Ce'Nedra had leaned back and was resting on her elbows, looking up at him. "Garion?"

"Yes?"

"Would you like to kiss me?"

Garion's heart started to pound.

Then Durnik's voice called to them from not far away, and for one flaming instant Garion hated his old friend.

Chapter Twenty.

"MISTRESS POL SAYS THAT IT'S TIME for you to come back to the tents," Durnik told them when he reached the glade. There was a faint hint of amus.e.m.e.nt on his plain, dependable face, and he looked knowingly at the two of them.

Garion blushed and then grew angry with himself for blushing. Ce'Nedra, however, showed no concern at all.

"Have the Dryads come yet?" she asked, getting to her feet and brushing the gra.s.s from the back of her tunic.

"Not yet," Durnik answered. "Wolf says that they should find us soon. There seems to be some kind of storm building up to the south, and Mistress Pol thought the two of you ought to come back."

Garion glanced at the sky and saw a layer of inky clouds moving up from the south, staining the bright blue sky as they rolled ponderously northward. He frowned. "I've never seen clouds like that, have you, Durnik?"

Durnik looked up. "Strange," he agreed.

Garion rolled up the two wet towels, and they started back down the stream. The clouds blotted out the sun, and the woods became suddenly very dark. The sense of watchfulness was still there, that wary awareness they had all felt since they had entered the wood, but now there was something else as well. The great trees stirred uneasily, and a million tiny messages seemed to pa.s.s among the rustling leaves.

"They're afraid," Ce'Nedra whispered. "Something's frightening them."

"What?" Durnik asked.

"The trees - they're afraid of something. Can't you feel it?"

He stared at her in perplexity.

Far above them the birds suddenly fell silent, and a chill breeze began to blow, carrying with it a foul reek of stagnant water and rotting vegetation.

"What's that smell?" Garion asked, looking about nervously.

"Nyissa is south of here," Ce'Nedra said. "It's mostly swamps."

"Is it that close?" Garion asked.

"Not really," she said with a small frown. "It must be sixty leagues or more."

"Would a smell carry that far?"

"It's not likely," Durnik said. "At least it wouldn't be in Sendaria."

"How far is it to the tents?" Ce'Nedra asked.

"About a half-mile," Durnik answered.

"Maybe we should run," she suggested.

Durnik shook his head. "The ground's uneven," he said, "and running in bad light's dangerous. We can walk a bit faster, though." They hurried on through the gathering gloom. The wind began to blow harder, and the trees trembled and bent with its force. The strange fear that seemed to permeate the wood grew stronger.

"There's something moving over there," Garion whispered urgently and pointed at the dark trees on the other side of the stream.

"I don't see anything," Ce'Nedra said.

"There, just beyond the tree with the large white limb. Is it a Dryad?"

A vague shape slid from tree to another in the half light. There was something chillingly wrong with the figure. Ce'Nedra stared at it with revulsion. "It's not a Dryad," she said. "It's something alien."

Durnik picked up a fallen limb and gripped it like a cudgel with both hands. Garion looked quickly around and saw another limb. He too armed himself.

Another figure shambled between two trees, a bit closer this time. "We'll have to chance it," Durnik said grimly. "Be careful, but run. Get the others. Now go!"

Garion took Ce'Nedra's hand, and they started to run along the streambank, stumbling often. Durnik lagged farther and father behind, his two-handed club swinging warningly about him.

The figures were now all around them, and Garion felt the first surges of panic.

Then Ce'Nedra screamed. One of the figures had risen from behind a low bush directly in front of them. It was large and ill-shaped, and there was no face on the front of its head. Two eye-holes stared vacantly as it shambled forward with its half-formed hands reaching out for them. The entire figure was a dark gray mud color, and it was covered with rotting, stinking moss that adhered to its oozing body.

Without thinking, Garion thrust Ce'Nedra behind him and leaped to the attack. The first blow of his club struck the creature solidly in the side, and the club merely sank into the body with no visible effect. One of the outstretched hands touched his face, and he recoiled from that slimy touch with revulsion. Desperately he swung again and struck the thing solidly on the forearm. With horror he saw the arm break off at the elbow. The creature paused to pick up the still-moving arm.

