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  Barak glanced back over his shoulder at the dust clouds behind them, then pulled his horse in beside Belgarath’s. ‘Just how rough is the ground leading down into the Vale?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not the easiest trail in the world.’

  ‘Those Murgos are less than a day behind us, Belgarath. If we have to pick our way down, they’ll be on top of us before we make it.’

  Belgarath pursed his lips, squinting at the dust clouds on the southern horizon. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’d better think this through.’ He raised his hand to call a halt. ‘It’s time to make a couple of decisions,’ he told the rest of them. ‘The Murgos are a little closer than we really want them to be. It takes two to three days to make the descent into the Vale, and there are places where one definitely doesn’t want to be rushed.’

  ‘We could always go on to that ravine we followed coming up,’ Silk suggested. ‘It only takes a half-day to go down that way.’

  ‘But Lord Hettar and the Algar clans of King Cho-Hag await us in the Vale,’ Mandorallen objected. ‘Were we to go on, would we not lead the Murgos down into undefended country?’

  ‘Have we got any choice?’ Silk asked him.

  ‘We could light fires along the way,’ Barak suggested. ‘Hettar will know what they mean.’

  ‘So would the Murgos,’ Silk said. ‘They’d ride all night and be right behind us every step of the way down.’

  Belgarath scratched sourly at his short white beard. ‘I think we’re going to have to abandon the original plan,’ he decided. ‘We have to take the shortest way down, and that means the ravine, I’m afraid. We’ll be on our own once we get down, but that can’t be helped.’

  ‘Surely King Cho-Hag will have scouts posted along the foot of the escarpment,’ Durnik said, his plain face worried.

  ‘We can hope so,’ Barak replied.

  ‘All right,’ Belgarath said firmly, ‘we’ll use the ravine. I don’t altogether like the idea, but our options seem to have been narrowed a bit. Let’s ride.’

  It was late afternoon when they reached the shallow gully at the top of the steep notch leading down to the plain below. Belgarath glanced once down the precipitous cut and shook his head. ‘Not in the dark,’ he decided. ‘Can you see any signs of the Algars?’ he asked Barak, who was staring out at the plain below.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ the red-bearded man answered. ‘Do you want to light a fire to signal them?’

  ‘No,’ the old man replied. ‘Let’s not announce our intentions.’

  ‘I will need a small fire, though,’ Aunt Pol told him. ‘We all need a hot meal.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s wise, Polgara,’ Belgarath objected.

  ‘We’ll have a hard day tomorrow, father,’ she said firmly. ‘Durnik knows how to build a small fire and keep it hidden.’

  ‘Have it your own way, Pol,’ the old man said in a resigned tone of voice.

  ‘Naturally, father.’

  It was cold that night, and they kept their fire small and well sheltered. As the first light of dawn began to stain the cloudy sky to the east, they rose and prepared to descend the rocky cut toward the plain below.

  ‘I’ll strike the tents,’ Durnik said.

  ‘Just knock them down,’ Belgarath told him. He turned and nudged one of the packs thoughtfully with his foot. ‘We’ll take only what we absolutely have to have,’ he decided. ‘We’re not going to have the time to waste on these.’

  ‘You’re not going to leave them?’ Durnik sounded shocked.

  ‘They’ll just be in the way, and the horses will be able to move faster without them.’

  ‘But – all of our belongings!’ Durnik protested.

  Silk also looked a bit chagrined. He quickly spread out a blanket and began rummaging through the packs, his quick hands bringing out innumerable small, valuable items and piling them in a heap on the blanket.

  ‘Where did you get all those?’ Barak asked him.

  ‘Here and there,’ Silk replied evasively.

  ‘You stole them, didn’t you?’

  ‘Some of them,’ Silk admitted. ‘We’ve been on the road for a long time, Barak.’

  ‘Do you really plan to carry all of that down the ravine?’ Barak asked, curiously eyeing Silk’s treasures.

