Chapter Fifteen

"IS HE GOING to be all right?" Barak asked anxiously, hovering over the still unconscious Durnik as Aunt Pol examined the large purple contusion on the side of the smith's face."It's nothing serious," she replied in a voice seeming to droop with a great weariness.

Garion sat nearby with his head in his hands. He felt as if all the strength had been wrenched out of his body.

Beyond the heaped coals of the rapidly dying bonfire, Silk and Hettar were struggling to remove Mandorallen's dented breastplate. A deep crease running diagonally from shoulder to hip gave mute evidence of the force of Grul's blow and placed so much stress on the straps beneath the shoulder plates that they were almost impossible to unfasten.

"I think we're going to have to cut them," Silk said.

"I pray thee, Prince Kheldar, avoid that if possible," Mandorallen answered, wincing as they wrenched at the fastenings. "Those straps are crucial to the fit of the armor, and are most difficult to replace properly."

"This one's coming now," Hettar grunted, prying at a buckle with a short iron rod. The buckle released suddenly and the taut breastplate rang like a softly struck bell.

"Now I can get it," Silk said, quickly loosening the other shoulder buckle.

Mandorallen sighed with relief as they pulled off the dented breastplate. He took a deep breath and winced again.

"Tender right here?" Silk asked, putting his fingers lightly to the right side of the knight's chest. Mandorallen grunted with pain, and his face paled visibly. "I think you've got some cracked ribs, my splendid friend," Silk told him. "You'd better have Polgara take a look."

"In a moment," Mandorallen said. "My horse?"

"He'll be all right," Hettar replied. "A strained tendon in his right foreleg is all."

Mandorallen let out a sigh of relief. "I had feared for him."

"I feared for us all there for a while," Silk said. "Our oversized playmate there was almost more than we could handle."

"Good fight, though," Hettar remarked.

Silk gave him a disgusted look, then glanced up at the scudding gray clouds overhead. He jumped across the glowing coals of their fire and went over to where Belgarath sat staring into the icy river. "We're going to have to get off this bar, Belgarath," he urged. "The weather's going bad on us again, and we'll all freeze to death if we stay out here in the middle of the river tonight."

"Leave me alone," Belgarath muttered shortly, still staring at the river.

"Polgara?" Silk turned to her.

"Just stay away from him for a while," she told him. "Go find a sheltered place for us to stay for a few days."

"I'll go with you," Barak offered, hobbling toward his horse.

"You'll stay here," Aunt Pol declared firmly. "You creak like a wagon with a broken axle. I want to have a look at you before you get a chance to damage yourself permanently."

"I know a place," Ce'Nedra said, rising and pulling her cloak about her shoulders. "I saw it when we were coming down the river. I'll show you."

Silk looked inquiringly at Aunt Pol.

"Go ahead," she told him. "It's safe enough now. Nothing else would live in the same valley with an Eldrak."

Silk laughed. "I wonder why? Coming, Princess?" The two of them mounted and rode off through the snow.

"Shouldn't Durnik be coming around?" Garion asked his Aunt.

"Let him sleep," she replied wearily. "He'll have a blinding headache when he wakes up."

"Aunt Pol?"

"Yes?"

"Who was the other wolf?"

"My mother, Poledra."

"But isn't she-"

"Yes. It was her spirit."

"You can do that?" Garion was stunned by the enormity of it.

"Not alone," she said. "You had to help me."

"Is that why I feel so-" It was an effort even to talk.

"It took everything we could both raise to do it. Don't ask so many questions just now, Garion. I'm very tired and I still have many things to do."

"Is Grandfather all right?"

"He'll come around. Mandorallen, come here."

The knight stepped over the coals at the neck of the bar and walked slowly toward her, his hand pressed lightly against his chest.

"You'll have to take off your shirt," she told him. "And please sit down."

About a half hour later Silk and the princess returned. "It's a good spot," Silk reported. "A thicket in a little ravine. Water, shelter - everything we need. Is anybody seriously hurt?"

"Nothing permanent." Aunt Pol was applying a salve to Barak's hairy leg.

"Do you suppose you could hurry, Polgara?" Barak asked. "It's a little chilly for standing around half-dressed."

"Stop being such a baby," she said heartlessly.

The ravine to which Silk and Ce'Nedra led them was a short way back upriver. A small mountain brook trickled from its mouth, and a dense thicket of spindly pines filled it seemingly from wall to wall. They followed the brook for a few hundred yards until they came to a small clearing in the center of the thicket. The pines around the inner edge of the clearing, pressed by the limbs of the others in the thicket, leaned inward, almost touching above the center of the open area.

"Good spot." Hettar looked around approvingly. "How did you find it?"

"She did." Silk nodded at Ce'Nedra.

"The trees told me it was here," she said. "Young pine trees babble a lot." She looked at the clearing thoughtfully. "We'll build our fire there," she decided, pointing at a spot near the brook at the upper end of the clearing, "and set up our tents along the, edge of the trees just back from it. You'll need to pile rocks around the fire and clear away all the twigs from the ground near it. The trees are very nervous about the fire. They promised to keep the wind off us, but only if we keep our fire strictly under control. I gave them my word."

A faint smile flickered across Hettar's hawklike face.

"I'm serious," she said, stamping her little foot.

"Of course, your Highness," he replied, bowing.

Because of the incapacity of the others, the work of sating up the tents and building the firepit fell largely upon Silk and Hettar. Ce'Nedra commanded them like a little general, snapping out her orders in a clear, firm voice. She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely.

Garion was sure that it was some trick of the fading light, but the trees almost seemed to draw back when the fire first flared up, though after a while they seemed to lean back in again to arch protectively over the little clearing. Wearily he got to his feet and began to gather sticks and dead limbs for firewood.