Ce'Nedra screamed again, and Garion spun about. Another of the mud-men had come up behind her and had grasped her about the waist with both arms. It was starting to turn, lifting the struggling princess from the ground when Garion swung his club with all his might. The blow was not aimed at head or back, but rather at the ankles.

The mud-man toppled backward with both of its feet broken off. Its grip about Ce'Nedra's waist, however, did not loosen as it fell.

Garion jumped forward, discarding his club and drawing his dagger. The substance of the thing was surprisingly tough. Vines and dead twigs were encased in the clay which gave it its shape. Feverishly, Garion cut away one of the arms and then tried to pull the screaming princess free. The other arm still clung to her. Almost sobbing with the need to hurry, Garion started hacking at the remaining arm.

"Look out!" Ce'Nedra shrieked. "Behind you!"

Garion looked quickly over his shoulder. The first mud-man was reaching for him. He felt a cold grip about his ankle. The arm he had just severed had inched its way across the ground and grasped him.

"Garion!" Barak's voice roared from a short distance off.

"Over here!" Garion shouted. "Hurry!"

There was a crashing in the bushes, and the great, red-bearded Cherek appeared, sword in hand, with Hettar and Mandorallen close behind. With a mighty swing, Barak cut off the head of the first mudman. It sailed through the air and landed with a sickening thump several yards away. The headless creature turned and groped blindly, trying to put its hands on its attacker. Barak paled visibly and then chopped away both outstretched arms. Still the thing shambled forward.

"The legs," Garion said quickly. He bent and hacked at the clay hand about his ankle.

Barak lopped off the mud-man's legs, and the thing fell. The dismembered pieces crawled toward him.

Other mud-men had appeared, and Hettar and Mandorailen were laying about them with their swords, filling the air with chunks and pieces of living clay.

Barak bent and ripped away the remaining arm which held Ce'Nedra.

Then he jerked the girl to her feet and thrust her at Garion. "Get her back to the tents!" he ordered. "Where's Durnik?"

"He stayed behind to hold them off," Garion said.

"We'll go help him," Barak said. "Run!"

Ce'Nedra was hysterical, and Garion had to drag her to the tents.

"What is it?" Aunt Pol demanded.

"Monsters out there in the woods," Garion said, pushing Ce'Nedra at her. "They're made out of mud, and you can't kill them. They've got Durnik." He dove into one of the tents and emerged a second later with his sword in his hand and fire in his brain.

"Garion!" Aunt Pol shouted, trying to disentangle herself from the sobbing princess. "What are you doing?"

"I've got to help Durnik," he said.

"You stay where you are."

"No!" he shouted. "Durnik's my friend." He dashed back toward the fight, brandishing his sword.

"Garion! Come back here!"

He ignored her and ran through the dark woods.

The fray was raging about a hundred yards from the tents. Barak, Hettar and Mandorallen were systematically chopping the slime-covered mud-men into chunks, and Silk darted in and out of the melee, his short sword leaving great gaping holes in the thick, moss-covered monsters. Garion plunged into the fight, his ears ringing and a kind of desperate exultation surging through him.

And then Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol were there with Ce'Nedra hovering ashen-faced and trembling behind them. Wolf's eyes blazed, and he seemed to tower over them all as he gathered his will. He thrust one hand forward, palm up. "Fire!" he commanded, and a sizzling bolt of lightning shot upward from his hand into the whirling clouds overhead. The earth trembled with the violence of the shattering thunderclap. Garion reeled at the force of the roaring in his mind.

Aunt Pol raised her hand. "Water!" she said in a powerful voice. The clouds burst open, and rain fell so heavily that it seemed that the air itself had turned to water.

The mud-men, still mindlessly stumbling forward, began to ooze and dissolve in the thundering downpour. With a kind of sick fascination, Garion watched them disintegrate into sodden lumps of slime and rotten vegetation, surging and heaving as the pounding rain destroyed them.

