Polgara the Sorceress (72 page)

Then Ad Rak Cthoros of the Murgos sent out scouts to the east, and the Algar cavalry disposed of them as well.

At the next call of the horns, we got the answer we’d been waiting for. Uncle Beldin and General Cerran responded with a chorus of Tolnedran trumpets. The Chereks and the Tolnedran legions had arrived on the battlefield.

That’s when father, our resident field-marshal, soared up to his post high above to direct his forces. When everything on the ground was to his satisfaction, he ordered Brand to give the signal for our opening ploy. Brand sounded two horn blasts, and they were echoed by Cho-Ram. Mandor’s answer was immediately followed by the banging open of the gates of Vo Mimbre and the thundering charge of the Mimbrate knights.

Zedar – who should have known better – took the form of a raven and flew out of the iron pavilion to see what we were doing.

Mother surprised me at that point. Without any warning at all, she launched our shared form from our perch and lifted us high above that flapping black raven. Since we were so totally merged, I shared her thoughts and feelings, and I was more than a little surprised to discover that mother’s enmity for Zedar predated his apostasy. Mother, it appeared, had disliked Zedar the first time she’d laid eyes on him. I got the distinct impression that he’d said something to father about her that’d earned him a special place in her heart. Father’s always believed that the owl that came plummeting out of the sky that morning was simply trying to frighten Zedar, but he was wrong. Mother was trying her very best to kill Zedar.

I wonder how things might have turned out if she’d succeeded.

The charge of the Mimbrate knights at the Battle of Vo Mimbre has spawned whole libraries of mediocre poetry, but from a strategic point of view, its only purpose was to pin the Malloreans in place, and it did exactly that. It was dramatic, noisy, noble, and very stirring, but it was really rather secondary. Torak’s understanding of battle tactics was really quite limited, since he’d never really engaged in a battle between equally matched forces before. During the War of the Gods, he’d been outnumbered. During this war, it’d been the other way around. He’d assumed that the attacks on his armies would come from his flanks and his rear, and he’d placed his hordes of Malloreans in the center
to reinforce the Murgos, Nadraks, and Thulls when necessary. The suicidal charge of the Mimbrates prevented the Malloreans from meeting other dangers, and it forced Torak, surrounded and outmaneuvered, to accept Brand’s challenge, the one thing he really didn’t want to do.

Then Zedar tried again, as a deer this time. I’ve always had some suspicions about that. Given Zedar’s nature, isn’t it possible that he was simply trying to run away? The form of a deer was a serious blunder, however, as I’m sure Zedar realized when father started biting chunks out of his haunches.

Our combined forces inexorably tightened around the Angaraks. Torak’s army began to suffer dreadful casualties. Individual Angarak soldiers began to look longingly at the far banks of the River Arend. I now saw why Kal Torak had so feared this third day of battle.

I’ll concede that father’s generalship during the battles was masterly. He countered the enemy’s every move almost before Zedar made it. The charge of the Mimbrate knights was decimating the Malloreans, but even before Zedar could issue orders to the Murgos, father unleashed Beltira and his combined force of Algars, Drasnians and Ulgo irregulars, effectively pinning down the most numerous of the Western Angaraks.

With the legions and Eldrig’s Cherek berserkers marching up the Valley, Zedar didn’t dare weaken his right flank by ordering the Nadraks and Thulls to come in and reinforce the Malloreans. The only available force Zedar had left were his reserves, and once he committed them to the battle raging before the city gates, Belkira was free to advance against the Angarak rear.

It was at that stage of the battle that mother and I, still merged in our assumed form, drifted across the bloody ground toward Torak’s pavilion. Battlefield intelligence has always been sketchy at best. Many a battle has been lost simply because ordinary generals have to wait for couriers or scouts to report enemy movements before they can respond. Father didn’t have that problem. The rest of us could – and did – communicate with him directly and almost instantaneously. Moreover, mother and I could
eavesdrop on Torak and Zedar and pass along what we heard, so father could counter Zedar’s moves before he even made them.

Zedar was pleading with Torak to arm himself and go out of the pavilion to strengthen Angarak resolve, but the Dragon-God adamantly refused, since
this
was the day he’d so long feared.

I’ve looked into the Ashabine Oracles recently, and I can’t for the life of me see how Torak erred so profoundly in his interpretation of certain passages. He evidently assumed automatically that
he
was – and almost always would be – the Child of Dark. Then, by extension, he leapt to the conclusion that the Child of Light would always be the Rivan King, Iron-grip’s heir. That combination
did
take place at Cthol Mishrak when Garion ultimately destroyed Torak, but that was a different EVENT, and it took place in a different war, some five hundred years later. Torak evidently confused the two, and that was the error that won the day for us at Vo Mimbre.

