‘What on earth for?’
‘I’m not privy to that information, uncle,’ she told him. ‘Zedar doesn’t confide in me, for some reason.’
‘Zedar’s always been a tacky sort of person,’ Belkira said. ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Belgarath, but I’ve never really liked him all that much. Are you sure you didn’t leave a few things out when you were educating him?’
Beltira would never have said that. My brothers weren’t exactly identical, I discovered. It’s very easy to miss these subtle little variations. Identical twins look alike, but no two people are ever really the same.
Pol’s left eyebrow was already up before she even looked at me. ‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Was there something?’
‘Never mind,’ I said. I’ve never been entirely sure just how deeply Polgara can reach into my thoughts, and I think I’d like to keep it that way. Durnik doesn’t have any secrets from Pol, but I’ve got secrets that I don’t even want to look at myself. If you’re going to maintain any kind of self-respect, you’re going to have to keep secrets from yourself.
It was late afternoon before we discovered why Zedar had been spending so much time and effort drying out dirt. The windstorm he’d kicked up earlier in the day to deflect the Asturian arrows was still blowing harmlessly off to either side of the city, but now it changed direction and came swirling across that now bone-dry plain picking up great clouds of dust. After a few minutes, it was impossible to see anything out there. The dust-storm was obviously meant to conceal another assault. Wildantor’s archers would have to shoot blind, and that’s not particularly effective.
‘We’d better do something, Belgarath!’ Beltira shouted over the scream of the wind.
‘I’m working on it,’ I told him, but try as I might, I couldn’t come up with a thing.
Polgara was already ahead of me, though. ‘We’ve got a river right here, father,’ she said, ‘and Zedar’s half-killed himself raising this windstorm for us. What does that suggest to you?’
‘Nothing in particular. What does it suggest to you?’
‘Oh, father, have your brains gone to sleep?’
‘Don’t be coy, Pol. Out with it.’
‘We need to lay all that dust, don’t we? I think a waterspout would probably take care of it, don’t you?’
‘Pol, that’s brilliant! Get the twins to help you. They stirred up all kinds of bad weather during the war of the Gods.’
‘We could probably use a little help from you, father.’
‘I’ve got something else to take care of right now, Pol.’
‘Oh?’
‘I think brother Zedar needs a quick lesson in good manners.’
‘You’re going to reach out and stop his heart?’
‘No. I’ve been told not to do anything permanent to him, but I can distract him.’
‘Have fun,’ she told me, and then she and the twins went on around the top of the wall to the side that faced the river.
I considered a number of options and finally settled on one that would not only make him extremely uncomfortable, but would also humiliate him. I went looking for him with my mind, and I eventually found him on top of a hill about five miles away. Trust Zedar to stay as far away from the fighting as he possibly could. I gathered in my Will and then released it very slowly. I didn’t want him to know what I was doing until it was too late.
He was looking out over his dust-storm with a sense of smug satisfaction.
He absently scratched his nose.
Then he vigorously dug his fingernails into one armpit. After that he moved his attention to other parts of his body. His scratching grew more and more feverish even as Polgara and the twins broke off a piece of his windstorm and sent it whirling down the River Arend.
In a burst of sheer, fiendish creativity, I even made his toenails itch. After a few minutes, he was actually dancing, and he was digging at his skin so hard that he was bleeding from a dozen different places.
When the wind Pol and the twins had borrowed came swirling back up the River Arend, it was carrying tons of water with it, and that was more than enough to settle the dust Zedar’d spent hours carefully drying out.
The attack force that had been creeping through the dust-storm was largely comprised of Murgos, and once Wildantor’s archers could see them, King Ad Rak Cthoros led a much smaller army back out of the range of those far-reaching arrows.
Pol’s brief rainstorm had passed but the setting sun sparkled on the wet grass, and Torak was still outside the walls.
We’d survived another day, and if all went well tomorrow we’d see the end of all this.
