The next morning after breakfast, they donned the evil-smelling robes of Nyissan slavers. At Belgarath’s instruction, Garion once again covered the hilt of Iron-grip’s sword. “I think we’d better keep the Orb well wrapped as long as we’re in Cthol Murgos,” the old man said. “It tends to get excited when there are Angaraks about.”
They mounted their horses and followed the ancient highway up a ravine toward the jagged ridge top. As they rounded a bend, Polgara suddenly reined in her horse with a sharp hiss.
“What’s the matter, Pol?” Durnik asked her.
She did not reply immediately, but her face grew pale. Her eyes flashed, and the white lock at her brow suddenly flamed. “Monstrous!” she said.
“What is it, Aunt Pol?” Garion asked.
“Look over there,” she answered, pointing with a trembling hand. There were white bones scattered about on the rocky ground several yards from the road; lying among them was a vacant-eyed human skull.
“One of the slaves Sadi mentioned last night?” Silk suggested.
Polgara shook her head. “A part of the arrangement between Sariss and Naradas involved several men to escort Zandramas to the Murgo border,” she reminded him. “When she got this far, she didn’t need them any more.”
Silk’s face grew grim. “That seems to be in character. Every time she finishes with somebody, she kills him.”
“She didn’t just kill them,” Polgara said with a look of revulsion. “She broke their legs and left them for the lions. They waited all day for nightfall, and then the lions came.”
Ce’Nedra’s face blanched. “How horrible!”
“Are you sure, Pol?” Durnik asked, his face slightly sick.
“Some things are so dreadful that they leave their traces in the very rocks.”
Belgarath had been staring bleakly at the gnawed bones. “This isn’t the first time she’s done this. She’s not satisfied with just killing people to cover her tracks. She has to commit atrocities.”
“She’s a monster,” Ce’Nedra declared. “She feeds on horror.”
“It’s a bit more than that,” Belgarath replied. “I think she’s trying to leave messages for us.” He jerked his head toward the scattered bones. “That wasn’t really necessary. I think she’s trying to scare us off.”
“It won’t work,” Garion said very quietly. “All she’s doing is adding to the final reckoning. When the time finally comes for her to pay it, I think she’s going to find that all of this is more than she can afford.”
At the top of the ridge, the ancient road they had been following ended abruptly, sharply marking the invisible line where Nyissa ended and Cthol Murgos began. From the ridge top they looked out over an endless, unbroken expanse of shattered black rock and miles-wide beds of dark brown gravel, shimmering under a broiling sun.
“Which way did Zandramas go from here?” Durnik asked Garion.
“She turned south,” Garion replied, feeling the Orb pulling in a new direction.
“We could gain time if we cut straight across that out there, couldn’t we?”
“Absolutely out of the question, Goodman Durnik,” Sadi declared. “That’s the Great Desert of Araga. It’s as big as Algaria. The only water there is in the wells of the Dagashi, and you wouldn’t want to get caught dipping into a Dagashi well.”
“The Dagashi live out there?” Durnik asked, shading his eyes with one hand to look out at the fiery wasteland.
“They’re the only ones who can,” Sadi replied. “Perhaps that explains why they’re so fearsome. We’re going to have to follow this ridge line south for a hundred leagues or so to get around that waste. Then we’ll strike out due southeast across Morcth and on down into the Great Southern Forest in Gorut.”
Belgarath nodded. “Let’s get started then.”
They rode south, skirting the western edge of the Desert of Araga and staying well up in the hills, which sloped steeply down to the desert floor. As they rode, Garion noticed that the trees on this side of the ridge were stunted and sparsely distributed. There was no grass growing in the rock-strewn ground, and the heather had given way to scrubby thorn bushes. The sharp ridge line appeared to be an abrupt demarcation between two entirely different climates. What had been only pleasantly warm on the west side became oppressively hot here on the east. There were almost no streams, and the few springs they found were tiny and seeped their water grudgingly into tepid little puddles hidden among the rust-colored boulders.
