“Really? Oh, Cho-Ram, see if you can get word of what’s afoot to the
Gorim of Ulgo, and Ormik, why don’t you move your supply dumps down to
the north bank of the Camaar River? If we’re going to have a war in
Arendia, we’ll need groceries.”
“We can live off the land if we have to,” Rhodar said.
“Of course–for maybe a week. After that, we’ll be eating our shoes,
and you wouldn’t care for that.”
I left for Tol Honeth the following morning and arrived there two days
later. Ran Borune IV was a young man who’d been on the imperial throne
only for a few years. The Third Borune Dynasty was still in its
infancy, and the Borunes hadn’t yet shaken all the Honethites and
Vorduvians out of the government. The Honeths in particular were very
upset about the closing of the trade routes to the East and the
“renovations” at Riva. A day without profit sends a Honethite into
deep mourning, and so a steady stream of officials, high and low, were
beating on Ran Borune’s door imploring him to do something. As a
result, it was several days before I got in to see him.
Over the centuries, the various imperial families in Tol Honeth have
devised a fiction that makes them comfortable. They sagely assure each
other that the names
“Belgarath” and
“Polgara” are hereditary titles.
Accepting an alternative would have been out of the question for them,
so I came at Ran Borune rather obliquely to avoid a long argument about
something that wasn’t really that important.
“Have you heard about what’s happening in Mallorea, your Majesty?” I
asked him.
“I understand that they have a new emperor.” Like most members of his
family, Ran Borune was a small man–probably the result of their Dryad
heritage. The Imperial Throne of Tolnedra had been designed to be
impressive, so it was quite large and draped in imperial crimson. Ran
Borune IV looked a great deal like a child sitting on a piece of
grownup furniture.
“How much do you know about that new emperor in Mal Zeth?” I asked
him.
“Not all that much. Mallorea’s a long way away, and I’ve got things
closer to home to worry about.”
“You’d better start worrying about Kal Torak, because he’s coming this
way.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I have sources of information that aren’t available to you, Ran
Borune.”
“More of that tired old nonsense, Belgarath? That might impress
Alorns, but it certainly doesn’t impress me.”
I sidestepped that rather smoothly.
“I’m not referring to that, Ran Borune. The information comes from
Rhodar’s intelligence service. Nobody can hide things from a Drasnian
spy.”
“Why didn’t Rhodar let me know?”
“He is letting you know. That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you say so? I’ll send emissaries to Mal Zeth to ask
the Mallorean Emperor what his intentions are.”
“Don’t waste your time, Ran Borune. He’ll probably be on your doorstep
in a few months, and then you’ll be able to talk to him in person.”
“What sort of man is he? And why did he choose that particular
name?”
“He’s arrogant, implacable, and driven by an overwhelming ambition.
The word
“Kal” means King and God in Old Angarak. Does that give you any clues
about him?”
“A madman?” Ran Borune looked startled.
“He probably wouldn’t see it that way–and the Angaraks certainly
don’t. He’s convinced them that he’s really Torak–largely by having
the Grolims gut anybody who didn’t believe. He’s coming west, and
he’ll be driving all of Mallorea in front of him.”
“They’ll have to get past the Murgos first. Murgos despise Malloreans,
and they certainly won’t bow down to a Mallorean Emperor.”
“The Murgos do what the Grolims tell them to do, Ran Borune, and the
Grolims have accepted this Kal Torak as the real Torak.”
He began to gnaw on one of his fingernails.
“I think we might have a problem,” he conceded.
“Have Rhodar’s spies found out why he wants to invade us?”
“To rule the world, I suppose,” I said with a shrug.
“We don’t know exactly why, yet, but his ultimate destination seems to
be Arendia.”
“Arendia? That doesn’t make any sense at all!”
“I know, but that’s what Drasnian intelligence is picking up. If we
don’t do something to stop him, you’re going to have a very large,
unfriendly army camped on your northern border.”
