King of the Murgos

by David Eddings

  ‘Could somebody please make a fire?’ Ce’Nedra asked through chattering teeth. ‘I’m freezing.’ Garion looked at her closely and saw that her lips had a bluish tinge to them.

  ‘The firewood’s over here,’ Eriond said. He went behind one of the buttresses and emerged with an armload of white-bleached sticks. ‘Zedar and I used to carry driftwood up from the beach. There’s still quite a bit left.’ He went to the fireplace in the back wall, dropped the wood, and bent over to peer up the chimney. ‘It seems to be clear,’ he said.

  Durnik went to work immediately with his flint, steel, and tinder. In a few moments, a small curl of orange flame was licking up through the little peaked roof of splinters he had built on the bed of ash in the fireplace. They all crowded around that tiny flame, thrusting twigs and sticks at it in their eagerness to force it to grow more quickly.

  ‘That won’t do,’ Durnik said with uncharacteristic sternness. ‘You’ll only knock it apart and put it out.’

  They reluctantly backed away from the fireplace.

  Durnik carefully laid twigs and splinters on the growing flame, then small sticks, and finally larger ones. The flames grew higher and began to spread quickly through the bone-dry wood. The light from the fireplace began to fill the musty cellar, and Garion could feel a faint warmth on his face.

  ‘All right, then,’ Polgara said in a crisp, businesslike way, ‘what are we going to do about food?’

  ‘The sailors have left the wreck,’ Garion said, ‘and the tide’s gone out enough so that all but the very aft end of the ship is out of the water. I’ll take some pack horses and go back down there to see what I can find.’

  Durnik’s fire had begun to crackle. He stood up and looked at Eriond. ‘Can you manage here?’ he asked.

  Eriond nodded and went behind the buttress for more wood.

  The smith bent and picked up his cloak. ‘Toth and I can go with you, Garion,’ he said, ‘just in case those sailors decide to come back. But we’re going to have to hurry. It’s going to start getting dark before too long.’

  The gale still howled across the weather-rounded top of the headland, driving rain and sleet before it. Garion and his two friends picked their way carefully down the slope again toward the forlorn-looking ship, lying twisted and broken-backed on the boulder that had claimed her life.

  ‘How long do you think this storm is going to last?’ Garion shouted to Durnik.

  ‘It’s hard to say,’ Durnik shouted back. ‘It could blow over tonight or it could keep it up for several days.’

  ‘I was afraid you might say that.’

  They reached the wreck, dismounted, and entered the hold through the opening they had previously made in the bow. ‘I don’t think we’ll find too much down here,’ Durnik said. ‘Our own food is all spoiled, and I don’t think the sailors stored anything perishable in the hold.’

  Garion nodded. ‘Can we get Aunt Pol’s cooking things?’ he asked. ‘She’ll want those, I think.’

  Durnik peered aft at the bilge-soaked bags and bales lying in a tumbled heap in the shattered stern, with surf sloshing over them through the holes rent in the hull in that end of the ship. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a look.’

  ‘As long as we’re here, we might as well pick up the rest of the things we had in those aft cabins,’ Garion said. ‘I’ll go gather them up while you and Toth see what the sailors left behind in the galley.’ He climbed carefully over the splintered timbers at the point where the keel had broken and went up a ladder to the hatch above. Then he slipped and slid down the deck to the aft companionway.

  It took him perhaps a quarter of an hour to gather up the belongings they had left behind when they had fled the wreck. He wrapped them all in a sheet of sailcloth and went back up on deck. He carried his bundle forward and dropped it over the side onto the wet sand of the beach.

  Durnik poked his head out of the forward companion-way. ‘There isn’t much, Garion,’ he said. ‘The sailors picked it over pretty thoroughly.’

  ‘We’ll have to make do with whatever we can find, I guess.’ Garion squinted up through the rain. The sky was growing noticeably darker. ‘We’d better hurry,’ he added.

  They reached the top of the headland in a gale-torn twilight and carefully led their horses along the edge of the bluff to the entrance of the cellar as the last tatters of daylight faded from the sky. The inside of the vaulted chamber was warm now and filled with the light of the fire dancing on the hearth. The others had strung lines from the arches during their absence, and their blankets and clothing hung dripping and steaming along the walls.

