Belgarath the Sorcerer (57 page)

I smiled faintly. ‘Nervous' was a gross understatement. Brand and I went out of the army headquarters building and strolled across the sodden lawns of the imperial compound. ‘You've been the instrument of Necessity in the past, haven't you?' he asked me once we were certain that no one was near us.

‘I'm not sure I follow you, my friend,' I replied. ‘I've spent my whole life running errands for it.'

‘I'm talking about something a little more specific. As I understand it, you and the Necessity were fairly close when you and Bear-shoulders and the others went to Cthol Mishrak.'

‘Yes. So what?'

‘Did it talk to you?'

‘Oh, yes, that it did.'

‘I'm glad to hear that. I thought that my reason might be slipping. It has a peculiar way of talking, doesn't it?'

‘It's got a warped sense of humor. What's it been saying?'

‘Nothing all that specific. I've been a little edgy about what I'm supposed to do when we all get together at Vo Mimbre, and it's been telling me not to worry so much.' He stopped and looked directly at me. ‘Did you know what you were going to do before you did it? I mean, when something came up, did the knowledge of how to respond just pop into your head?'

I nodded. ‘That's part of the way it works,' I replied. ‘The friend you've got inside your head usually doesn't bother to explain things, he just builds the correct responses into your mind. You don't even have to think about it. What's he got you doing right now?'

‘I'm supposed to persuade the Tolnedrans that the threat of Urvon's army isn't all that great. I'm going to need the legions at Vo Mimbre.'

‘That might take a bit of doing. General Cerran's completely committed to the idea that he's going to have to defend his southern border.'

‘He'll find out that it won't be necessary. Urvon and Ctuchik are going to make a mistake. They won't even reach Nyissa.'

‘What kind of mistake?'

‘I have no idea. The problem's going to be that Cerran won't find out about it until Torak's almost right on top of
Vo Mimbre. He won't have time to march his legions from southern Tolnedra to the battlefield.'

‘We aren't going to march them,' I told him.

‘How are they going to get there, then?'

‘The Chereks are going to sail them there.'

‘How do you know that?'

I made a face. ‘Our mutual friend stuck the idea in my brain several thousand years ago.'

‘You mean you've known all along?'

‘Not consciously. You'll get used to that, Brand. The instructions don't surface until you need them. I think that's part of the agreement between our Necessity and Torak's. As soon as you told me about this “mistake” that Urvon and Ctuchik are going to make, I knew exactly how we were going to get the legions to Vo Mimbre.'

He smiled a wry sort of smile. ‘I guess it makes sense - in a peculiar sort of way. Apparently our friend doesn't want our minds cluttered up with these things until we absolutely need to know them. I just hope he isn't late with the information when Torak and I get started.'

‘Amen to that. Have you got any clues about why the Orb's set in that shield now instead of on the hilt of the sword?'

‘All I know is that I'm not supposed to hit Torak with it - or with anything connected to it. Somebody else is going to do that. All I'm supposed to do is show it to Torak.'

‘Show it to him? He's seen it before, Brand.'

‘
All right, Belgarath, keep your nose out of it
.' I recognized the voice, of course. ‘
You do your work and let Brand do his
.'

The startled look on Brand's face clearly showed that he'd also heard what our friend had just said. ‘Does he always talk to you that way?' he asked.

I nodded glumly. ‘All the time. There must be something about me that sets his teeth on edge. I think we'd better get General Cerran off to one side and start him to thinking about contingency planning.'

‘Why not just tell him who you really are? And where we're getting our instructions from?'

‘No, Brand, not yet. I want him to have his legions at Vo Mimbre before I spring any surprises on him. Cerran's a good solid man, but he's still Tolnedran. We'll tell him that there'll be a Cherek fleet at the mouth of the River of the Woods, “just in case he needs it”. He'll know what to do when the time comes.'

It was in early spring of 4875 when Torak finally threw up his hands in disgust, broke off his siege of the Stronghold, and started marching west with what was left of his army. The Algars and the vengeful Drasnians harried his rear as he moved westward. There are always stragglers trailing along behind any army on the march, but in this situation, those stragglers never caught up with their main force.

When Kal Torak reached Ulgoland, things went even further downhill for him. Every night the Ulgos came out of their caves like hunting cats to cut up the sentries posted around the fringes of the Angarak army. On a number of occasions they even managed to get into the midst of the encampment to kill large numbers of Torak's soldiers. Torak tended to ignore those inconveniences, but his troops grew
very
nervous, and most of them gave up on sleeping altogether.

The maimed God of Angarak grimly pressed on, taking dreadful casualties as he went, and he eventually reached the headwaters of the River Arend.

