"About something he called the Raveners, you mean?"
"Yes. How much did he tell you?"
"He said that they're ghouls—creatures that feed on the dead. But that's just a ghost story, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid not. I've heard the story from people who've actually seen them. We definitely want to get away from here. Most of the people who live in this forest—or near it— don't bury their dead. They burn them instead."
"I've never cared much for that idea," Durnik said.
"It has nothing to do with respect, Goodman—or the lack of it. It's done to protect the living."
"All right," Silk said. "What are these ghouls supposed to look like? There are a lot of animals around that try to dig up dead bodies."
"The Raveners aren't animals, Kheldar. They're men— or at least that's what they look like. Normally, they're quite torpid and only come out at night, but during a war or a pestilence, when there are a large number of bodies unburied, they go into a kind of frenzy. The smell of death attracts them and makes them wild. They'll attack anything when they're like that."
"Father," Polgara said, "is this true?"
"It's possible," he admitted. "I've heard some unpleasant things about these woods myself. I don't usually pursue ghost stories, so I didn't bother to investigate."
"Every country has its stories of ogres and monsters," Silk said sceptically. "Only children are frightened by them."
"I'll strike a bargain with you, Kheldar," Sadi said. "If we make it through these woods without seeing any Raveners, you can laugh at my timidity if you like, but for the sake of the ladies, let's get away from here."
Belgarath was frowning. "I don't altogether accept the notion of ghouls," he said, "but then, I didn't believe there was such a thing as an Eldrak either—until I saw one. We want to move along anyway, and Garion and I can talk with the Orb later."
With Toth once more in the lead, they rode away at a gallop, still following the scarcely visible track that angled off toward the southeast. Their horses' hooves tossed up clots of the leaves lying thick-spread on the forest floor as they plunged through the misty wood. The misshapen trees seemed to gape at them as they pounded past, and, though Garion knew it was only his imagination, those grotesque, almost human features seemed somehow to have taken on expressions of malicious glee.
"Wait!" Silk barked suddenly. "Stop!"
They all reined in.
"I thought I heard something—off that way," Silk said.
They all sat straining their ears, trying to listen over the heavy panting of their horses. Faintly, from somewhere to the east, a scream came out of the fog.
"There it is again," Silk said. He pulled his horse around.
"What are you doing?" Belgarath asked him.
"I'm going to have a look."
But Toth had moved his horse around until it was blocking the Drasnian's path. Gravely the giant shook his head.
"Toth, we have to know what's happening," Silk said.
Toth shook his head again.
"Toth," Garion said, "is what Sadi told us really true? Is there really such a thing as a Ravener?"
Toth's face grew bleak, and he nodded.
Another scream came out of the dim woods, seeming much closer this time. The scream was filled with horror and agony.
"Who is it?" Ce'Nedra demanded, her voice shrill with fright. "Who's screaming?"
"The men who attacked us," Eriond replied in a sick voice. "The ones who survived the fight. Something's running them down one by one."
"Raveners?" Garion asked him.
"I think so. Whatever it is, it's horrible."
"They're coming this way," Sadi said. "Let's get away from here." He drove his heels into his horse's flanks.
They plunged off into the gloomy wood, no longer even trying to follow the track. Their blind flight took them perhaps a half mile farther into the forest when Polgara suddenly pulled her horse to a halt. "Stop!" she commanded.
"What is it, Pol?" Durnik asked her.
But she pushed forward carefully to peer at a thicket half-obscured in the mist. "There's someone ahead," she whispered.
"A Ravener?" Garion asked in a low voice.
She concentrated for a moment. "No. It's one of the attackers. He's trying to hide."
"How far away is he?"
"Not far." She continued to peer into the shrouding mist. "There," she said. "He's behind that tree at the edge of the thicket—the one with the broken limb hanging down."
