Silk, walking backward and swing his bush, was sweeping leaves and twigs from the forest floor over the tracks they had made from the trail to the thicket. He was moving quickly, but was careful to obliterate their trail completely.
From behind them, Garion heard a faint snap and rustle in the leaves, and Ce'Nedra crawled up and sank to the ground at his side. "You shouldn't be this close to the edge of the brush," he told her in a low voice.
"Neither should you," she retorted.
He let that pass. The princess had a warm, flowerlike smell; for some reason, that made Garion very nervous.
"How far away do you think they are?" she whispered.
"How would I know?"
"You're a sorcerer, aren't you?"
"I'm not that good at it."
Silk finished brushing away the tracks and stood for a moment studying the ground as he looked for any trace of their passage he might have missed. Then he burrowed his way into the thicket and crouched down a few yards from Garion and Ce'Nedra.
"Lord Hettar wanted to fight them," Ce'Nedra whispered to Garion. "Hettar always wants to fight when he sees Murgos."
"The Murgos killed his parents when he was very young. He had to watch while they did it."
She gasped. "How awful!"
"If you children don't mind," Silk said sarcastically, "I'm trying to listen for horses."
Somewhere beyond the trail they had just left, Garion heard the thudding sound of horses' hooves moving at a trot. He sank down deeper into the leaves and watched, scarcely breathing.
When the Murgos appeared, there were about fifteen of them, mailshirted and with the scarred cheeks of their race. Their leader, however, was a man in a patched and dirty tunic and with coarse black hair. He was unshaven, and one of his eyes was out of line with its fellow. Garion knew him.
Silk drew in a sharp breath with an audible hiss. "Brill," he muttered.
"Who's Brill?" Ce'Nedra whispered to Garion.
"I'll tell you later," he whispered back. "Shush!"
"Don't shush me!" she flared.
A stem look from Silk silenced them.
Brill was talking sharply to the Murgos, gesturing with short, jerky movements. Then he raised his hands with his fingers widespread and stabbed them forward to emphasize what he was saying. The Murgos all nodded, their faces expressionless, and spread out along the trail, facing the woods and the thicket where Garion and the others were hiding. Brill moved farther up the trail. "Keep your eyes open," he shouted to them. "Let's go."
The Murgos started to move forward at a walk, their eyes searching. Two of them rode past the thicket so close that Garion could smell the sweat on their horses' flanks.
"I'm getting tired of that man," one of them remarked to the other.
"I wouldn't let it show," the second one advised.
"I can take orders as well as any man," the first one said, "but that one's beginning to irritate me. I think he would look better with a knife between his shoulder blades."
"I don't think he'd like that much, and it might be a little hard to manage."
"I could wait until he was asleep."
"I've never seen him sleep."
"Everybody sleeps-sooner or later."
"It's up to you," the second replied with a shrug, "but I wouldn't try anything rash - unless you've given up the idea of ever seeing Rak Hagga again."
The two of them moved on out of earshot.
Silk crouched, gnawing nervously at a fingernail. His eyes had narrowed to slits, and his sharp little face was intent. Then he began to swear under his breath.
"What's wrong, Silk?" Garion whispered to him.
"I've made a mistake," Silk answered irntably. "Let's go back to the others." He turned and crawled through the bushes toward the spring at the center of the thicket.
Mister Wolf was seated on a log, scratching absently at his splinted arm. "Well?" he asked, looking up.
"Fifteen Murgos," Silk replied shortly. "And an old friend."
"It was Brill," Garion reported. "He seemed to be in charge."
"Brill?" The old man's eyes widened with surprise.
"He was giving orders and the Murgos were following them," Silk said. "They didn't like it much, but they were doing what he told them to do. They seemed to be afraid of him. I think Brill's something more than an ordinary hireling."
"Where's Rak Hagga?" Ce'Nedra asked. Wolf looked at her sharply.
"We heard two of them talking," she explained. "They said they were from Rak Hagga. I thought I knew the names of all the cities in Cthol Murgos, but I've never heard of that one."
"You're sure they said Rak Hagga?" Wolf asked her, his eyes intent.
"I heard them too," Garion told him. "That was the name they used - Rak Hagga."
Mister Wolf stood up, his face suddenly grim. "We're going to have to hurry then. Taur Urgas is preparing for war."
"How do you know that?" Barak asked him.
"Rak Hagga's a thousand leagues south of Rak Goska, and the southern Murgos are never brought up into this part of the world unless the Murgo king is on the verge of going to war with someone."
"Let them come," Barak said with a bleak smile.
"If it's all the same to you, I'd like to get our business attended to first. I've got to go to Rak Cthol, and I'd prefer not to have to wade through whole armies of Murgos to get there." The old man shook his head angrily. "What is Taur Urgas thinking of?" he burst out. "It's not time yet."
Barak shrugged. "One time's as good as another."
"Not for this war. Too many things have to happen first. Can't Ctuchik keep a leash on that maniac?"
"Unpredictability is part of Taur Urgas' unique charm," Silk observed sardonically. "He doesn't know himself what he's going to do from one day to the next."
"Knowest thou the king of the Murgos?" Mandorallen inquired.
"We've met," Silk replied. "We're not fond of each other."
"Brill and his Murgos should be gone by now," Mister Wolf said. "Let's move on. We've got a long way to go, and time's starting to catch up with us." He moved quickly toward his horse.
Shortly before sundown they went through a high pass lying in a notch between two mountains and stopped for the night in a little glen a few miles down on the far side.
"Keep the fire down as much as you can, Durnik," Mister Wolf warned the smith. "Southern Murgos have sharp eyes and they can see the light from a fire from miles away. I'd rather not have company in the middle of the night."