Barak reached forward with his dripping sword and tentatively poked at the shapeless lump of clay that had been the head of one of their attackers. The lump broke apart, and a coiled snake unwound from its center. It raised itself as if to strike, and Barak chopped it in two.

Other snakes began to appear as the mud which had encased them dissolved in the roaring deluge.

"That one," Aunt Pol said, pointing at a dull green reptile struggling to free itself from the clay. "Fetch it for me, Garion."

"Me?" Garion gasped, his flesh crawling.

"I'll do it," Silk said. He picked up a forked stick and pinned the snake's head down with it. Then he carefully took hold of the wet skin at the back of the serpent's neck and lifted the twisting reptile.

"Bring it here," Aunt Pol ordered, wiping the water from her face. Silk carried the snake to her and held it out. The forked tongue flickered nervously, and the dead eyes fixed on her.

"What does this mean?" she demanded of the snake.

The serpent hissed at her. Then in a voice that was a sibilant whisper it replied, "That, Polgara, is the affair of my mistress."

Silk's face blanched as the dripping snake spoke, and he tightened his grip.

"I see," Aunt Pol said.

"Abandon this search," the snake hissed. "My mistress will allow you to go no further."

Aunt Pol laughed scornfully. "Allow?" she said. "Your mistress hasn't the power to allow me anything."

"My mistress is the queen of Nyissa," the snake said in its whispering hiss. "Her power there is absolute. The ways of the serpent are not the ways of men, and my mistress is queen of the serpents. You will enter Nyissa at your own peril. We are patient and not afraid. We will await you where you least expect us. Our sting is a small injury, scarce noted, but it is death."

"What's Salmissra's interest in this matter?" Aunt Pol asked.

The serpent's flickering tongue darted at her. "She has not chosen to reveal that to me, and it is not in my nature to be curious. I have delivered my message and already received my reward. Now do with me as you wish."

"Very well," Aunt Pol said. She looked coldly at the snake, her face streaming in the heavy rain.

"Shall I kill it?" Silk asked, his face set and his fingers white-knuckled from the strain of holding the thick-coiling reptile.

"No," she said quietly. "There's no point in destroying so excellent a messenger." She fixed the snake with a flinty look. "Return with these others to Salmissra," she said. "Tell her that if she interferes again, I'll come after her, and the deepest slime-pit in all Nyissa won't hide her from my fury."

"And my reward?" the snake asked.

"You have your life as a reward," she said.

"That's true," the serpent hissed. "I will deliver your message, Polgara."

"Put it down," Aunt Pol told Silk.

The small man bent and lowered his arm to the ground. The snake uncoiled from about his arm, and Silk released it and jumped back. The snake glanced once at him, then slithered away.

"I think that's enough rain, Pol," Wolf said, mopping at his face. Aunt Pol waved her hand almost negligently, and the rain stopped as if a bucket had emptied itself.

"We have to find Durnik," Barak reminded them.

"He was behind us." Garion pointed back up the now-overflowing stream. His chest felt constricted with a cold fear at what they might find, but he steeled himself and led the way back into the trees.

"The smith is a good companion," Mandorallen said. "I should not care to lose him." There was a strange, subdued quality in the knight's voice, and his face seemed abnormally pale in the dim light. The hand holding his great broadsword, however, was rock-steady. Only his eyes betrayed a kind of doubt Garion had never seen there before.

Water dripped around them as they walked through the sodden woods. "It was about here," Garion said, looking around. "I don't see any sign of him."

"I'm up here." Durnik's voice came from above them. He was a goodly distance up a large oak tree and was peering down. "Are they gone?" He carefully began climbing down the slippery tree trunk. "The rain came just in time," he said, jumping down the last few feet. "I was starting to have a little trouble keeping them out of the tree."

Quickly, without a word, Aunt Pol embraced the good man, and then, as if embarra.s.sed by that sudden gesture, she began to scold him. Durnik endured her words patiently, and there was a strange expression on his face.