“One of the prices of kingship, Korodullin.”
“Very true, Cho-Hag, very true.” The young King of Arendia sighed again and bent all his concentration to the problem of how many of the advancing Murgos he could really afford to give away. “Thinkest thou that two Murgos apiece might content those who fight afoot?” he asked rather hesitantly.
“Sounds fair to me.”
Korodullin smiled then with happy relief. “Then that is what we shall allot them,” he declared. “I have not divided up Murgos before, but it is not nearly so difficult as I had imagined.”
King Cho-Hag began to laugh.
Lady Ariana put her arms about Lelldorin’s shaking shoulders and drew him gently away from the pallet upon which his cousin’s body lay.
“Can’t you do something, Ariana?” he pleaded, tears streaming down his face. “Perhaps a bandage of some sort-and a poultice.”
“He is beyond my art, my Lord,” Ariana replied gently, “and I share thy sorrow at his death.”
“Don’t say that word, Ariana. Torasin can’t be dead.”
“I’m sorry, my Lord,” she said simply. “He is gone, and none of my remedies or skill can bring him back.”
“Polgara can do it,” Lelldorin declared suddenly, an impossible hope leaping into his eyes. “Send for Polgara.”
“I have no one to send, my Lord,” Ariana told him, looking around the makeshift tent where she and Taiba and a few others were caring for the wounded. “The injured men here command all our attention and care.”
“I’ll go then,” Lelldorin declared, his eyes still streaming tears. He spun and dashed from the tent.
Ariana sighed mournfully and drew a blanket over Torasin’s pale face. Then she turned back to the wounded men who were being carried in a steady stream into her tent.
“Don’t bother yourself with him, my Lady,” a lean-faced Arendish serf told her as she bent over the body of the man’s companion. Ariana looked at the thin serf inquiringly.
“He’s dead,” the serf explained. “He took a Mallorean arrow right through the chest.” He looked down at the dead man’s face. “Poor Detton,” he sighed. “He died in my arms. Do you know what his last words were?”
Ariana shook her head.
“He said, ‘At least I had a good breakfast.’ And then he died.”
“Why didst thou bring him here, since thou didst know he was already dead?” Ariana asked him gently.
The lean, bitter-faced serf shrugged. “I didn’t want to leave him just lying in a muddy ditch like a dead dog,” he replied. “In his whole life, nobody ever treated him as if he mattered at all. He was my friend, and I didn’t want to leave him there like a pile of garbage.” He laughed a short, bitter laugh. “I don’t suppose it matters very much to him, but at least there’s a little bit of dignity here.” He awkwardly patted the dead man’s shoulder. “Sorry, Detton,” he said, “but I guess I’d better go back to the fighting.”
“What is thy name, friend?” Ariana asked.
“I’m called Lammer, my Lady.”
“Is the need for thee in the battle urgent?”
“I doubt it, my Lady. I’ve been shooting arrows at the Malloreans. I’m not very good at it, but it’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“My need for thee is greater, then,” she declared. “I have many wounded here and few hands to help with their care. Despite thy surly exterior, I sense a great compassion in thee. Wilt thou help me?”
He regarded her for a moment. “What do you want me to do?” he said.
“Taiba is boiling cloth for bandages over that fire there,” she replied. “See to the fire first, then thou wilt find a cart just outside with blankets in it. Bring in the blankets, good Lammer. After that I will have other tasks for thee.”
“All right,” Lammer replied laconically, moving toward the fire.
“What can we do for her?” the Princess Ce’Nedra demanded of the misshapen Beldin. The princess was staring intently into Polgara’s pale, unconscious face as the sorceress lay exhausted in the arms of Durnik the smith.
“Let her sleep,” Beldin grunted. “She’ll be all right in a day or so.”
“What’s the matter with her?” Durnik asked in a worried voice.
“She’s exhausted,” Beldin snapped. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Just from raising a breeze? I’ve seen her do things that looked a lot harder.”
