It was perhaps an hour later when the Rivan troops moved out tensely, each man walking through the gray-green gorse with his hand close to his weapon. The low range of hills lay dark ahead of them, and the weedy track they followed led directly into the boulder-strewn ravine where the unseen Bear-cultists waited in ambush. Garion steeled himself as they entered that ravine, drawing in his will and carefully remembering everything Aunt Pol had taught him.
The plan worked surprisingly well. As the first group of cultists dashed from the concealment of their gully with their weapons aloft and shouts of triumph on their lips, Garion, Durnik, and Polgara instantly blocked the mouths of the other three gullies. The charging cult members faltered, their triumph changing to chagrin as they gaped at the sudden flames that prevented their comrades from joining the fray.
Garion's Rivans moved immediately to take advantage of that momentary hesitation. Step by step the first group of cultists were pushed back into the narrow confines of the gully that had concealed them.
Garion could pay only scant attention to the progress of the fight. He sat astride his horse with Lelldorin at his side, concentrating entirely upon projecting the images of flame and the sense of heat and the crackle of fire across the mouth of the gully opposite the one where the fight was in progress.
Dimly through the leaping flames, he could see the members of the cult trying to shield their faces from an intense heat that was not really there. And then the one thing that had not occurred to any of them happened. The trapped cult-members in Garion's gully began to throw buckets full of water hastily dipped from a stagnant pond on the imaginary flames. There was, of course, no hiss of steam nor any other visible effect of that attempt to quench the illusion. After several moments a cult member, cringing and wincing, stepped through the fire. "It isn't real!" he shouted back over his shoulder. "The fire isn't real!"
"This is, though," Lelldorin muttered grimly, sinking an arrow into the man's chest. The cultist threw up his arms and toppled over backward into the fire -which had no effect on his limp body. That, of course, gave the whole thing away. First a few and then a score or more cult members ran directly through Garion's illusion. Lelldorin's hands blurred as he shot arrow after arrow into the milling ranks at the mouth of the gully. "There're too many of them, Garion," he shouted. "I can't hold them. We'll have to fall back."
"Aunt Pol!" Garion yelled. "They're breaking through!"
"Push them back," she called to him. "Use your will."
He concentrated even more and pushed a solid barrier of his will at the men emerging from the gully. At first it seemed that it might even work, but the effort he was exerting was enormous, and he soon began to tire. The edges of his hastily erected barrier began to fray and tatter, and the men he was trying so desperately to hold back began to find those weak spots.
Dimly, even as he bent all of his concentration on maintaining the barrier, he heard a sullen rumble, almost like distant thunder.
"Garion!" Lelldorin cried. "Horsemen -hundreds of them!"
In dismay, Garion looked quickly up the ravine and saw a sudden horde of riders coming down the steep cut from the east. "Aunt Pol!" he shouted, even as he reached back over his shoulder to draw Iron-grip's great sword.
The wave of riders, however, veered sharply just as they reached him and crashed directly into the front ranks of the cultists who were on the verge of breaking through his barrier. This new force was composed of lean, leather-tough men in black, and their eyes had a peculiar angularity to them.
"Nadraks! By the Gods, they're Nadraks!" Garion heard Barak shout from somewhere across the ravine.
"What are they doing here?" Garion muttered, half to himself.
"Garion!" Lelldorin exclaimed. "That man in the middle of the riders -isn't that Prince Kheldar?"
The new troops charging into the furious melee quickly turned the tide of battle. They charged directly into the faces of the startled cultists who were emerging from the mouths of the gullies, inflicting dreadful casualties.
Once he had committed his horsemen, Silk dropped back to join Garion and Lelldorin in the center of the ravine.
"Good day, gentlemen," he greeted them with aplomb. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting."
"Where did you get all the Nadraks?" Garion demanded, trembling with sudden relief.
"In Gar og Nadrak, of course."
"Why would they want to help us?"
"Because I paid them." Silk shrugged. "You owe me a great deal of money, Garion."
"How did you find so many so fast?" Lelldorin asked.
"Yarblek and I have a fur-trading station just across the border. The trappers who brought in their furs last spring were just lying around, drinking and gambling, so I hired them."