  ‘Any luck?’ Silk asked as Garion led his horse inside.

  ‘Not much,’ Garion admitted. ‘The sailors cleaned out the galley pretty thoroughly.’

  Durnik and Toth led in the other horses and lifted down a number of makeshift packs. ‘We found a bag of beans,’ the smith reported, ‘and a crock full of honey. There was a sack of meal back in a corner and a couple of sides of bacon. The sailors left the bacon behind because it was moldy, but we ought to be able to cut most of the mold away.’

  ‘That’s all?’ Polgara asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so, Pol,’ Durnik replied. ‘We picked up a brazier and a couple of bags of charcoal—since there doesn’t seem to be any firewood in this part of the world.’

  She frowned slightly, running over the inventory he had just given her.

  ‘It’s not very much, Pol,’ he apologized, ‘but it was the best we could do.’

  ‘I can manage with it, dear,’ she said, smiling at him.

  ‘I picked up the clothes we left in those aft cabins, too,’ Garion said as he unsaddled his horse. ‘A few of them are even dry.’

  ‘Good,’ Aunt Pol said. ‘Let’s all change into whatever dry clothing will fit, and I’ll see what I can do about something to eat.’

  Silk had been looking suspiciously at the sack of meal. ‘Gruel?’ he asked, looking unhappy.

  ‘Beans would take much too long to cook,’ she replied. ‘Porridge and honey—and a bit of bacon—will get us through the night.’

  He sighed.

  The following morning, the rain and sleet had let up, although the wind still tore at the long grass atop the headland. Garion, wrapped in his cloak, stood on the ledge outside the entrance to the cellar, looking out over the froth-tipped waves in the gulf and the surf pounding on the beach far below. Off to the southeast, the clouds seemed to be growing thinner, and patches of blue raced along through the dirty-looking murk covering the rest of the sky. Sometime during the night, the tide had once again washed over the wreck of their ship, and the aft end had broken away and been carried off. A number of huddled lumps bobbed limply at the edge of the surf, and Garion resolutely kept his eyes away from those mute remains of the Murgo sailors who had been washed overboard and drowned when the ship had crashed into the reef.

  Then, far up the coast, he saw a number of red-sailed ships beating their way along the south shore of the Gorand Sea toward the broken remains of the ship lying on the beach below.

  Belgarath and Eriond pushed their way past the sailcloth door Durnik had hung across the arched entrance to the cellar the night before to join Garion on the ledge. ‘It’s quit raining at least,’ Garion reported, ‘and the wind seems to be dropping. There’s that problem though.’ He pointed at the Mallorean ships coming up the coast.

  Belgarath grunted. ‘They’re certain to come ashore when they see the wreck,’ he agreed. ‘I think it’s time for us to leave here.’

  Eriond was looking around with a strange expression on his face. ‘It hasn’t changed much,’ he noted. He pointed toward a small, grassy bench at the far end of the ledge. ‘I used to play there,’ he said, ‘when Zedar let me come outside, anyway.’

  ‘Did he talk to you very much while you were staying here?’ Belgarath asked him.

  ‘Not very often.’ Eriond shrugged. ‘He kept pretty much to himself. He had some books with him and he used to spe
nd most of his time with them.’

  ‘It must have been a lonely way to grow up,’ Garion said.

  ‘It wasn’t so bad. I used to spend a lot of my time watching the clouds—or the birds. In the springtime the birds nest in holes in the face of this bluff. If you lean out over the edge, you can see them coming and going, and I always used to like watching the fledglings when they first tried out their wings.’

  ‘Do you have any idea of how far it is to the high road that leads inland?’ Belgarath asked him.

  ‘It used to take us about a day to get there. Of course I was small then, and I couldn’t walk very fast.’

  Belgarath nodded. He shaded his eyes with one hand and looked at the Mallorean ships laboring up the coast. ‘I think we’d better tell the others,’ he said. ‘We won’t accomplish too much by trying to hold this place against several shiploads of Mallorean sailors.’

