They followed him, scrambling up the bank and kicking up a great deal of gravel; a thick cloud of choking yellow dust rose in the air as they clawed their way up out of the wash.
Shouts of dismay came from the scrubby thornbushes at the upper end of the wash, and a group of rough-looking men broke out into the open, running hard up through the knee-high brown grass to head them off. A black-bearded man, closer and more desperate than the rest, jumped out in front of them, brandishing a rust-pitted sword. Without hesitation, Mandorallen rode him down. The black-bearded man howled as he rolled and tumbled beneath the churning hooves of the huge warhorse.
When they reached the hilltop above the wash, they gathered in a tight group. “This will do,” Silk said, looking around at the rounded terrain. “All I need is for the mob to have enough room to think about casualties. I definitely want them to be thinking about casualties.”
An arrow buzzed toward them, and Mandorallen brushed it almost contemptuously out of the air with his shield.
“Stop!” one of the brigands shouted. He was a lean, pockmarked Sendar with a crude bandage wrapped around one leg, wearing a dirty green tunic.
“Who says so?” Silk yelled back insolently.
“I’m Kroldor,” the bandaged man announced importantly. “Kroldor the robber. You’ve probably heard of me.”
“Can’t say that I have,” Silk replied pleasantly.
“Leave your gold – and your women,” Kroldor ordered. “Maybe I’ll let you live.”
“If you get out of our way, maybe we’ll let you live.”
“I’ve got fifty men,” Kroldor threatened, “all desperate, like me.”
“You’ve got twenty,” Silk corrected. “Runaway serfs, cowardly peasants, and sneak thieves. My men are trained warriors. Not only that, we’re mounted, and you’re on foot.”
“Leave your gold,” the self proclaimed robber insisted.
“Why don’t you come and take it?”
“Let’s go!” Kroldor barked at his men. He lunged forward. A couple of his outlaws rather hesitantly followed him through the brown grass, but the rest hung back, eyeing Mandorallen, Barak, and Hettar apprehensively. After a few paces, Kroldor realized that his men were not with him. He stopped and spun around. “You cowards!” he raged. “If we don’t hurry, the others will get here. We won’t get any of the gold.”
“I’ll tell you what, Kroldor,” Silk said. “We’re in kind of a hurry, and we’ve got more gold than we can conveniently carry.” He unslung one of his bags of gravel from his saddle and shook it suggestively. “Here.” Negligently he tossed the bag into the grass off to one side. Then he took another bag and tossed it over beside the first. At his quick gesture the others all threw their bags on the growing heap. “There you are, Kroldor,” Silk continued. “Ten bags of good yellow gold that you can have without a fight. If you want more, you’ll have to bleed for it.”
The rough-looking men behind Kroldor looked at each other and began moving to either side, their eyes fixed greedily on the heap of bags lying in the tall grass.
“Your men are having thoughts about mortality, Kroldor,” Silk said dryly. “There’s enough gold there to make them all rich, and rich men don’t take unnecessary risks.”
Kroldor glared at him. “I won’t forget this,” he growled.
“I’m sure you won’t,” Silk replied. “We’re coming through now. I suggest that you get out of our way.”
Barak and Hettar moved up to flank Mandorallen, and the three of them started deliberately forward at a slow, menacing walk.
Kroldor the robber stood his ground until the last moment, then turned and scurried out of their path, spouting curses.
“Let’s go,” Silk snapped.
They thumped their heels to their horses’ flanks and charged through at a gallop. Behind them, the outlaws circled and then broke and ran toward the heap of canvas bags. Several ugly little fights broke out almost immediately, and three men were down before anyone thought to open one of the bags. The howls of rage could be heard quite clearly for some distance.
Barak was laughing when they finally reined in their horses after a couple of miles of hard riding. “Poor Kroldor.” He chortled. “You’re an evil man, Silk.”
“I’ve made a study of the baser side of man’s nature,” Silk replied innocently. “I can usually find a way to make it work for me.”
“Kroldor’s men are going to blame him for the way things turned out,” Hettar observed.
“I know. But then, that’s one of the hazards of leadership.”
“They might even kill him.”
“I certainly hope so. I’d be terribly disappointed in them if they didn’t.”
They pushed on through the yellow foothills for the rest of the day and camped that night in a well-concealed little canyon where the light from their fire would not betray their location to the brigands who infested the region. The next morning they started out early, and by noon they were in the mountains. They rode on up among the rocky crags, moving through a thick forest of dark green firs and spruces where the air was cool and spicy. Although it was still summer in the lowlands, the first signs of autumn had begun to appear at the higher elevations. The leaves on the underbrush had begun to turn, the air had a faint, smoky haze, and there was frost on the ground each morning when they awoke. The weather held fair, however, and they made good time.
Then, late one afternoon after they had been in the mountains for a week or more, a heavy bank of clouds moved in from the west, bringing with it a damp chill. Garion untied his cloak from the back of the saddle and pulled it around his shoulders as he rode, shivering as the afternoon grew colder.
Durnik lifted his face and sniffed at the air. “We’ll have snow before morning,” he predicted.
Garion could also smell the chill, dusty odor of snow in the air. He nodded glumly.
Mister Wolf grunted. “I knew this was too good to last.” Then he shrugged. “Oh, well,” he added, “we’ve all lived through winters before.”
When Garion poked his head out of the tent the next morning, an inch of snow lay on the ground beneath the dark firs. Soft flakes were drifting down, settling soundlessly and concealing everything more than a hundred yards away in a filmy haze. The air was cold and gray, and the horses, looking very dark under a dusting of snow, stamped their feet and flicked their ears at the fairy touch of the snowflakes settling on them. Their breath steamed in the damp cold.
Ce’Nedra emerged from the tent she shared with Aunt Pol with a squeal of delight. Snow, Garion realized, was probably a rarity in Tol Honeth, and the tiny girl romped through the soft drifting flakes with childish abandon. He smiled tolerantly until a well-aimed snowball caught him on the side of the head. Then he chased her, pelting her with snowballs, while she dodged in and out among the trees, laughing and squealing. When he finally caught her, he was determined to wash her face with snow, but she exuberantly threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, her cold little nose rubbing against his cheek and her eyelashes thick with snowflakes. He didn’t realize the full extent of her deceitfulness until she had already poured a handful of snow down the back of his neck. Then she broke free and ran toward the tents, hooting with laughter, while he tried to shake the snow out of the back of his tunic before it all melted.
By midday, however, the snow on the ground had turned to slush, and the drifting flakes had become a steady, unpleasant drizzle. They rode up a narrow ravine under dripping firs while a torrentlike stream roared over boulders beside them.
Mister Wolf finally called a halt. “We’re getting close to the western border of Cthol Murgos,” he told them. “I think it’s time we started to take a few precautions.”
“I’ll ride out in front,” Hettar offered quickly.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Wolf replied. “You tend to get distracted when you see Murgos.”
“I’ll do it,” Silk said. He had pulled his hood up, but water still dripped from the end of his long, pointed nose. “I’ll stay about half a mile ahead and keep my eyes open.”
Wolf nodded. “Whistle if you see anything.”
“Right.” Silk started off up the ravine at a trot.
Late that afternoon, the rain began to freeze as it hit, coating the rocks and trees with gray ice. They rounded a large outcropping of rock and found Silk waiting for them. The stream had turned to a trickle, and the walls of the ravine had opened out onto the steep side of a mountain. “We’ve got about an hour of daylight left,” the little man said. “What do you think? Should we go on, or do you want to drop back down the ravine a bit and set up for the night?”