CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was nearly dawn by the time they returned to the palace, and to their surprise, they found nearly everyone awake. A ripple of gasps ran through the throne room as Garion and Zak-ath entered. Garion’s armor was scorched and red with the dragon’s blood; Zakath’s surcoat was charred, and great fang marks scarred one side of his breastplate. The condition of their armor gave mute testimony to the seriousness of the encounter.
“My glorious champions!” the king exulted as they entered me throne room. It appeared to Garion at first that the king was leaping to a conclusion—that because they had returned alive, they had succeeded in killing the dragon. . “In all the years that this foul beast hath been ravaging this realm,” the king said, however, “this is the first time anyone hath forced it to flee.” Then, noting Belgarath’s puzzled look, he elaborated. “Not two hours ago, we observed the dragon flying over the city, shrieking in pain and fright.”
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“Which way did it go, your Majesty?” Garion asked. “It was last seen flying out to sea, Sir Knight, and, as all men know, its lair lies somewhere to the west. The chastisement thou and thy valiant companion administered hath driven it from the realm. Doubtless it will seek shelter in its lair and lick its wounds there. Now, an it please ye, our ears hunger for an account of what transpired.”
“Let me,” Belgarath muttered. He stepped forward. “Thy two champions, your Majesty, are modest men, as befits their nobility. They would, I do fear me, be reticent in their description of their exploit out of a desire not to appear boastful. Better, perhaps, that I describe the encounter for them so that your Majesty and the members of thy court receive a truer version of what actually occurred.”
“Well said, Master Garath,” the king replied. “True humility is the crown of any man of noble birth, but it doth, as thou sayest, ofttimes obscure the truth of an encounter such as this knight hath witnessed. Say on, I pray thee.”
“Where to begin?” Belgarath mused. “Ah, well. As your Majesty knoweth, Master Erezel’s timely warning that the dragon was ravaging the village of Dal Esta came not a moment too soon. Directly upon our departure from this very hall, we took to horse and rode posthaste to the aforementioned village. Great fires burned there, graphic evidence of the dragon’s fiery breath, and cattle and many of the inhabitants had already been slain and partially consumed by the beast—for whom all flesh is food.”
“Piteous.” The king sighed.
“His commiseration is all very pretty,” Zakath murmured to Garion, “but I wonder if he’ll be willing to dip into his treasury to aid the villagers in the reconstruction of their homes.”
‘ ‘You mean actually to give back some of the taxes after he’s gone to all the trouble of extorting them from his people?” Garion asked in mock surprise. “What a shocking thing to suggest.”
“Carefully thy champions reconnoitered the area around the village,” Belgarath was saying, “and they soon located the dragon, which was at that very moment feeding on the bodies of a herd of horses.”
“I only saw one,” Zakath whispered. “Sometimes he embellishes things to make his stories more exciting,” Garion whispered back.
Belgarath was warming to his subject now. “Advised by me,”
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he said modestly, “thy champions paused to take stock of the situation. At once we all perceived that the dragon’s attention was wholly riveted upon its grisly feast, and of a certainty, because of its size and savagery, it had never been given reason to be wary. The champions separated and circled around the feeding dragon that they might attack one from either side, hoping thereby to drive their lances into its vitals. Cautiously, step by step, they moved, for though they are the bravest men on liie, they are not foolhardy.”
There was absolute silence in the throne room as the king’s court listened to the old man with that same breathless fascination Garion had seen before in the dining hall at Faldor’s farm.
“Isn’t he laying it on a bit thick?” Zakath whispered.
“It’s a compulsion, I think,” Garion whispered back. “Grandfather’s never been able to let a good story rest on its own merits. He always feels the need for artistic enhancement.”
