The two knights met in the center of the course with a resounding crash, and their lances both shattered at the stunning impact, littering the trampled gra.s.s with splinters. They thundered past each other, turned and rode back, each to his original starting place. Derigen, Garion noticed, swayed somewhat in the saddle as he rode.
The knights charged again, and their fresh lances also shattered. "I should have cut more poles," Durnik said thoughtfully.
But Baron Derigen swayed even more as he rode back this time, and on the third charge his faltering lance glanced off Mandorallen"s shield. Mandorallen"s lance, however, struck true, and the baron was hurled from his saddle by the force of their meeting.
Mandorallen reined in his charger and looked down at him. "Art thou able to continue, my Lord?" he asked politely.
Derigen staggered to his feet. "I do not yield," he gasped, drawing his sword.
"Splendid," Mandorallen replied. "I feared that I might have done thee harm." He slid out of his saddle, drew his sword and swung directly at Derigen"s head. The blow glanced off the baron"s hastily raised shield, and Mandorallen swung again without pause. Derigen managed one or two feeble swings before Mandorallen"s broadsword caught him full on the side of the helmet. He spun once and collapsed facedown on the earth.
"My Lord?" Mandorallen inquired solicitously. He reached down, rolled over his fallen opponent and opened the dented visor of the baron"s helmet. "Art thou unwell, my Lord?" he asked. "Dost thou wish to continue?"
Derigen did not reply. Blood ran freely from his nose, and his eyes were rolled back in his head. His face was blue, and the right side of his body quivered spasmodically.
"Since this brave knight is unable to speak for himself," Mandorallen announced, "I declare him vanquished." He looked around, his broadsword still in his hand. "Would any here gainsay my words?"
There was a vast silence.
"Will some few then remove him from the field?" Mandorallen suggested. "His injuries do not appear grave. A few months in bed should make him whole again." He turned to Baron Oltorain, whose face had grown visibly pale. "Well, my Lord," he said cheerfully, "shall we proceed? My companions and I are impatient to continue our journey."
Sir Oltorain was thrown to the ground on the first charge and broke his leg as he fell.
"Ill luck, my Lord," Mandorallen observed, approaching on foot with drawn sword. "Dost thou yield?"
"I cannot stand," Oltorain said from between clenched teeth. "I have no choice but to yield."
"And I and my companions may continue our journey?"
"Ye may freely depart," the man on the ground replied painfully.
"Not just yet," a harsh voice interrupted. The armored Murgo pushed his horse through the crowd of other mounted knights until he was directly in front of Mandorallen.
"I thought he might decide to interfere," Aunt Pol said quietly. She dismounted and stepped out onto the hoof churned course. "Move out of the way, Mandorallen," she told the knight.
"Nay, my Lady," Mandorallen protested.
Wolf barked sharply. "Move, Mandorallen!"
Mandorallen looked startled and stepped aside.
"Well, Grolim?" Aunt Pol challenged, pushing back her hood.
The mounted man"s eyes widened as he saw the white lock in her hair, and then he raised his hand almost despairingly, muttering rapidly under his breath.
Once again Garion felt that strange surge, and the hollow roaring filled his mind.
For an instant Aunt Pol"s figure seemed surrounded by a kind of greenish light. She waved her hand indifferently, and the light disappeared. "You must be out of practice," she told him. "Would you like to try again?"
The Grolim raised both hands this time, but got no further. Maneuvering his horse carefully behind the armored man, Durnik had closed on him. With both hands he raised his axe and smashed it down directly on top of the Grolim"s helmet.
"Durnikl" Aunt Pol shouted. "Get away!"
But the smith, his face set grimly, swung again, and the Grolim slid senseless from his saddle with a crash.
"You fool!" Aunt Pol raged. "What do you think you"re doing?"
"He was attacking you, Mistress Pol," Durnik explained, his eyes still hot.
"Get down off that horse."
He slid down.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?" she demanded. "He could have killed you."
"I will protect you, Mistress Pol," Durnik replied stubbornly. "I"m not a warrior or a magician, but I won"t let anybody try to hurt you."
Her eyes widened in surprise for an instant, then narrowed, then softened. Garion, who had known her from childhood, recognized her rapid changes of emotion. Without warning she suddenly embraced the startled Durnik. "You great, clumsy, dear fool," she said. "Never do that again - never! You almost made my heart stop."
Garion looked away with a strange lump in his throat and saw the brief, sly smile that flickered across Mister Wolf"s face.
