King of the Murgos

by David Eddings

  ‘We hit a reef, Pol,’ he replied. ‘We were taking water, so we had to beach the ship.’

  She considered that for a moment, obviously trying to find something wrong with it.

  ‘We can talk about it later,’ he said. He looked around. ‘Is everyone all right? We’ve got to get off this wreck immediately.’

  ‘We’re as well as can be expected, father,’ she said. ‘What’s the problem? I thought you said we were on the beach.’

  ‘We hit a submerged rock and broke the keel. This part of the ship’s still in the water, and about the only thing that’s holding this tub in one piece right now is the pitch in her seams. We’ve got to get forward and off the ship at once.’

  She nodded. ‘I understand, father.’ She turned to the others. ‘Gather up whatever you can carry,’ she instructed. ‘We have to get ashore.’

  ‘I’ll go help Durnik with the horses,’ Garion said to Belgarath. ‘Toth, Eriond, come with me.’ He turned toward the door, but paused a moment to look at Ce’Nedra. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.

  ‘I think so,’ she replied, sounding frightened and rubbing at an ugly bruise on her knee.

  ‘Stay with Aunt Pol,’ he instructed curtly and then went out.

  The scene in the ship’s hold was even worse than he had expected. Knee-deep water swirled and sloshed in the half-light coming in through the splintered hull. Boxes, bags, and bales floated everywhere, and the top of the sloshing, bilge-smelling water was littered with splinters from the broken timbers. Durnik had herded the wild-eyed horses forward, and they were bunched together in the ship’s bow where the water was the shallowest. ‘We lost three of them,’ he reported, ‘two with broken necks and one that drowned.’

  ‘Horse?’ Eriond asked quickly.

  ‘He’s all right, Eriond,’ Durnik assured him. He turned back to Garion. ‘I’ve been trying to gather up our packs. Everything’s pretty wet, I’m afraid. The food packs were all back in the stern, though. There’s no way to get to them.’

  ‘We can deal with that later,’ Garion said. ‘The main thing now is to get the horses out.’

  Durnik squinted at the jagged edges of the two-foot square keel grinding together as the aft end of the ship swung sluggishly in the surging waves. ‘Too dangerous,’ he said shortly. ‘We’ll have to go out through the bow. I’ll get my axe.’

  Garion shook his head. ‘If the aft end breaks loose, the bow-section’s likely to roll. We could lose another four or five horses if that happens and we might not have too much time left.’

  Durnik drew in a deep breath and squared his broad shoulders. His face was not happy.

  ‘I know,’ Garion said, putting his hand on his friend’s arm. ‘I’m tired, too. Let’s do it up forward. There’s no point in breaking out of the hull someplace where we’ll have to jump into deep water.’

  It was not quite as difficult as they had expected. The assistance of Toth made a noticeable difference. They selected a space in the ship’s side between a pair of stout ribs and went to work. As Durnik and Garion began carefully to break out the ship’s timbers between those ribs with the force of concentrated will, Toth attacked the same area with a large iron pry bar. The combination of sorcery and the mute’s enormous physical strength quickly opened a low, narrow opening in the ship’s bow.

  Silk stood on the beach out of range of the splinters their efforts had sent flying. His cloak was whipping wildly in the wind, and the surf was swirling about his ankles. ‘Are you all right?’ he shouted over the noise of the storm.

  ‘Good enough,’ Garion shouted back. ‘Give us a hand with the horses.’

  It eventually took blindfolds. Despite the best efforts of Durnik and Eriond to calm them, the terrified horses could be moved only if they could not see the dangers in the sloshing water surging around their knees. One by one they had to be led and coaxed through the litter lying half-awash in the shattered hold and out into the foaming surf. When the last of their animals was clear and stood flinching on the sand with the driving rain lashing at his flanks, Garion turned back to the sluggishly heaving wreck. ‘Let’s get the packs out,’ he shouted at the others. ‘Save what you can, but don’t take any chances.’

  The Murgo sailors, after leaping from the bow of the ship to the sand, had retreated up the beach and taken dubious shelter on the leeward side of a large, up-thrusting rock. They stood clustered together, sullenly watching the unloading. Garion and the others heaped up the packs above the frothy line that marked the highest point reached by the waves.

