“Silk, that’s pure nonsense.”
The little man sniffed. “I know—but it’s true all the same.”
The breakfast of bread, dried fruit, and bacon Aunt Pol prepared for them was simple, but there was more than enough to satisfy them all. When they had finished, they repacked, quenched their fire with water from the icy brook, and rode on down the steep slope, following the course of the tumbling stream through the white-trunked birch forest.
Durnik fell in beside the mute Toth as they rode. “Tell me, Toth,” he said tentatively, eyeing the frothy white water pitching down over mossy green boulders, “have you ever done any fishing?”
The huge man smiled shyly.
“Well, I’ve got lines and hooks in one of the packs. Maybe if we get the chance …” Durnik left it hanging.
Toth’s smile broadened into a grin.
Silk stood up in his stirrups and peered on ahead. “That storm isn’t much more than a half-hour away,” he told them.
Belgarath grunted. “I doubt that we’ll make very good time once it hits,” he replied.
“I hate snow.” Silk shivered glumly.
“That’s a peculiar trait in a Drasnian.”
“Why do you think I left Drasnia in the first place?”
The heavy bank of cloud loomed in front of them as they continued on down the hill. The morning sunlight paled and then disappeared as the leading edge of the storm raced high overhead to blot out the crisp blue of the autumn sky. “Here ft comes,” Eriond said cheerfully as the first few flakes began to dance and swirl in the stiff breeze moving up the ridge toward them.
Silk gave the young man a sour look, crammed his battered hat down lower over his ears and pulled his shabby cloak tighter about him. He looked at Belgarath. “I don’t suppose you’d consider doing something about this?” he asked pointedly.
“It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“Sometimes you’re a terrible disappointment to me, Belgarath,” Silk said, drawing himself even more deeply into his cloak.
It began to snow harder, and the trees about them became hazy and indistinct in the shifting curtain of white that came seething up through the forest.
A mile or so farther down the hill they left the birch trees and entered a dark green forest of towering firs. The thick evergreens broke the force of the wind, and the snow sifted lazily down through the boughs, lightly dusting the needle-strewn floor of the forest. Belgarath shook the snow out of the folds of his cloak and looked around, choosing a route.
“Lost again?” Silk asked.
“No, not really.” The old man looked back at Durnik. “How far down this hill do you think we’re going to have to go to get below this?” he asked.
Durnik scratched at his chin. “It’s sort of hard to say,” he replied. He turned to the mute at his side. “What do you think, Toth?” he asked.
The giant lifted his head and sniffed at the air, then made a series of obscure gestures with one hand.
“You’re probably right,” Durnik agreed. He turned back to Belgarath. “If the slope stays this steep, we ought to be able to get below the snowline sometime this afternoon—if we keep moving.”
“Well, I guess we’d better move along then,” Belgarath said and led the way on down the hill at a jolting trot.
It continued to snow. The light dusting on the ground beneath the firs became a covering, and the dimness that had hovered among the dark tree trunks faded as the white snow brought its peculiar, sourceless light.
They stopped about noon and took a quick lunch of bread and cheese, then continued to descend through the forest toward Arendia. By midafternoon, as Durnik and Toth had predicted, the snow was mixed with a chill rain. Soon the few large, wet flakes were gone, and they rode through a steady drizzle that wreathed down among the trees.
Late in the afternoon the wind picked up, and the rain driven before it was cold and unpleasant. Durnik looked around. “I think that it’s about time for us to find a place to stop for the night,” he said. “We’ll need shelter from this wind, and finding dry firewood might be a bit of a problem.” The huge Toth, whose feet very nearly dragged on the ground on either side of his horse, looked around and then pointed toward a dense thicket of sapling evergreens standing at the far edge of the broad clearing they had just entered. Once again he began to move his hands in those peculiar gestures. Durnik watched him intently for a few moments, then nodded, and the two of them rode on across to the thicket, dismounted, and went to work.
The campsite they constructed was well back among the slender tree trunks of the thicket where the force of the wind was broken and the dense branches shed the rain like a thatched roof. The two of them bent a half circle of the tall saplings over and tied their tips to the trunks of other trees to form a domelike framework of considerable size. Then they covered the frame with tent canvas and tied it in place securely. The resulting structure was a round-topped, open-fronted pavilion perhaps as big as a fair-sized room. At the front, they dug in a firepit and lined it with rocks.
The rain had soaked down the forest, and collecting dry firewood was difficult, but Garion drew upon the experience he had gained during the quest for the Orb to seek out those sheltered hollows under fallen trees, the spots on the leeward sides of large tree trunks and the brush-choked areas under overhanging rocks where dry twigs and branches could be found. By evening he and Eriond had piled up a considerable supply of wood not far from the fire pit where Polgara and Ce’Nedra were preparing supper.
There was a small spring several hundred yards on down the slope, and Garion slipped and slid downhill with two leather waterbags slung over his shoulders. The light was fading rapidly under the dark, windswept evergreens, and the ruddy glow of their campfire beckoned cheerfully as he started back up through the trees with the full waterbags hanging pendulously down against his thighs.
Polgara had hung her damp cloak on a tree limb and was humming softly to herself as she and Ce’Nedra worked over the fire.
“Why, thank you, your Majesty,” Ce’Nedra said as Gar-ion handed her the waterbags. Her little smile was somehow wistful, as if she were making a conscious effort to be light hearted.
“It’s my pleasure, your Majesty,” he replied with a florid bow. “A good scullion can always find water when the cook’s helper needs it.”
She smiled briefly, kissed his cheek, and then sighed and went back to dicing vegetables for the stew Polgara was stirring.
After they had eaten, they all sat drowsily before the fire, listening to the sound of the wind in the treetops and the seething hiss of the rain in the forest about them.
“How far did we come today?” Ce’Nedra asked in a voice near sleep as she leaned wearily against Garion’s shoulder.
“Seven or eight leagues, I’d guess,” Durnik replied. “It’s slow going when you don’t have a road to follow.”
“We’ll make better time, once we hit the high road from Muros to the Great Fair,” Silk added. His eyes brightened at that thought, and his long, pointed nose started to twitch.
“Never mind,” Belgarath told him.
“We will need supplies, Belgarath,” Silk said, his eyes still bright.
“I think we’ll let Durnik take care of that. People who do business with you always seem to develop this sense of outrage once they’ve had time to think things through.”
“But, Belgarath, I thought you said that you were in a hurry.”
“I don’t quite get the connection.”
“People always travel faster when somebody’s chasing them—or hadn’t you noticed that?”
Belgarath gave him a long, hard look. “Just let it drop, Silk,” he said, “Why don’t we all get some sleep?” he suggested to the rest of them. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
It was well after midnight when Garion suddenly started into wakefulness. He lay rolled up in his blankets beside Ce’Nedra, listening to her regular breathing and the soft patter of the rain on the tree limbs. The wind had died, and the fire at the front of their snug shelter had burned down to a few ruddy coals. He shook the last remnants of sleep from his mind, trying to remember what it was that had awakened him.
“Don’t make any noise,” Belgarath said softly from the far side of the shelter.
“Did something wake you, too, Grandfather?”
“I want you to get out of your blankets very slowly,” the old man said in a voice so quiet that it scarcely reached Garion’s ears, “and get your hands on your sword.”