The Alorn Kings and I had deployed our forces around Vo Mimbre as soon as the twins advised me that Torak was on the move, and all was in readiness - except that we didn't have any Tolnedran legions.

Torak paused to regroup, but we still had no word of what was happening in southern Cthol Murgos. If something didn't happen down there, and very soon, we were going to have to fight without the aid of the legions. This wasn't turning out very well.

Then, late one night when I'd just fallen into a fitful sleep, Beldin's voice woke me up again. ‘
Belgarath
!' he chortled. ‘
You can stop worrying about Urvon! The old piebald isn't going to make it!
'

‘
What happened?
'

‘
The Murgos were cutting his army to pieces, and he wanted some open ground to fight them off. He went out into the Great Desert of Araga, and the Murgos followed him
.'

‘
They exterminated each other?
' I asked gleefully.

‘
No, something else did. Is it still raining there?
'

‘
Beldin, it's been raining almost steadily since 4850. It's never going to let up
.'

‘
It probably will now. The reason for it just went through the Desert of Araga. There's been a blizzard raging in that wasteland for the last five days. There are fifteen-foot snowdrifts piled all over the top of Urvon and the Murgos who were chasing him. Nobody down here is going to go anyplace. Torak's going to have to fight you with just the men he's got
.'

I went down the hallway, woke Pol, and passed Beldin's news on to her.

‘Fortuitous,' she noted, making herself a cup of tea. I've never cared that much for tea myself, but Pol had picked up a taste for the stuff during her years in Vo Wacune.

‘I think it goes a little further than that, Pol,' I disagreed. ‘The foul weather we've endured for the past quarter-century was all in preparation for that blizzard, so we can hardly call it a stroke of luck. Even then, Urvon wouldn't have gone out into that waste and got himself trapped if Ctuchik hadn't been playing games.'

‘How big is that desert?'

‘The Great Desert of Araga? It's about the size of Algaria. There's no way Urvon can dig himself out of those snowdrifts in time to make any difference at Vo Mimbre.'

‘Unless Torak decides to stop and wait for him.'

‘He can't. The EVENT has to take place at a specific time.'

‘I think we've still got a problem, though.'

‘Oh? Things seem to be going along rather well from where I sit.'

‘Don't smirk like that, father.
We
know that Urvon's bogged down, but how are we going to convince Ran Borune and General Cerran that he's no longer a danger to their southern border? We're used to these manipulations of the natural order of things, but they aren't. This blizzard doesn't mean a thing if it doesn't free up the legions.'

Trust Polgara to take the shine off things. I scowled at the floor for a few moments. ‘We'd better talk with Rhodar,' I decided. ‘A dispatch from one of his spies might turn the trick.'

‘That ploy's wearing a bit thin, father. Ran Borune and Cerran both know that we want the legions at Vo Mimbre. A dispatch that just “happens” to arrive in the nick of time's going to make them
very
suspicious. Why not just tell them the truth. Show them your copy of the Mrin and point out the number of times it's been right in the past.'

‘I don't think it'll work, Pol. We might persuade Ran Borune. He's seen enough in the past few years to realize that there's more going on here than he can rationally explain. But we've made such a point of giving the generals reasonable explanations for things, that a sudden jump into reality's going to jerk Cerran up short. It'd take months to persuade him, and we don't
have
months. Torak's marching down the River Arend toward Vo Mimbre right now, and it's going to take the Chereks a while to ferry the legions north to Arendia. Cerran's learned that Rhodar's information's usually correct. Let's try it that way before we jump off into something exotic. I want those legions at Vo Mimbre, and I don't have time to educate the Tolnedran General Staff.'

‘This isn't going to be settled by armies, father. Brand and Torak are going to fight a duel, and
that's
the EVENT we're waiting for. All this maneuvering around isn't anything but preparation.'

‘
Necessary
preparation, Pol. Torak outnumbers us if we don't have the legions. He won't have any reason to accept Brand's challenge unless the issue's in doubt. We're going to have to bloody his nose a bit before he'll even consider coming out of that iron pavilion of his to engage in single combat with the Child of Light. Torak might be crazy, but he's not foolish enough to risk something like that unless we force him into it.'

‘We still have to get past General Cerran.'

‘I know. Let's get Rhodar and go to the palace. We might as well get started with this.'

As I'd more or less expected, Ran Borune was inclined to accept Rhodar's story about a dispatch from the south.
The Tolnedran emperor was shrewd enough to realize that Pol and I had ways to get information that he couldn't fully understand, and as long as we gave him a graceful way to take what we told him on faith, he was willing to go along with us. General Cerran, however, dug in his heels. ‘I'm sorry, your Majesty,' he apologized to his emperor, ‘but I simply can't advise leaving our southern border undefended without some verification of this report. I'm not trying to be offensive, King Rhodar, but I'm sure you can see my position. All I've got to go on here is an encrypted message that I can't even read, from a man I don't even know. His dispatch might be exaggerated, or it might even be that he was captured and
forced
to send the message. Nothing would suit Urvon better than tricking us into pulling the legions out of the south. If the report's inaccurate, Urvon could be camped in the streets of Tol Borune before we could get back into position.'

‘How long would it take you to get some verification, Cerran?' Ran Borune asked him.

‘A couple of weeks at least, your Majesty,' the general replied. ‘I've got three legions on the north bank of the River Borgasa in southern Nyissa. They're functioning primarily as scouts to give us a warning when Urvon approaches the Nyissan border. If I can get orders to them to go have a look, a mounted patrol could cut across the southwestern tip of Goska to the desert and be back again in a week or ten days.' He spread his hands helplessly. ‘I'm sorry, your Majesty, but that's about the best I can do. You can only move information as fast as a man on a good horse can carry it. That's always been the problem with large campaigns. I wish there were a faster way, but there isn't.'

He was wrong about that, of course. There
is
a faster way, but I couldn't explain it to him - not in terms that he'd understand, anyway.

‘I think you're in a bit of a quandary, General Cerran,' Polgara said. ‘If Rhodar's report isn't accurate, Urvon could still come at you from the south, but if Kal Torak wins at
Vo Mimbre, he'll be sitting on your northern border with nothing between him and Tol Honeth but a few unarmed peasants. At that point, you'll be looking at a repetition of what happened in Drasnia.'

That
worried him a little bit, and it worried Ran Borune even more. The shrewd little emperor thought about it for a few moments. ‘How about a compromise here?' he asked finally.

‘I'm willing to listen, Ran Borune,' Rhodar said.

‘Why don't we send half the legions to Arendia and leave the other half where they are?'

‘Will that be enough, Belgarath?' Rhodar asked.

‘It'll be touch and go,' I replied dubiously.

‘Is that your Majesty's decision?' Cerran asked his emperor. ‘It covers both borders, but …' He left it in the air.

‘I don't see that we've got much choice, Cerran. We're going to have to protect ourselves on both sides.'

‘I
hate
two-front wars,' Cerran muttered. He scowled at the ceiling for a while. ‘Numerical superiority's largely a matter of appearances,' he mused. ‘Less than half the troops are actually engaged, in most cases. The rest are held in reserve - usually where the opposing general can see them.'

‘That's the way it normally works, yes,' Rhodar agreed.

‘I
do
have some additional forces available,' Cerran told us. ‘They aren't very well trained, they aren't in good condition, and I wouldn't want to venture any guarantees about how well they can fight, but they'll
look
impressive to Kal Torak.'

‘Where did you come up with this phantom army of yours, Cerran?' Ran Borune asked him.

‘There are eight legions in the imperial garrison right here in Tol Honeth, your Majesty. They're fat and lazy, and they're mostly Honethites. No man's ever come up with a way to make real soldiers out of Honeths, but at least they'll swell our ranks at Vo Mimbre.'

‘It's a start,' Rhodar conceded.

‘I think I can go a little further,' Cerran added. ‘There are twelve legion training camps here in the vicinity of Tol Honeth, and seven more up near Tol Vordue. Those recruits probably can't even march in a straight line yet, but they
have
got uniforms. That'd give us the
appearance
of twenty-seven additional legions to beef up our reserves. If we pull half of the regular legions off the southern border and reinforce them with these pseudo soldiers, Kal Torak's going to look out and see something in excess of seventy-five legions -
and
King Eldrig's berserkers - on his right flank. I think that'll get his attention.'

‘General Cerran, you're a genius!' Ran Borune enthused.

‘You know, Belgarath,' Rhodar said to me, ‘it might just work at that. Kal Torak's probably crazy, but Ad Rak Cthoros of Cthol Murgos isn't, and neither's Yar Lek Thun of the Nadraks. They're
not
going to let their armies be exterminated as long as there's a Mallorean presence on this continent. They might bow down to Kal Torak, but they aren't stupid enough to trust him. If it starts to
look
as if they're seriously outnumbered, I think they'll try to defect - or escape. I'll talk with Cho-Ram about it. If the Murgos and Nadraks start getting homesick, I don't think we should get in their way when they start back east.'

‘What about the Thulls?' Cerran asked him.