  ‘We lost three horses and all the food packs,’ Garion reported to Belgarath and Polgara. ‘I think we got everything else—except what we had to leave behind in the cabins.’

  Belgarath squinted upward into the rain. ‘We can redistribute the packs,’ he said, ‘but we’ regoing to need food.’

  ‘Is the tide going in or out?’ Silk asked as he deposited the last pack on their heap of belongings.

  Durnik squinted at the storm-tossed channel leading into the Gorand Sea. ‘I think it’s just turning.’

  ‘We don’t really have too much of a problem, then,’ the little man said. ‘Let’s find someplace out of the wind and wait for the tide to go out. Then we can come back and ransack the wreck at our leisure. She ought to be completely out of the water at low tide.’

  ‘There’s just one thing wrong with your plan, Prince Kheldar,’ Sadi told him, squinting toward the upper end of the beach. ‘You’re forgetting those Murgo sailors. They’re stranded on a deserted coast with at least a dozen Mallorean ships cruising up and down the shore line looking for them. Malloreans enjoy killing Murgos almost as much as Alorns do, so those sailors are going to want to get far away from here. It might be wise to get these horses quite some distance away—if we want to keep them.’

  ‘Let’s load the pack horses and get mounted,’ Belgarath decided. ‘I think Sadi’s right. We can come back and pick over what’s left of the ship later.’

  They broke down the packs and redistributed the weight to make up for the three lost animals, then began to saddle their mounts.

  The sailors, led by a tall, heavy-shouldered Murgo with an evil-looking scar under his left eye, came back down the beach. ‘Where do you think you’re taking those horses?’ he demanded.

  ‘I can’t really see where that’s any of your business,’ Sadi replied coolly.

  ‘We’re going to make it our business, aren’t we, mates?’

  There was a rumble of agreement from the rain-soaked sailors.

  ‘The horses belong to us,’ Sadi told him.

  ‘We don’t care about that. There are enough of us so that we can take anything we want.’

  ‘Why waste time with talk?’ one of the sailors behind the scar-faced man shouted.

  ‘Right,’ the big Murgo agreed. He drew a short, rusty sword from the sheath at his hip, looked back over his shoulder as he raised it aloft, and shouted, ‘Follow me!’ Then he fell writhing and bellowing in pain to the wet sand, clutching at his broken right arm. Toth, without any change of expression and with an almost negligent side-arm flip, had sent the iron pry bar he still held in one hand spinning through the air with a whirring flutter that ended with a sharp crack as the sword-wielding Murgo’s arm snapped.

  The sailors drew back, alarmed by their leader’s sudden collapse. Then a stubble-cheeked fellow in the front rank lifted a heavy boat hook. ‘Rush them!’ he bellowed. ‘We want those horses and we outnumber them.’

  ‘I think you might want to count again,’ Polgara said in a cool voice. Even as Garion stepped forward, drawing his sword out of its sheath, he felt a peculiar shadowy presence to his left. He blinked unbelievingly. As real as if he were actually there, the huge, red-bearded shape of Barak stood at his side.

  A clinking sound came from the right, and there, his armor gleaming wet in the rain, stood Mandorallen, and somewhat beyond him, the hawk-faced Hettar. ‘What thinkest thou, my Lords?’ the figure that appeared to be the
invincible Baron of Vo Mandor said gaily. ‘Should we afford these knaves the opportunity to flee, ere we fall upon them and spill out their lifeblood?’

  ‘It seems like the decent thing to do,’ the apparition of Barak rumbled its agreement. ‘What do you think, Hettar?’

  ‘They’re Murgos,’ the shade of Hettar said in his quiet, chilling voice as he drew his saber. ‘Kill them all right here and now. That way we won’t have to waste time chasing them down one by one later.’

  ‘Somehow I knew you were going to look at it that way.’ Barak laughed. ‘All right, my Lords, let’s go to work.’ He drew his heavy sword.

  The three images, larger actually than they were in life, advanced grimly on the shrinking sailors. In their midst, painfully aware that he was in fact quite alone, Garion moved forward, his huge sword held low. Then, on the far side of the apparition of Barak, he saw Toth advancing with his huge staff. Beyond him, Sadi held a small poisoned dagger. At the opposite end of the line, Durnik and Silk moved into place.

