Ce’Nedra laughed.
By the time they reached the cart, the seedy-looking man in a rust-red smock had pulled his vehicle off to the side of the road, and he and Silk had joined in song—a rather bawdy one.
“Ah, there you are,” Silk said, squinting owlishly at Sadi. “I wondered how long it was going to take you to catch up. Here—” He thrust the flagon at the eunuch. “Have a drink.”
Sadi feigned taking a long drink from the flagon. Then he sighed lustily, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and handed the flagon back.
Silk passed it to the carter. “Your turn, friend.” The carter took a drink and then grinned foolishly. “I haven’t felt this good in weeks,” he said.
“We’re riding toward the east,” Sadi told him.
“I saw that right off,” the carter said. “That’s unless you’ve taught your horses to run backward.” He laughed uproariously at that, slapping his knee in glee.
“How droll,” the eunuch murmured. “Do you come from that village just up ahead?”
“Lived there all my life,” the carter replied, “and my father before me—and his father before him—and his father’s father before that and—”
“Have you seen a dark-cloaked woman with a babe in her arms go past here within the last week?” Sadi interrupted him. “She probably would have been in the company of a fairly large party of Grolims.”
The carter made the sign to ward off the evil eye at the mention of the word “Grolim.”
“Oh, yes. She came by all right,” he said, “and she went into the local Temple here—if you can really call it a Temple. It’s no bigger than my own house and it’s only got three Grolims in it—two young ones and an old one. Anyway, this woman with the babe in her arms, she goes into the Temple, and we can hear her talking, and pretty soon she comes out with our three Grolims—only the old one was trying to talk the two young ones into staying, and then she says something to the young ones and they pull out their knives and start stabbing the old one, and he yells and falls down on the ground dead as mutton, and the woman takes our two young Grolims back out to the road, and they join in with the others and they all go off, leaving us only that old dead one lying on his face in the mud and—”
“How many Grolims would you say she had with her?” Sadi asked.
“Counting our two, I’d say maybe thirty—or forty—or it could be as many as fifty. I’ve never been very good at quick guesses like that. I can tell the difference between three and four, but after that I get confused, and—”
“Could you give us any idea of exactly how long ago all that was?”
“Let’s see.” The carter squinted at the sty, counting on his fingers. “It couldn’t have been yesterday, because yesterday I took that load of barrels over to Toad-face’s farm. Do you know Toad-face? Ugliest man I ever saw, but his daughter’s a real beauty. I could tell you stories about her, let me tell you.”
“So it wasn’t yesterday?”
“No. If definitely wasn’t yesterday. I spent most of yesterday under a haystack with Toad-face’s daughter.And I know it wasn’t the day before, because I got drunk that day and I don’t remember a thing that happened after midmorning.” He took another drink from the flagon.
“How about the day before that?”
“It could have been,” the carter said, “or the day before that.”
“Or even before?”
The carter shook his head. “No, that was the day our pig farrowed, and I know that the woman came by after that. It had to have been the day before the day before yesterday or the day before that.”
“Three or four days ago, then?”
“If that’s the way it works out,” the carter shrugged, drinking again.
“Thanks for the information, friend,” Sadi said. He looked at Silk. “We should be moving on, I suppose,” he said.
“Did you want your jar back?” the carter asked.
“Go ahead and keep it, friend,” Silk said. “I think I’ve had enough anyway.”
“Thanks for the ale—and the talk,” the carter called after them as they rode away. Garion glanced back and saw that the fellow had climbed down from his cart and was engaging in an animated conversation with his horse.
“Three days!” Ce’Nedra exclaimed happily.
“Or, at the most, four,” Sadi said.
“We’re gaining on her!” Ce’Nedra said, suddenly leaning over and throwing her arms about the eunuch’s neck.
“So it appears, your Majesty,” Sadi agreed, looking slightly embarrassed.
They camped off the road again that night and started out again early the following morning. The sun was just coming up when the large, blue-banded hawk came spiraling in, flared, and shimmered into the form of Beldin at the instant its talons touched the road. “You’ve got company waiting for you just ahead,” he told them, pointing at the first line of foothills of the Mountains of Zamad lying perhaps a mile in front of them.
“Oh?” Belgarath said, reining in his horse.
“About a dozen Grolims,” Beldin said. They’re hiding in the bushes on either side of the road.”
Belgarath swore.
“Have you been doing things to annoy the Grolims?” the hunchback asked.
Belgarath shook his head. “Zandramas has been gathering them as she goes along. She’s got quite a few of them with her now. She probably left that group behind to head off pursuit. She knows that we’re right behind her.”
“What are we going to do, Belgarath?” Ce’Nedra asked. “We’re so close. We can’t stop now.”
The old man looked at his brother sorcerer. “Well?” he said.
Beldin scowled at him. “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it, but don’t forget that you owe me, Belgarath.”
“Write it down with all the other things. We’ll settle up when this is all over.”
“Don’t think I won’t.”
“Did you find out where Nahaz took Urvon?”
“Would you believe they went back to Mal Yaska?” Beldin sounded disgusted.
“They’ll come out eventually,” Belgarath assured him. “Are you going to need any help with the Grolims? I could send Pol along if you like.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“No. I was just asking. Don’t make too much noise.” Beldin made a vulgar sound, changed again, and swooped away.
“Where’s he going?” Silk asked.
“He’s going to draw off the Grolims.”
“Oh? How?”
“I didn’t ask him,” Belgarath shrugged. “We’ll give him a little while and then we should be able to ride straight on through.”
“He’s very good, isn’t he?”
“Beldin? Oh, yes, very, very good. There he goes now.”
Silk looked around. “Where?”
“I didn’t see him—I heard him. He’s flying low a mile or so to the north of where the Grolims are hiding, and he’s kicking up just enough noise to make it sound as if the whole group of us are trying to slip around them without being seen.” He glanced at his daughter. “Pol, would you take a look and see if it’s working?”
“All right, father.” She concentrated, and Garion could feel her mind reaching out, probing. “They’ve taken the bait,” she reported. “They all ran off after Beldin.”
“That was accommodating of them, wasn’t it? Let’s move on.”
They pushed their horses into a gallop and covered the distance to the first foothills of the Mountains of Zamad in a short period of time. They followed the road up a steep slope and through a shallow notch. Beyond that the terrain grew more rugged, and the dark green forest rose steeply up the flanks of the peaks.
Garion began to sense conflicting signals from the Orb as he rode. At first he had only felt its eagerness to follow the trail of Zandramas and Geran, but now he began to feel a sullen undertone, a sound of ageless, implacable hatred, and at his back where the sword was sheathed, he began to feel an increasing heat.
“Why is it burning red?” Ce’Nedra asked from behind him.