"There'd be a war, wouldn't there? And the Angaraks would win, and there'd be Grolims everywhere with their knives and their altars." The thought of Grolims marching up to the gates of Faldor's farm outraged him.

"Don't go borrowing trouble, Garion. Let's worry about one thing at a time, shall we?"

"But what if-"

"Garion," she said with a pained look, "don't belabor the 'what ifs,' please. If you start that, you'll just worry everybody to death."

"You say 'what if' to grandfather all the time," he accused.

"That's different," she replied.

They rode hard for the next several days through a series of pa.s.ses with the dry, bitter chill pressing at them like some great weight. Silk rode back often to look for any signs of pursuit, but their ruse seemed to have fooled the Murgos. Finally, about noon on a cold, sunless day when the wind was kicking up dust clouds along the horizon, they reached the broad, arid valley through which the south caravan route wound. They took cover behind a low hill while Silk rode on ahead to take a quick look.

"Thinkest thou that Taur Urgas hath joined in the search for us?" Mandorallen, dressed again in his armor, asked Belgarath.

"It's hard to say for sure," the old sorcerer replied. "He's a very unpredictable man."

"There's a Murgo patrol headed east on the caravan route," Silk reported when he returned. "It will be another half hour or so until they're out of sight."

Belgarath nodded.

"Do you think we'll be safe once we cross over into Mishrak ac Thull?" Durnik asked.

"We can't count on it," Belgarath replied. "Gethel, the king of the Thulls, is afraid of Taur Urgas, so he wouldn't make any kind of fuss about a border violation if Taur Urgas decided to follow us."

They waited until the Murgos had crossed a low ridge to the east and then moved out again.

For the next two days they rode steadily to the northwest. The terrain grew less rocky after they crossed into the land of the Thulls, and they saw the telltale dust clouds far behind them that spoke of mounted Murgo search parties. It was late in the afternoon of a murky day when they finally reached the top of the eastern escarpment.

Barak glanced back over his shoulder at the dust clouds behind them, then pulled his horse in beside Belgarath's. "Just how rough is the ground leading down into the Vale?" he asked.

"It's not the easiest trail in the world."

"Those Murgos are less than a day behind us, Belgarath. If we have to pick our way down, they'll be on top of us before we make it."

Belgarath pursed his lips, squinting at the dust clouds on the southern horizon. "Perhaps you're right," he said. "Maybe we'd better think this through." He raised his hand to call a halt. "It's time to make a couple of decisions," he told the rest of them. "The Murgos are a little closer than we really want them to be. It takes two to three days to make the descent into the Vale, and there are places where one definitely doesn't want to be rushed."

"We could always go on to that ravine we followed coming up," Silk suggested. "It only takes a half day to go down that way."

"But Lord Hettar and the Algar clans of King Cho-Hag await us in the Vale," Mandorallen objected. "Were we to go on, would we not lead the Murgos down into undefended country?"

"Have we got any choice?" Silk asked him.

"We could light fires along the way," Barak suggested. "Hettar will know what they mean."

"So would the Murgos," Silk said. "They'd ride all night and be right behind us every step of the way down."

Belgarath scratched sourly at his short white beard. "I think we're going to have to abandon the original plan," he decided. "We have to take the shortest way down, and that means the ravine, I'm afraid. We'll be on our own once we get down, but that can't be helped."

"Surely King Cho-Hag will have scouts posted along the foot of the escarpment," Durnik said, his plain face worried.

"We can hope so," Barak replied.

"All right," Belgarath said firmly, "we'll use the ravine. I don't altogether like the idea, but our options seem to have been narrowed a bit. Let's ride."

It was late afternoon when they reached the shallow gully at the top of the steep notch leading down to the plain below. Belgarath glanced once down the precipitous cut and shook his head. "Not in the dark," he decided. "Can you see any signs of the Algars?" he asked Barak, who was staring out at the plain below.

"I'm afraid not," the red-bearded man answered. "Do you want to light a fire to signal them?"

"No," the old man replied. "Let's not announce our intentions."

"I will need a small fire, though," Aunt Pol told him. "We all need a hot meal."

"I don't know if that's wise, Polgara," Belgarath objected.

"We'll have a hard day tomorrow, father," she said firmly. "Durnik knows how to build a small fire and keep it hidden."