Garion vaguely saw a dark patch half-concealed behind a gnarled tree root rising out of the sodden leaves. Then a movement caught his eye, and he glimpsed a shambling figure coming out of the trees. It seemed gray, almost invisible in the hazy fog, and it was so gaunt that it resembled a skeleton. It was dressed in rags, stained with earth and blood. Its pale skull was covered with scanty hair, and it was half-crouched, snuffling audibly as it walked with its arms hanging loosely. Its eyes were vacant and its mouth agape.
Then another emerged from the woods, and yet another. As the creatures advanced, they made a low moaning sound that expressed nothing remotely intelligible, but rather seemed to convey only a dreadful hunger.
"He's going to run!" Polgara said.
With a despairing cry, the hidden assassin leaped to his feet and desperately began to run. The Raveners took up the chase, their moaning coming faster. Their shambling gait quickened, and their emaciated legs carried them through the wood at a surprising rate of speed.
Twisting and dodging, the panic-stricken ruffian fled among the trees, with his hideous pursuers gaining on him at every step. When he finally disappeared far back into the fog and gloom, they were no more than a few yards behind him.
His shriek was a shocking, horrible sound. Again he screamed—and again.
"Are they killing him?" Ce'Nedra's voice was shrill.
Polgara's face had gone absolutely white, and her eyes were filled with horror. "No," she replied in a shaking voice.
"What are they doing?" Silk demanded.
"They're eating him."
"But—" Silk broke off as more shrieks came out of the fog. "He's still—" He stared at her, his eyes gone very wide and the blood draining from his cheeks.
Ce'Nedra gasped. "Alive?" she said in a choked whisper. "They're eating him while he's still alive?"
"That's what I was trying to warn you about, your Majesty," Sadi said grimly. "When they go into their frenzy, they don't make any distinction between the living and the dead. They feed on anything."
"Toth," Belgarath said sharply. "Can they be frightened off?"
The mute shook his head, then turned to Durnik, gesturing rapidly, touching his head and then his stomach.
"He says that they aren't able to think enough to be afraid," the smith told him. "All they know is hunger."
"What are we going to do, father?" Polgara demanded.
"We're going to try to outrun them," he replied, "and if any of them get in our way, we'll have to kill them." He looked back at Toth. "How far can they run?" he asked.
Toth raised one hand and traced an arc over his head, then another, and then another.
"For days," Durnik interpreted.
Belgarath's face became very grim. "Let's go," he said "and stay together."
Their pace through the dreadful wood was more measured now, and the men all rode with their weapons in their hands.
The first attack came after they had gone no more than a mile. A dozen gray-faced Raveners shambled out from among the trees, moaning their hideous hunger and spreading out to block the path.
Garion spurred forward, swinging his sword in great arcs. Savagely, he chopped a path through the ranks of the slavering Raveners, who reached out mindlessly to pull him from his saddle. A terrible, rotting stink rose from them as he rode them down. He killed fully half of them as he crashed through, then whirled his horse to smash into them again, but pulled up sharply, his gorge rising. The Raveners who had escaped his sword w
ere tearing at the bodies of those who had gone down, ripping out dripping gobbets of flesh and feeding them into their gaping mouths with their clawlike hands, even as they continued their awful moan.
Cautiously Belgarath and the others circled around that dreadful feeding, averting their eyes as they passed.
"It won't work, father," Polgara declared. "Sooner or later one of us is going to make a mistake. We're going to have to shield."
He thought about it for a moment. "You might be right, Pol," he admitted finally. He looked at Garion. "You and Durnik pay attention to how this is done," he instructed. "I want you to be able to take over when we get tired."
They started out at a walk as Belgarath and Polgara adjusted the barrier they were creating with the force of their combined will. They had gone no more than a little way when a gray-faced Ravener came loping out from among the twisted trees, slobbering and moaning. When it was perhaps ten yards from Durnik's horse, it suddenly stumbled back as if it had just run headlong into something solid. Moaning dreadfully, it came forward again and began to claw at the empty air with its filthy, long-nailed hands.
