Enchanter's End Game Part 13

Varana shook his head. "They'll bring Murgos up from Rak Goska and Malloreans from Thull Zelik. Then instead of a quick raid on Thull Mardu, you'll have a general war on your hands."

"That's what you'd do, General Varana," King Rhodar disagreed, "but you aren't 'Zakath or Taur Urgas. Our strategy's based on our a.s.sessment of those two men. Neither of them will commit his forces unless he's convinced that we pose a major threat. Each of them wants to save as much of his army as possible. In their view, we're only an incidental annoyance - and an excuse to put an army into the field. For them, the real war starts when they attack each other. Each of them will hold back, and King Geth.e.l.l of the Thulls will have to meet us on his own with only token support from the Murgos and the Malloreans. If we move fast enough, we'll have Anheg's fleet into the Sea of the East and all our troops pulled back to the escarpment before they realize what we're up to."

"And then?"

"And then Taur Urgas will stay in Rak Goska as if his foot were nailed to the floor." King Anheg chuckled. "I'll be in the Sea of the East drowning Malloreans by the s.h.i.+pload, and he'll be cheering me on every step of the way."

"And 'Zakath won't dare risk those troops he already has at Thull Zelik by moving against us," Brand added. "If he loses too many men, Taur Urgas will have the upper hand."

General Varana considered that. "A three-way deadlock, then," he mused. "Three armies in the same region, and not one of them willing to move."

"The very best kind of war." King Rhodar grinned. "n.o.body gets hurt."

"Tactically, your only problem is gauging the severity of your raids before you attack Thull Mardu," Varana noted. "They'll have to be serious enough to pull the garrison out of the city, but not so serious as to alarm 'Zakath or Taur Urgas. That's a very fine line to walk, gentlemen."

Rhodar nodded. "That's why we're so delighted to have Tolnedra's foremost tactician here to advise us," he said, bowing floridly.

"Please, your Majesty," General Varana interposed, lifting one hand."Suggest, not advise. An observer can only suggest. The term advice implies partisans.h.i.+p that is not in line with the Empire's position of strict neutrality."

"Ah," King Rhodar said. He turned to King Cho-Hag. "We must make arrangements for the comfort of the Imperial suggester and his staff," he declared with a broad grin.

Ce'Nedra watched with secret delight as these two brilliant men began what was obviously going to be a firm friends.h.i.+p. "I'll leave you gentlemen to your entertainments," she told them. "Military discussions give me a headache, so I'll rely on you not to get me in trouble." She curtsied to them with a winsome little smile and withdrew.

Two days later, Relg arrived from Ulgoland with the contingent of his leaf mailed countrymen sent by the Gorim. Taiba, who had hovered silently in the background since the army had arrived at the Stronghold, joined Ce'Nedra and Lady Polgara to greet the Ulgos as the wagons which carried them creaked up the hill toward the main gate. The beautiful Marag woman wore a plain, even severe, linen dress, but her violet eyes were glowing. Relg, his cowled leaf mail s.h.i.+rt covering his head and shoulders like lizard skin, climbed down from the lead wagon and only perfunctorily answered the greetings of Barak and Mandorallen. His large eyes searched the group gathered at the gate until they found Taiba, and then a kind of tension seemed to go out of him. Without speaking, he walked toward her. Their meeting was silent, and they did not touch, though Taiba's hand moved involuntarily toward him several times. They stood in the golden sunlight with their eyes lost in each other's faces, drawing about them a profound kind of privacy that absolutely ignored the presence of others. Taiba's eyes remained constantly on Relg's face, but there was in them nothing of that vacant, placid adoration that filled Ariana's eyes when she looked at Lelldorin. There was rather a question - even a challenge. Relg's answering look was the troubled gaze of a man torn between two overpowering compulsions. Ce'Nedra watched them for a few moments, but was finally forced to avert her eyes.

The Ulgos were quartered in dim, cavernous rooms built into the foundations of the Stronghold where Relg could lead his countrymen through the painful process of adjusting their eyes to the light of day and training them to ignore the unreasoning panic which a.s.sailed all Ulgos when they were exposed to the open sky.

That evening another smaller contingent arrived from the south. Three men, two in white robes and one in filthy rags, appeared at the gate demanding entrance. The Algars at the gate admitted them immediately, and one guard was sent to Lady Polgara's candlelit apartment to inform her of their arrival.

