David Eddings: Queen of Sorcery

Before long they came out into the clearing and its circle of firelight.

“Is he all right?” Aunt Pol asked, looking up from bandaging a cut on Durnik’s arm.

“A bump on the head is all,” Barak replied, setting Garion down.

“Did you run them off?”

His voice was harsh, even brutal.

“Those that could still run,” Silk answered, his voice a bit excited and his ferret eyes bright. “They left a few behind.” He pointed at a number of still shapes lying near the edge of the firelight.

Lelldorin came back into the clearing, looking over his shoulder and with his bow half drawn. He was out of breath, his face was pale, and his hands were shaking. “Are you all right?” he asked as soon as he saw Garion.

Garion nodded, gently fingering the lump behind his ear.

“I tried to find the two who took you,” the young man declared, “but they were too quick for me. There’s some kind of animal out there. I heard it growling while I was looking for you—awful growls.”

“The beast is gone now,” Barak told him flatly.

“What’s the matter with you?” Silk asked the big man.

“Nothing.”

“Who were these men?” Garion asked.

“Robbers, most likely,” Silk surmised, putting away his dagger. “It’s one of the benefits of a society that holds men in serfdom. They get bored with being serfs and go out into the forest looking for excitement and profit.”

“You sound just like Garion,” Lelldorin objected. “Can’t you people understand that serfdom’s part of the natural order of things here? Our serfs couldn’t take care of themselves alone, so those of us in higher station accept the responsibility of caring for them.”

“Of course you do,” Silk agreed sarcastically. “They’re not so well-fed as your pigs nor as well-kenneled as your dogs, but you do care for them, don’t you?”

“That’ll do, Silk,” Aunt Pol said coolly. “Let’s not start bickering among ourselves.” She tied a last knot on Durnik’s bandage and came over to examine Garion’s head. She touched her fingers gently to the lump, and he winced.

“It doesn’t seem too serious,” she observed.

“It hurts all the same,” he complained.

“Of course it does, dear,” she said calmly. She dipped a cloth in a pail of cold water and held it to the lump. “You’re going to have to learn to protect your head, Garion. If you keep banging it like this, you’re going to soften your brains.”

Garion was about to answer that, but Hettar and Mister Wolf came back into the firelight just then.

“They’re still running,” Hettar announced. The steel discs on his horsehide jacket gleamed red in the flickering light, and his sabre was streaked with blood.

“They seemed to be awfully good at that part of it,” Wolf said. “Is everyone all right?”

“A few bumps and bruises is about all,” Aunt Pol told him. “It could have been much worse.”

“Let’s not start worrying about what could have been.”

“Shall we remove those?” Barak growled, pointing at the bodies littering the ground near the brook.

“Shouldn’t they be buried?” Durnik asked. His voice shook a little, and his face was very pale.

“Too much trouble,” Barak said bluntly. “Their friends can come back later and take care of it—if they feel like it.”

“Isn’t that just a little uncivilized?” Durnik objected.

Barak shrugged. “It’s customary.”

Mister Wolf rolled one of the bodies over and carefully examined the dead man’s gray face.

“Looks like an ordinary Arendish outlaw,” he grunted. “It’s hard to say for sure, though.”

Lelldorin was retrieving his arrows, carefully pulling them out of the bodies.

“Let’s drag them all over there a ways,” Barak said to Hettar. “I’m getting tired of looking at them.”

Durnik looked away, and Garion saw two great tears standing in his eyes.

“Does it hurt, Durnik?” he asked sympathetically, sitting on the log beside his friend.

“I killed one of those men, Garion,” the smith replied in a shaking voice. “I hit him in the face with my axe. He screamed, and his blood splashed all over me. Then he fell down and kicked on the ground with his heels until he died.”

“You didn’t have any choice, Durnik,” Garion told him. “They were trying to kill us.”

“I’ve never killed anyone before,” Durnik said, the tears now running down his face. “He kicked the ground for such a long time—such a terribly long time.”

“Why don’t you go to bed, Garion?” Aunt Pol suggested firmly. Her eyes were on Durnik’s tear-streaked face.

Garion understood.

“Good night, Durnik,” he said. He got up and started toward one of the tents. He glanced back once. Aunt Pol had seated herself on the log beside the smith and was speaking quietly to him with one of her arms comfortingly about his shoulders.

The fire had burned down to a tiny orange flicker outside the tent, and the forest around the clearing was silent. Garion lay with a throbbing head trying to sleep. Finally, long past midnight, he gave it up. He slid out from under his blanket and went searching for Aunt Pol.

Above the silvery fog a full moon had risen, and its light made the mist luminous. The air around him seemed almost to glow as he picked his way carefully through the silent camp. He scratched on the outside of her tent flap and whispered, “Aunt Pol?” There was no answer. “Aunt Pol,” he whispered a bit louder, “it’s me, Garion. May I come in?” There was still no answer, nor even the faintest sound. Carefully he pulled back the flap and peered inside. The tent was empty.

Puzzled, even a bit alarmed, he turned and looked around the clearing. Hettar stood watch not far from the picketed horses, his hawk face turned toward the foggy forest and his cape drawn about him. Garion hesitated a moment and then stepped quietly behind the tents. He angled down through the trees and the filmy, luminous fog toward the brook, thinking that if he bathed his aching head in cold water it might help. He was about fifty yards from the tents when he saw a faint movement among the trees ahead. He stopped.

A huge gray wolf padded out of the fog and stopped in the center of a small open space among the trees. Garion drew in his breath sharply and froze beside a large, twisted oak. The wolf sat down on the damp leaves as if he were waiting for something. The glowing fog illuminated details Garion would not have been able to see on an ordinary night. The wolf’s ruff and shoulders were silvery, and his muzzle was shot with gray. He carried his age with enormous dignity, and his yellow eyes seemed calm and very wise somehow.

Garion stood absolutely still. He knew that the slightest sound would instantly reach the sharp ears of the wolf, but it was more than that. The blow behind his ear had made him light-headed, and the strange glow of moon-drenched fog made this encounter seem somehow unreal. He found that he was holding his breath.

A large, snowy white owl swooped over the open space among the trees on ghosting wings, settled on a low branch and perched there, looking down at the wolf with an unblinking stare. The gray wolf looked calmly back at the perched bird. Then, though there was no breath of wind, it seemed somehow that a sudden eddy in the shimmering fog made the figures of the owl and the wolf hazy and indistinct. When it cleared again, Mister Wolf stood in the center of the opening, and Aunt Pol in her gray gown was seated rather sedately on the limb above him.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve hunted together, Polgara,” the old man said.

“Yes, it has, father.” She raised her arms and pushed her fingers through the long, dark weight of her hair. “I’d almost forgotten what it was like.” She seemed to shudder then with a strange kind of pleasure. “It’s a very good night for it.”