A peculiar change had come over the knights lining the sides of the course. Several of them were looking around with the amazed expressions of men who had just been roused from some terrible dream. Others seemed suddenly lost in thought. Sir Oltorain struggled to rise.
"Nay, my Lord," Mandorallen told him, pressing him gently back down. "Thou wilt do thyself injury."
"What have we done?" the baron groaned, his face anguished.
Mister Wolf dismounted and knelt beside the injured man.
"It wasn"t your fault," he informed the baron. "Your war was the Murgo"s doing. He twisted your minds and set you on each other."
"Sorcery?" Oltorain gasped, his face growing pale.
Wolf nodded. "He"s not really a Murgo, but a Grolim priest."
"And the spell is now broken?"
Wolf nodded again, glancing at the unconscious Grolim.
"Chain the Murgo," the baron ordered the a.s.sembled knights. He looked back at Wolf. "We have ways of dealing with sorcerers," he said grimly. "We will use the occasion to celebrate the end of our unnatural war. This Grolim sorcerer hath cast his last enchantment."
"Good," Wolf replied with a bleak smile.
"Sir Mandorallen," Baron Oltorain said, wincing as he shifted his broken leg, "in what way may we repay thee and thy companions for bringing us to our senses?"
"That peace hath been restored is reward enough," Mandorallen replied somewhat pompously, "for, as all the world knows, I am the most peace-loving man in the kingdom." He glanced once at Lelldorin lying nearby on the ground in his litter, and a thought seemed to occur to him. "I would, however, ask a boon of thee. We have in our company a brave Asturian youth of n.o.ble family who hath suffered grievous injury. We would leave him, if we might, in thy care."
"His presence shall honor me, Sir Mandorallen," Oltorain a.s.sented immediately. "The women of my household will care for him most tenderly." He spoke briefly to one of his retainers, and the man mounted and rode quickly toward one of the nearby castles.
"You"re not going to leave me behind," Lelldorin protested weakly. "I"ll be able to ride in a day or so." He began to cough rackingly.
"I think not," Mandorallen disagreed with a cool expression. "The results of thy wounding have not yet run their natural course."
"I won"t stay with Mimbrates," Lelldorin insisted. "I"d rather take my chances on the road."
"Young Lelldorin," Mandorallen replied bluntly, even harshly, "I know thy distaste for the men of Mimbre. Thy wound, however, will soon begin to abscess and then suppurate, and raging fever and delirium will aflict thee, making thy presence a burden upon us. We have not the time to care for thee, and thy sore need would delay us in our quest."
Garion gasped at the brutal directness of the knight"s words. He glared at Mandorallen with something very close to hatred.
Lelldorin"s face meanwhile had gone white. "Thank you for pointing that out to me, Sir Mandorallen," he said stiffly. "I should have considered it myself. If you"ll help me to my horse, I"ll leave immediately."
"You"ll stay right where you are," Aunt Pol told him flatly.
Baron Oltorain"s retainer returned with a group of household servants and a blonde girl of about seventeen wearing a rose-colored gown of stiff brocade and a velvet cloak of teal.
"My younger sister, Lady Ariana," Oltorain introduced her. "She"s a spirited girl, and though she is young she is already well-versed in the care of the sick."
"I won"t trouble her for long, my Lord," Lelldorin declared. "I"ll be returning to Asturia within a week."
Lady Ariana laid a professional hand to his forehead. "Nay, good youth," she disagreed. "Thy visit, I think, will be protracted."
"I"ll leave within the week," Lelldorin repeated stubbornly.
She shrugged. "As it please thee. I expect that my brother will be able to spare some few servants to follow after thee to provide thee that decent burial which, if I misjudge not, thou wilt require before thou hast gone ten leagues."
Lelldorin blinked.
Aunt Pol took Lady Ariana to one side and spoke with her at some length, giving her a small packet of herbs and certain instructions. Lelldorin motioned to Garion, and Garion went to him immediately and knelt beside the litter.
"So it ends," the young man murmured. "I wish I could go on with you."
"You"ll be well in no time at all," Garion a.s.sured him, knowing that it wasn"t true. "Maybe you can catch up with us later."
Lelldorin shook his head. "No," he disagreed, "I"m afraid not." He began to cough again, the spasms seeming to tear at his lungs. "We don"t have much time, my friend," he gasped weakly, "so listen carefully."
Garion, near tears, took his friend"s hand.
"You remember what we were talking about that morning after we left my uncle"s house?"