"You'd better bring them here," she advised the poor man, who was ashen-faced and trembling. "They haven't been in the company of other men for a very long time, and crowds might make them nervous."

"At once, Lady Polgara," the shaking Algar said, bowing. He hesitated for a moment. "Would he really do that to me?" he blurted.

"Would who do what to you?"

"The ugly one. He said that he was going to-" The man stopped, suddenly realizing to whom he was speaking. His face turned red. "I don't think I should repeat what he said, Lady Polgara - but it was an awful thing to threaten a man with."

"Oh," she said. "I believe I know what you mean. It's one of his favorite expressions. I think you're safe. He only says that to get people's attention. I'm not even sure you can do it to somebody and keep him alive at the same time."

"I'll bring them at once, Lady Polgara."

The sorceress turned to look at Ce'Nedra, Adara, and Ariana, who had joined her for supper. "Ladies," she said gravely, "we're about to have guests. Two of them are the sweetest men in the world, but the third is a bit uncontrolled in his use of language. If you're at all sensitive about such things, you'd better leave."

Ce'Nedra, remembering her encounter with the three in the Vale of Aldur, rose immediately.

"Not you, Ce'Nedra," Polgara told her. "You'll have to stay, I'm afraid."

Ce'Nedra swallowed hard. "I really would leave, if I were you," she advised her friends.

"Is he that bad?" Adara asked. "I've heard men swear before."

"Not like this one," Ce'Nedra warned.

"You've managed to make me very curious." Adara smiled. "I think I'll stay."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Ce'Nedra murmured.

Beltira and Belkira were as saintly as Ce'Nedra remembered them, but the misshapen Beldin was even uglier and nastier. Ariana fled before he had even finished greeting Lady Polgara. Adara turned deathly pale, but bravely kept her seat. Then the hideous little man turned to greet Ce'Nedra with a few raucous questions that made the princess blush to the roots of her hair. Adara prudently withdrew at that point.

"What's wrong with your wenches, Pol?" Beldin asked innocently, scratching at his matted hair. "They seemed a little vaporish."

"They're well-bred ladies, Uncle," Polgara replied. "Certain expressions are offensive to their ears."

"Is that all?" He laughed coa.r.s.ely. "This redheaded one seems a bit less delicate."

"Your remarks offend me as much as they offend my companions, Master Beldin," Ce'Nedra retorted stiffly, "but I don't think I'll be routed by the foul mouthings of an ill-bred hunchback."

"Not bad," he complimented her, sprawling uncouthly in a chair, "but you've got to learn to relax. An insult's got a certain rhythm and flow to it that you haven't quite picked up yet."

"She's very young, Uncle," Polgara reminded him.

Beldin leered at the princess. "Isn't she, though?"

"Stop that," Polgara told him.

"We've come-"

"-to join your expedition," the twins said.

"Beldin feels-"

"-that you might encounter Grolims, and-"

"-need our help."

"Isn't that pathetic?" Beldin demanded. "They still haven't learned to talk straight." He looked at Polgara. "Is this all the army you've got?"

"The Chereks will be joining us at the river," she replied.

"You should have talked faster," he told Ce'Nedra. "You haven't got nearly enough men. Southern Murgos proliferate like maggots in dead meat, and Malloreans sp.a.w.n like blowflies."

"We'll explain our strategy to you in good time, Uncle," Polgara promised him. "We are not going to meet the armies of Angarak head on. What we're doing here is only diversionary."

He grinned a hideous little grin. "I'd have given a lot to see your face when you found out that Belgarath had slipped away from you," he said.

"I wouldn't dwell on that, Master Beldin," Ce'Nedra advised. "Lady Polgara was not pleased by Belgarath's decision, and it might not be prudent to raise it again."

"I've seen Pol's little tantrums before." He shrugged. "Why don't you send somebody out for a pig or a sheep, Pol? I'm hungry."

"It's customary to cook it first, Uncle."

He looked puzzled. "What for?" he asked.

Chapter Ten.

THREE DAYS LATER the army began to move out from the Algar Stronghold toward the temporary encampment the Algars had erected on the east bank of the Aldur River. The troops of each nation moved in separate broad columns, trampling a vast track through the knee-high gra.s.s. In the center column the legions of Tolnedra, standards raised, marched with parade-ground perfection. The appearance of the legions had improved noticeably since the arrival of General Varana and his staff. The mutiny on the plains near Tol Vordue had given Ce'Nedra a large body of men, but no senior officers, and once the danger of surprise inspections was past, a certain laxity had set in. General Varana had not mentioned the rust spots on the breastplates nor the generally unshaven condition of the troops. His expression of mild disapproval had seemed to be enough. The hard-bitten sergeants who now commanded the legions had taken one look at his face and had immediately taken steps. The rust spots vanished, and shaving regularly once again became popular. There were, to be sure, a few contusions here and there on some freshly shaved faces, mute evidence that the heavy-fisted sergeants had found it necessary to vigorously persuade their troops that the holiday was over.

To one side of the legions rode the glittering Mimbrate knights, their varicolored pennons snapping in the breeze from the up-raised forest of their lances. Their faces shone with enthusiasm and little else. Ce'Nedra privately suspected that a large part of their fearsome reputation stemmed from that abysmal lack of anything remotely resembling thought. With only a little encouragement, a force of Mimbrates would cheerfully mount an a.s.sault on winter or a changing tide.

On the other flank of the marching legions came the green - and brown - clad bowmen of Asturia. The placement was quite deliberate. The Asturians were no more blessed with intelligence than their Mimbrate cousins, and it was generally considered prudent to interpose other troops between the two Arendish forces to avoid unpleasantness.

Beyond the Asturians marched the grim-faced Rivans, all in gray, and accompanying them were the few Chereks who were not with the fleet, which even now was in the process of being prepared for the portage to the base of the escarpment. Flanking the Mimbrates marched the Sendarian militiamen in their homemade uniforms, and at the rear of the host, the creaking lines of King Fulrach's supply wagons stretched back to the horizon. The Algar clans, however, did not ride in orderly columns, but rather in little groups and cl.u.s.ters as they drove herds of spare horses and half wild cattle along on the extreme flanks of the host.

Ce'Nedra, in her armor and mounted on her white horse, rode in the company of General Varana. She was trying, without much success, to explain her cause to him.

"My dear child," the general said finally, "I'm a Tolnedran and a soldier. Neither of those conditions encourages me to accept any kind of mysticism. My primary concerns at this moment have to do with feeding this mult.i.tude. Your supply lines stretch all the way back across the mountains and then up through Arendia. That's a very long way, Ce'Nedra."

"King Fulrach's taken care of that, Uncle," she told him rather smugly. "All the time we've been marching, his Sendars have been freighting supplies along the Great North Road to Aldurford and then barging them upriver to the camp. There are whole acres of supply dumps waiting for us."

General Varana nodded approvingly. "It appears that Sendars make perfect quartermasters," he observed. "Is he bringing weapons as well?"

"I think they said something about that," Ce'Nedra replied. "Arrows, spare lances for the knights, that sort of thing. They seemed to know what they were doing, so I didn't ask too many questions."

"That's foolish, Ce'Nedra," Varana said bluntly. "When you're running an army, you should know every detail."

"I'm not running the army, Uncle," she pointed out. "I'm leading it. King Rhodar's running it."

"And what will you do if something happens to him?"

Ce'Nedra suddenly went cold.

"You are going to war, Ce'Nedra, and people do get killed and injured in wars. You'd better start taking an interest in what's going on around you, my little princess. Going off to war with your head wrapped in a pillow isn't going to improve your chances of success, you know." He gave her a very direct look. "Don't chew your fingernails, Ce'Nedra," he added. "It makes your hands unsightly."

The encampment at the river was vast, and in the very center stood King Fulrach's main supply dump, a virtual city of tents and neatly stacked equipment. A long string of flat-bottomed barges were moored to the riverbank, patiently waiting to be unloaded.

"Your people have been busy," King Rhodar observed to the dumpy-looking Sendarian monarch as they rode along a narrow alleyway between mountainous heaps of canvas-covered produce and stacks of stoutly boxed equipment. "How did you know what to have them bring?"

"I took notes while we were coming down through Arendia," King Fulrach replied. "It wasn't too hard to see what we were going to need - boots, arrows, spare swords, and the like. At present, about all we're bringing in is food. The Algar herds will provide fresh meat, but men get sick on a steady diet of nothing but meat."