"You got here just in time," Garion said.
"I noticed that. Those fires of yours were a nice touch."
"Up until the point where they started throwing water on them. That's when things started to get tense."
A few hundred of the trapped cultists managed to escape the general destruction by scrambling up the steep sides of the gullies and fleeing out onto the barren moors; but for most of their fellows, there was no escape.
Barak rode out of the gully where the Rivan troops were mopping up the few survivors of the initial charge. "Do you want to give them the chance to surrender?" he asked Garion.
Garion remembered the conversation he and Polgara had had several days previously. "I suppose we should," he said after a moment's thought.
"You don't have to, you know," Barak told him. "Under the circumstances, no one would blame you if you wiped them out to the very last man."
No," Garion said, "I don't think I really want to do that. Tell the ones that are left that we'll spare their lives if they throw down their weapons."
Barak shrugged. "It's up to you."
"Silk, you lying little thief!" a tall Nadrak in a felt coat and an outrageous fur hat exclaimed. He was roughly searching the body of a slain cultist. "You said that they all had money on them and that they were loaded down with gold chains and bracelets. All this one has on him is fleas."
"Perhaps I exaggerated just a trifle, Yarblek," Silk said urbanely to his partner.
"I ought to gut you, do you know that?"
"Why, Yarblek," Silk replied with feigned astonishment, "is that any way to talk to your brother?"
"Brother!" the Nadrak snorted, rising and planting a solid kick in the side of the body that had so sorely disappointed him.
"That's what we agreed when we went into partnership -that we were going to treat each other like brothers."
"Don't twist words on me, you little weasel. Besides, I stuck a knife in my brother twenty years ago -for lying to me."
As the last of the trapped and outnumbered cultists threw down their arms in surrender, Polgara, Ce'Nedra, and Errand came cautiously up the ravine, accompanied by the filthy, hunchbacked Beldin.
"Your Algar reinforcements are still several days away." the ugly little sorcerer told Garion. " I tried to hurry them along, but they're very tenderhearted with their horses. Where did you get all the Nadraks?"
"Silk hired them."
Beldin nodded approvingly. "Mercenaries always make the best soldiers," he said.
The coarse-faced Yarblek had been looking at Polgara, his eyes alight with recognition. "You're still as handsome as ever, girl," he said to her. "Have you changed your mind about letting me buy you?"
"No, Yarblek," she replied. "Not yet, anyway. You arrived at an excellent time."
"Only because some lying little thief told me there was loot to be had." He glared at Silk and then nudged the body he was standing over with his foot. "Frankly, I'd make more money plucking dead chickens."
Beldin looked at Garion. "If you intend to see your son again before he has a full beard, you'd better get moving," he said.
"I've got to make some arrangements about the prisoners," Garion replied.
"What's to arrange?" Yarblek shrugged. "Line t
hem up and chop off their heads."
" Absolutely not!"
"What's the point of fighting if you can't butcher the prisoners when it's over?"
"Someday when we have some time, I'll explain it to you," Silk told him.
"Alorns!" Yarblek sighed, casting his eyes toward the murky sky.
"Yarblek, you mangy son of a dog!" It was a raven-haired woman in leather breeches and a tight-fitting leather vest.
There was at once a vast anger and an overwhelming physical presence about her. "I thought you said we could make a profit by picking over the dead. These vermin don't have a thing on them."
"We were misled, Vella," he replied somberly, giving Silk a flinty look.
"I told you not to trust that rat-faced little sneak. You're not only ugly, Yarblek, you're stupid as well.".
Garion had been looking curiously at the angry woman.
"Isn't that the girl who danced in the tavern that time in Gar og Nadrak?" he asked Silk, remembering the girl's overwhelming sensuality that had stirred the blood of every man in that wayside drinking establishment.
The little man nodded. "She married that trapper -Tekk- but he came out second best in an argument with a bear a few years back, and his brother sold her to Yarblek."
"Worst mistake I ever made," Yarblek said mournfully. "She's almost as fast with her knives as she is with her tongue." He pulled back one sleeve and showed them an angry red scar. "And all I was trying to do was to be friendly."
