“Two of them got away,” Hettar reported regretfully.
“What a shame,” Silk replied.
“Mandorallen,” Barak said with a pained look, “you’ve picked up a bad habit somewhere. Fighting’s a serious business, and all this giggling and laughing of yours smacks of frivolity.”
“Doth it offend thee, my Lord?”
“It’s not so much that it offends me, Mandorallen. It’s more a distraction. It breaks my concentration.”
“I shall strive to moderate my laughter in future, then.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“How did it go?” Silk asked.
“It wasn’t much of a fight,” Barak replied. “We caught them completely by surprise. I hate to admit it, but our chortling friend there was right for once.”
Garion thought about Mandorallen’s changed behavior as they rode on down the valley. Back at the cave where the colt had been born, Durnik had told Mandorallen that fear could be conquered by laughing at it, and, though Durnik had probably not meant it in precisely that way, Mandorallen had taken his words quite literally. The laughter which so irritated Barak was not directed at the foes he met, but rather at the enemy within him. Mandorallen was laughing at his own fear as he rode to each attack.
“It’s unnatural,” Barak was muttering to Silk. “That’s what bothers me so much. Not only that, it’s a breach of etiquette. If we ever get into a serious fight, it’s going to be terribly embarrassing to have him giggling and carrying on like that. What will people think?”
“You’re making too much of it, Barak,” Silk told him. “Actually, I think it’s rather refreshing.”
“You think it’s what?”
“Refreshing. An Arend with a sense of humor is a novelty, after all sort of like a talking dog.”
Barak shook his head in disgust. “There’s absolutely no point in ever trying to discuss anything seriously with you, Silk, do you know that? The compulsion of yours to make clever remarks turns everything into a joke.”
“We all have our little shortcomings,” Silk admitted blandly.
Chapter Fourteen
THE SNOW GRADUALLY slackened throughout the rest o the day and by evening only a few solitary flakes drifted down through the darkening air as they set up for the night in a grove of dense spruces. During the night, however, the temperature fell, and the air was bitterly cold when they arose the next morning.
“How much farther to Prolgu?” Silk asked, standing close to the fire with his shivering hands stretched out to its warmth.
“Two more days,” Belgarath replied.
“I don’t suppose you’d consider doing something about the weather?” the little man asked hopefully.
“I prefer not to do that unless I absolutely have to,” the old man told him. “It disrupts things over a very wide area. Besides, the Gorim doesn’t like us to tamper with things in his mountains. The Ulgos have reservations about that sort of thing.”
“I was afraid you might look at it that way.”
Their route that morning twisted and turned so often that by noon Garion was completely turned around. Despite the biting cold, the sky was overcast, a solid lead-gray. It seemed somehow as if the cold had frozen all color from the world. The sky was gray; the snow was a flat, dead white; and the tree trunks were starkly black. Even the rushing water in the streams they followed flowed black between snow-mounded banks. Belgarath moved confidently, pointing their direction as each succeeding valley intersected with another.
“Are you sure?” the shivering Silk asked him at one point. “We’ve been going upstream all day, now you say we go down.”
“We’ll hit another valley in a few miles. Trust me, Silk. I’ve been here before.”
Silk pulled his heavy cloak tighter. “It’s just that I get nervous on unfamiliar ground,” he objected, looking at the dark water of the river they followed.
From far upstream came a strange sound, a kind of mindless hooting that was almost like laughter. Aunt Pol and Belgarath exchanged a quick look.
“What is it?” Garion asked.
“Rock-wolf,” Belgarath answered shortly.
“It doesn’t sound like a wolf.”
“It isn’t.” The old man looked around warily. “They’re scavengers for the most part and, if it’s just a wild pack, they probably won’t attack. It’s too early in the winter for them to be that desperate. If it’s one of the packs that has been raised by the Eldrakyn, though, we’re in for trouble.” He stood up in his stirrups to look ahead. “Let’s pick up the pace a bit,” he called to Mandorallen, “and keep your eyes open.”