Despite Zedar’s shrill importunings, Torak himself remained quite calm. ‘It is not yet time for me to go forth to confront mine enemies, Zedar,’ he said. ‘As I have told thee, this day is in the hands of pure chance. I do further assure thee, however, that one EVENT shall precede my meeting with the Child of Light, and in
that
EVENT shall I prevail, for it shall be a contest of Wills, and
my
Will doth far outstrip the Will of the one who shall contend with me.
That
is the contest which shall decide this day’s outcome.’

Merged though we were,
some
of mother’s thought still remained concealed from me, but I
did
catch a faint tightening of her resolve. Mother was obviously preparing herself for something, and she was deliberately keeping it from me.

‘I
must
reinforce the Malloreans, Master,’ Zedar was saying with a note of desperation. ‘Have I thy permission to commit such forces as we are holding in reserve?’

‘As it seemeth best to thee, Zedar,’ Torak replied with that God-like indifference that must have driven his disciple wild.

Zedar went to the entrance of the pavilion and issued his
commands to the couriers posted outside. A short while later, the Angarak reserves began their march toward the battle raging before the city gates – even as the Chereks and General Cerran’s legions broke through the Nadrak lines to come to the aid of the Mimbrate knights.

Then, as the confusion on the battlefield increased, father added to it by telling uncle Belkira to unleash the Rivans, Sendars and Asturian archers who’d been concealed in the forest to the north. Bleak and silent, they emerged to occupy the positions Zedar’s reserves had just vacated.

The messengers, all bearing bad news, almost had to line up outside the iron pavilion at that point.

‘Lord Zedar!’ the first exclaimed in a shrill voice, ‘King Ad rak Cthoros is slain, and the Murgos are in confusion!’

‘Lord Zedar!’ the second courier interrupted, ‘the Nadraks and Thulls are in disarray and do attempt to take flight!’

‘Lord Zedar!’ the third bearer of bad tidings broke in, ‘the force to our north is vast! There are Asturian archers with them, and their longbows will obliterate our reserves! Our center is in deadly peril, and the reserves will be unable to come to their aid! We cannot attack the archers, because they are protected by Sendars and Rivans!

Rivans!’
Torak roared. ‘The Rivans have come to this place to confront me?’

‘Yea, most Holy,’ the now terrified messenger replied. ‘The grey-cloaks do march with the Sendars and Asturians upon our rear! Our fate is sealed!’

‘Kill him,’ Torak told one of the Grolims standing in attendance. ‘It is not the place of a messenger to speculate.’

Two Grolims, their eyes alight with fanatic zeal, fell upon the unfortunate messenger, their knives flashing. He groaned, and then fell to the floor.

‘Doth he who stands at the forefront of the Rivans bear a sword?’ Torak demanded of the other messengers, who all stood ashen faced and staring at their fallen compatriot.

‘Yea, oh my God,’ one of them replied, his voice squeaky with terror.

‘And doth that sword flame in his hands?’

‘Nay, my God. It doth seem but an ordinary sword.’

‘Now is my victory assured!’ Torak exulted.

‘My Lord?’ Zedar sounded baffled.

‘He who doth come against me is
not
the Rivan King, Zedar! It is
not
the Godslayer whom I must face this day! His sword is but common iron, and it is not infused by the might of Cthrag Yaska! Verily, upon this day I will prevail. Bid my servants arm me, Zedar, for now I
will
go forth from this place, and the world shall be mine!’

‘Father!’
I almost shouted the thought.
‘Torak’s coming out!’

‘Of course he is, Pol,’
father replied smugly.
‘That’s just the way I planned it.’
Trust father to take credit for almost anything that happens.
‘Come out of there now. It’s time for you and me to join Brand. Don’t dawdle, Pol. We don’t want to be late.’

‘I do wish he’d grow up.’
Mother’s thought was almost clinical as we wriggled back out of the narrow window. Things were moving very fast now, but I still had time to develop a strong suspicion that something was about to happen that I wouldn’t like. That suspicion was powerfully reinforced by the fact that
this
time, mother remained merged with me when we discarded our owl. She’d never done that before, and she adamantly refused to explain it.

Brand was evidently in the grip of that powerful awareness that’s characteristic of the Children of Light. He seemed almost inhumanly calm and completely detached from what was about to happen.

Immediately after father arrived, however, Brand’s expression and manner abruptly changed. His face took on a look of inhuman resolve, and when he spoke it was in a voice of thunder or the deep subterranean roar of an earthquake. ‘In the name of Belar I defy thee, Torak, maimed and accursed! In the name of Aldur also I cast my despite into thy teeth! Let the bloodshed be abated, and I will meet thee – man against God – and I shall prevail against thee! Before thee I cast my gage! Take it up or stand exposed as craven before men and Gods!’