“You don’t have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about, blacksmith,” Beldin growled. The hunchbacked sorcerer was himself pale and shaking. “When you start tampering with the weather, you’re putting your hands on the most powerful forces in the world. I’d rather try to stop a tide or uproot a mountain than stir up a breeze in dead air.”
“The Grolims brought in that storm,” Durnik said.
“The air was already moving. Dead-calm air is altogether different. Do you have the remotest idea of how much air you’ve got to move to stir even the faintest breath of air? Do you know what kind of pressures are involved – how much all that air weighs?”
“Air doesn’t weigh anything,” Ce’Nedra protested.
“Really?” Beldin replied with heavy sarcasm. “I’m so glad you told me. Would the two of you shut up and let me get my breath?”
“But how is it that she collapsed and you didn’t?” Ce’Nedra protested.
“I’m stronger than she is,” Beldin replied, “and more vicious. Pol throws her whole heart into things when she gets excited. She always did. She pushed beyond her strength, and it exhausted her.” The twisted little man straightened, shook himself like a dog coming out of water and looked around, his face bleak. “I’ve got work to do,” he said. “I think we’ve pretty much worn out the Mallorean Grolims, but I’d better keep an eye on them, just to be safe. You two stay here with Pol – and keep an eye on that child.” He pointed at Errand, who stood on the sandy beach with his small face very serious.
Then Beldin crouched, shimmering already into the form of a hawk, and launched himself into the air almost before his feathers were fully formed.
Ce’Nedra stared after him as he spiraled upward over the battlefield and then turned her attention back to the unconscious Polgara.
The charge of Korodullin’s Mimbrate knights came at the last possible moment. Like two great scythes, the armored men on their massive chargers sliced in at a thundering gallop from the flanks with their lances leveled and cut through the horde of Murgos rushing toward the waiting pikemen and legionnaires. The results were devastating. The air was filled with screams and the sounds of steel striking steel with stunning impact. In the wake of the charge lay a path of slaughtered Murgos, a trail of human wreckage a hundred yards wide.
King Cho-Hag, sitting on his horse on a hilltop some distance to the west, nodded his approval as he watched the carnage. “Good,” he said finally. He looked around at the eager faces of the Algar clansmen clustered around him. “All right, my children,” he said calmly, “let’s go cut up the Murgo reserves.” And he led them at a gallop as they poured down off the hill, smoothly swung around the outer flanks of the tightly packed assault forces and then slashed into the unprepared Murgo units bringing up the rear.
The slash-and-run tactics of the clans of the Algars left heaps of sabred dead in their wake as they darted in and out of the milling confusion of terrified Murgos. King Cho-Hag himself led several charges, and his skill with the sabre, which was legendary in Algaria, filled his followers with an awed pride as they watched his whiplike blows raining down on Murgo heads and shoulders. The whole thrust of Algar strategy was based on speed – a sudden dash on a fast horse and a series of lightninglike sabre slashes, and then out before the enemy could gather his wits. King Cho-Hag’s sabre arm was the fastest in Algaria.
“My King!” one of his men shouted, pointing toward the center of several close-packed Murgo regiments milling about in a shallow valley a few hundred yards away. “There’s the black banner!”
King Cho-Hag’s eyes suddenly gleamed as a wild hope surged through him. “Bring my banner to the front!” he roared, and the clansman who carried the burgundy-and-white banner of the Chief of the Clan-Chiefs galloped forward with the standard streaming above his head. “Let’s go, my children!” Cho-Hag shouted and drove his horse directly at the Murgos in the valley. With sabre raised, the crippled King of the Algars led his men down into the Murgo horde. His warriors slashed to the right and to the left, but Cho-Hag plunged directly at the center, his eyes feed on the black banner of Taur Urgas, King of the Murgos.
And then, in the midst of the household guard, Cho-Hag saw the blood-red mail of Taur Urgas himself. Cho-Hag raised his bloody sabre and shouted a ringing challenge.