“I can take care of that,” Beldin growled. “A hawk’s eyes are about ten times more acute than a man’s. I can circle over them at a few hundred feet and pick out every detail.”
“Are you sure your feathers are dry?” Belgarath asked.
“That’s why I slept near the fire last night.”
“All right. Keep me advised.”
“Naturally,” The grim hunchback crouched and blurred. With an agile leap the hawk settled atop a boulder, his fierce eyes looking out over the plain. Then he spread his wings and dropped headlong off the cliff.
“You people always take that so casually,” Zakath noted.
“It’s not really that,” Sadi murmured, rubbing his scalp. “It’s just that we’re numb. The first time I saw him do it, my hair stood on end, and for me that’s a neat trick.”
“Urvon’s army’s hiding in shallow pits along the ridge tops on either side of that long gorge,” Belgarath repeated the silent words of the hawk soaring through the murky air for below them, “and the elephants are moving directly toward the same gorge.”
Zakath leaned out over the edge and looked down.
“Careful,” Garion said, catching the Mallorean’s arm with one hand.
“It is a long way down,” Zakath agreed. “All right then,” he said. “Now I see why the Darshivans are making for that gorge. It branches at the foot of this cliff, and one branch goes north. It probably connects with the main caravan route.” He thought about it. “It’s actually a good strategy. If Nahaz hadn’t driven his troops so hard, the Darshivans would have reached the caravan route first, and they could have set up an ambush of their own.” He pulled back away from the edge of the cliff. “That’s one of the reasons I always hate to operate in rough terrain. I got a number of very nasty surprises in Cthol Murgos.”
“The elephants are starting to form up into a column,” Belgarath reported, “and the rest of the Darshivans are strung out behind them.”
“Are they putting out scouts?” Zakath asked.
“Yes, but they’re only scouting along the floor of the gorge. A few of them went up to the ridge tops, but the Hounds eliminated those.”
They waited as Beldin circled above the two armies.
“They’re committed now,” Belgarath said sadly. “The elephants are starting into the gorge.”
“I feel a little sorry for the elephants,” Durnik said. “They didn’t volunteer for this. I wish they didn’t plan to fire on them.”
“It’s fairly standard, Goodman,” Zakath said calmly.
“Fire’s the only thing elephants are really afraid of. They’ll stampede back down the gorge.”
“Right through the Darshivans,” Silk added in a slightly sick voice. “Nahaz should get his fill of blood today.”
“Do we really have to watch this?” Durnik asked.
“We have to wait until it gets started,” Belgarath replied.
“I think I’ll go back and wait with Pol,” the smith said, edging back from the cliff top. Then he and Toth went on down the ridge.
“He’s a very gentle person, isn’t he?” Zakath said.
“Usually,” Garion replied. “When it’s necessary, though, he can do what needs doing.”
“You remember the time he chased that Murgo into a quicksand bog,” Silk said with a shudder, “and then watched him sink?”
“It shouldn’t be too long now,” Belgarath said tensely. “The last of the elephants just entered the gorge.”
They waited. For some reason, Garion felt suddenly cold.
Then, even though what was happening was more than a league away, they heard a thunderous rumbling sound as Urvon’s troops began to roll huge boulders down on the advancing elephants. Faintly they could hear the agonized screams of the huge beasts. Then, smoke and flame began to boil up out of the gorge as the brutish Karands rained huge piles of burning brush down on the helpless animals.
“I think I’ve seen enough,” Sadi said. He rose and went back down the ridge.
The surviving elephants, looking almost like ants in the distance, wheeled and fled in panic back down the gorge, and the agonized squeals of the animals were suddenly accompanied by human screams as the great beasts crushed their way through rank after rank of Darshivan soldiers.
Beldin came soaring up from below and settled back on the boulder from which he had started.
“What’s that?” Silk exclaimed. “There at the mouth of the gorge.”