Torak, with Zedar close behind him, had come out of that ridiculous tin castle by now, and Brand’s challenge didn’t seem to sit too well with the God of Angarak. He
roared out his rage and lashed out with his massive sword, shattering boulders and showering the area around him with sparks. That’s when Zedar bolted.

‘Who among mortal kind is so foolish as to thus defy the King of the World?’ Torak bellowed. ‘Who among ye would contend with a God?’

‘I am Brand, Warder of Riva, and I defy thee, foul and misshapen Godling, and all thy putrid host! Bring forth thy might! Take up my gage or slink away and come no more against the kingdoms of the west!’

The entire purpose of the challenge, of course, had been to so enrage Torak that his mind would stop functioning. Had the God of Angarak been thinking clearly, he’d have smelled the trap being set for him. His rage, however, seems to have obliterated any suspicion or even any traces of sanity. ‘BEHOLD!’ he said in a mighty voice, ‘I am Torak, King of Kings and Lord of Lords! I fear no man of mortal kind nor the dim shades of long-forgotten gods! I will go forth and destroy this loud-mouthed Rivan fool, and mine enemies shall fall away before my wrath, and Cthrag Yaska shall be mine again, and the world also!’

And that, of course, was what the entire battle, the whole war, had been all about. Everything we’d suffered had only had one goal – to get Torak close enough to the Master’s Orb so that
it
could dispose of him.

The thunderous exchange had stunned both armies into immobility. The fighting broke off as Kal Torak strode north through his cringing troops and Brand, with my wolfish father trotting along beside him and mother and I in our combined owl hovering over his head, marched south to meet his enemy.

When they were about twenty paces apart, an EVENT occurred, an EVENT that father didn’t even notice. Brand identified himself and added a few more insults just for good measure to keep Torak’s brain on fire.

Torak, however, spoke to father. ‘Begone, Belgarath,’ he warned. ‘Flee if thou wouldst save thy life.’

Father responded appropriately, snarling his defiance.

Then Torak fixed his single eye on me, but he did not threaten. His tone was honeyed, and the force of his Will
overpowering. ‘Abjure thy father, Polgara, and come with me. I will wed thee and make thee Queen of all the world, and thy might and thy power shall be second only to mine.’

I’ve seen small, helpless creatures in the presence of a snake on occasion. The mouse or rabbit knows that the snake is there, and he knows that it’s dangerous, but he seems frozen in place, unable to move as the reptile slowly approaches. I found myself in much the same condition. Torak’s Will had simply overwhelmed me.

The histories of that brief encounter all state that I screamed my defiance of the One-eyed God, but I didn’t. I was unable to utter even a single sound. Torak had met me, and he had conquered me. His single eye burned with triumph as he felt all of my defenses crumble.

What Torak didn’t know, and could not know, was that he faced
three
of the Master’s disciples in that moment rather than just two, and he didn’t even know of the existence of the third. It was the third disciple who defeated him at Vo Mimbre, probably because the third disciple had ties not only to Aldur, but also to UL, Torak’s own father.

Our owl, trembling in every feather, hovered indecisively over Brand’s head, and then I felt the whole of my awareness shunted off into a very small corner of our shared form, and the third disciple, my mother, took over. I’ve been in the presence of Gods many times, but I’ve never felt anything as overpowering as mother’s Will on that day. She drew that force about her and hurled it directly into Torak’s teeth. Had he been human, that force would have exploded him into atoms. The vehicle of her Will was our shared voice, and had it not been so carefully directed, it probably would have shattered glass in all the kingdoms of the west. Because that voice was so tightly controlled and directed, I don’t think anyone actually recognized just how enormous it really was. Birds squawk, warble, tweet, and scream all the time, and nobody really pays much attention. Torak
didn’t
shrug it off, though. Mother’s shriek of defiance carried overtones of the voice of Aldur, and it
also
was the voice of UL. Torak’s Will, which he thought to be so overwhelming, had been directed at
me,
since he didn’t even know that mother was there. The shriek of response,
which he
thought
was coming from me, was so vast that it made the blow he’d aimed at me seem puny by comparison. The maimed God of Angarak was suddenly made uncertain and afraid. I think I may be the only one who saw him visibly flinch when it struck him or saw the burning of the Eye that Was Not flicker with fear and indecision. It was at that point that Torak’s supreme self-confidence shriveled within him, and he was filled with self-doubt when he faced the Rivan Warder. That doubt and fear made the outcome inevitable: