Belgarath the Sorcerer (55 page)

They weren't very good at it, from what I saw. The Algars were simply too fast for them. Central Algaria is rolling country, and there are a lot of hills and grassy ravines that provide cover for the cavalry units. In most cases, the Angaraks didn't see the Algars coming until it was too late. Torak's army was moving slowly south, and the trail behind them was littered with their dead. That didn't mean anything to Kal Torak, of course, but it
did
seem to concern his generals. They weren't moving very fast, and they had whole platoons of scouts ranging out ahead and along the flanks. From what I was able to see, those scouts weren't getting very much information back to the generals. Like all cavalry units the world over, the Algars carried short bows in addition to their lances and sabers. A cavalry bow doesn't have the range that the longbows of the Asturian Arends have, but a man on a fast horse doesn't need range. He can get close enough to do the job. Not very many Angarak scouts returned.

In effect, what was happening down there was a running battle, and it was very one-sided. Torak was taking appalling casualties, but he firmly pressed on. In addition to the scouts, the army had foragers out, looking for cows to feed that horde. The foragers were having an even worse time of it than the scouts were, since every herd of cattle they came across had dozens of Algar bowmen concealed in it. The Algars
also
amused themselves by stampeding cattle-herds through the Mallorean ranks, and that slowed the advance even more.

It was going to take Kal Torak a long time to reach the Stronghold.

Those stampedes were effective, I'll grant you, but they goaded Torak's generals into an action that ultimately caused an economic disaster in the west. At first, the foragers had gone out to round up the cows, intending to drive them along as a moving food source. After a few of those stampedes, though, they started to kill every cow they came across. It was a long time after the war was over before the Algarian herds even reached a fraction of their former numbers. Beef was very scarce in the west for years.

After we'd seen enough of that slow-moving battle, Pol and I turned and flew west toward Sendaria and the coast. I wanted to get back to Riva so that I could have a talk with Cho-Ram. The Mrin clearly stated that the Stronghold wouldn't fall, but it never hurts to be careful. Garel
was
inside that fortress, after all.

It was raining in Riva when we got there. Isn't
that
a surprise? The foul weather triggered by that eclipse had been very unusual elsewhere, but it's
always
raining in Riva.

Ran Borune had sent word to the Alorn Kings about Urvon's army, and they were very concerned about it. ‘Where are they right now?' Rhodar asked me when Pol and I joined them in our customary conference room.

‘I'm not sure,' I replied. ‘Pol and I've been moving around quite a bit. The twins always stay in the Vale, so Beldin usually makes his reports to them. I'll talk with them about it later, but right now we've got some things to discuss and a few decisions to make. Then I want to go check out the defenses of the Stronghold.'

‘The Stronghold's secure, Belgarath,' Cho-Ram assured me. ‘You don't have to go there.'

‘Just a precaution, Cho-Ram. What kind of a force have you got inside?'

‘Three clans and the Drasnian pikemen we managed to rescue. There are plenty of people inside to hold it. Besides, the walls are thirty feet thick, and no scaling ladder in the world could reach the top of them.'

‘I think that's what Fleet-foot had in mind when he
designed the place,' I told him. ‘We know that the Stronghold won't fall, but Torak's probably going to keep hammering at it for several years before he gives up. That gives us some time to get ready for his next move. The Mrin says that the final battle's going to be in Arendia, so it might not be a bad idea for us to move these sessions to Tol Honeth.'

‘Why Tol Honeth?' Brand asked.

‘It's closer to the battleground, for one thing, and that's where the Tolnedran generals are, for another.'

‘The Tolnedrans aren't going to be of much use, Belgarath,' Eldrig protested. ‘Ran Borune's going to be concentrating on his southern border. He's
not
going to send any legions to Arendia.'

‘We're planning a campaign, Eldrig, and those Tolnedran generals know just about all there is to know about strategy and tactics. Their advice could be useful.'

‘We're not
completely
incompetent, Belgarath,' he objected. ‘We've won every war we've ever been in so far, haven't we?'

‘That's been pure luck, Eldrig. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you Alorns have a habit of just making your wars up as you go along. Let's do this one professionally - just for the sake of novelty, if nothing else.'

