“How goes the instruction?” Mister Wolf asked as he climbed down.
“It progresses,” Silk said. “I expect it will go more rapidly when the boy outgrows his tendency to use baby talk.”
Garion was crushed.
Barak, who was also dismounting, laughed.
“I’ve often thought that the secret language might be useful to know,” he said, “but fingers built to grip a sword are not nimble enough for it.” He held out his huge hand and shook his head.
Durnik lifted his face and sniffed at the air. “It’s going to be cold tonight,” he said. “We’ll have frost before morning.”
Barak also sniffed, and then he nodded. “You’re right, Durnik,” he rumbled. “We’ll need a good fire tonight.” He reached into the wagon and lifted out his axe.
“There are riders coming,” Aunt Pol announced, still seated on the wagon.
They all stopped talking and listened to the faint drumming sound on the road they had just left.
“Three at least,” Barak said grimly. He handed the axe to Durnik and reached back into the wagon for his sword.
“Four,” Silk said. He stepped to his own wagon and took his own sword out from under the seat.
“We’re far enough from the road,” Wolf said. “If we stay still, they’ll pass without seeing us.”
“That won’t hide us from Grolims,” Aunt Pol said. “They won’t be searching with their eyes.” She made two quick gestures to Wolf which Garion did not recognize.
No, Wolf gestured back. Let us instead – He also made an unrecognizable gesture.
Aunt Pol looked at him for a moment and then nodded.
“All of you stay quite still,” Wolf instructed them. Then he turned toward the road, his face intent.
Garion held his breath. The sound of the galloping horses grew nearer.
Then a strange thing happened. Though Garion knew he should be fearful of the approaching riders and the threat they seemed to pose, a kind of dreamy lassitude fell over him. It was as if his mind had quite suddenly gone to sleep, leaving his body still standing there watching incuriously the passage of those dark-mantled horsemen along the road.
How long he stood so he was not able to say; but when he roused from his half dream, the riders were gone and the sun had set. The sky to the east had grown purple with approaching evening, and there were tatters of sun-stained clouds along the western horizon.
“Murgos,” Aunt Pol said quite calmly, “and one Grolim.” She started to climb down from the wagon.
“There are many Murgos in Sendaria, great lady,” Silk said, helping her down, “and on many different missions.”
“Murgos are one thing,” Wolf said grimly, “but Grolims are quite something else. I think it might be better if we moved off the welltraveled roads. Do you know a back way to Medalia?”
“Old friend,” Silk replied modestly, “I know a back way to every place.”
“Good,” Wolf said. “Let’s move deeper into these woods. I’d prefer it if no chance gleam from our fire reached the road.”
Garion had seen the cloaked Murgos only briefly. There was no way to be sure if one of them had been that same Asharak he had finally met after all the years of knowing him only as a dark figure on a black horse, but somehow he was almost certain that Asharak had been among them. Asharak would follow him, would be there wherever he went. It was the kind of thing one could count on.
Durnik had been right when he had spoken of frost. The ground was white with it the next morning, and the horses’ breath steamed in the chill air as they set out. They moved along lanes and little-used tracks that were partially weed-choked. The going was slower than it might have been on the main road, but they all felt much safer.
It took them five more days to reach the village of Winold, some twelve leagues to the north of Medalia. There, at Aunt Pol’s insistence, they stopped overnight at a somewhat rundown inn. “I refuse to sleep on the ground again,” she announced flatly.
After they had eaten in the dingy common room of the inn, the men turned to their ale pots, and Aunt Pol went up to her chamber with instructions that hot water be brought to her for bathing. Garion, however, made some pretext about checking the horses and went outside. It was not that he was in the habit of being deliberately deceptive, but it had occurred to him in the last day or so that he had not had a single moment alone since they had left Faldor’s farm. He was not by nature a solitary boy, but he had begun to feel quite keenly the restriction of always being in the presence of his elders.
The village of Winold was not a large one, and he explored it from one end to the other in less than half an hour, loitering along its narrow, cobblestoned streets in the crispness of the early evening air. The windows of the houses glowed with golden candlelight, and Garion suddenly felt a great surge of homesickness.
Then, at the next corner of the crooked street, in the brief light from an opening door, he saw a familiar figure. He could not be positive, but he shrank back against a rough stone wall anyway.
The man at the corner turned in irritation toward the light, and Garion caught the sudden white gleam from one of his eyes. It was Brill. The unkempt man moved quickly out of the light, obviously not wishing to be seen, then he stopped.
Garion hugged the wall, watching Brill’s impatient pacing at the corner. The wisest thing would have been to slip away and hurry back to the inn, but Garion quickly dismissed that idea. He was safe enough here in the deep shadow beside the wall, and he was too caught up by curiosity to leave without seeing exactly what Brill was doing here.
After what seemed hours, but was really only a few more minutes, another shadowy shape came scurrying down the street. The man was hooded, so it was impossible to see his face, but the outline of his form revealed a figure dressed in the tunic, hose and calf length boots of an ordinary Sendar. There was also, when he turned, the outline of a sword belted at his waist, and that was far from ordinary. While it was not precisely illegal for Sendars of the lower classes to bear arms, it was uncommon enough to attract notice.
Garion tried to edge close enough to hear what Brill said to the man with the sword, but they spoke only briefly. There was a clink as some coins changed hands, and then the two separated. Brill moved quietly off around the corner, and the man with the sword walked up the narrow, crooked street toward the spot where Garion stood.
There was no place to hide, and as soon as the hooded man came close enough, he would be able to see Garion. To turn and run would be even more dangerous. Since there was no alternative, Garion put on a bold front and marched determinedly toward the oncoming figure.
“Who’s there?” the hooded man demanded, his hand going to his sword-hilt.
“Good evening, sir,” Garion said, deliberately forcing his voice up into the squeaky registers of a much younger boy. “Cold night, isn’t it?”
The hooded man grunted and seemed to relax.
Garion’s legs quivered with the desire to run. He passed the man with the sword, and his back prickled as he felt that suspicious gaze follow him.
“Boy,” the man said abruptly.
Garion stopped.
“Yes, sir?” he said, turning.
“Do you live here?”
“Yes, sir,” Garion lied, trying to keep his voice from trembling.
“Is there a tavern hereabouts?”
Garion had just explored the town, and he spoke confidently.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “You go on up this street to the next corner and turn to your left. There are torches out front. You can’t miss it.”
“My thanks,” the hooded man said shortly, and walked on up the narrow street.
“Good night, sir,” Garion called after him, made bold by the fact that the danger seemed past.
The man did not answer, and Garion marched on down to the corner, exhilarated by his brief encounter. Once he was around the corner, however, he dropped the guise of a simple village boy and ran.
He was breathless by the time he reached the inn and burst into the smoky common room where Mister Wolf and the others sat talking by the fire.
At the last instant, realizing that to blurt out his news in the common room where others might overhear would be a mistake, he forced himself to walk calmly to where his friends sat. He stood before the fire as if warming himself and spoke in a low tone. “I just saw Brill in the village,” he said.