  Silk looked at the heap, mentally weighing it. Then he sighed with profound regret. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I guess not.’ He stood up and scattered the heap with his foot. ‘It’s all very pretty though, isn’t it? Now I guess I’ll have to start all over again.’ He grinned then. ‘It’s the stealing that’s fun, anyway. Let’s go down.’ And he started toward the top of the steeply descending streambed that angled sharply down toward the base of the escarpment.

  The unburdened horses were able to move much more rapidly, and they all passed quite easily over spots Garion remembered painfully from the upward climb weeks before. By noon they were more than halfway down.

  Then Polgara stopped and raised her face. ‘Father,’ she said calmly, ‘they’ve found the top of the ravine.’

  ‘How many of them?’

  ‘It’s an advance patrol – no more than twenty.’

  Far above them they heard a sharp clash of rock against rock, and then, after a moment, another. ‘I was afraid of that,’ Belgarath said sourly.

  ‘What?’ Garion asked.

  ‘They’re rolling rocks down on us.’ The old man grimly hitched up his belt. ‘All right, the rest of you go on ahead. Get down as fast as you can.’

  ‘Are you strong enough, father?’ Aunt Pol asked, sounding concerned. ‘You still haven’t really recovered, you know.’

  ‘We’re about to find out,’ the old man replied, his face set. ‘Move – all of you.’ He said it in a tone that cut off any possible argument.

  As they all began scrambling down over the steep rocks, Garion lagged farther and farther behind. Finally, as Durnik led the last packhorse over a jumble of broken stone and around a bend, Garion stopped entirely and stood listening. He could hear the clatter and slide of hooves on the rocks below and, from above, the clash and bounce of a large stone tumbling over the ravine, coming closer and closer. Then there was a familiar surge and roaring sound. A rock, somewhat larger than a man’s head, went whistling over him, angling sharply up out of the cut to fall harmlessly far out on the tumbled debris at the floor of the escarpment. Carefully Garion began climbing back up the ravine, pausing often to listen.

  Belgarath was sweating as Garion came into sight around a bend in the ravine a goodly way above and ducked back out of the old man’s sight. Another rock, somewhat larger than the first, came bounding and crashing down the narrow ravine, bouncing off the walls and leaping into the air each time it struck the rocky streambed. About twenty yards above Belgarath, it struck solidly and spun into the air. The old man gestured irritably, grunting with the effort, and the rock sailed out in a long arc, clearing the walls of the ravine and falling out of sight.

  Garion quickly crossed the streambed and went down several yards more, staying close against the rocky wall and peering back to be sure he was concealed from his grandfather.

  When the next rock came bouncing and clashing down toward them, Garion gathered his will. He’d have to time it perfectly, he knew, and he peered around a corner, watching the old man intently. When Belgarath raised his hand, Garion pushed his own will in to join his grandfather’s, hoping to slip a bit of unnoticed help to him.

  Belgarath watched the rock go whirling far out over the plain below, then he turned and looked sternly down the ravine. ‘All right, Garion,’ he said crisply, ‘step out where I can see you.’

  Somewhat sheepishly Garion went out into the center of the streambed and stood looking up at his grandfather.

  ‘Why is it that you can never do what you’re told to do?’ the old man demanded.

  ‘I just thought I could help, that’s all.’

  ‘Did I ask for help? Do I look like an invalid?’

  ‘There
’s another rock coming.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject. I think you’re getting above yourself, young man.’

  ‘Grandfather!’ Garion said urgently, staring at the large rock bounding down the ravine directly for the old man’s back. He threw his will under the rock and hurled it out of the ravine.

  Belgarath looked up at the stone soaring over his head. ‘Tacky, Garion,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘very tacky. You don’t have to throw them all the way to Prolgu, you know. Stop trying to show off.’

  ‘I got excited,’ Garion apologized. ‘I pushed a little too hard.’

  The old man grunted. ‘All right,’ he said a bit ungraciously, ‘as long as you’re here anyway – but stick to your own rocks. I can manage mine, and you throw me off-balance when you come blundering in like that.’

  ‘I just need a little practice, that’s all.’

  ‘You need some instruction in etiquette, too,’ Belgarath told him, coming on down to where Garion stood. ‘You don’t just jump in with help until you’re asked. That’s very bad form, Garion.’