It took Pol and me a little while to persuade the Alorn Kings to go to Tol Honeth to seek the advice of the Tolnedran High Command, but they eventually agreed. Then my daughter and I left the Isle and flew on across Sendaria, over Ulgoland and on to the Algarian Stronghold. This time we didn't really have any choice. We
had
to use the form of ducks.

I've referred to the Stronghold as a man-made mountain, and that comes fairly close. It
looks
like a walled city from the outside, but it's not, since there aren't any buildings inside. Such Algars as live there have constructed rooms and halls and corridors inside the walls themselves. The open space inside those walls is nothing more than an elaborate maze.

A tragedy, however, had occurred. It was one of those stupid accidents that crop up from time to time. Garel, heir to the Rivan throne, had gone out horseback riding, and his horse had stumbled, and Iron-grip's heir had fallen and broke his neck when he hit the ground.
Idiocy
! What in the name of all seven Gods was he doing on a horse?

Fortunately, he'd already married an Algar girl, and she'd conceived and bore a son, Gelane. The line was still intact, although the little boy was only five years old. But that was all right. Everybody grows up - eventually.

I spoke with the boy and found, that like all the rest, he had uncommonly good sense. We've been lucky in that. If stupidity had cropped up in the Rivan line, we'd have been in a great deal of trouble.

‘Can't I do something, grandfather?' the earnest little boy asked me. ‘This
is
my responsibility, after all.' That startled me.

‘What did you tell him, Pol?' I asked suspiciously.

‘Everything, father,' she replied calmly. ‘He's entitled to know what this is all about.'

‘He doesn't
need
that information, Pol! I thought we agreed to that.'

She shrugged. ‘I changed my mind. He
is
the Rivan King, father. If all our elaborate plans fall apart, he might have to take up the sword.'

‘He's only a child, Pol. He couldn't even
lift
that sword.'

‘We've got time, father. Torak hasn't even begun the siege yet.'

‘The Mrin says that Brand's going to confront Torak. Gelane's not supposed to get involved.'

‘The Mrin's very obscure, father, and sometimes things change. I want to be ready for any eventuality.'

‘I really think I could handle it, grandfather,' Gelane assured me. ‘I've got an Algar friend who's been teaching me how to use a sword.'

I sighed, and then I buried my face in my hands for a while.

There wasn't really very much to do at the Stronghold except to wait for Torak. I suppose Pol and I could have left at any time, but I wanted to be absolutely certain that One-eye didn't change direction on me again. The invasion of Drasnia had caught me completely off guard, and I wasn't going to let that happen again. I wanted to make sure that he was completely committed before I went off and left him to his own devices. I
also
wanted to watch the defenders crush the first few assaults, just to make sure they knew what they were doing.

Riders from the outlying clans came by frequently during the next two weeks to keep us posted. Torak was still advancing, and he showed no signs of veering off.

Then, early one morning when dawn was turning the rain silver, Polgara's voice woke me from my fitful sleep. ‘
I think you'd better come up here, father
.'

‘
Where are you
?'

‘
I can't understand you, father. Just come up to the parapet on top of the north wall, there's something you'd better have a look at
.'

I grumbled a bit, but I climbed out of bed and pulled on my clothes. What was she up to now? The fact that she couldn't understand me was a clear sign that she'd changed form. I went out into the torchlit corridor outside my room and on up those interminable staircases that lead to the top of the Stronghold.

There was a snowy owl perched on the rain-swept battlements.

‘I've asked you not to do that, Pol,' I reminded her.

She blurred and shimmered back into her own form. ‘I'm sorry, father,' she said. ‘I'm not doing it to upset you. I'm following instructions. I think you'd better look at that,' she told me, gesturing toward the north.

I looked out over the battlements. The clouds overhead were dirty-grey and dawn-stained. The rain had slackened to some degree, so it wasn't that solid curtain I'd been staring at for the past several weeks. At first I couldn't
really see anything, but then a movement caught my eye about a mile out on that half-obscured plain. Then, as I looked harder, a mass of humanity seemed to grow out of the mist, a huge, faceless mass that stretched from horizon to soggy horizon.

Kal Torak had reached the Stronghold.

‘Are you sure Torak's with them?' I asked, still staring out at that slow-moving army.

