"Stay put!" Belgarath ordered, catching Silk's arm. "This isn't played out yet. That was a challenge, and Nahaz won't be able to refuse it."

Another of those flickering disturbances appeared in the air above the upper end of the gorge, and another towering form appeared out of its center. Garion could not see its face, a fact for which he was profoundly grateful, but it, too, had snaky arms growing in profusion from its vast shoulders. "Thou darest to face me, Mordja?" it roared in a voice which shook the nearby mountains.

"I do not fear thee, Nahaz," Mordja bellowed back.

"Our enmity hath endured for a thousand thousand years.

..Let it end here. I shall carry word of thy death back to the King of Hell and bear thy head with me as proof of my words."

"My head is thine," Nahaz said with a chilling laugh. "Come and take it—if thou canst."

"And thou wouldst bestow the stone of power on the mad Disciple of maimed Torak?" Mordja sneered.

"Thy sojourn in the land of the Morindim hath bereft thee of thy wits, Mordja. The stone of power shall be mine, and I shall rule these ants that creep upon the face of this world. I will raise them like cattle and feed upon them when I hunger. ‘'

"How wilt thou feed, Nahaz—without thy head? It is I who will rule and feed here, for the stone of power shall lie in my hand."

"That we will soon discover, Mordja. Come. Let us contend for a head and for the stone we both desire." Suddenly Nahaz spun about, his baleful eyes searching the top of the cliff where Garion and his friends lay hidden. A volcanic hiss burst from the demon's distorted lips. "The Child of Light!" he roared. "Praise the name of the King of Hell, who hath brought him within my reach. I will rend him asunder and seize the stone which he carries. Thou art doomed, Mordja. That stone in my hand shall be thy undoing." With hideous speed the Demon Lord Nahaz clambered over the tumbled rocks at the foot of the cliff and reached out with his dozens of clawed hands at the sheer rock face. His vast shoulders heaved.

"He's climbing straight up the rock!" Silk exclaimed in a strangled voice. "Let's get out of here!"

The Demon Lord Mordja stood for a moment in stunned chagrin, then he, too, ran forward and began to claw his way up the face of the cliff.

Garion rose to his feet, looking down at the two vast monsters clambering up the sheer rock. He felt a peculiar detachment as he reached back over his shoulder and drew his sword. He untied the leather sleeve covering the hilt and slipped it off. The Orb glowed, and when he took the sword in both hands, the familiar blue flame ran up the blade.

"Garion!" Zakath exclaimed.

"They want the Orb," Garion said grimly. "Well, they're going to have to take it, and I may have something to say about that."

But then Durnik was there. His face was calm, and he was stripped to the waist. In his right hand he carried an awesome sledgehammer that glowed as blue as Garion's sword. "Excuse me, Garion," he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "but this is my task."

Polgara had come with him, and her face showed no fear. She had drawn her blue cloak about her, and the snowy lock at her brow glowed.

"What's happening here?" Belgarath demanded.

"Stay out of it, father," Polgara told him. "This is some-tiling that has to happen."

Durnik advanced to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the two horrors struggling up the sheer face toward him. ‘‘I abjure ye," he said to them in a great voice, "return to the place from whence ye came, lest ye die." Overlaying his voice was another voice, calm, almost gentle, but with a power in it that shook Garion as a tree is shaken by a hurricane. He knew that voice.

"Begone!" Durnik commanded, emphasizing that word with a dreadful blow of his sledge that shattered a boulder into fragments.

The demons clawing their way up the cliff hesitated. At first it was barely perceptible. At first it seemed that Durnik was only swelling his chest and shoulders in preparation for an impossible struggle. Then Garion saw his oldest friend begin to grow. At ten feet, the smith was awesome. At twenty, he was beyond belief. The great hammer in his hand grew with him, and the blue nimbus about it grew more intense as he expanded and grew, thrusting the sullen air aside with his massive shoulders. The very rocks seemed to cringe back from him as, with long sweeps of his dreadful, glowing hammer, he loosened his arm.

The Demon Lord Mordja paused, clinging to the rock. His bestial face suddenly showed fear. Again Durnik destroyed whole square yards of rock with a single ringing blow. Nahaz, however, his eyes ablaze and empty of thought, continued to slather and claw his way up the rock face, screeching imprecations in that dreadful language which only demons know.

"So be it, then," Durnik said, and the voice in which he spoke was not his own, but that other, more profound voice, which rang in Garion's ears like the very crack of doom.

The Demon Lord Mordja looked up, his terrible face filled with terror. Then suddenly he released his grip on the face of the rock cliff to topple and tumble to the rocks below. Howling, and with his multitudinous arms covering his scabrous head, he fled. Nahaz, however, his blazing eyes filled with madness, continued to sink his claws into naked rock and to haul his vast body up the cliff. Almost politely, it seemed, Durnik stepped back from the awful brink and wrapped both enormous hands about the glowing handle of his sledge.

"Durnik!" Silk cried. "No! Don't let him get his feet under him!"

Dumik did not reply, but a faint smile touched his honest face. Again he tested his vast hammer, swinging it in both hands. The sound of its passage through the air was not a whistle, but a roar. Nahaz clambered up over the edge of the cliff and rose enormously, clawing at the sky and roaring insanely in the hideous language of the demons.

Durnik spat on his left hand; then on his right. He twisted his huge hands on the handle of his sledge to set them in place, then he swung a vast, overhand blow that took the Demon Lord full in the chest. "Begone!" the smith roared in a voice louder than thunder. The sledge struck fiery sparks from the demon's body, sullen orange sparks that sizzled and jumped on the ground like burning roaches. Nahaz screamed, clutching at his chest.

Unperturbed, Durnik swung again.

And again.

Garion recognized the rhythm of his friend's strokes. Durnik was not fighting; he was hammering with the age-old precision of a man whose tools are but an extension of his arms. Again and again the glowing hammer crashed into the body of the Demon Lord. With each blow, the sparks flew. Nahaz cringed, trying to shield his body from those awful, shattering strokes. Each time Durnik struck, he roared, "Begone!"