Mandorallen, his armor glittering with frost, glanced back, nodded, and moved out at a trot, following the seething black water of the mountain river.
Behind them the shrill, yelping laughter grew louder.
“They’re following us, father,” Aunt Pol said.
“I can hear that.” The old man began searching the sides of the valley with his eyes, his face creased with a worried frown. “You’d better have a look, Pol. I don’t want any surprises.”
Aunt Pol’s eyes grew distant as she probed the thickly forested sides of the valley with her mind. After a moment, she gasped and then shuddered. “There’s an Eldrak out there, father. He’s watching us. His mind is a sewer.”
“They always are,” the old man replied. “Could you pick up his name?”
“Grul.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. I knew we were getting close to his range.” He put his fingers to his lips and whistled sharply.
Barak and Mandorallen halted to wait while the rest caught up with them. “We’ve got trouble,” Belgarath told them all seriously. “There’s an Eldrak out there with a pack of rock-wolves. He’s watching us right now. It’s only a question of time until he attacks.”
“What’s an Eldrak?” Silk asked.
“The Eldrakyn are related to Algroths and Trolls, but they’re more intelligent – and much bigger.”
“But only one?” Mandorallen asked.
“One’s enough. I’ve met this one. His name is Grul. He’s big, quick, and as cruel as a hook-pointed knife. He’ll eat anything that moves, and he doesn’t really care if it’s dead or not before he starts to eat.”
The hooting laughter of the rock-wolves drew closer.
“Let’s find an open place and build a fire,” the old man said. “The rock-wolves are afraid of fire, and there’s no point in fighting with them and Grul if we don’t have to.”
“There?” Durnik suggested, pointing to a broad, snow-covered bar protruding out into the dark water of the river. The bar was joined to the near bank by a narrow neck of gravel and sand.
“It’s defensible, Belgarath,” Barak approved, squinting at the bar. “The river will keep them off our backs, and they can only come at us across that one narrow place.”
“It will do,” Belgarath agreed shortly. “Let’s go.”
They rode out onto the snow-covered bar and quickly scraped an area clear with their feet while Durnik worked to build a fire under a large, gray driftwood snag that half blocked the narrow neck of the bar. Within a few moments, orange flames began to lick up around the snag. Durnik fed the fire with sticks until the snag was fully ablaze. “Give me a hand,” the smith said, starting to pile larger pieces of wood on the fire. Barak and Mandorallen went to the jumbled mass of driftwood piled against the upstream edge of the gravel and began hauling limbs and chunks of log to the fire. At the end of a quarter of an hour they had built a roaring bonfire that stretched across the narrow neck of sand, cutting them off completely from the dark trees on the riverbank.
“It’s the first time I’ve been warm all day.” Silk grinned, backing up to the fire.
“They’re coming,” Garion warned. Back among the dark tree trunks, he had caught a few glimpses of furtive movements.
Barak peered through the flames. “Big brutes, aren’t they?” he observed grimly.
“About the size of a donkey,” Belgarath confirmed.
“Are you sure they’re afraid of fire?” Silk asked nervously.
“Most of the time.”
“Most of the time?”
“Once in a while they get desperate – or Grul could drive them toward us. They’d be more afraid of him than of the fire.”
“Belgarath,” the weasel-faced little man objected, “sometimes you’ve got a nasty habit of keeping things to yourself.”
One of the rock-wolves came out onto the riverbank just upstream from the bar and stood sniffing the air and looking nervously at the fire. Its forelegs were noticeably longer than its hind ones, giving it a peculiar, half erect stance, and there was a large, muscular hump across its shoulders. Its muzzle was short, and it seemed snub-faced, almost like a cat. Its coat was a splotchy black and white, marked with a pattern hovering somewhere between spots and stripes. It paced nervously back and forth, staring at them with a dreadful intensity and yelping its highpitched, hooting laugh. Soon another came out to join it, and then another. They spread out along the bank, pacing and hooting, but staying well back from the fire.