She laughed. "Ha! You know the rules, Yarblek. If you want to keep your guts on the inside, you keep your hands to yourself."
Beldin's eyes had a peculiar expression in them as he looked at her. "Spirited wench, isn't she?" he murmured to Yarblek. "I admire a woman with a quick wit and a ready tongue."
A wild hope suddenly flared in Yarblek's eyes. "Do you like her?" he asked eagerly. "I'll sell her to you, if you want."
"Have you lost your mind entirely, Yarblek?" Vella demanded indignantly.
"Please, Vella, I'm talking business."
"This shabby old troll couldn't buy a tankard of cheap ale, much less me." She turned to Beldin. "Have you even got two coins to rub together, you jackass?" she demanded.
"Now you've gone and spoiled the whole negotiation," Yarblek accused her plaintively.
Beldin, however, gave the dark-haired woman a wicked, lopsided grin. "You interest me, girl," he told her, "and nobody's done that for longer than I can remember. Try to work on your threats and curses a bit, though. The rhythm isn't quite right." He turned to Polgara. "I think I'll go back and see what those Drasnian pikemen are up to. Somehow I don't believe that we want them creeping up behind us." Then he spread his arms, crouched, and became a hawk.
Vella stared incredulously after him as he soared away. "How did he do that?" she gasped.
"He's very talented," Silk replied.
"He is indeed." She turned on Yarblek with fire in her eyes. "Why did you let me talk to him like that?" she demanded. "You know how important first impressions are. Now he'll never make a decent offer for me."
"You can tell for yourself that he doesn't have any money."
"There are other things than money, Yarblek."
Yarblek shook his head and walked away muttering to himself.
Ce'Nedra's eyes were as hard as green agates. "Garion," she said in a deceptively quiet voice, "one day very soon we'll want to talk about these taverns you mentioned -and dancing girls- and a few other matters as well."
"It was a long time ago, dear." he said quickly.
"Not nearly long enough."
"Does anybody have anything to eat?" Vella demanded, looking around. "I'm as hungry as a bitch wolf with ten puppies."
"I can probably find something for you," Polgara replied.
Vella looked at her, and her eyes slowly widened. "Are you who I think you are?" she asked in an awed voice.
"That depends on who you think I am, dear."
"I understand that you dance," Ce'Nedra said in a chilly voice.
Vella shrugged. "All women dance. I'm just the best, that's all."
"You seem very sure of yourself, Mistress Vella."
"I just recognize facts." Vella looked curiously at Ce'Nedra. "My, you're a tiny one, aren't you?" she asked. "Are you really full-grown?"
"I am the Queen of Riva," Ce'Nedra replied, drawing herself up to her full height.
"Good for you, girl," Vella said warmly, clapping her on the shoulder. "I always enjoy seeing a woman get ahead."
* * * *
It was midmorning of a gray, cloudy day when Garion crested a hill and looked across a shallow valley at the imposing bulk of Rheon. The town stood atop a steep hill, and its walls reared up sharply out of the rank gorse covering the slopes.
"Well," Barak said quietly as he joined Garion, "there it is."
"I didn't realize the walls were quite so high," Garion admitted.
"They've been working on them," Barak said, pointing. "You can see that new stonework on the parapet."
Flying defiantly above the city, the scarlet banner of the Bear-cult, a blood-red flag with the black outline of a shambling bear in the center, snapped in the chill breeze. For some reason that flag raised an almost irrational rage in Garion.
"I want that thing down," he said from between clenched teeth.
"That's why we came," Barak told him.
Mandorallen, burnished in his armor, joined them.
"This isn't going to be easy, is it?" Garion said to them.
"It won't be so bad," Barak replied, "once Hettar gets here." Mandorallen had been assessing the town's fortifications with a professional eye. "I foresee no insurmountable difficulties," he declared confidently. "Immediately upon the return of the several hundred men I dispatched to procure timbers from the forest lying some leagues to the north, I shall begin the construction of siege engines."
"Can you actually throw a rock big enough to hock a hole in walls that thick?" Garion asked dubiously.