Certain now that he had his audience’s full attention, Belgarath began to utilize all those subtle tricks of the storyteller’s art. He altered pitch and volume. He changed cadences. Sometimes his voice dropped to a whisper. He was obviously enjoying himself enormously. He described the simultaneous charge on the dragon in glowing detail. He told of the dragon’s initial retreat, adding gratuitously a wholly fictional feeling of triumph in the hearts of the two knights and their belief that they had struck mortal blows with their lances. Though this last was not entirely true, it helped to heighten the suspense.
“I wish I’d seen that fight,” Zakath murmured. “Ours was a lot more prosaic.”
The old man then went on to describe the dragon’s vengeful return, and, just to make things interesting, he expanded hugely on Zakath’s mortal peril. “And then,” he went on, “heedless of his own life, his stalwart companion leaped into the fray. Sick with the fear that his friend might already have received fatal injury and filled with righteous rage, he hurled himself into the very teeth of the beast with great two-handed strokes of his mighty blade.”
“Were you really thinking those things?” Zakath asked Gar-ion. • “Approximately.”
“And then,” Belgarath said, “though it may have been some trick of the flickering light coming from the burning village, methought I saw the hero’s blade come all aflame. Again and again he struck, and each stroke was rewarded with rivers of
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bright blood and with shrieks of agony. And then, horror of horrors, a chance blow from the dragon’s mighty talons hurled our champion back, and then he stumbled, and then he fell-full upon the body of his companion, who was still vainly striving to rise.”
Groans of despair came from the throng crowding the throne room, even though the presence of the two heroes plainly said that they had survived.
“I admit it freely,” Belgarath continued, “that I felt dark despair in my heart. But as the savage dragon sought to slay our champions, the one—I may not say his name—plunged his burning sword into the very eye of the loathsome beast.”
There was a great roar of applause.
“Shrieking in pain, the dragon faltered and fell back. Our champions took advantage of this momentary opportunity to regain their feet. And then what a mighty battle ensued.” Belgarath proceeded in loving detail to describe at least ten times more sword strokes than Garion and Zakath had actually d61iv-ered.
“If I’d swung that sword that many times, my arms would have fallen off,” Zakath said.
“Never mind,” Garion said. “He’s enjoying himself.”
“At last,” Belgarath concluded, “unable to any longer bear the dreadful punishment, the dragon, which had never known fear before, turned and cravenly fled from the field, to pass, as your Majesty hath said, directly over this fair city toward its hidden lair, where the fear it hath learned this night will, me-thinks, canker far more than the wounds it received. It will, I believe, never return to thy kingdom, your Majesty, for, stupid though it may be, it will not willingly return to the place mat hath been the site of so much pain. And that, your Majesty, is exactly what happened.”
“Masterful!” the king said delightedly. And from the assemblage there in the throne room came thunderous applause. Belgarath turned and bowed, signaling to Garion and Zakath to do likewise, generously permitting them to share in the adulation.
The nobles of the court, some of them with actual tears in their eyes, pressed forward to congratulate the trio, Garion and Zakath for their heroism and Belgarath for his lurid description of it. Naradas, Garion noticed, stood at the king’s elbow, his dead white eyes burning with hatred. “Brace yourselves,” Gar-ion warned his friends. “Naradas is planning something.”
When the hubbub had died down, the white-eyed Grolim
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stepped to the front of the dais. ‘ ‘I, too, join my voice with these others in this hall to heap praise upon these mighty heroes and their brilliant advisor. Never hath this kingdom seen their match. Methinks, however, that caution is indicated here. I do fear me that Master Garath, fresh from the scene of this unutterably magnificent struggle and understandably exhilarated by what he hath witnessed, may have been too sanguine in his assessment of the dragon’s present state of mind. Truly, most normal creatures would shun a place that hath been the locale of such desperate agony, but this foul, loathsome brute is no normal creature. Might it not be more probable that, given what we know of it, it will instead be consumed with rage and a hunger and a thirst for revenge? Should these mighty champions depart now, this fair and beloved kingdom would lie defenseless beneath the vengeful depredations of a creature consumed with hatred.”