  The image of Barak glanced over at Garion. ‘Now, Garion!’ Aunt Pol’s whispered voice came from those bearded lips.

  Instantly he understood. He relaxed the restraints he usually kept on the Orb. The great sword he held leaped into flame, spurting blue fire from its tip almost into the faces of the now-terrified Murgos.

  ‘Will all of you who would like to die immediately and save yourselves the inconvenience and discomfort of being chased down and slowly hacked to pieces please step forward?’ the red-bearded shadow at Garion’s side roared in tones more grandiose than Barak himself could ever have managed. ‘We can have you in the arms of your one-eyed God in the blinking of an eye.’

  It hung there for a moment; then the sailors fled.

  ‘Oh, Gods!’ Garion heard Aunt Pol’s ringing voice coming from behind him. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for a thousand years!’ He turned and saw her, standing with the raging sea and racing black clouds behind her and the wind tearing at her blue cloak. The rain had plastered her hair to her face and neck, but her glorious eyes were triumphant.

  ‘My Pol!’ Belgarath exulted, catching her in a rough embrace. ‘Gods, what a son you’d have made!’

  ‘I’m your daughter, Belgarath,’ she replied simply, ‘but could any son have done better?’

  ‘No, Pol,’ he laughed suddenly, crushing her to him and soundly planting a kiss on her rain-wet cheek. ‘Not one bit.’

  They stopped, startled and even a little embarrassed that the enormous love they had each tried to conceal for millennia had finally come out into the open on this storm-swept beach here at the bottom of the world. Almost shyly they looked at each other and then, unable to hold it in, they began to laugh.

  Garion turned away, his eyes suddenly brimming.

  Urgit was bending over the sailor with the broken arm. ‘If you wouldn’t mind taking some advice from your king, my man,’ he said urbanely, ‘might I remind you that the sea out there is crawling with Malloreans, and Malloreans take a childlike delight in crucifying every Murgo they come across. Don’t you think it might be prudent for you and your shipmates to remove yourselves from the vicinity of all that scrap lumber?’ He looked meaningfully at the wreck.

  The sailor cast a sudden, frightened glance at the stormtossed channel and scrambled to his feet. Cradling his broken arm, he scurried back up the beach to rejoin his frightened mates.

  ‘He shows a remarkable grasp of the situation, doesn’t he?’ Urgit said to Silk.

  ‘He does seem uncharacteristically alert,’ Silk agreed. He looked at the rest of them. ‘Why don’t we mount up and get off this beach?’ he suggested. ‘That wreck stands out like a beacon, and our injured friend and his companions might decide to give horse rustling another try.’ He looked appraisingly at the hulking images Polgara had conjured up. ‘Just out of curiosity, Polgara, could those apparitions of yours actually have done any good if it had gotten down to a fight?’

  Polgara was still laughing, her lavender eyes alight. ‘To be perfectly honest with you, my dear Silk,’ she replied gaily, ‘I haven’t got the faintest idea.’

  For some reason her answer sent them all off into helpless gales of laughter.

  Chapter Twenty

  The slope leading to the top of the headland was covered with rank grass, drooping under the rain that swept in from the south. As they started up from the beach, Garion looked back. The Murgo sailors had swarmed over the wreck to salvage whatever they could, stopping often to look fearfully out at the storm-wracked channel.

  At the top of the headland, the full force of the gale struck them, tearing at their clothes and raking them with sheets of rain. Belgarath pulled to a halt, held one hand above his eyes to shield them, and surveyed the treeless expanse of grassland lying sodden and wind-whipped ahead.

  ‘This is totally impossible, father,’ Polgara declared, drawing her wet cloak more tightly about her. ‘We’re going to have to find shelter and wait this out.’

  ‘That might be difficult, Pol.’ He gazed out over a grassland that showed no signs of any sort of human habitation. The broad valley lying below them was laced with deep gullies where turbulent creeks had cut down through the turf and exposed the rounded boulders and beds of gravel lying beneath the thin topsoil and its tenacious cover of grass. The wind sheeted across that grass, tossing it like waves, and the rain, mingled with icy sleet, raked at it. ‘Urgit,’ the old man said, ‘are there any villages or settlements hereabouts?’