" 'Tis not the single stroke that reduces them, Garion," the knight replied. " 'Tis the repetition of blow after blow. I will ring the town with engines and rain stones upon their walls. I doubt not that there will be a breach or two 'ere my Lord Hettar arrives."
"Won't the people inside repair them as fast as you break them?" Garion asked.
" Not if you've got other catapults throwing burning pitch at them," Barak told him. "It's very hard to concentrate on anything when you're on fire."
Garion winced. "I hate using fire on people," he said, briefly remembering Asharak the Murgo.
"It's the only way, Garion," Barak said soberly. "Otherwise you're going to lose a lot of good men."
Garion sighed. "All right," he said. "Let's get started then."
Reinforced by Yarblek's trappers, the Rivans drew up in a wide circle around the fortified town. Though their combined numbers were not yet sufficient to mount a successful assault on those high, grim walls, they were nonetheless enough to seal the town effectively. The construction of Mandorallen's siege engines took but a few days; once they were completed and moved into position, the steady twang of tightly twisted ropes uncoiling with terrific force and the sharp crack of heavy rocks shattering against the walls of Rheon was almost continual.
Garion watched from a vantage point atop a nearby hill as rock after rock lofted high into the air to smash down on those seemingly impregnable walls.
"It's a sad thing to watch," Queen Porenn noted as she joined him. A stiff breeze tugged at her black gown and stirred her flaxen hair as she moodily watched Mandorallen's engines pound relentlessly at the walls. "Rheon has stood here for almost three thousand years. It's been like a rock guarding the frontier. It seems very strange to attack one of my own cities -particularly when you consider the fact that half of our forces are Nadraks, the very people Rheon was built to hold off in the first place."
"Wars are always a little absurd, Porenn," Garion agreed.
"More than just a little. Oh,
Polgara asked me to tell you that Beldin has come back. He has something to tell you."
"All right. Shall we go back down, then?" He offered the Queen of Drasnia his arm.
Beldin was lounging on the grass near the tents, gnawing the shreds of meat off a soup bone and exchanging casual insults with Vella. "You've got a bit of a problem, Belgarion," he told Garion. "Those Drasnian pikemen have broken camp and they're marching this way."
Garion frowned. "How far away is Hettar?" he asked.
"Far enough to turn it into a race," the little hunchback replied. "I expect that the whole outcome is going to depend on which army gets here first."
The Drasnians wouldn't really attack us, would they?" Ce'Nedra asked.
"It's hard to say," Porenn replied. "If Haldar has convinced them that Garion is holding me prisoner, they might. Javelin took a horse and rode back to see if he could find out exactly what's going on."
Garion began to pace up and down, gnawing worriedly on one fingernail.
"Don't bite your nails, dear," Polgara told him.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied automatically, still lost in thought. "Is Hettar coming as fast as he can?" he asked Beldin.
"He's pushing his horses about as hard as they can be pushed."
"If there was only some way to slow down the pikemen."
"I've got a couple of ideas," Beldin said. He looked at Polgara. "What do you say to a bit of flying, Pol?" he asked her. "I might need some help with this."
"I don't want you to hurt those men," Queen Porenn said firmly. "They're my people -even if they are being misled."
"If what I've got in mind works, nobody's going to get hurt," Beldin assured her. He rose to his feet and dusted off the back of his filthy tunic. "I've enjoyed chatting with you, girl," he said to Vella.
She unleashed a string of expletives at him that turned Ce'Nedra's face pale.
"You're getting better at that," he approved. "I think you're starting to get the hang of it. Coming, Pol?"
Vella's expression was indecipherable as she watched the blue-banded hawk and the snowy owl spiral upward.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Later that day, Garion rode out to continue his observations of the ongoing siege of the town of Rheon and he found Barak, Mandorallen, and Durnik in the midst of a discussion. "It has to do with the way walls are built, Mandorallen," Durnik was trying to explain. "A city wall is put together to withstand exactly what you're trying to do to that one." Mandorallen shrugged. "It becomes a test then, Goodman, a test to discover which is the stronger -their walls or mine engines."
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