if he had not eaten for days.
And then, his stomach full and his feet warmed by the crackling campfire, he sat on a log, half dozing.
"What now, Old Wolf?" he heard Aunt Pol ask. "What's the idea behind these clumsy wagons?"
"A brilliant plan," Wolf said, "even if I do say it myself. There are, as you know, wagons going every which way in Sendaria at this time of year. Harvests are moving from field to farm, from farm to village and from village to town. Nothing is more unremarkable in Sendaria than wagons. They're so common that they're almost invisible. This is how we're going to travel. We're now honest freight haulers."
"We're what?" Aunt Pol demanded.
"Wagoneers," Wolf said expansively. "Hard-working transporters of the goods of Sendaria—out to make our fortunes and seek adventure, bitten by the desire to travel, incurably infected by the romance of the road."
"Have you any idea how long it takes to travel by wagon?" Aunt Pol asked.
"Six to ten leagues a day," he told her. "Slow, I'll grant you, but it's better to move slowly than to attract attention."
She shook her head in disgust.
"Where first, Mister Wolf?" Silk asked.
"To Darine," Wolf announced. "If the one we're following went to the north, he'll have to have passed through Darine on his way to Boktor and beyond."
"And what exactly are we carrying to Darine?" Aunt Pol asked.
"Turnips, great lady," Silk said. "Last morning my large friend and I purchased three wagonloads of them in the village of Winold."
"Turnips?" Aunt Pol asked in a tone that spoke volumes.
"Yes, great lady, turnips," Silk said solemnly.
"Are we ready, then?" Wolf asked.
"We are," the giant Barak said shortly, rising with his mail shirt clinking.
"We should look the part," Wolf said carefully, eyeing Barak up and down. "Your armor, my friend, is not the sort of garb an honest wagoneer would wear. I think you should change it for stout wool."
Barak's face looked injured.
"I could wear a tunic over it," he suggested tentatively.
"You rattle," Silk pointed out, "and armor has a distinctive fragrance about it. From the downwind side you smell like a rusty ironworks, Barak."
"I feel undressed without a mail shirt," Barak complained.
"We must all make sacrifices," Silk said.
Grumbling, Barak went to one of the wagons, jerked out a bundle of clothes and began to pull off his mail shirt. His linen undertunic bore large, reddish rust stains.
"I'd change tunics as well," Silk suggested. "Your shirt smells as bad as the armor."
Barak glowered at him. "Anything else?" he demanded. "I hope, for decency's sake, you don't plan to strip me entirely."
Silk laughed.
Barak pulled off his tunic. His torso was enormous and covered with thick red hair.
"You look like a rug," Silk observed.
"I can't help that," Barak said. "Winters are cold in Cherek, and the hair helps me to stay warm." He put on a fresh tunic.
"It's just as cold in Drasnia," Silk said. "Are you absolutely sure your grandmother didn't dally with a bear during one of those long winters?"
"Someday your mouth is going to get you into a great deal of trouble, friend Silk," Barak said ominously.
Silk laughed again. "I've been in trouble most of my life, friend Barak."
"I wonder why," Barak said ironically.
"I think all this could be discussed later," Wolf said pointedly. "I'd rather like to be away from here before the week's out, if I can."
"Of course, old friend," Silk said, jumping up. "Barak and I can amuse each other later."
Three teams of sturdy horses were picketed nearby, and they all helped to harness them to the wagons.
"I'll put out the fire," Silk said and fetched two pails of water from a small brook that trickled nearby. The fire hissed when the water struck it, and great clouds of steam boiled up toward the low-hanging tree limbs.
"We'll lead the horses to the edge of the wood," Wolf said. "I'd rather not pick my teeth on a low branch."
The horses seemed almost eager to start and moved without urging along a narrow track through the dark woods. They stopped at the edge of the open fields, and Wolf looked around carefully to see if anyone was in sight.
"I don't see anybody," he said. "Let's get moving."
"Ride with me, good smith," Barak said to Durnik. "Conversation with an honest man is much preferable to a night spent enduring the insults of an over-clever Drasnian."
"As you wish, friend," Durnik said politely.
"I'll lead," Silk s
aid. "I'm familiar with the back roads and lanes hereabouts. I'll put us on the high road beyond Upper Gralt before noon. Barak and Durnik can bring up the rear. I'm sure that between them they can discourage anyone who might feel like following us."
"All right," Wolf said, climbing up onto the seat of the middle wagon. He reached down his hand and helped up Aunt Pol.
Garion quickly climbed up onto the wagon bed behind them, a trifle nervous that someone might suggest that he ride with Silk. It was all very well for Mister Wolf to say that the two they had just met were friends, but the fright he had suffered in the wood was still too fresh in his mind to make him quite comfortable with them.
The sacks of musty-smelling turnips were lumpy, but Garion soon managed to push and shove a kind of half reclining seat for himself among them just behind Aunt Pol and Mister Woif. He was sheltered from the wind, Aunt Pol was close, and his cloak, spread over him, kept him warm. He was altogether comfortable, and, despite the excitement of the night's events, he soon drifted into a half drowse. The dry voice in his mind suggested briefly that he had not behaved too well back in the wood, but it too soon fell silent, and Garion slept.
It was the change of sound that woke him. T'he soft thud of the horses' hooves on the dirt road became a clatter as they came to the cobblestones of a small village sleeping in the last chill hours of the autumn night. Garion opened his eyes and looked sleepily at the tall, narrow houses with their tiny windows all dark.
A dog barked briefly, then retreated back to his warm place under some stairs. Garion wondered what village it might be and how many people slept under those steep-peaked tile roofs, unaware of the passage of their three wagons.
The cobbled street was very narrow, and Garion could almost have reached out and touched the weathered stones of the houses as they passed.
And then the nameless village was behind them, and they were back on the road again. The soft sound of the horses' hooves lured him once more toward sleep.
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