  Urgit wiped his face and looked around. ‘I don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘The maps don’t show anything in this part of Cthaka except the high road leading inland. We might stumble across some isolated farmstead, but I doubt it. The soil here is too thin for crops, and the winters are too severe for cattle.’

  The old man nodded gloomily. ‘That’s more or less what I thought.’

  ‘We might be able to pitch the tents,’ Durnik said, ‘but we’ll be right out in the open, and there’s no firewood anywhere out there.’

  Eriond had been patiently sitting astride his stallion, staring out at the featureless landscape with a peculiar look of recognition. ‘Couldn’t we take shelter in the watchtower?’ he asked.

  ‘What watchtower?’ Belgarath asked him, looking around again, ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘You can’t see it from here. It’s mostly all tumbled down. The cellar’s still all right, though.’

  ‘I don’t know of any watch towers on this coast,’ Urgit said.

  ‘It hasn’t been used for a long time.’

  ‘Where, Eriond?’ Polgara asked. ‘Can you show us where it is?’

  ‘Of course. It’s not too far.’ The young man turned his stallion and angled up toward the very top of the headland. As they climbed the hill, Garion looked down and saw a fair number of stone blocks protruding up out of the grass. It was difficult to say for sure, but at least some of those blocks bore what looked vaguely like chisel marks.

  When they reached the top, the gale shrieked around them, and the tossing grass whipped at their horses’ legs.

  ‘Are you sure, Eriond?’ Polgara shouted over the wind.

  ‘We can get in from the other side,’ he replied confidently. ‘It might be better to lead the horses, though. The entrance is fairly close to the edge of the bluff.’ He slid out of his saddle and led the way across the grassy, rounded top of the hill. The rest of them followed him. ‘Be careful here,’ he warned, moving around a slight depression. ‘Part of the roof is sagging a bit.’

  Just past that grass-covered depression was a bank that angled steeply downward to a narrow ledge. Beyond that, the bluff broke away sharply. Eriond picked his way down the bank and led his horse along the ledge. Garion followed him; when he reached the ledge, he glanced over the edge of the bluff. Far below, he saw the wreck lying on the beach. A broad line of footprints stretched away from it at the water’s edge to disappear in the rain.

  ‘Here it is,’ Eriond said. Then he disappeared, leading
his horse, it seemed, directly into the grass-covered bank.

  The rest of them followed curiously and found a narrow, arched opening that had quite obviously been built by human hands. The long grass above and on each side of the arch had grown over it until it was barely visible. Gratefully, Garion pushed his way through that grass-obscured opening into a calm, musty-smelling darkness.

  ‘Did anyone think to bring any torches?’ Sadi asked.

  ‘They were with the food-packs, I’m afraid,’ Durnik apologized. ‘Here, let’s see what I can do.’ Garion felt a light surge and heard a faint rushing sound. A dimly glowing spot of light appeared, balanced on the palm of Durnik’s hand. Gradually that dim light grew until they could see the interior of the ancient ruin. Like so many structures that had been built in antiquity, this low-ceilinged cellar was vaulted. Stone arches supported the ceiling, and the walls were solidly buttressed. Garion had seen precisely the same construction in King Anheg’s eons-old palace in Val Alorn, in the ruins of Vo Wacune, in the lower floors of his own Citadel at Riva, and even in the echoing tomb of the one-eyed God in Cthol Mishrak.

  Silk was looking speculatively at Eriond. ‘I’m sure you have an explanation,’ he said. ‘How did you know that this place was here?’

  ‘I lived here for a while with Zedar. It was while he was waiting until I’d grown old enough to steal the Orb.’

  Silk looked slightly disappointed. ‘How prosaic,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Eriond said as he led the horses over to one side of the vaulted room. ‘Would you like to have me make up some kind of story for you instead?’

  ‘Never mind, Eriond,’ the little man told him.

  Urgit had been examining one of the buttresses. ‘No Murgo ever built this,’ he declared. ‘The stones fit too closely.’

  ‘It was built before the Murgos came to this part of the world,’ Eriond said.

  ‘By the slave race?’ Urgit asked incredulously. ‘All they know how to make are mud huts.’

  ‘That’s what they wanted you to think. They were building towers—and cities—when Murgos were still living in goatskin tents.’