The column behind them stretched out for miles, dwarfed into a thin line by the enormous emptiness and marked more by the cloud of yellow dust raised by thousands of feet than by the presence of men and horses. The Cherek ships, covered with canvas, jolted along over the rocky ground on their low, wheeled cradles, and the dust hung over them in the stifling heat like a gritty blanket.
"I'd pay a lot for a breeze right now," Anheg said wistfully, wiping his face.
"Just leave things the way they are, Anheg," Barak advised him. "It wouldn't take much to start a dust storm."
"How much farther is it to the river?" King Rhodar asked plaintively, looking at the unchanging landscape. The heat was having a brutal effect on the corpulent monarch. His face was beet red, and he was soaked and dripping with sweat.
"Still about forty leagues," Hettar replied.
General Varana, mounted on a roan stallion, cantered back from the vanguard of the column. The general wore a short leather kilt and a plain breastplate and helmet bearing no marks of his rank. "The Mimbrate knights just flushed out another pocket of Murgos," he reported.
"How many?" King Rhodar asked.
"Twenty or so. Three or four got away, but the Algars are chasing them."
"Shouldn't our patrols be farther out?" King Anheg fretted, mopping his face again. "Those ships don't look that much like wagons. I'd rather not have to fight my way down the River Mardu-if we ever get there."
"I've got people moving around out there, Anheg," King Cho-Hag assured him.
"Has anyone run across any Malloreans yet?" Anheg asked.
"Not so far," Cho-Hag replied. "All we've seen so far are Thulls and Murgos."
"It looks as if 'Zakath is holding firm at Thull Zelik," Varana added.
"I wish I knew more about him," Rhodar said.
"The Emperor's emissaries report that he's a very civilized man," Varana said. "Cultured, urbane, very polite."
"I'm sure there's another side to him," Rhodar disagreed. "The Nadraks are terrified of him, and it takes a lot to frighten a Nadrak."
"As long as he stays at Thull Zelik, I don't care what kind of man he is," Anheg declared.
Colonel Brendig rode forward from the toiling column of infantry and wagons stretched out behind them. "King Fulrach asks that we halt the column for a rest period," he reported.
"Again?" Anheg demanded irritably.
"We've marched for two hours, your Majesty," Brendig pointed out. "Marching in all this heat and dust is very exhausting for infantry. The men won't be much good in a fight if they're all wrung out from walking."
"Halt the column, Colonel," Polgara told the Sendarian baronet. "We can rely on Fulrach's judgment in these matters." She turned to the King of Cherek. "Stop being so peevish, Anheg," she chided him.
"I'm being broiled alive, Polgara," he complained.
"Try walking for a few miles," she told him sweetly. "That may give you some insight into how the infantry feels "
Anheg scowled, but remained silent.
Princess Ce'Nedra pulled in her sweating mount as the column halted. The princess had spoken very little since Adara had been wounded. The dreadful sense of her responsibility for her friend's nearly fatal injury had sobered her enormously, and she had retreated into a kind of shell that was totally unnatural for her. She removed the loosewoven straw hat that a captive Thull had made for her back at the fort and squinted at the blistering sky.
"Put the hat back on, Ce'Nedra," Lady Polgara told her. "I don't want you getting sunstroke."
Ce'Nedra obediently put her hat back on. "He's coming back," she reported, pointing at a speck in the sky high above them.
"Will you excuse me?" General Varana said, turning his horse to leave.
"You're being absurd, Varana," King Rhodar told the Tolnedran. "Why do you insist on refusing to admit he can do things you don't want to believe in?"
"It's a matter of principle, your Majesty," the general replied. "Tolnedrans do not believe in sorcery. I am a Tolnedran, therefore I do not admit that it exists." He hesitated. "I must concede, however, that his information is surprisingly accurate - however he gets it."
A large, blue-banded hawk fell suddenly out of the broiling air like a stone, flared his wings at the last moment, and settled on the ground directly in front of them.
General Varana resolutely turned his back and stared with apparently deep interest at a featureless hill some five miles distant.
The hawk began to shimmer and change even as he folded his wings. "Are you stopping again?" Beldin demanded irascibly.
"We have to rest the troops, Uncle," Polgara replied.
"This isn't a Sunday stroll, Pol," Beldin retorted. He began to scratch one armpit, befouling the air around him with a string of rancid curses.
"What's the matter?" Polgara asked mildly.
"Lice," he grunted.
"How did he get lice?"
"I visited some other birds to ask if they'd seen anything. I think I picked them up in a vulture's nest."
"What could possibly possess you to go consorting with vultures?"
"Vultures aren't that bad, Pol. They perform a necessary function, and the chicks do have a certain charm. The she-vulture had been picking at a dead horse about twenty leagues south of here. After she told me about it, I went down to take a look. There's a Murgo column coming this way."
"How many?" General Varana asked quickly, his back still turned to them.
"A thousand or so," Beldin shrugged. "They're pushing hard. They'll probably intercept you tomorrow morning."
"A thousand Murgos aren't that much to worry about," King Rhodar said, frowning. "Not to an army of this size. But what's the point of throwing a thousand men away? What does Taur Urgas hope to accomplish?" He turned to Hettar. "Do you suppose you could ride ahead and ask Korodullin and the Baron of Vo Mandor to join us. I think we ought to have a conference."
Hettar nodded and loped his horse ahead toward the gleaming ranks of the Mimbrate knights at the head of the column.
"Were there any Grolims with the Murgos, Uncle?" Polgara asked the filthy hunchback.
"Not unless they were well-hidden," he replied. "I didn't probe too much, though. I didn't want to give myself away."
General Varana abruptly abandoned his careful study of the hills around them and turned his horse about to join them. "My first guess would be that the Murgo column is a token gesture from Taur Urgas. He probably wants to get on the good side of King Gethell; and since the Malloreans won't leave Thull Zelik, he can pick up some advantage by committing a few troops to aid in the defense of the Thullish towns and villages we've been destroying."