There seemed to be some vast disturbance in the murky air at the edge of the plain, a sort of shimmering filled with flickering, rainbow-hued light and sullen flashes of heat lightning. Then, quite suddenly, the disturbance coalesced into a nightmare.
“Belar!” Silk swore. “It’s as big as a barn!”
The thing was hideous. It had a dozen or more snakelike arms that writhed and lashed at the air. It had three blazing eyes and a vast muzzle filled with great fangs. It towered over the elephants and kicked them aside contemptuously with huge, clawed feet. Then with thunderous stride, it started up the gorge, walking indifferently through the flames and paying no more attention to the boulders bouncing off its shoulders than it might have to snowflakes.
“What is that thing?” Zakath asked in a shaken voice.
“That’s Mordja,” Belgarath told him. “I’ve seen him before—in Morindland—and that’s not the sort of face one forgets.”
The demon in the gorge was reaching out with his many arms now, catching whole platoons of Karands in his clawed hands and almost casually hurling them with terrific force against the surrounding rocks.
“It looks to me as if the tide of battle just turned,” Silk said. “What’s our general feeling about leaving—along about right now?”
The Demon Lord Mordja raised his huge muzzle and thundered something in a language too hideous for human comprehension.
“Stay put!” Belgarath ordered, catching Silk’s arm. “This isn’t played out yet. That was a challenge, and Nahaz won’t be able to refuse it.”
Another of those flickering disturbances appeared in the air above the upper end of the gorge, and another towering form appeared out of its center. Garion could not see its face, a fact for which he was profoundly grateful, but it, too, had snaky arms growing in profusion from its vast shoulders. “Thou darest to face me, Mordja?” it roared in a voice which shook the nearby mountains.
“I do not fear thee, Nahaz,” Mordja bellowed back. “Our enmity hath endured for a thousand thousand years. Let it end here. I shall carry word of thy death back to the King of Hell and bear thy head with me as proof of my Swords.”
“My head is thine,” Nahaz said with a chilling laugh. “Come and take it—if thou canst.”
“And thou wouldst bestow the stone of power on the mad Disciple of maimed Torak?” Mordja sneered.
“Thy sojourn in the land of the Morindim hath bereft thee of thy wits, Mordja. The stone of power shall be mine, and I shall rule these ants that creep upon the face of this world. I will raise them like cattle and feed upon them when I hunger. “
“How wilt thou feed, Nahaz—without thy head? It is I who will rule and feed here, for the stone of power shall lie in my hand.”
“That we will soon discover, Mordja. Come. Let us contend for a head and for the stone we both desire.” Suddenly Nahaz spun about, his baleful eyes searching the top of the cliff where Garion and his friends lay hidden. A volcanic hiss burst from the demon’s distorted lips. “The Child of Light!” he roared. “Praise the name of the King of Hell, who hath brought him within my reach. I will rend him asunder and seize the stone which he carries. Thou art doomed, Mordja. That stone in my hand shall be thy undoing.” With hideous speed the Demon Lord Nahaz clambered over the tumbled rocks at the foot of the cliff and reached out with his dozens of clawed hands at the sheer rock face. His vast shoulders heaved.
“He’s climbing straight up the rock!” Silk exclaimed in a strangled voice. “Let’s get out of here!”
The Demon Lord Mordja stood for a moment in stunned chagrin, then he, too, ran forward and began to claw his way up the face of the cliff.
Garion rose to his feet, looking down at the two vast monsters clambering up the sheer rock. He felt a peculiar detachment as he reached back over his shoulder and drew his sword. He untied the leather sleeve covering the hilt and slipped it off. The Orb glowed, and when he took the sword in both hands, the familiar blue flame ran up the blade.
“Garion!” Zakath exclaimed.
“They want the Orb,” Garion said grimly. “Well, they’re going to have to take it, and I may have something to say about that.”
But then Durnik was there. His face was calm, and he was stripped to the waist. In his right hand he carried an awesome sledgehammer that glowed as blue as Garion’s sword. “Excuse me, Garion,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “but this is my task.”