‘Yes, father. I went out and looked. That iron pavillion of his is right in the center of the crowd.'

‘You did
what
? Polgara, that's
Torak
out there! Now he knows you're here!'

‘Don't get excited, old man. I was
told
to do it. Torak had no way of even knowing I was there. He's inside his pavilion, and Zedar's with him.'

‘How long has this been going on?'

‘Since he left Mallorea, I'd imagine. Let's go alert the Algars, and then I think we'll have time for some breakfast. I've been up all night, and I'm positively ravenous.'

It was mid-morning by the time the Angaraks had completed their encirclement of the Stronghold, and noon before they tried their first tentative assault. The Algars and the Drasnian pikemen stayed out of sight, and I think that unnerved Kal Torak's generals just a bit. They'd hauled their siege-engines into place, and they started out by trying to loft boulders into the city. That didn't work out very well, because the walls were too high. I could see their engineers feverishly trying to adjust the catapults to change their trajectory.

Then, more I think to get some sort of response from the defenders rather than out of any hope of success, they mounted an attack on the front gate. They rolled up battering-rams, but that wasn't really necessary. The gate wasn't locked. The first troops through the gate were Thulls. Thulls always seem to get the dirty jobs in Angarak society.

I'm not even sure that the Thulls realized what they'd
encountered when they burst through the gate. As I've said before, the Stronghold isn't a city in the usual sense. Those enormous walls don't enclose houses and public buildings, they enclose an elaborate maze of narrow, high-walled corridors without a roof in sight. The Thulls rushed in, and all they found was geometry. They found corridors laid out in straight lines, in curved lines, in lines so complex that they turned back on themselves and almost seemed to dissolve off into unimaginable dimensions.

The defenders allowed the Thulls to mill around inside that maze for about an hour, and then they rose from their places of concealment atop those twenty-foot-high interior walls and obliterated the intruders.

And the Mallorean generals and the kings of the western Angarak nations still hadn't seen a single defender. They didn't see the horde of Thullish soldiers again either. They'd sent several thousand men through the gate, and not one of them ever came back out again - at least not through the gate.

During the following night, however, they
did
start seeing the men they'd ordered inside. The Algar catapultists atop the walls began lofting dead Thulls into the middle of the Angarak encampment. It's
very
hard to get any sleep when it's raining Thulls.

The next day, the second siege got underway. There were three Algar clans inside the Stronghold. The rest of them were outside. Kal Torak had encircled the Stronghold, and then the free-roving Algar horsemen encircled
him
. They didn't take up positions or dig in fortifications the way besiegers usually do, because cavalry doesn't work that way. The Algars kept moving, and Kal Torak's generals and subordinate kings never knew where or when they'd strike next. It was almost as dangerous for them outside the walls as it was inside.

After a few days, I concluded that Cho-Ram's tactics were working out fine, and Pol and I said good bye to Gelane, his mother, and the Algar clan-chiefs defending
the fortress. And then we flew off to the west through the rainy, wind-swept gloom that seemed to have settled in perpetually. We had other things to attend to.

With Kal Torak effectively pinned down in Algaria, we had some time to expand and polish our plans. We moved our discussions from Riva to Tol Honeth so that we could take advantage of the expertise of the Imperial War College and the Tolnedran General Staff. I found working with professional soldiers to be something of a novelty. Despite their fearsome reputation, Alorns are at best only gifted amateurs, largely because their rank is hereditary. A man who's born a general doesn't have nearly the grasp of things a man who's worked his way up through the ranks has. Tolnedran officers work out contingency plans to deal with surprises. The customary Alorn approach to a battlefield emergency is to simply go berserk and kill everything in sight - including trees and bushes.

Although Ran Borune had by now tentatively - and very reluctantly - conceded that Pol and I might
possibly
have capabilities he wasn't prepared to admit actually existed, she and I remained largely in the background during those meetings. As I told the emperor, ‘There's not much point in distracting your generals by telling them things they're not philosophically prepared to accept. If we announce that I'm sneaking up on my seven thousandth birthday, they'll spend so much time trying to prove that we're lying that they won't be able to pay attention to what they're supposed to be doing. Let's just tell them that Pol and I are Rivans and let it go at that.'

The thing that baffled us the most was the fact that Urvon wasn't moving. He'd brought his army across the Sea of the East, right enough, but then he'd settled down in the Hagga Military District on the southern coast of Cthol Murgos as if he planned to put down roots. Finally, I sent word to the twins that I needed to talk with Beldin face to face. You can only do so much at a distance.

My brother arrived a few days later and came to my
room in the Cherek embassy. It wasn't a particularly large room, but I'm a plain sort of person, so I don't really need luxurious quarters. My first question to him was fairly simple. ‘What's holding him up?'

‘The Murgos,' he replied. ‘What else? That and the fact that he hasn't received his marching orders from Burnt-face yet.'

‘What's Ctuchik's problem?'

‘He doesn't like Urvon.'

‘Who does? I don't think even Torak likes him very much. But Urvon's following orders, and Torak's likely to rip Ctuchik's heart out of his skinny chest if he interferes.'

‘You weren't listening, Belgarath,' my stumpy brother told me. ‘I didn't say it was
Ctuchik
who was blocking Urvon. It's the Murgos - and somewhat more specifically the Murgo Grolims.'

‘What's the difference? Ctuchik rules Cthol Murgos, doesn't he?'

‘That he does, brother, but he's sort of looking the other way at the moment. Let's see if I can explain it. If Urvon reaches Arendia with his army, Torak's very likely to promote him to “Most Favored Disciple”, or whatever you want to call it. Ctuchik doesn't want that to happen, but he doesn't dare interfere - at least not overtly. That doesn't keep him from slipping around behind the scenes, though. He's spent centuries instilling an obsession with racial purity in the collective Murgo mind, and Malloreans aren't pure Angaraks. The average Mallorean's part Angarak, part Karand, part Melcene, with maybe a pinch of Dal thrown in for good measure. Murgos look on Malloreans as mongrels, and they don't hesitate to say so.'

‘Yes, I know all about that, but Murgos take their orders from the Grolims, and no Grolim alive is likely to do anything to offend Torak.'

‘You don't really know that much about Grolims, I see. Grolim politics are very involuted. No matter what Torak might think, there's a great schism in the Angarak religion,
and it's based on the hatred that exists between Ctuchik and that piebald Urvon. Ctuchik dropped a few hints to his Grolims after Urvon landed in Hagga, and his priests have been spreading wild stories all over southern Cthol Murgos about drunken Mallorean soldiers breaking into Murgo houses and raping Murgo women. That's the sort of thing almost guaranteed to make a Murgo go up in flames. Ctuchik's official position is that he'll help Urvon's army in any way he can, but his Grolims are out there spreading atrocity stories for all they're worth. Murgo generals are very polite to Mallorean officers in the daytime - but every night disorganized mobs of common soldiers come out of their barracks and butcher every Mallorean they can lay their hands on. Ctuchik piously sits in Rak Cthol going, “tsk, tsk, tsk”, and pretends that he can't do anything about it, and all Urvon can do is squat in Rak Hagga wringing his hands while Murgo lynch-mobs decimate his army. I know it's an unnatural thing to suggest, but in this particular situation, Ctuchik might turn out to be our most valuable ally.'

‘That'll all come to an end once Torak gives Urvon his marching orders, won't it?'

‘I doubt it. Ctuchik's probably going to obediently order his southern Murgos to join Urvon's army, but all that'll do is give the Murgos an opportunity to get in close to the Malloreans - with knives. The trek across southern Cthol Murgos is likely to be very interesting, and Urvon'll be lucky if he's got a regiment left by the time he reaches the southern Tolnedran border.'

‘What an absolutely beautiful notion.'

‘I thought you might like it.'

‘Why don't I take you to the palace and introduce you to the Tolnedran generals so you can fill them in on this? Oh, incidentally, Pol and I haven't made an issue of who we really are. I'll just tell them that you're a Drasnian spy and let it go at that. Let's not upset the Tolnedran generals just yet.'

He shrugged. ‘If that's the way you want it,' he agreed.