“He’ll have to come through Algaria to get to Arendia.”
“That’s our best guess, too.”
“Are the Algars ready for him?”
“The Algars have been getting ready for an Angarak invasion for the
past three millennia. So have the Chereks and the Drasnians. Alorns
and Angaraks don’t get along at all.”
“So I’ve heard. I think maybe I’ll put the legions on standby
alert.”
“I’d go a little further than “standby,” Ran Borune. I had a look at
some of your legionnaires on my way here. They’re pitifully out of
condition.
You’d better toughen them up a bit. I’m going back to Riva now. I
think it’s time to beef up the defenses of Algaria. We’ll keep you
advised if Rhodar’s spies pick up anything else.” Then I bowed and
left.
I’ve used that ploy many times in dealing with Tolnedrans. The
supposed omniscience of Drasnian Intelligence can be very useful at
times.
It’s easier to lie to them than to tell them where I’m really getting
my information.
In the spring of 4865, Kal Torak led his Malloreans across the
land-bridge to Morindland, and then he started south along the coast.
After he’d passed the mountains of Gar og Nadrak, however, his entire
army disappeared into that vast primeval forest that blankets the
North.
I’ve been involved in a lot of wars over the years, and I think that
might have contributed to my failure to predict what Torak was going to
do. A human general will take the shortest, easiest route to get to a
battlefield. He doesn’t want to waste the lives of his troops, and he
doesn’t want them to be exhausted when the fighting starts. Torak,
however, was most definitely not a human general. The lives of his
troops meant nothing to him, and he had ways to make them fight, no
matter how exhausted they were.
At any rate, the Alorn kings and I were so convinced that Torak would
continue down the coast to Mishrak ac Thull that we were taken
completely by surprise when he led his army of northern Murgos,
Nadraks, Thulls, and Malloreans down out of the mountains in western
Gar og Nadrak and out onto the moors of eastern Drasnia early in the
summer of 4865.
Torak himself made the journey in a silly-looking iron castle, complete
with useless towers and ostentatious battlements. It had wheels on it,
but it still took a herd of horses and about a thousand Grolims to pull
it. I shudder to think of the amount of labor it took to clear a road
through the forests of Gar og Nadrak for that ridiculous thing.
It became clear almost immediately that Kal Torak came not as a
conqueror, but as a destroyer. He was not interested in occupying
Drasnia and enslaving the people. He wanted to kill them all. Such
Drasnians as were captured were immediately sacrificed by the Grolim
priests.
In retrospect, I can understand what he was doing. He had to reach
Arendia, of course, but he gave himself enough time to exterminate the
Drasnians before he proceeded into Algaria or Cherek to do the same
thing there. Arendia was secondary in his thinking. He wanted to wipe
out the Alorns before he got there.
Our mistaken assessment of his probable strategy had pulled us
seriously out of position, and his hordes had destroyed Boktor before
we could get enough forces north to offer any serious resistance. Since
we were hopelessly outnumbered, we didn’t even pretend that we were
making war. We rushed north on a rescue mission instead, gathering
such refugees as we were able to find. Eldrig’s war-boats took large
crowds of terror-stricken Drasnian civilians off the islands at the
mouths of the Aldur and Mrin rivers, and Algar cavalry rounded up those
who had fled south toward Lake Atun and escorted them to the relative
safety of the Algarian Stronghold. A large column of refugees from
Boktor made a truly astounding trek north from their burning city to
reach the valley of the River Dused, where it forms the border between
Drasnia and the Cherek peninsula. For the rest of the population, the
only escape was into the fens. Very few of them survived.
Once it became clear that there was no way that we could match the army
Kal Torak had hurled at us, we concluded that Drasnia was lost. I had
to do some fairly brutal things at that point to salvage as much of the
superb Drasnian army as I could. I didn’t even bother trying to argue
with the grief-stricken Rhodar. I simply drove him and his pike men