‘The Thulls couldn't find their way home without guide-dogs, General,' Rhodar replied, laughing. ‘Thulls have what you might call a very limited sense of direction. Thulls have a very limited grasp of just about anything. It takes the average Thull a half a day just to tie his shoes.'

‘You gentlemen
do
realize that you're basing the fate of the world on an elaborate trick, don't you?' Polgara asked us.

‘It's a gamble, Lady Polgara,' Rhodar admitted gaily, ‘but gambling's a lot of fun sometimes, and the higher the stakes, the more exciting it is.'

She sighed and rolled her eyes upward, but she didn't say anything.

‘It's about the best we can do, Belgarath,' Ran Borune apologized. ‘The legions are all spread out along the River of the Woods. General Cerran can get the ones closest to the coast down to the mouth of the River of the Woods and the Cherek fleet in fairly short order. Those that are further east would take too long to reach the coast to be of any use at Vo Mimbre anyway.'

‘I'll take personal command of our forces in Arendia,' Cerran added. ‘I
might
be able to persuade the Honeths to earn their pay for a change.'

‘Well,' I said, ‘if it's the best we can do, it'll have to be enough.' I'm sure I sounded a little dubious, but I was actually quite pleased. Cerran's phantom army might very well be enough to persuade Kal Torak to accept Brand's challenge when the time came.

Torak wasn't moving very fast. The weather still hadn't really returned to normal, and his army was slogging through foot-deep mud. He also stopped frequently to crush every fortified house, every castle, and every serfs' village he came across. The prisoners he took were turned over to the Grolims, of course. There were other things slowing him down as well - little things like the Algars, the Drasnians, the Ulgos, and the Asturian bowmen. The upper reaches of the River Arend are heavily forested, so there were lots of opportunities for ambushes. I'd had some doubts about the enthusiasm of the Asturians, to be honest with you. Kal Torak was invading
Mimbre
, after all, but after Eldallan's bowmen had seen a few Angarak atrocities, their archery improved to the point that there was no place in the horde that was truly safe from Asturian arrows, and Kal Torak of Mallorea took horrid casualties as he marched west toward Vo Mimbre.

Beldin had flown north from the Desert of Araga, and he was with King Eldrig at the mouth of the River of the Woods. The Tolnedran legions were drifting in, but it didn't seem to me that they were moving very fast. I didn't make
an issue of that with General Cerran, though. I needed him, so I was careful not to be offensive.

Eldrig was in the south with his fleet when the twins arrived in Tol Honeth with some additional clues they'd dredged out of the Mrin, but the rest of us still gathered in the Cherek embassy. If there was anyplace in Tol Honeth that was secure from the prying eyes and ears of Ran Borune's spies, it was the Cherek embassy, and we were going to be talking about things that were none of Ran Borune's business. I rather like the Cherek embassy in Tol Honeth anyway. It's a homey, Alorn sort of place that's a welcome relief from marble-encased Tolnedran stuffiness. The chairs are rough-hewn and covered with fur, and the fireplaces are always going, even in the summertime. Chereks are convinced that they discovered fire, so blazing fireplaces are a sort of religious observance for them.

Once we'd gathered in a fairly standard Alorn council chamber and the ambassador had sent his bully-boys through the building to weed out any spies, we got down to business. Beltira uncased one of the scrolls of the Mrin and read to us from it. ‘“Behold!”' he read. ‘“It shall come to pass that the Dragon God shall be engaged before the golden city for three days, and then the Child of Light shall issue his challenge. And on the third day shall all be decided by the EVENT.”'

‘At least it won't be a protracted siege,' Cho-Ram noted.

‘I'd been sort of hoping that it might be,' I said. I went to the map and measured off some distances. ‘I think we'd better stop harassing Torak's rear and pull those troops back a bit. If we keep crowding him, he might not stop to regroup. He'll just rush out onto that plain around Vo Mimbre and start the assault on the city. Whether we like it or not, that'll be the first day of that three-day battle the Mrin talks about, and I want Eldrig and Cerran to be a lot closer before things get that far along.'

‘He might just go ahead and attack anyway, Belgarath,' Rhodar pointed out. ‘He's the one with the calendar, so he
knows when he has to be there. We don't. If he's running behind, he won't stop.'

‘Logic suggests that he gave himself plenty of time, Rhodar,' Pol disagreed. ‘A lot of things have to happen before the EVENT, and Torak knows that - probably even better than we do. Certain things are going to have to be in place before Brand can issue his challenge, and if Torak does anything to disrupt any of that, we'll have an entirely different EVENT - one that's probably not even mentioned in the Mrin
or
the Ashabine Oracles. At that point,
nobody'll
know what's going to happen.'