Barak nodded and made a quick gesture to a waiting sailor. The man quickly raised a tall pole with a bit of bright red bunting nailed to its tip, and the fleet behind them slowed in answer to the signal. There was a creaking of windlasses as the anchors settled to the bottom, and the ships rocked and swung sluggishly in the current.
“I still don’t like this part,” Anheg growled morosely. “Too many things can go wrong in the dark.”
“They’ll go wrong for them, too,” Brand told him.
“We’ve been over it a dozen times, Anheg,” Rhodar said. “We all agreed that it’s the best plan.”
“It’s never been done before,” Anheg said.
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” Varana suggested. “The people inside the city won’t expect it.”
“Are you sure your men will be able to see where they’re going?” Anheg demanded of Relg.
The zealot nodded. He was wearing his cowled leaf mail shirt and was carefully testing the edge of his hook-pointed knife. “What you think of as darkness is normal light for us,” he replied.
Anheg scowled at the purpling sky overhead. “I hate being the first one to try something new,” he announced.
They waited as evening settled on the plain. From the thickets at the river’s edge, birds clucked sleepily, and the frogs began their evening symphony. Slowly out of the gathering darkness, the cavalry units began to group up along the banks. The Mimbrate knights on their great chargers massed into ranks, and the Algar clansmen spread like a dark sea beyond them. Commanding the south bank were Cho-Hag and Korodullin. The north was led by Hettar and Mandorallen.
Slowly it grew darker.
A young Mimbrate knight who had been injured during the attack on the Murgo column stood leaning against the rail, looking pensively out into the twilight. The knight had dark, curly hair and the snowy complexion of a young girl. His shoulders were broad, his neck columnar, and his eyes had an open innocence in them. His expression, however, was faintly melancholy.
The waiting had become unbearable, and Ce’Nedra had to talk to someone. She leaned on the rail beside the young man. “Why so sad, Sir Knight?” she asked him quietly.
“Because I am forbidden to take part in this night’s adventure by reason of this slight injury, your Majesty,” he replied, touching his splinted arm. He seemed unsurprised by her presence or by the fact that she had spoken to him.
“Do you hate the Angaraks so much that missing the chance to kill them causes you pain?” Ce’Nedra’s question was gently mocking.
“Nay, my Lady,” he answered. “I have no malice in me for any man, whatever his race. What I lament is being denied the chance to try my skills in the contest.”
“Contest? Is that how you think of it?”
“Assuredly, your Majesty. In what other light should it be considered? I hold no personal rancor toward the men of Angarak, and it is improper to hate throe opponent in a test of arms. Some few men have fallen beneath my lance or my sword at diverse tourneys, but I have never hated any of them. Much to the contrary, I have had some affection for them as we strove with one another.”
“But you were trying to cripple them.” Ce’Nedra was startled at the young man’s casual attitude.
“It is a part of the contest, your Majesty. A true test of arms may not be decided save by the injury or death of one of the combatants.”
“What’s your name, Sir Knight?” she asked him.
“I am Sir Beridel,” he replied, “son of Sir Andorig, Baron of Vo Enderig.”
“The man with the apple tree?”
“The very same, your Majesty.” The young man seemed pleased that she had heard of his father and the strange duty Belgarath had imposed on him. “My father now rides at the right hand of King Korodullin. I would ride with them this night but for this stroke of ill fortune.” He looked sadly at his broken arm.
“There will be other nights, Sir Beridel,” she assured him, “and other contests.”
“Truly, your Majesty,” he agreed. His face brightened momentarily, but then he sighed and went back to his somber brooding.
Ce’Nedra drifted away, leaving him to his thoughts.
“You can’t really talk to them, you know,” a rough voice said to her from the shadows. It was Beldin, the ugly hunchback.
“He doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything,” Ce’Nedra said a bit nervously. The foul-mouthed sorcerer always made her nervous.
“He’s a Mimbrate Arend,” Beldin snorted. “He doesn’t have enough brains to be afraid.”
“Are all the men in the army like him?”
“No. Most of them are afraid, but they’ll go through with the attack anyway – for a variety of reasons.”
“And you?” she could not help asking. “Are you afraid too?”
“My fears are a bit more exotic,” he said dryly.
“Such as?”
“We’ve been at this for a very long time – Belgarath, Pol, the twins and I – and I’m more concerned about something going wrong than I am about my own personal safety.”
“How do you mean, wrong?”
“The Prophecy is very complex – and it doesn’t say everything. The two possible outcomes of all this are still absolutely balanced as far as I can tell. Something very, very slight could tip that balance one way or the other. It could be something that I’ve overlooked. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“All we can do is the best we can.”
“That might not be enough.”
“What else can we do?”
“I don’t know – and that’s what worries me.”
“Why worry about something if you can’t do anything about it?”
“Now you’re starting to sound like Belgarath. He tends to shrug things off and trust to his luck sometimes. I like things a little neater.” He stared off into the darkness. “Stay close to Pol tonight, little girl,” he said after a moment. “Don’t get separated from her. It might take you someplace you hadn’t planned to go, but you’re supposed to stay with her, no matter what.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know what it means,” he retorted irritably. “All I know is that you and she and the blacksmith and that stray child you picked up are supposed to stay together. Something unexpected is going to happen.”
“You mean a disaster? We must warn the others.”
“We don’t know that it’s a disaster,” he replied. “That’s the whole problem. It might be necessary, and if it is, we don’t want to tamper with it. I think we’ve about run this discussion into the ground. Go find Polgara and stay with her.”
“Yes, Beldin,” Ce’Nedra said meekly.
As the stars began to come out, the anchors were raised and the Cherek fleet began to slip quietly downriver toward Thull Mardu. Though they were still some miles above the city, commands were issued in hoarse whispers, and the men all took great care to avoid making noise as they shifted their weapons and equipment, tightening belts, giving their armor quick, last-minute checks and settling their helmets more firmly on their heads.
Amid ships, Relg was leading his Ulgos in a quiet religious service, muttering the harsh gutturals of the Ulgo tongue in a scarcely audible murmur. Their pale faces had been smeared with soot, and they looked like so many shadows as they knelt in prayer to their strange God.
“They’re the key to the whole thing,” Rhodar observed quietly to Polgara as he watched the devotions of the Ulgos. “Are you sure that Relg is all right for this? Sometimes he seems a bit unstable.”
“He’ll be fine,” Polgara replied. “The Ulgos have even more reason to hate Torak than you Alorns do.”
The drifting ships slowly rounded a wide bend in the river, and there, a half mile downstream, stood the walled city of Thull Mardu, rising from its island in the middle of the river. There were a few torches atop the walls, and a faint glow rising from within. Barak turned and, shielding it with his body, he briefly uncovered a muffled lantern, letting out a single flicker of light. The anchors sank very slowly through the dark waters toward the riverbottom; with a very faint creak of ropes, the ships slowed, then stopped.
Somewhere inside the city a dog began to bark excitedly. Then a door banged open, and the barking cut off suddenly with a yelp of pain.
“I don’t have much use for a man who kicks his own dog,” Barak muttered.
Relg and his men moved very quietly to the rail and began to clamber down ropes into the small boats waiting below.
Ce’Nedra watched breathlessly, straining with her eyes to see in the darkness. The very faint starlight briefly showed her several shadows drifting down toward the city. Then the shadows were gone. Behind them there was a faint splash of an oar, followed by an angrily hissed admonition. The princess turned and saw a moving tide of small boats coming downriver from the anchored fleet. The spearhead of the assault slid silently by, following Relg and his Ulgos toward the fortified island city of the Thulls.