  ‘Another rock coming,’ Garion informed him politely. ‘Do you want to get it or shall I?’

  ‘Don’t get snippy, young man,’ Belgarath told him, then turned and flipped the approaching rock out of the ravine.

  They moved on down together, taking turns on the rocks the Murgos were rolling down the ravine. Garion discovered that it grew easier each time he did it, but Belgarath was drenched with sweat by the time they neared the bottom. Garion considered trying once again to slip his grandfather a bit of assistance, but the old sorcerer glared at him so fiercely as he started to gather in his will that he quickly abandoned the idea.

  ‘I wondered where you’d gone,’ Aunt Pol said to Garion as the two clambered out over the rocks at the mouth of the ravine to rejoin the rest of the party. She looked closely at Belgarath. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m just fine,’ he snapped. ‘I had all this assistance – unsolicited, of course.’ He glared at Garion again.

  ‘When we get a bit of time, we’re going to have to give him some lessons in controlling the noise,’ she observed. ‘He sounds like a thunderclap.’

  ‘That’s not all he has to learn to control.’ For some reason the old man was behaving as if he’d just been dreadfully insulted.

  ‘What now?’ Barak asked. ‘Do you want to light signal fires and wait here for Hettar and Cho-Hag?’

  ‘This isn’t a good place, Barak,’ Silk pointed out. ‘Half of Murgodom’s going to come pouring down that ravine very shortly.’

  ‘The passage is not wide, Prince Kheldar,’ Mandorallen observed. ‘My Lord Barak and I can hold it for a week or more if need be.’

  ‘You’re backsliding again, Mandorallen,’ Barak told him.

  ‘Besides, they’d just roll rocks down on you,’ Silk said. ‘And they’re going to be dropping boulders off the edge up there before long. We’re probably going to have to get out on the plain a ways to avoid that sort of thing.’

  Durnik was staring thoughtfully at the mouth of the ravine. ‘We need to send something up there to slow them down, though,’ he mused. ‘I don’t think we want them right behind us.’

  ‘It’s a little hard to make rocks roll uphill,’ Barak said.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of rocks,’ Durnik replied. ‘We’ll need something much lighter.’

  ‘Like what?’ Silk asked the smith.

  ‘Smoke would be good,’ Durnik answered. ‘The ravine should draw just like a chimney. If we build a fire and fill the whole thing with smoke, nobody’s going to come down until the fire goes out.’

  Silk grinned broadly. ‘Durnik,’ he said, ‘you’re a treasure.’

  Chapter Five

  There were bushes, scrub and bramble for the most part, growing here and there along the base of the cliff, and they quickly fanned out with their swords to gather enough to build a large, smoky fire. ‘You’d better hurry,’ Belgarath called to them as they worked. ‘There are a dozen Murgos or more already halfway down the ravine.’

  Durnik, who had been gathering dry sticks and splintered bits of log, ran back to the mouth of the ravine, knelt and began striking sparks from his flint into the tinder he always carried. In a few moments he had a small fire going, the orange flames licking up around the weathered grey sticks. Carefully he added larger pieces until his fire was a respectable blaze. Then he began piling thornbushes and brambles atop it, critically watching the direction of the smoke. The bushes hissed and smoldered fitfully at first, and a great cloud of smoke wafted this way and that for a moment, then began to pour steadily up the ravine. Durnik nodded with satisfaction. ‘Just like a chimney,’ he observed. From far up the cut came shouts of alarm and a great deal of coughing and choking.

  ‘How long can a man breathe smoke before he chokes to death?’ Silk asked.

  ‘Not very long,’ Durnik replied.

  ‘I didn’t think so.’ The little man looked happily at the smoking blaze. ‘Good fire,’ he said, holding his hands out to the warmth.

  ‘The smoke’s going to delay them, but I think it’s time to move on out,’ Belgarath said, squinting at the cloud-obscured ball of the sun hanging low over the horizon to the west. ‘We’ll move on up the face of the escarpment and then make a run for it. We’ll want to surprise them a bit, to give us time to get out of range before they start throwing rocks down on us.’

  ‘Is there any sign of Hettar out there?’ Barak asked, peering out at the grassland.

  ‘We haven’t seen any yet,’ Durnik replied.

  ‘You do know that we’re going to lead half of Cthol Murgos out onto the plain?’ Barak pointed out to Belgarath.

  ‘That can’t be helped. For right now, we’ve got to get out of here. If Taur Urgas is up there, he’s going to send people after us, even if he has to throw them off the cliff personally. Let’s go.’

  They followed the face of the cliff for a mile or more until they found a spot where the rockfall did not extend so far out onto the plain. ‘This will do,’ Belgarath decided. ‘As soon as we get to level ground, we ride hard straight out. An arrow shot off the top of that cliff will carry a long way. Is everybody ready?’ He looked around at them. ‘Let’s move, then.’

  They led their horses down the short, steep slope of rock to the grassy plain below, mounted quickly and set off at a dead run.

  ‘Arrow!’ Silk said sharply, looking up and back over his shoulder.

  Garion, without thinking, slashed with his will at the tiny speck arching down toward them. In the same instant he felt a peculiar double surge coming from either side of him. The arrow broke into several pieces in midair.

  ‘If you two don’t mind!’ Belgarath said irritably to Garion and Aunt Pol, half-reining in his horse.

  ‘I just didn’t want you to tire yourself, father,’ Aunt Pol replied coolly. ‘I’m sure Garion feels the same way.’

  ‘Couldn’t we discuss it later?’ Silk suggested, looking apprehensively back at the towering escarpment.

  They plunged on, the long, brown grass whipping at the legs of their horses. Other arrows began to fall, dropping farther and farther behind them as they rode. By the time they were a half mile out from the sheer face, the arrows were sheeting down from the top of the cliff in a whistling black rain.

  ‘Persistent, aren’t they?’ Silk observed.

  ‘It’s a racial trait,’ Barak replied. ‘Murgos are stubborn to the point of idiocy.’

  ‘Keep going,’ Belgarath told them. ‘It’s just a question of time until they bring up a catapult.’

  ‘They’re throwing ropes down the face of the cliff,’ Durnik reported, peering back at the escarpment. ‘As soon as a few of them get to the bottom, they’ll pull the fire clear of the ravine and start bringing horses down.’

  ‘At least it slowed them down a bit,’ Belgarath said.

  Twilight, hardly more than a gradual darkening of the cloudy murk that had obscured the sky for s
everal days, began to creep across the Algarian plain. They rode on.

  Garion glanced back several times as he rode and noticed moving pinpoints of light along the base of the cliff. ‘Some of them have reached the bottom, grandfather,’ he called to the old man, who was pounding along in the lead. ‘I can see their torches.’

  ‘It was bound to happen,’ the sorcerer replied.

  It was nearly midnight by the time they reached the Aldur River, lying black and oily-looking between its frosty banks.

  ‘Does anybody have any idea how we’re going to find that ford in the dark?’ Durnik asked.

  ‘I’ll find it,’ Relg told him. ‘It isn’t all that dark for me. Wait here.’

  ‘That could give us a certain advantage,’ Silk noted. ‘We’ll be able to ford the river, but the Murgos will flounder around on this side in the dark for half the night. We’ll be leagues ahead of them before they get across.’

  ‘That was one of the things I was sort of counting on,’ Belgarath replied smugly.

  It was a half an hour before Relg returned. ‘It isn’t far,’ he told them.

  They remounted and rode through the chill darkness, following the curve of the river bank until they heard the unmistakable gurgle and wash of water running over stones. ‘That’s it just ahead,’ Relg said.

  ‘It’s still going to be dangerous fording in the dark,’ Barak pointed out.

  ‘It isn’t that dark,’ Relg said. ‘Just follow me.’ He rode confidently a hundred yards farther upriver, then turned and nudged his horse into the shallow rippling water.

  Garion felt his horse flinch from the icy chill as he rode out into the river, following closely behind Belgarath. Behind him he heard Durnik coaxing the now-unburdened pack animals into the water.

  The river was not deep, but it was very wide – almost a half mile – and in the process of fording, they were all soaked to the knees.