David and Leigh Eddings – Belgarath the Sorcerer

position.”

“How long would it take you to get some verification, Cerran?” Ran

Borune asked him.

“A couple of weeks at least, your Majesty,” the general replied.

“I’ve got three legions on the north bank of the River Borgasa in

southern Nyissa. They’re functioning primarily as scouts to give us a

warning when Urvon approaches the Nyissan border. If I can get orders

to them to go have a look, a mounted patrol could cut across the

southwestern tip of Goska to the desert and be back again in a week or

ten days.” He spread his hands helplessly.

“I’m sorry, your Majesty, but that’s about the best I can do. You can

move information only as fast as a man on a good horse can carry it.

That’s always been the problem with large campaigns. I wish there were

a faster way, but there isn’t.”

He was wrong about that, of course. There is a faster way, but I

couldn’t explain it to him–not in terms that he’d understand,

anyway.

“I think you’re in a bit of a quandary, General Cerran,” Polgara

said.

“If Rhodar’s report isn’t accurate, Urvon could still come at you from

the south, but if Kal Torak wins at Vo Mimbre, he’ll be sitting on your

northern border with nothing between him and Tol Honeth but a few

unarmed peasants. At that point, you’ll be looking at a repetition of

what happened in Drasnia.”

That worried him a little bit, and it worried Ran Borune even more.

The shrewd little emperor thought about it for a few moments.

“How about a compromise here?” he asked finally.

“I’m willing to listen, Ran Borune,” Rhodar said.

“Why don’t we send half the legions to Arendia and leave the other half

where they are?”

“Will that be enough, Belgarath?” Rhodar asked.

“It’ll be touch and go,” I replied dubiously.

“Is that your Majesty’s decision?” Cerran asked his emperor.

“It covers both borders, but . . .” He left it in the air.

“I don’t see that we’ve got much choice, Cerran. We’re going to have

to protect ourselves on both sides.”

“I hate two-front wars,” Cerran muttered. He scowled at the ceiling

for a while.

“Numerical superiority’s largely a matter of appearances,” he mused.

“Less than half the troops are actually engaged, in most cases.

The rest are held in reserve–usually where the opposing general can

see them.”

“That’s the way it normally works, yes,” Rhodar agreed.

“I do have some additional forces available,” Cerran told us.

“They aren’t very well trained, they aren’t in good condition, and I

wouldn’t want to venture any guarantees about how well they can fight,

but they’ll look impressive to Kal Torak.”

“Where did you come up with this phantom army of yours, Cerran?”

Ran Borune asked him.

“There are eight legions in the Imperial Garrison right here in Tol

Honeth, your Majesty. They’re fat and lazy, and they’re mostly

Honethites. No man’s ever come up with a way to make real soldiers out

of Honeths, but at least they’ll swell our ranks at Vo Mimbre.”

“It’s a start,” Rhodar conceded.

“I think I can go a little further,” Cerran added.

“There are twelve legion training camps here in the vicinity of Tol

Honeth and seven more up near Tol Vordue. Those recruits probably

can’t even march in a straight line yet, but they have got uniforms.

That’d give us the appearance of twenty-seven additional legions to

beef up our reserves. If we pull half of the regular legions off the

southern border and reinforce them with these pseudo-soldiers, Kal

Torak’s going to look out and see something in excess of seventy-five

legions–and King Eldrig’s berserkers–on his right flank. I think

that’ll get his attention.”

“General Cerran, you’re a genius!” Ran Borune enthused.

“You know, Belgarath,” Rhodar said to me, “it might just work at that.

Kal Torak’s probably crazy, but Ad Rak Cthoros of Cthol Murgos isn’t,

and neither’s Yar Lek Thun of the Nadraks. They’re not going to let

their armies be exterminated as long as there’s a Mallorean presence on

this continent. They might bow down to Kal Torak, but they aren’t

stupid enough to trust him. If it starts to look as if they’re

seriously outnumbered, I think they’ll try to defect–or escape. I’ll

talk with Cho-Ram about it. If the Murgos and Nadraks start getting

homesick, I don’t think we should get in their way when they start back

east.”