"Have it your own way, Pol," the old man said in a resigned tone of voice.

"Naturally, father."

It was cold that night, and they kept their fire small and well sheltered. As the first light of dawn began to stain the cloudy sky to the east, they rose and prepared to descend the rocky cut toward the plain below.

"I'll strike the tents," Durnik said.

"Just knock them down," Belgarath told him. He turned and nudged one of the packs thoughtfully with his foot. "We'll take only what we absolutely have to have," he decided. "We're not going to have the time to waste on these."

"You're not going to leave them?" Durnik sounded shocked.

"They'll just be in the way, and the horses will be able to move faster without them."

"But - all of our belongings!" Durnik protested.

Silk also looked a bit chagrined. He quickly spread out a blanket and began rummaging through the packs, his quick hands bringing out innumerable small, valuable items and piling them in a heap on the blanket.

"Where did you get all those?" Barak asked him.

"Here and there," Silk replied evasively.

"You stole them, didn't you?"

"Some of them," Silk admitted. "We've been on the road for a long time, Barak."

"Do you really plan to carry all of that down the ravine?" Barak asked, curiously eyeing Silk's treasures.

Silk looked at the heap, mentally weighing it. Then he sighed with profound regret. "No," he said, "I guess not." He stood up and scattered the heap with his foot. "It's all very pretty though, isn't it? Now I guess I'll have to start all over again." He grinned then. "It's the stealing that's fun, anyway. Let's go down." And he started toward the top of the steeply descending streambed that angled sharply down toward the base of the escarpment.

The unburdened horses were able to move much more rapidly, and they all pa.s.sed quite easily over spots Garion remembered painfully from the upward climb weeks before. By noon they were more than halfway down.

Then Polgara stopped and raised her face. "Father," she said calmly, "they've found the top of the ravine."

"How many of them?"

"It's an advance patrol - no more than twenty."

Far above them they heard a sharp clash of rock against rock, and then, after a moment, another. "I was afraid of that," Belgarath said sourly.

"What?" Garion asked.

"They're rolling rocks down on us." The old man grimly hitched up his belt. "All right, the rest of you go on ahead. Get down as fast as you can.

"Are you strong enough, father?" Aunt Pol asked, sounding concerned. "You still haven't really recovered, you know."

"We're about to find out," the old man replied, his face set. "Move - all of you." He said it in a tone that cut off any possible argument. As they all began scrambling down over the steep rocks, Garion lagged farther and farther behind. Finally, as Durnik led the last packhorse over a jumble of broken stone and around a bend, Garion stopped entirely and stood listening. He could hear the clatter and slide of hooves on the rocks below and, from above, the clash and bounce of a large stone tumbling over the ravine, coming closer and closer. Then there was a familiar surge and roaring sound. A rock, somewhat larger than a man's head, went whistling over him, angling sharply up out of the cut to fall harmlessly far out on the tumbled debris at the floor of the escarpment. Carefully Garion began climbing back up the ravine, pausing often to listen.

Belgarath was sweating as Garion came into sight around a bend in the ravine a goodly way above and ducked back out of the old man's sight. Another rock, somewhat larger than the first, came bounding and crashing down the narrow ravine, bouncing off the walls and leaping into the air each time it struck the rocky streambed. About twenty yards above Belgarath, it struck solidly and spun into the air. The old man gestured irritably, grunting with the effort, and the rock sailed out in a long arc, clearing the walls of the ravine and falling out of sight.

Garion quickly crossed the streambed and went down several yards more, staying close against the rocky wall and peering back to be sure he was concealed from his grandfather.

When the next rock came bouncing and clashing down toward them, Garion gathered his will. He'd have to time it perfectly, he knew, and he peered around a corner, watching the old man intently. When Belgarath raised his hand, Garion pushed his own will in to join his grandfather's, hoping to slip a bit of unnoticed help to him.

Belgarath watched the rock go whirling far out over the plain below, then he turned and looked sternly down the ravine. "All right, Garion," he said crisply, "step out where I can see you."

Somewhat sheepishly Garion went out into the center of the streambed and stood looking up at his grandfather.

"Why is it that you can never do what you're told to do?" the old man demanded.

