"Yes, Beldin," Ce'Nedra said meekly.
As the stars began to come out, the anchors were raised and the Cherek fleet began to slip quietly downriver toward Thull Mardu. Though they were still some miles above the city, commands were issued in hoarse whispers, and the men all took great care to avoid making noise as they shifted their weapons and equipment, tightening belts, giving their armor quick, last-minute checks and settling their helmets more firmly on their heads.
Amid ships, Relg was leading his Ulgos in a quiet religious service, muttering the harsh gutturals of the Ulgo tongue in a scarcely audible murmur. Their pale faces had been smeared with soot, and they looked like so many shadows as they knelt in prayer to their strange God.
"They're the key to the whole thing," Rhodar observed quietly to Polgara as he watched the devotions of the Ulgos. "Are you sure that Relg is all right for this? Sometimes he seems a bit unstable."
"He'll be fine," Polgara replied. "The Ulgos have even more reason to hate Torak than you Alorns do."
The drifting ships slowly rounded a wide bend in the river, and there, a half mile downstream, stood the walled city of Thull Mardu, rising from its island in the middle of the river. There were a few torches atop the walls, and a faint glow rising from within. Barak turned and, shielding it with his body, he briefly uncovered a muffled lantern, letting out a single flicker of light. The anchors sank very slowly through the dark waters toward the riverbottom; with a very faint creak of ropes, the ships slowed, then stopped.
Somewhere inside the city a dog began to bark excitedly. Then a door banged open, and the barking cut off suddenly with a yelp of pain.
"I don't have much use for a man who kicks his own dog," Barak muttered.
Relg and his men moved very quietly to the rail and began to clamber down ropes into the small boats waiting below.
Ce'Nedra watched breathlessly, straining with her eyes to see in the darkness. The very faint starlight briefly showed her several shadows drifting down toward the city. Then the shadows were gone. Behind them there was a faint splash of an oar, followed by an angrily hissed admonition. The princess turned and saw a moving tide of small boats coming downriver from the anchored fleet. The spearhead of the assault slid silently by, following Relg and his Ulgos toward the fortified island city of the Thulls.
"Are you sure there are enough of them?" Anheg whispered to Rhodar.
The rotund King of Drasnia nodded. "All they have to do is secure a landing place for us and hold the gate once the Ulgos get it open," he murmured. "There's enough of them for that."
A faint night breeze rippled the surface of the river, setting the ship to rocking. Unable to bear the suspense any longer, Ce'Nedra lifted her fingertips to the amulet Garion had given her so many months before. As always, a buzz of conversation filled her ears.
"Yaga, for gohek vilta." It was Relg's harsh voice, speaking in a whisper. "Ka tak. feedh."
"Well?" Polgara asked, one eyebrow slightly raised.
"I can't tell what they're saying," Ce'Nedra replied helplessly. "They're talking in Ulgo."
A strangled groan quite suddenly seemed to come from the amulet itself and then was quickly and horribly cut off.
"I - I think they just killed somebody," Ce'Nedra said in a quavering voice.
"It's started then," Anheg said with a certain grim satisfaction. Ce'Nedra pulled her fingertips from the amulet. She could no longer bear to listen to the sound of men dying in the dark.
They waited.
Then someone screamed, a scream filled with a terrible agony.
"That's it!" Barak declared. "That's the signal! Pull the anchor!" he shouted to his men.
Very suddenly beneath the high, dark walls of Thull Mardu, two separate fires flared up, and shadowy figures could be seen moving about them. At the same moment, there was a clanking rattle of heavy chains inside the city and a creaking groan as a broad gate swung ponderously down to form a bridge across the narrow north channel of the river.
"Man your oars!" Barak roared to his crew. He swung his tiller hard over, steering toward the rapidly lowering bridge.
More torches appeared along the tops of the walls, and there were shouts of alarm. Somewhere an iron bell began to clang a note of desperate urgency.
"It worked!" Anheg exclaimed, gleefully pounding Rhodar on the back. "It actually worked!"
"Of course it worked," Rhodar replied, his voice also jubilant. "Don't pound on me so hard, Anheg. I bruise easily."
All need for silence was gone now, and a great roar went up from the massed fleet following in Barak's wake. Torches flared, and the faces of the troops lining the rails were bathed in their ruddy glow.
A great splash suddenly erupted from the river twenty yards to the right of Barak's ship, showering everyone on deck with a deluge of water.
"Catapult!" Barak shouted, pointing at the walls looming ahead. Like a huge, preying insect, the heavy-beamed frame of the siege-engine balanced atop the wall, its long throwing arm already cocking back to cast another boulder at the approaching fleet. Then the arm stopped as a storm of arrows swept the top of the wall clean. A crowd of Drasnians, easily identifiable by the long pikes they carried, overran the position.
"Watch out, down there," one of them roared into the confusion at the base of the wall, and the siege engine ponderously toppled outward and fell with a crash onto the rocks below.
There was a thunder of hoofs across the now-lowered bridge, and the Mimbrate knights crashed into the city.
"As soon as we tie up to the bridge, I want you and the princess and the other ladies to go to the north bank," King Rhodar said tersely to Polgara. "Get back out of harm's way. This will probably take the rest of the night, and there's no point in exposing any of you to any accidents."
"Very well, Rhodar," Polgara agreed. "And don't you do anything foolish, either. You're a rather large target, you know."
"I'll be all right, Polgara - but I'm not going to miss this." He laughed then, a strangely boyish laugh. "I haven't had so much fun in years," he declared.
Polgara gave him a quick look. "Men!" she said in a tone that said everything.
A guard of Mimbrate knights escorted the ladies and Errand perhaps a thousand yards upstream to an indented cove on the north bank of the stream, well away from the press of the horsemen rushing toward the beleaguered city. The cove had a gently sloping sand beach and was protected on three sides by steep, grass-covered banks. Durnik the smith and Olban quickly raised a tent for them, built a small fire, and then climbed up the bank to watch the attack.