“What about the Thulls?” Cerran asked him.

“The Thulls couldn’t find their way home without guide dogs,

General,”

Rhodar replied, laughing.

“Thulls have what you might call a very limited sense of direction.

Thulls have a very limited grasp of just about anything. It takes the

average Thull a half a day just to tie his shoes.”

“You gentlemen do realize that you’re basing the fate of the world on

an elaborate trick, don’t you?” Polgara asked us.

“It’s a gamble, Lady Polgara,” Rhodar admitted gaily, “but gambling’s a

lot of fun sometimes, and the higher the stakes, the more exciting it

is.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes upward, but she didn’t say anything.

“It’s about the best we can do, Belgarath,” Ran Borune apologized.

“The legions are all spread out along the River of the Woods. General

Cerran can get the ones closest to the coast down to the mouth of the

River of the Woods and the Cherek fleet in fairly short order. Those

that are farther east would take too long to reach the coast to be of

any use at Vo Mimbre anyway.”

“I’ll take personal command of our forces in Arendia,” Cerran added.

“I might be able to persuade the Honeths to earn their pay for a

change.”

“Well,” I said, “if it’s the best we can do, it’ll have to be enough.”

I’m sure I sounded a little dubious, but I was actually quite pleased.

Cerran’s phantom army might very well be enough to persuade Kal Torak

to accept Brand’s challenge when the time came.

Torak wasn’t moving very fast. The weather still hadn’t really

returned to normal, and his army was slogging through foot-deep mud. He

also stopped frequently to crush every fortified house, every castle,

and every serfs’ village he came across. The prisoners he took were

turned over to the Grolims, of course. There were other things slowing

him down, as well–little things like the Algars, the Drasnians, the

Ulgos, and the Asturian bowmen. The upper reaches of the River Arend

are heavily forested, so there were lots of opportunities for ambushes.

I’d had some doubts about the enthusiasm of the Asturians, to be

honest with you. Kal Torak was invading Mimbre, after all. But after

Eldallan’s bowmen had seen a few Angarak atrocities, their archery

improved to the point that no place in the horde was truly safe from

Asturian arrows, and Kal Torak of Mallorea took horrid casualties as he

marched west toward Vo Mimbre.

Beldin had flown north from the Desert of Araga, and he was with King

Eldrig at the mouth of the River of the Woods. The Tolnedran Legions

were drifting in, but it didn’t seem to me that they were moving very

fast. I didn’t make an issue of that with General Cerran, though. I

needed him, so I was careful not to be offensive.

Eldrig was in the South with his fleet when the twins arrived in Tol

Honeth with some additional clues they’d dredged out of the Mrin, but

the rest of us still gathered in the Cherek embassy. If anyplace in

Tol Honeth was secure from the prying eyes and ears of Ran Borune’s

spies, it was the Cherek embassy, and we were going to be talking about

things that were none of Ran Borune’s business. I rather like the

Cherek embassy in Tol Honeth anyway. It’s a homey, Alorn sort of place

that’s a welcome relief from marble-encased Tolnedran stuffiness. The

chairs are rough-hewn and covered with fur, and the fireplaces are

always going, even in the summertime. Chereks are convinced that they

discovered fire, so blazing fireplaces are a sort of religious

observance for them.

Once we’d gathered in a fairly standard Alorn council chamber and the

ambassador had sent his bully-boys through the building to weed out any

spies, we got down to business. Beltira un cased one of the scrolls of

the Mrin and read to us from it.

“Behold!” he read.

“It shall come to pass that the Dragon God shall be engaged before the

golden city for three days, and then the Child of Light shall issue his

challenge. And on the third day shall all be decided by the EVENT.”

“At least it won’t be a protracted siege,” Cho-Ram noted.

“I’d been sort of hoping that it might be,” I said. I went to the map

and measured off some distances.

“I think we’d better stop harassing Torak’s rear and pull those troops

back a bit. If we keep crowding him, he might not stop to regroup.

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