  It took perhaps an hour to gather up their still-wet clothing and their meager food supply and load the pack horses. Then they pushed their way out past the sailcloth door and led their horses to the far side of the headland. Garion noticed that Eriond looked back once with a faintly regretful expression, then resolutely turned his back on his childhood home to face the grassland lying ahead. ‘I sort of know the way,’ he said. ‘Those creeks out there are running bank-full, though, so we’ll have to be careful.’ He swung lightly up into his saddle. ‘I’ll go on ahead and pick the best route.’ He leaned forward and stroked his stallion’s neck. Then he smiled. ‘Horse wants to run a bit anyway.’ He moved off down the hill at a rolling gallop.

  ‘That’s a very strange boy,’ Urgit said as he mounted. ‘Did he really know Zedar?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Silk replied, ‘and also Ctuchik.’ He gave Polgara a sly look. ‘He’s been consorting with strange people all his life, so his peculiarities aren’t really all that hard to understand.’

  The small patches of blue that had touched the southeastern sky when Garion had first awakened had spread now, and columns of bright morning sunlight streamed down through the misty air to stalk ponderously across the stream-laced grassland below. The wind had abated to little more than a gusty breeze, and they rode on down through the still-wet grass at a brisk canter, following the trail of Eriond and his exuberant horse.

  Ce’Nedra, dressed now in one of Eriond’s tunics and a pair of woolen leggings, pulled in beside Garion.

  ‘I like your outfit, my Queen.’ He grinned.

  ‘All my dresses were still wet,’ she said. She paused, her face growing somber. ‘It’s not working out very well, is it, Garion? We were counting so much on that ship.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘We saved a bit of time and we managed to get around most of the war zone. Once we get past Rak Cthaka, maybe we’ll be able to find another ship. I don’t think we actually lost any time.’

  ‘But we didn’t gain any either, did we?’

  ‘It’s hard to say exactly.’

  She sighed and rode on beside him in silence.

  They reached the high road about noon and turned eastward, making good time for the rest of the day. There was no sign that any other travelers had recently used the road, but Silk ranged out in front of them as a precautionary scout. A clump of willows at the side of the road afforded some shelter that night and also provided the poles necessary for erecting their tents. Supper that evening consisted of beans and bacon, a meal which Urgit in particular found less than satisfying. ‘I’d give anything for a chunk of beef right now,’ he complained, ‘even one as badly prepared as the cooks at the Drojim used to offer me.’

  ‘Would you prefer a bowl of boiled grass, your Majesty?’ Prala asked him pertly, ‘or perhaps a nice plate of fried willow bark?’

  He gave her a sour look, then turned to Garion. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘do you and your friends plan to remain long in Cthol Murgos?’

  ‘Not too long, why?’

  ‘Western ladies seem to have a broad streak of independence in their nature—and a regrettable tendency to speak their minds. I find their influence on certain impressionable Murgo ladies to be unwholesome.’ Then, as if suddenly realizing that he might have gone too far, he threw an apprehensive glance in Polgara’s direction. ‘No offense intended, my Lady,’ he apologized quickly. ‘Just an old Murgo prejudice.’

  ‘I see,’ she replied.

  Belgarath set aside his plate and looked over at Silk. ‘You were out in front all day,’ he noted. ‘Did you happen to see any game moving around?’

  ‘There were herds of what looked like some sort of large deer moving north,’ the little man answered, ‘but they stayed a long way out of bow shot.’

  ‘What have you got in mind, old man?’ Polgara asked.

  ‘We need fresh meat, Pol,’ he replied, rising to his feet. ‘Moldy bacon and boiled beans aren’t going to get us very far.’ He stepped out of the small circle of light and squinted up at the moon-speckled clouds drifting across the stars. ‘It might be a good night for hunting,’ he observed. ‘What do you think?’

  A curious smile touched her lips, and she also rose. ‘Do you think you can still keep up, old wolf?’ she asked him.

  ‘Well enough, I suppose,’ he said blandly. ‘Come along, Garion. Let’s get a little way away from the horses.’

  ‘Where are they going?’ Urgit asked Silk.

  ‘You don’t want to know, my brother. You really don’t want to know.’

  The moon touched the grass waving in the night breeze with silvery light. The scents of the grassland around them came sharply to Garion’s nostrils as his ten-fold heightened sense of smell tasted the odors of the night. He loped easily at the side of the great silvery wolf while the snowy owl ghosted through the moonlight above them. It was good again to run tirelessly with the wind ruffling his fur and his toenails digging into the damp turf as he and his grandfather wolf ranged out across the moon-silvered grass in the ancient rite of the hunt.