"I just thought I could help, that's all."

"Did I ask for help? Do I look like an invalid?"

"There's another rock coming."

"Don't change the subject. I think you're getting above yourself, young man."

"Grandfather!" Garion said urgently, staring at the large rock bounding down the ravine directly for the old man's back. He threw his will under the rock and hurled it out of the ravine.

Belgarath looked up at the stone soaring over his head. "Tacky, Garion," he said disapprovingly, "very tacky. You don't have to throw them all the way to Prolgu, you know. Stop trying to show off."

"I got excited," Garion apologized. "I pushed a little too hard."

The old man grunted. "All right," he said a bit ungraciously, "as long as you're here anyway but stick to your own rocks. I can manage mine, and you throw me off balance when you come blundering in like that."

"I just need a little practice, that's all."

"You need some instruction in etiquette, too," Belgarath told him, coming on down to where Garion stood. "You don't just jump in with help until you're asked. That's very bad form, Garion."

"Another rock coming," Garion informed him politely. "Do you want to get it or shall I?"

"Don't get snippy, young man," Belgarath told him, then turned and flipped the approaching rock out of the ravine.

They moved on down together, taking turns on the rocks the Murgos were rolling down the ravine. Garion discovered that it grew easier each time he did it, but Belgarath was drenched with sweat by the time they neared the bottom. Garion considered trying once again to slip his grandfather a bit of a.s.sistance, but the old sorcerer glared at him so fiercely as he started to gather in his will that he quickly abandoned the idea.

"I wondered where you'd gone," Aunt Pol said to Garion as the two clambered out over the rocks at the mouth of the ravine to rejoin the rest of the party. She looked closely at Belgarath. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"I'm just fine," he snapped. "I had all this a.s.sistance - unsolicited, of course." He glared at Garion again.

"When we get a bit of time, we're going to have to give him some lessons in controlling the noise," she observed. "He sounds like a thunderclap."

"That's not all he has to learn to control." For some reason the old man was behaving as if he'd just been dreadfully insulted.

"What now?" Barak asked. "Do you want to light signal fires and wait here for Hettar and Cho-Hag?"

"This isn't a good place, Barak," Silk pointed out. "Half of MurG.o.dom's going to come pouring down that ravine very shortly."

"The pa.s.sage is not wide, Prince Kheldar," Mandorallen observed.

"My Lord Barak and I can hold it for a week or more if need be."

"You're backsliding again, Mandorallen," Barak told him.

"Besides, they'd just roll rocks down on you," Silk said. "And they're going to be dropping boulders off the edge up there before long. We're probably going to have to get out on the plain a ways to avoid that sort of thing."

Durnik was staring thoughtfully at the mouth of the ravine. "We need to send something up there to slow them down, though," he mused. "I don't think we want them right behind us."

"It's a little hard to make rocks roll uphill," Barak said.

"I wasn't thinking of rocks," Durnik replied. "We'll need something much lighter."

"Like what?" Silk asked the smith.

"Smoke would be good," Durnik answered. "The ravine should draw just like a chimney. If we build a fire and fill the whole thing with smoke, n.o.body's going to come down until the fire goes out."

Silk grinned broadly. "Durnik," he said, "you're a treasure."

Chapter Five.

THERE WERE BUSHES, scrub and bramble for the most part, growing here and there along the base of the cliff, and they quickly fanned out with their swords to gather enough to build a large, smoky fire. "You'd better hurry," Belgarath called to them as they worked. "There are a dozen Murgos or more already halfway down the ravine."

Durnik, who had been gathering dry sticks and splintered bits of log, ran back to the mouth of the ravine, knelt and began striking sparks from his flint into the tinder he always carried. In a few moments he had a small fire going, the orange flames licking up around the weathered gray sticks. Carefully he added larger pieces until his fire was a respectable blaze. Then he began piling thornbushes and brambles atop it, critically watching the direction of the smoke. The bushes hissed and smoldered fitfully at first, and a great cloud of smoke wafted this way and that for a moment, then began to pour steadily up the ravine. Durnik nodded with satisfaction. "Just like a chimney," he observed. From far up the cut came shouts of alarm and a great deal of coughing and choking.

"How long can a man breathe smoke before he chokes to death?" Silk asked.