Chapter 41
I’m sure you noticed that Zedar’s ploys on that second day really weren’t very effective. I’d always thought he was strong on planning, but Zedar tended to get rattled in emergencies, and he’d frequently try the first thing that popped into his head without thinking his way completely through it. Add the fact that Torak left everything up to him, but expected results, and you can see his problem. Zedar didn’t work well under pressure.
Anyway, we’d survived the first two days of the battle. Vo Mimbre had withstood everything the Angaraks had thrown at it, and if we were reading the Mrin Codex right, things should start turning in our favor now.
There was an Arendish poet known as Davoul the Lame at the Mimbrate court during Aldorigen’s reign, and he’d been working on his prose epic, ‘The Latter Days of the House of Mimbre’, for about ten years when Torak invaded Arendia. The invasion gave him something important to include in his epic, and he was forever limping around the outskirts of our discussions feverishly scribbling notes. I didn’t care much for him. He was technically the official court poet, and that seems to have gone to his head. The epic he was producing was cast in ‘high style’, and it was pompous, windy, and without too much in the way of literary merit. The Mimbrates adore that shop-worn convention, however, and even to this day they’ll quote long passages of Davoul’s epic every time they get a chance. I’ve got a copy of the silly thing, if you want to borrow it, but I wouldn’t waste my time, if I were you.
By the evening of the second day of the battle, I had everyone in position, and all we were doing was waiting for Beldin. Pol flew out to have a look just before dawn of the third day, and she reported back that Eldrig’s war-boats were coming up-river. The River Arend was in flood-stage because of all the rain, however, and the current was definitely slowing him down.
Pol, the twins, and I had decided that there wasn’t much point in remaining in the city now. The Mimbrates knew what they were supposed to do, and they didn’t need guidance. Beltira went east to march with the Algars, Drasnians, and Ulgos while Belkira went up into the fairly extensive forest lying to the north to join Brand.
Don’t waste your time looking for those woods. They aren’t there any more. We chopped them down shortly after the battle was over. I disapprove of chopping down trees as a general rule, but we needed a lot of firewood in a hurry.
We still weren’t entirely certain just how stringent the prohibitions the Necessities had imposed on us really were, so we rather tentatively nibbled around the edges of them. We were fairly sure that we wouldn’t be permitted to turn all the Angaraks into frogs, but there didn’t seem to be anything preventing the one thing we really needed. As long as I could speak with the twins and Beldin, we’d be able to coordinate things, and we didn’t need anything else. This third day was going to be settled on the ground, so we didn’t need exotic displays of our talents to confuse matters.
Pol and I flew north and perched in a tree at the edge of Brand’s woods to keep an eye on the Angaraks while we all waited for it to get light. As dawn slowly crept up the eastern sky, we were able to make out more and more details of Zedar’s deployment. He’d moved his people around during the night. Torak knew what was coming as well or better than we did, and Zedar’d made preparations for it.
Ad Rak Cthoros, the bulky, grim-faced King of Cthol Murgos, was
now on the left flank. A lot of the soldiers in the world wear chain-mail the same as the Murgos do, so Ad Rak Cthoros had ordered his men to paint their mail-shirts red for purposes of identification on the battlefield. It made them look as it they’d been dipped in blood, but I guess it served its purpose.
The Malloreans, who were by far the most numerous members of Kal Torak’s army, were solidly planted in the center, and they were commanded by generals from Mal Zeth, although it was Zedar who was giving all the orders, and Zedar was getting his orders from Torak himself. Torak liked to think of himself as a military genius, but how much intelligence does it take to overwhelm your opponents with sheer numbers?
Yar Lek Thun of Gar og Nadrak and Gethel Mardu of Thulldom held the right flank. I don’t think I’d have done it that way. The legions and Eldrig’s Chereks were going to be coming from that direction, and, although the Nadraks are fairly good warriors despite the fact that they’re a bit high-strung, Thulls aren’t very dependable once the fighting starts.
‘Why don’t you wake everybody up, father?’ Pol suggested.
‘I guess we might as well,’ I agreed. ‘Belkira,’ I sent out my thought, ‘let’s get started. Tell Brand to blow his horn.’