On the morning of the third day after they had entered Cthol Murgos, Toth belted his blanket across one shoulder, took up his staff, and walked down to the mouth of the ravine where they had spent the night, to look out over the rocky desert lying below. The sun had not yet risen, and the light from the dawn sky was steely and shadowless, etching each rock and crag of the sun-blasted wasteland in sharp detail. After a moment, the giant returned and touched Durnik’s shoulder.
“What is it, Toth?” the smith asked.
The mute pointed to the mouth of the ravine.
“All right,” Durnik said, rising from the spot where he had been kindling their morning fire. The two of them went on down the ravine in the pale light and stood looking out. After a few moments, Durnik called back over his shoulder. “Belgarath, I think you’d better come here and look at this.”
The old sorcerer finished pulling on his scuffed and mismatched boots and went down to join them, with his green silk robe flapping about his ankles. He stared out for a while, then muttered a curse. “We’ve got a problem,” he announced without turning.
The problem became apparent as soon as the rest of them reached the entrance to the ravine. Some distance out on the desert, a large cloud of dust was rising to hang motionless in the still morning air.
“How many men do you think it would take to raise that much dust?” Garion asked quietly.
“At least several hundred,” Silk told him.
“Murgos?”
“Not unless the Murgos have changed their habits,” Velvet murmured. “Those men are dressed in red.”
Silk peered intently out at the dust cloud. “You’ve got good eyes,” he said finally to the blond girl.
“One of the advantages of youth,” she replied sweetly.
He gave her a quick, irritable look.
“I thought this was Murgo territory,” Durnik objected.
“It is,” Sadi said, “but the Malloreons send patrols out every so often. Zakath’s been trying to find a way to come at Urgit from behind for a number of years now.”
“How did they find water out there?”
“I’m sure they brought it with them.”
Toth turned toward the south side of the ravine and scrambled up the steep, rocky bank, sending long streams of dusty brown gravel slithering down behind him.
“Do you think we can outrun them?” Silk asked Belgarath.
“That probably wouldn’t be a very good idea. I think we’d better stay here until they’re out of the area.”
Toth gave a low whistle from the top of the bank he had just climbed.
“Go see what he wants, Durnik,” Belgarath said.
The smith nodded and started up the steep slope.
“Do you think they’ll find us up here?” Ce’Nedra asked tensely.
“It’s not too likely, your Majesty,” Sadi replied. “I doubt that they’re going to take the time to search every ravine and gully in these mountains.”
Belgarath squinted out at the dust cloud. “They’re moving toward the southwest,” he noted. “If we sit tight for a day or so, they’ll move on out of our vicinity.”
“I hate to lose the time,” Garion fretted.
“So do I, but I don’t think we’ve got much choice.”
Durnik came sliding back down the bank of the ravine. “There’s another group of men up ahead,” he reported tersely. “Murgos, I think.”
Belgarath uttered a fairly rancid curse. “I really don’t want to get caught in the middle of a skirmish,” he said. “Go up there and keep an eye on things,” he told Silk. “Let’s not have any more surprises.”
Silk started up the steep bank of the ravine. On an impulse, Garion followed him. When they reached the top, they took cover behind a scrubby thorn bush.
The fiery ball of the sun slid up out of the desert lying to the east, and the obscuring cloud of dust raised by the advancing Malloreon column turned it to an ominous red. The figures of the men below, both the mounted Malloreons and the concealed Murgos, were tiny in the distance, like toy figures on a miniature landscape.
“As closely as I can tell, they’re about evenly matched,” Silk noted, looking down at the two parties of troops.
Garion considered it. “The Murgos are going to have the advantage, though. They’re on higher ground and they’ll have the element of surprise.”
Silk grinned. “You’re turning into quite a tactician.”
Garion let that pass.
“Sadi was right,” Silk said. “The Malloreons brought water with them.” He pointed at two dozen or so cumbersome-looking wagons loaded with large casks, trailing along at the rear of the column advancing across the desert.