16
SEERESS OF KELL
KELL
17
nerable trailing along behind the way she is.” He considered it. “Don’t say anything to alarm her, but have Liseile ride in the carriage with her.”
“Liseile?”
“The blond girl. The one with the dimples.”
“I know who she is, Grandfather. Wouldn’t Durnik—or maybe Toth—be a better idea?”
“No. If either of them got in the carriage with Ce’Nedra, she’d know something was wrong, and that might frighten her. An animal who’s hunting can smell fear. Let’s not expose her to that kind of danger. Liselle’s very well trained, and she’s probably got two or three daggers hidden hi various places.” He grinned slyly. “I’d imagine Silk could tell you where they are,” he added.
“Father!” Polgara gasped.
“You mean you didn’t know, Pol? My goodness, how unobservant of you.”
“One for your side,” Garion noted.
“I’m glad you liked it.” Belgarath smirked at Polgara.
Garion turned Chretienne so that his aunt would not see his smile.
They took a bit more care setting up camp that night, choosing a small grove of aspens backed by a steep cliff and with a deep mountain river at its front. As the sun sank into the eternal snowfields above them and twilight filled the ravines and gorges with azure shadows, Beldin returned from his wide-ranging vigil. “Isn’t it a bit early to be stopping?” he rasped after he had shimmered and changed.
“The horses are tired,” Belgarath replied, casting a sidelong glance at Ce’Nedra. “This is a very sleep trail.”
“Wait a bit,” Beldin told him, limping toward the fire. “It gets steeper on up ahead.”
“What happened to your foot?”
“I had a little disagreement with an eagle—stupid birds, eagles. He couldn’t tell the difference between a hawk and a pigeon. I had to educate him. He bit me while I was tearing out a sizable number of his wing feathers.”
“Uncle,” Polgara said reproachfully.
“He started it.”
“Are there any soldiers coming up behind us?” Belgarath asked him.
‘ ‘Some Darshivans. They’re two or three days behind, though.
Urvon’s army is retreating. Now that he and Nahaz are gone, there’s not much point in their staying.”
“That gets at least some of the troops off our backs,” Silk said.
“Don’t be too quick to start gloating,” Beldin told him. “With the Guardsmen and the Karands gone, the Darshivans are free to concentrate on us.”
“That’s true, I suppose. Do you think they know we’re here?”
“Zandramas does, and I don’t think she’d hide the information from her soldiers. You’ll probably hit snow sometime late tomorrow. You might want to be thinking about some way to hide your tracks.” He looked around. “Where’s your wolf?” be asked Garion.
‘ ‘Hunting. She’s been looking for signs of her pack.”
“That brings something up,” Belgarath said quietly, looking around to make sure that Ce’Nedra was out of earshot. ‘ The wolf told Garion that there’s a large animal of some kind in this area. Pol’s going to go out and take a look around tonight, but it might not hurt if you nosed around tomorrow, as well. I’m not in the mood for any surprises.”
“I’ll see what I can find.”
Sadi and Velvet sat on the far side of the fire. They had placed the little earthenware bottle on its side and were trying to coax Zith and her children out with morsels of cheese. “I wish we had some milk,” Sadi said in his contralto voice. “Milk is very good for young snakes. It strengthens their teeth.”
“I’ll remember that,” Velvet said.
“Were you planning a career as a snakeherdess, Margravine?”
“They’re nice little creatures,” she replied. “They’re clean and quiet, and they don’t eat very much. Besides, they’re very useful in emergencies.”
He smiled at her affectionately. ‘ ‘We’ll make a Nyissan of youyrt,Liselle.”
“Not if/can help it,” Silk muttered darkly to Garion.
They had broiled trout for supper that evening. After Durnik and Tb(h had finished setting up their encampment, they had adjourned to the riverbank with their poles and lures. Durnik’s recent elevation to disciplehood had changed him in some ways, but bad not lessened his appetite for his favorite pastime. It was no longer necessary for him and his mute friend even to discuss Ifcese excursions. Any time they camped in the vicinity of a lake or stream, their reaction was automatic.