Garion nodded.
"You said that I was the one who"d have to decide if we were to break our pledge to Torasin and the others to keep silent."
"I remember," Garion told him.
"All right," Lelldorin said. "I"ve decided. I release you from your pledge. Do what you have to do."
"It would be better if you told my grandfather about it yourself, Lelldorin," Garion protested.
"I can"t, Garion," Lelldorin groaned. "The words would stick in my throat. I"m sorry, but it"s the way I am. I know that Nachak"s only using us, but I gave the others my word. I"m an Arend, Garion. I"ll keep my word even though I know it"s wrong, so it"s up to you. You"re going to have to keep Nachak from destroying my country. I want you to go straight to the king himself."
"To the king? He"d never believe me."
"Make him believe you. Tell him everything."
Garion shook his head firmly. "I won"t tell him your name," he declared, "or Torasin"s. You know what he"d do to you if I did."
"We don"t matter," Lelldorin insisted, coughing again.
"I"ll tell him about Nachak," Garion said stubbornly, "but not about you. Where do I tell him to find the Murgo?"
"He"ll know," Lelldorin replied, his voice very weak now. "Nachak"s the amba.s.sador to the court at Vo Mimbre. He"s the personal representative of Taur Urggs, King of the Murgos."
Garion was stunned at the implications of that.
"He"s got all the gold from the bottomless mines of Cthol Murgos at his command," Lelldorin continued. "The plot he gave my friends and me could be just one of a dozen or more all aimed at destroying Arendia. You"ve got to stop him, Garion. Promise me." The pale young man"s eyes were feverish, and his grip on Garion"s hand tightened.
"I"ll stop him, Lelldorin," Garion vowed. "I don"t know how yet, but one way or another, I"ll stop him."
Lelldorin sank weakly back on the litter, his strength seeming to run out as if the necessity for extracting that promise had been the only thing sustaining him.
"Good-bye, Lelldorin," Garion said softly, his eyes filling with tears.
"Good-bye, my friend," Lelldorin barely more than whispered, and then his eyes closed, and the hand gripping Garion"s went limp. Garion stared at him with a dreadful fear until he saw the faint flutter of his pulse in the hollow of his throat. Lelldorin was still alive - if only barely. Garion tenderly put down his friend"s hand and pulled the rough gray blanket up around his shoulders. Then he stood up and walked quickly away with tears running down his cheeks.
The rest of the farewells were brief, and they remounted and rode at a trot toward the Great West Road. There were a few cheers from the serfs and pikemen as they pa.s.sed, but in the distance there was another sound. The women from the villages had come out to search for their men among the bodies littering the field, and their wails and shrieks mocked the cheers.
With deliberate purpose, Garion pushed his horse forward until he drew in beside Mandorallen. "I have something to say to you," he said hotly. "You aren"t going to like it, but I don"t really care."
"Oh?" the knight replied mildly.
"I think the way you talked to Lelldorin back there was cruel and disgusting," Garion told him. "You might think you"re the greatest knight in the world, but I think you"re a loud-mouthed braggart with no more compa.s.sion than a block of stone, and if you don"t like it, what do you plan to do about it?"
"Ah," Mandorallen said. "That! I think that thou hast misunderstood, my young friend. It was necessary in order to save his life. The Asturian youth is very brave and so gives no thought to himself. Had I not spoken so to him, he would surely have insisted upon continuing with us and would soon have died."
"Died?" Garion scoffed. "Aunt Pol could have cured him."
"It was the Lady Polgara herself who informed me that his life was in danger," Mandorallen replied. "His honor would not permit him to seek proper care, but that same honor prevailed upon him to remain behind lest he delay us." The knight smiled wryly. "He will, I think, be no fonder of me for my words than thou art, but he will be alive, and that"s what matters, is it not?"
Garion stared at the arrogant-seeming Mimbrate, his anger suddenly robbed of its target. With painful clarity he realized that he had just made a fool of himself. "I"m sorry," he apologized grudgingly. "I didn"t realize what you were doing."
Mandorallen shrugged. "It"s not important. I"m frequently misunderstood. As long as I know that my motives are good, however, I"m seldom very concerned with the opinions of others. I"m glad, though, that I had the opportunity to explain this to thee. Thou art to be my companion, and it ill-behooves companions to have misapprehensions about each other."
They rode on in silence as Garion struggled to readjust his thinking. There was, it seemed, much more to Mandorallen than he had suspected.
They reached the highway then and turned south again under a threatening sky.