"Durnik," Polgara said quite calmly, "would you deal with it, please?"
"All right, Pol." The smith's face creased into an expression of extreme concentration, and he muttered a single word. The Ravener flickered and popped momentarily out of sight. When it reappeared, it was twenty yards away, beside a large tree. It struggled to lurch forward at them again, but seemed for some reason unable to move.
"That should hold it," Durnik said.
"What did you do?" Silk asked, peering at the struggling creature.
"I stuck its arm into that tree," Durnik replied. "If it wants to attack again, it's either going to have to bring the tree along or leave the arm behind. I didn't really hurt it, but it's going to take it a day or so to get its arm loose."
"Have you got a good hold on our shield, Pol?" Belgarath asked over his shoulder.
"Yes, father."
"Let's pick up the pace a trifle then. A bit of momentum won't hurt."
They moved, first at a trot and then at a loping canter. The shield Belgarath was projecting to the front ran ahead of them like a battering-ram, hurling the rag-clothed Raveners from their path.
"Where do they get those clothes?" Silk asked as he rode.
Toth made a kind of digging motion with one hand.
"He says that they take them off the bodies of the dead that they dig up," Durnik translated.
Silk shuddered. "That would explain the smell, then."
The next few days began to blur in Garion's mind. It was necessary to relieve Polgara and Belgarath every four hours or so, and the weight of the shield he and Durnik erected seemed to grow with each passing mile. The fog continued, making it impossible to see more than a hundred yards in any direction, and the twisted trees, with their semblance of human faces, emerged with a shocking suddenness out of that obscuring mist. Shapes, gray and emaciated, moved through that fog, and the mindless moaning came from all around them as they plunged through the ghoul-haunted wood.
Night was a time of dreadful terror as the Raveners gathered around the shield, clawing at it and moaning their hideous longing. Exhausted by his efforts of the day, Garion was forced to use every ounce of his will—not merely to hold the shield in place when his turn came to maintain it, but also to ward off sleep. Even more than the Raveners, sleep was the enemy. He forced himself to walk up and down. He pinched himself. He even went so far as to put a large pebble in his left boot in hopes that the discomfort would help to keep him awake. Once, all his devices failed, and his head began to sag slowly forward as sleep finally overcame him.
It was the putrid smell that jerked him awake. There, directly before him as his head came up, stood a Ravener. Its eyes were empty of all thought, its gaping mouth revealed broken, rotting teeth, and its black-nailed hands groped out—reaching for him. With a startled cry, he unleashed a heavy blow with his will, hurling the creature backward. Trembling violently, he re-established the barrier that had begun to falter.
Then, at last, they reached the southernmost fringe of the dreadful forest and rode out from under the twisted trees onto a fog-shrouded heath.
"Will they keep up the chase?" Durnik asked his giant friend. The smith's voice dropped from his lips with a great weariness.
Toth made a number of obscure gestures.
"What did he say?" Garion asked.
Durnik's face was bleak. "He says that for as long as the fog lasts, they probably won't give up. They don't like the sun, but the fog's hiding it, so—" He shrugged.
"We have to keep the shield up then, don't we?"
"I'm afraid so."
The heath across which they rode was a blasted, ugly place, covered with low thorn bushes and dotted with shallow tarns filled with rusty-looking water. The fog eddied and billowed, and always at the farthest edge of vision lurked the shadowy forms of the Raveners.
They rode on. Polgara and Belgarath took the burden of the shield, and Garion slumped in his saddle, trembling with exhaustion.
Then, very faintly, he caught the smell of salt brine.
"The sea!" Durnik exulted. "We've reached the sea."
"Now all we need is a boat," Silk reminded him.
Toth, however, pointed ahead confidently and made a curious gesture.
"He says that there's a ship waiting for us," Durnik told them.
"There is?" Silk seemed astonished. "How did he manage that?"
"I really don't know," Durnik replied. "He didn't say."