18
SEERESS OF KELL
KELL
After supper, Polgara flew off into the shadowy forest, but when she returned, she reported having seen no sign of the large beast the she-wolf had warned them about.
It was cold the following morning, and there was a trace of frost in the air. The horses’ breath steamed in the mountain air as they set out, and Garion and the others rode with their cloaks wrapped tightly about them.
As Beldin had predicted, they reached the snow line late that afternoon. The first windrows of white in the wagon ruts were thin and crusty, but farther on ahead they could see deeper drifts. They made camp below the snow and set out again early the following morning. Silk had devised a sort of yoke for one of the packhorses, and trailing on ropes behind the yoke were a dozen or so head-size round rocks. The little man critically examined the tracks the rocks made in the snow as they started up the track into the world of perpetual white. “Good enough,” he said in a self-congratulatory tone.
“I don’t quite see the purpose of your contrivance, Prince Kheldar,” Sadi confessed.
“The rocks leave trails that look about the same as wagon tracks,” Silk explained. “Horse tracks by themselves might make the soldiers coming up behind us suspicious. Wagon tracks on a caravan route aren’t going to look all that remarkable.”
‘ ‘Clever,” the eunuch said, * ‘but why not just cut bushes and drag them behind us?”
Silk shook his head. “If you brush out all the tracks in the snow, it looks even more suspicious. This is a fairly well-traveled route.”
“You think of everything, don’t you?”
“Sneaking was his major field of study at the academy,” Velvet said from the little carriage she shared with Ce’Nedra and the wolf pup. “Sometimes he sneaks just to keep in practice.”
“I don’t know if I’d go (hat far, Liselle,” the little man objected in a pained tone.
“Don’t you?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so, but you don’t have to come right out and say it—and ‘sneak’ has such an ugly ring to it.”
“Can you mink of a better term?”
“Well, ‘evasion’ sounds a bit nicer, doesn’t it?”
“Since it means the same thing, why quibble over terminology?” She smiled winsomely at him, her cheeks dimpling.
“It’s a question of style, Liselle.”
19
The caravan track grew steeper, and the snow had piled in deeper and deeper drifts along the sides. Miles-long plumes of snow blew from the mountaintops ahead, and the wind grew stronger with a biting, arid chill to it.
About noon, the peaks ahead were suddenly obscured by an ominous-looking cloudbank rolling in from the west, and the die-wolf came loping down the track to meet them. “One advises that you seek shelter for the pack and your beasts,” she said with a peculiar kind of urgency.
“Have you found the creature who dwells here?” Garion asked.
“No. This is more dangerous.” She looked meaningfully back over her shoulder at the approaching cloud.
“One will tell the pack-leader.”
“That is proper.” She pointed her muzzle at Zakath. “Have this one follow me. There are trees a short way ahead. He and I will find a suitable place.”
“She wants you to go with her,” Garion told the Mallorean. “WeVe got bad weather coming, and she thinks we should take shelter in some trees just ahead. Find a place, and I’ll go warn the others.”
“A blizzard?” Zakath asked.
“I’d guess so. It takes somediing fairly serious in the way of weather to make a wolf nervous.” Garion wheeled Chretienne and rode back down to alert the others. The steep, slippery track made haste difficult, and the chill wind was whipping stinging pellets of snow about them by the time they reached the thicket to which the wolf had led Zakath. The trees were slender pine saplings, and they grew very close together. At some time in the not too distant past an avalanche had cut a swath through the thkket and had piled a jumble of limbs and broken trunks against the face of a steep rock cliff. Durnik and loth went to work immediately even as the wind picked up and the snow grew thicker. Garion and the others joined in, and before long they had erected a latticed frame for a long lean-to against the cliff fece. They covered the frame with tent canvas, tying it securely in place and weighting it down with logs. Then they cleared away the interior and led the horses into the lower end of the rode shelter just as the full force of the storm hit.