He didn’t bother to answer, but I’m sure he got my message, because a moment or so later, Brand’s deep-toned horn sounded a long, haunting note. Then, a minute later, Cho-Ram’s silver-voiced trumpet answered from the east, and then Mandor’s horn sang out from inside the walls of Vo Mimbre. Pol and I listened carefully for several minutes, but Beldin didn’t respond. He wasn’t in place yet.
A scholar at the University of Tol Honeth once wrote a long dissertation about the mythic significance of those horn blasts, but they weren’t really anything but announcements that the various forces were in place and ready. Nothing was going to happen until Beldin answered. We certainly weren’t going to start without him.
I’m sure that Zedar knew what the horn blasts meant. We’d used those same signals during the War of the Gods. The sounds, coming just as it was starting to get light, made the leaders of the various Angarak forces nervous, though, and the Malloreans began to bang their swords against their shields and shout war cries. I guess that noisy racket was supposed to hearten everybody. It sounded just a little desperate to me, though. Horn blasts are a traditional signal to attack, but nobody was attacking. I can see where that might get on somebody’s nerves, can’t you?
We waited for about another half-hour. Then, just as the sun was coming up, I called to Belkira. ‘Have him try it again, brother,’ I said.
Brand blew his horn again, and Cho-Ram and Mandor answered. Then we waited. Still no sound from Beldin. I could have called out to him, but Zedar would certainly have heard me, and, far more importantly, he’d have heard my twisted brother’s reply, and that would have pinpointed Beldin’s location. If he were still several leagues away, Zedar might decide to attack, either to the east or the north, and that’d have started things before I was ready.
Nadraks, as I said, are high-strung people, and Yar Lek Thun reached the point that he absolutely had to know what was going on. He sent a cavalry troop pounding toward the woods to the north. They galloped in among the trees about a half-mile from where Pol and I waited.
Most of their horses came back after a while, but none of the Nadraks did. It’s not a good idea to ride into a forest where Asturian archers are lying in wait.
Then, probably not to be outdone, since Murgos don’t much care for Nadraks, Ad Rak Cthoros also sent out scouts. The Murgo horsemen rode up into the foothills to the east.
They didn’t come back either. Riding into the teeth of Algarian cavalry is almost as stupid as riding in amongst trees where Asturians are hiding.
We kept on waiting. After another half-hour or so, I tried once more. ‘Have him tootle again, Belkira,’ I sent out the thought.
‘Tootle?’ Belkira sounded slightly offended, but Brand tried it again.
Cho-Ram and Mandor answered immediately, and then after a moment that seemed to last for a year or so, a veritable fanfare of trumpets replied from the west. It was probably excessive, but some of those legions were ceremonial troops from the garrison in Tol Honeth, and I guess there were a couple of military bands in their ranks.
That was what I’d been waiting for. ‘Sit tight, Pol,’ I told my daughter. ‘I’m going to go have a look. I don’t want to start anything until I’ve seen for myself that Beldin’s in place.’
‘Don’t be too long, father. The morning’s wearing on, and I don’t think we want Brand to issue his challenge after the sun goes down.’
I spread my wings and swooped down off my limb to gain momentum, and then I started up into the air, flapping vigorously.
When I got up a couple hundred feet, I could see just about everything. Eldrig’s war-boats were moored to the north bank of the River Arend no more than a couple of miles downstream from Vo Mimbre. The high water had slowed their progress up-river, but it had also made it possible for them to row over the shallows that lie some distance west of the city. If he’d really wanted to, Beldin could have rowed right up to the south wall of Vo Mimbre itself.
The legions, their burnished breastplates glinting in the morning sun, were spread out impressively, and they were marching in perfect order as they advanced on the Nadraks and Thulls. Eldrig’s berserkers weren’t marching. They were running on ahead of the legions. Chereks hate sharing a good fight with anybody.
‘All right, Belkira,’ I passed the word, ‘tell Brand to give the signal.’