"Durnik," Silk said, "exactly how do you know what he's saying? Those gestures of his don't make much sense to me at all."
Durnik frowned. "I really don't know," he admitted. "I hadn't even thought about it. I just seem to know what he wants to say."
"Are you using sorcery?"
"No. Maybe it's because we've worked with each other a few times. That always seems to bring men closer together."
"I'll take your word for it."
They crested a mound-like hill to look down at a gravel beach where long rollers came in off the foggy sea to crash against the rounded pebbles and then slide back with a mournful hissing sound as the foam-flecked water slithered down the strand, only to pause and then crash back up again.
"I don't see your ship, Toth," Silk said almost accusingly. "Where is it?"
Toth pointed out into the fog.
"Really?" Silk's voice was sceptical.
The mute nodded.
The Raveners trailing behind grew more agitated as the company started down toward the beach. Their moans became more urgent, and they began to run back and forth along the crest of the hill, reaching out their clawed hands with a kind of desperate longing. They did not, however, pursue any farther.
"Is it my imagination, or does it seem that they're afraid of something?" Velvet suggested.
"They aren't coming down the hill," Durnik agreed. He turned to Toth. "Are they afraid?" he asked.
Toth nodded.
"I wonder what it is," Velvet said.
The giant made a motion with both hands.
"He says that it has to do with something being even more hungry than they are," Durnik said. "They're afraid of it."
"Sharks, maybe?" Silk suggested.
"No. It's the sea itself."
When they reached the gravel strand, they dismounted and stood in a weary little group at the water's edge. "Are you all right, father?" Polgara asked the old man, who was leaning against his saddle, staring out into the fog that lay thick and pale on the dark water.
"What? Oh, yes. I'm fine, Pol—just a little puzzled, that's all. If there is a ship out there, I'd sort of like to know who arranged for it and how they knew that we were going to arrive at this particular spot."
"More important than that," Silk added, "I'd like to know how we're going to tell them that we've arrived. That fog's like a blanket out there."
"Toth says they already know we're here,"
Durnik told him. "They'll probably show up in the next half hour or so."
"Oh?" Belgarath said curiously. "And who sent this ship in the first place?"
"He said it was Cyradis."
"I'm going to have to have a long talk with that young lady one of these days," Belgarath said. "She's starting to make me just a little uneasy about certain things."
"They went back," Eriond told them as he stood stroking the bowed neck of his stallion.
"Who did?" Garion asked.
"The Raveners," the boy replied, pointing back up the hill. "They gave up and started back toward the woods."
"And without even saying good-bye," Silk added with a tight grin. "I don't know what's happened to people's manners these days."
The ship that came ghosting out of the fog was curiously built with a high prow and stern and broad sails on her twin masts.
"What's making it go?" Ce'Nedra asked, staring curiously at the shadowy shape.
"I don't quite follow you," Garion said.
"They aren't rowing," she pointed out, "and there isn't even a hint of a breeze."
He looked sharply back at the ship and saw immediately that she was right. There were no oars protruding from the ghostly ship's sides; but in spite of the dead-calm, foggy air, the sails were bellied outward, and the vessel moved smoothly through the oily-looking water.
"Is it sorcery?" she asked him.
He pushed his mind out, searching for some hint. "It doesn't seem to be," he replied. "At least not any kind that I know about."
Belgarath stood not far away, his expression profoundly disapproving.
"How are they moving the ship, Grandfather?" Garion asked him.
"It's a form of witchcraft," the old man told him, still scowling, "unpredictable and usually not very reliable." He turned to Toth. "You want us to go on board that?" he asked.
Toth nodded.
"Will it take us to Verkat?"
Toth nodded again.
"You mean that it will, if the sprite that's pushing it doesn't get bored with the idea—or decide that it might be funny to take us in the opposite direction."
Toth held out both hands.
"He says to trust him," Durnik supplied.
"I wish people would quit saying that to me."
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