The officer commanding the Tolnedran General Staff was named Cerran, and he was a member of the Anadile family in Southern Tolnedra. The Anadiles had never had sufficient land or power to aspire to the imperial throne, so they usually joined the army. They'd traditionally been closely allied with the Borunes, so when the Borunes were on the throne, you'd normally find an Anadile general in command of the military. General Cerran was a thoroughgoing professional in his early fifties. He was a Tolnedran, so he wasn't as tall as the Alorns, but he was a blocky sort of man with broad shoulders and large hands. He and Brand got along together very well.

I'm not really all that competent with the Drasnian secret language, but I managed to advise Pol and Rhodar that Beldin was posing as a member of Drasnian intelligence, and Rhodar greeted him warmly and introduced him as ‘one of our most valuable agents.' Then Beldin repeated what he'd told me earlier.

‘How long would you say it'll take Urvon to march across southern Cthol Murgos, Master Beldin?' General Cerran asked after my brother had finished his account.

Beldin shrugged. ‘Half a year at least. He'll have to stop every so often to put down riots, I expect.'

‘That tells us one of the things we've needed to know, then. Your friend and his daughter told us that this Kal Torak of Mallorea has to be in Arendia on a certain date. As I understand it, it has something to do with the Angarak religion.'

‘I suppose you could put it that way, yes. So what?'

‘We don't know what that date is, but Kal Torak does. He'll want Urvon in place when that date approaches, so as soon as Urvon starts marching, we'll know that we've got just about a year until we've got to be ready to meet the Angaraks somewhere in Arendia.'

‘That's a little imprecise, Cerran,' Ran Borune objected.

‘It's a lot more specific than anything we've been able to
come up with so far, your Majesty,' Cerran replied. ‘King Cho-Ram assures us that his Stronghold's impregnable, so Kal Torak's going to get more and more frustrated as the time for him to be in Arendia approaches. Eventually he'll be forced to break off his siege and march west. Angaraks take their religious obligations very seriously.' Cerran rose from his chair and went to the large map hanging on the wall of the war-room. ‘An army the size of Kal Torak's won't move very fast,' he noted, ‘particularly not once it gets up into the mountains of Ulgoland. It's a hundred and fifty leagues from the Stronghold to Central Arendia. At ten miles a day, it'll take him forty-five days. Give him another fifteen days to regroup, and we're talking about two months. Our first signal will come when Urvon marches. The second will be Kal Torak's abandonment of the siege of the Stronghold. That's all we really need, isn't it? The Murgos may or may not try to stop Urvon's Malloreans, but
we
definitely will. I rather think that General Urvon's going to be late getting to Arendia. Kal Torak's a foreigner, so he doesn't know all that much about the legions. I fully intend to educate him. I'll stop Urvon dead in his tracks at Tolnedra's southern border.'

Now you see why Pol and I insisted that we coordinate our planning with the Tolnedran generals.

Once we knew that we'd have plenty of warning, we turned our attention to the campaign in Arendia. General Cerran's staff had carefully prepared plans for the defense of just about every location in the country. I'd spoken privately with Brand about that. Very few battles have ever been won from defensive positions. The methodical Tolnedrans, however, had compared Torak's numbers with ours and concluded that our taking the offensive without the legions to help us was absolutely out of the question, and the legions were going to be busy somewhere else.

The Tolnedran generals didn't know why the Alorn kings all deferred to Brand, but they weren't stupid. They recognized respect when they saw it, and after about six
months of those ongoing strategy-sessions, they also recognized Brand's tactical genius. Tolnedrans don't normally have much use for Alorns, but in Brand they could see an altogether different sort of man. His genius lay in his ability to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the various elements that were to be a part of the army that was going to face Kal Torak when the final battle took place.

Our decision not to tell the Tolnedran generals that we were basing a number of our decisions on the ravings of a madman was probably sound. The least hint of mysticism in an associate makes a Tolnedran very nervous. There were times when we had to talk very fast, of course. We knew that certain things were going to happen, but we couldn't tell the Tolnedrans
how
we knew. Rhodar took care of most of that for us. The skills of the Drasnian intelligence service were already legendary, and after a couple of years, the generals had come to believe that there were Drasnian agents hidden in just about every element of the Angarak armies. Every time the inevitable ‘How do you know that?' came up, Rhodar would look sly, take out a piece of paper, and lay it on the table with an insufferably smug expression. The implications were obvious.