This time Brand blew his horn twice. Cho-Ram answered in the same way. Mandor, however, almost blew his heart out. The note from his horn went on and on and on.
Then the gates of Vo Mimbre crashed open, and the knights came charging out.
The charge of the Mimbrate knights is probably the most famous cavalry charge in history, so I don’t really need to describe it in detail, do I?
I probably couldn’t give you a very good description anyway, because something else caught my eye just then. Kal Torak’s black iron pavilion was in the center of the horde, and I saw a raven spiraling up from one of its spires. I was fairly certain it wasn’t an ordinary raven. Either Zedar wanted to see the Mimbrates for himself, or he’d concluded even as I had that the best place to direct a battle was from over the top of it.
There was a surprise waiting for him, though. Far above the battlefield, a single white speck plummeted down toward the raven that was spiraling upward. That particular form of attack is highly unusual for the snowy owl, and no ordinary owl should have been out hunting in the daytime.
There was a puff of black feathers when she struck, and Zedar fled, squawking in terror.
Kal Torak’s Malloreans were good soldiers, I’ll give them that much, but nobody could have met the charge of those Mimbrate knights. I’d estimate that there were at least ten thousand of them. The front ranks charged with leveled lances, and the crash when they struck the Malloreans was thunderous. So far as I could tell, the charge didn’t even falter as the front ranks of the Malloreans were ridden under.
We’d spent months discussing this particular tactic at the Imperial War College in Tol Honeth. The charge of the Mimbrate knights had one purpose and one only. It was designed to keep the Malloreans in place so that they couldn’t rush to the aid of the armies on their flanks. Mimbrates are enthusiasts, though, and Mandor, who led the charge, gave every indication that he fully intended to ride up to Kal Torak’s iron pavilion and start banging on his door.
There were casualties among those knights, of course, but not as many as you might expect. I guess full body armor has its good points after all. Even beyond that, though, the ferocity of the charge demoralized the Malloreans. They hadn’t expected it, for one thing, since there was no real reason for it. Vo Mimbre had stood like a rock in the face of two days of furious assaults, and there was no cause to believe that this day would be any different. We’d taken that element of surpr
ise into our planning. The startled Malloreans gave way as the Mimbrates charged right into their faces, and the charge cut a wide swath through their ranks.
‘Father!’ Polgara’s voice sounded inside my head, ‘Zedar’s trying something else! He just came out of the pavilion again!’
‘Which way’s he going?’
‘East. He’s taken the form of a deer.’
‘I’ll chase him back.’ I veered off toward the Murgo lines and saw Zedar running swiftly through the red-armored ranks. I’ve never really understood why he chose that form. He knew what my favorite form was, and taking the form of a deer wasn’t the best choice he could have made. I got out some distance ahead of him, settled to earth among the foothills, and went wolf. He was running hard when he approached the place where I was concealed, bounding up the hill with his antlers flaring above his head. He stopped abruptly when I stepped, snarling, out from behind a clump of bushes. He tried to dodge around me, but that didn’t work. I was just too close to him. Zedar’s day wasn’t going at all well.
I didn’t really try to kill him, though I suppose I could have. I bit him a number of times in some fairly sensitive spots, and he turned and bolted back toward the Murgo lines. It’s not really a good idea to turn your back on a wolf. I ran along behind him savaging his hindquarters as he fled. He wouldn’t be sitting down very much when he resumed his own form. I made sure of that.
I broke off the chase when I was a hundred yards or so from the Murgo lines, and then I trotted back up into the hills. ‘Beltira,’ I called the twin who was with Cho-Ram and Rhodar, ‘the Mimbrates are fully engaged now. You’d better come on down here and distract the Murgos.’
‘If you wish,’ he replied, and a moment later Cho-Ram’s trumpet signaled the charge. There was a thunder of hooves as the Algar cavalry closed the distance between the place where they’d lain concealed during the night and the Murgo lines. I’d taken cover amongst a cluster of boulders, and I watched Cho-Ram lead his horsemen down the hill to engage the Murgos.
Belgarath the Sorcerer Page 64