"You've already got enough food here to feed the army for a year," King Anheg noted.

Fulrach shook his head. "Forty-five days," he corrected meticulously. "I want thirty days' worth here and two weeks' worth in the forts the Drasnians are building up on top of the escarpment. That's our margin of safety. As long as the barges replenish our food supplies daily, we'll always have that much on hand. Once you decide what your goals are, the rest is just simple mathematics."

"How do you know how much a man's going to eat in one day?" Rhodar asked, eyeing the high-piled foodstuffs. "Some days I'm hungrier than others."

Fulrach shrugged. "It averages out. Some eat more, some eat less; but in the end, it all comes out about the same."

"Fulrach, sometimes you're so practical, you almost make me sick," Anheg said.

"Somebody has to be."

"Don't you Sendars have any sense of adventure? Don't you ever do something without planning it all out in advance?"

"Not if we can help it," the King of Sendaria replied mildly.

Near the center of the supply-dump a number of large pavilions had been erected for the use of the leaders of the army and their supporting staff. About midafternoon, after she had bathed and changed clothes, Princess Ce'Nedra went over to the main tent to see what was happening.

"They're anch.o.r.ed about a mile downriver," Barak was reporting to his cousin. "They've been here for about four days now. Greldik's more or less in charge."

"Greldik?" Anheg looked surprised. "He doesn't have any official position."

"He knows the river." Barak shrugged. "Over the years he's sailed just about any place where there's water and a chance to make some profit. He tells me that the sailors have been drinking pretty steadily since they anch.o.r.ed. They know what's coming."

Anheg chuckled. "We'd better not disappoint them, then. Rhodar, how much longer will it be before your engineers are ready to start lifting my s.h.i.+ps ap the escarpment?"

"A week or so," King Rhodar replied, looking up from his midafternoon snack.

"It will be close enough," Anheg concluded. He turned back to Barak. "Tell Greldik that we'll start the portage tomorrow morning - before the sailors have time to sober up."

Ce'Nedra had not fully understood the meaning of the word "portage" until she arrived the following morning at the riverbank to find the sweating Chereks hauling their s.h.i.+ps out of the water and manhandling them along by main strength on wooden rollers. She was appalled at the amount of effort required to move a s.h.i.+p even a few inches.

She was not alone in that. Durnik the smith took one shocked look at the procedure and immediately went looking for King Anheg. "Excuse me, your Honor," he said respectfully, "but isn't this bad for the boats -as well as the men?"

"s.h.i.+ps," Anheg corrected. "They're called s.h.i.+ps. A boat is something else."

"Whatever you call them - won't banging them along over those logs spring their seams?"

Anheg shrugged. "They all leak quite a bit anyway," he replied. "And it's always been done this way."

Durnik quickly saw the futility of trying to talk to the King of Cherek. He went instead to Barak, who was rather glumly considering the huge s.h.i.+p his crew had rowed upriver to meet him. "She looks very impressive when she's afloat," the big red-bearded man was saying to his friend, Captain Greldik, "but I think she'll be even more impressive when we have to pick her up and carry her."

"You're the one who wanted the biggest wars.h.i.+p afloat," Greldik reminded him with a broad smirk. "You'll have to buy enough ale to float that whale of yours before your crew's drunk enough to try to portage her - not to mention the fact that it's customary for a captain to join in when the time comes to portage."

"Stupid custom," Barak growled sourly.

"I'd say that you're in for a bad week, Barak." Greldik's grin grew broader.

Durnik took the two seamen aside and began talking earnestly with them, drawing diagrams on the sandy riverbank with a stick. The more he talked, the more interested they became.

What emerged from their discussions a day later were a pair of lowslung cradles with a dozen wheels on each side. As the rest of the Chereks jeered, the two s.h.i.+ps were carefully slid out of the water onto the cradles and firmly lashed in place. The jeering faded noticeably, however, when the crews of the two s.h.i.+ps began trundling their craft across the plain. Hettar, who happened to ride by, watched for a few moments with a puzzled frown. "Why are you pulling them by hand," he asked, "when you're in the middle of the largest herd of horses in the world?"

Barak's eyes went very wide, and then an almost reverent grin dawned on his face.