  They started a herd of deerlike creatures from their matted grass beds some leagues east of their camp and pursued them hard for miles across the rolling hills. Then, as the terrified animals plunged across a rain-swollen creek, an old buck, pushed to exhaustion, missed his footing, tumbled end over end, throwing up a great spray of water, and came to rest against the far bank, his antlers dug into the shore and his grotesquely twisted head proclaiming that his fall had snapped his neck.

  Without thinking, Garion leaped from the bank into the swollen creek, drove himself rapidly across, and caught the dead buck by the foreleg with his powerful jaws. Straining, he dragged the still-warm carcass up onto the bank before the rushing creek could sweep it away.

  Belgarath and Polgara, who had once again resumed their natural forms, came sauntering up the gravel bank as calmly as if they were on an evening stroll. ‘He’s very good, isn’t he?’ Polgara observed.

  ‘Not bad,’ Belgarath admitted. Then he drew his knife from his belt and tested its edge with his thumb. ‘We’ll dress the deer out,’ he said to her. ‘Why don’t you go back and get Durnik and a pack horse?’

  ‘All right, father,’ she agreed, shimmered in the moon-light, and swooped away on silent wings.

  ‘You’re going to need your hands, Garion,’ the old man said pointedly.

  ‘Oh,’ Garion said in the manner of wolves and rose from his haunches. ‘Sorry, Grandfather. I forgot.’ He changed back into his own form a little regretfully.

  There were some queer looks the following morning when Polgara served up steaks instead of porridge, but no one chose to say anything about the sudden change of diet.

  They rode on for the next two days, with the last wrack and tatter of the dying storm flowing overhead. About noon, they crested a long hill and saw before them the broad blue expanse of a great body of water.

  ‘Lake Cthaka,’ Urgit said. ‘Once we circle that, we’re only two days from Rak Cthaka itself.’

  ‘Sadi,’ Belgarath said, ‘have you got your map?’

  �
��Right here, Ancient One,’ the eunuch replied, reaching inside his robe.

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ The old sorcerer swung down from his horse, took the parchment map from Sadi, and opened it. The wind coming off the lake rattled and fluttered it, threatening to tear it from his grasp. ‘Oh, stop that,’ he snapped irritably. Then he stared at the map for several long moments. ‘I think we’re going to have to get off the road,’ he said finally. ‘The storm and the wreck delayed us, and we can’t be absolutely certain how far the Malloreans have marched since we left Rak Urga. I don’t want an army catching us with the lake at our backs. The Malloreans don’t have any reason to be on the south side of the lake, so we’ll go that way instead.’ He pointed at a large area on the map covered with a representation of trees. ‘We’ll find out what the situation is in Rak Cthaka,’ he said, ‘and if we need to, we’ll be able to get into the Great Southern Forest.’

  ‘Belgarath,’ Durnik said urgently, pointing toward the north, ‘what’s that?’

  A low smudge of black smoke was streaming low to the horizon in the stiff breeze.

  ‘Grass fire perhaps?’ Sadi suggested.

  Belgarath began to swear. ‘No,’ he said shortly, ‘it’s not the right color.’ He pulled the map open again. ‘There are some villages up there,’ he said. ‘I think it’s one of them.’

  ‘Malloreans!’ Urgit gasped.

  ‘How could they have gotten this far west?’ Silk asked.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Garion said as a sudden thought came to him. He looked at Urgit. ‘Who wins when you fight the Malloreans in the mountains?’ he asked.

  ‘We do, of course. We know how to use the mountains to our advantage.’

  ‘But when you fight them on the plains, who wins?’

  ‘They do. They’ve got more people.’

  ‘Then your armies are safe only as long as they stay in the mountains?’

  ‘I already said that, Belgarion.’

  ‘If I were the one who was fighting you then, I’d try to figure out a way to lure you down onto the plains. If I moved around, making threatening noises at Rak Cthaka, you’d almost have to respond, wouldn’t you? You’d send all your troops out of Urga and Morcth to defend the city. But if, instead of attacking the city, I moved my forces north and west, I could intercept and ambush you out in the open on flat ground. I could pick my battlefields and destroy both armies in a single day.’