It was at that point that the Baron of Wildantor gave the shrieking Murgos a pointed demonstration of the incredible range of the Asturian longbow. His third rainbow piled heaps of dead Murgos along the east bank of a river that was fully two hundred paces wide.
‘Splendid!’ Mandor cheered. ‘Capital!’
Then we withdrew again, retreating back to the fifth tributary of the River Arend. Wildantor and his archers brought up the rear, pausing every few hundred paces to rake the pursuing Murgos with yard-long arrows, thus giving the Mimbrate knights time to tear down all the bridges except one. Then the Asturians sprayed the Murgos with a prolonged arrow-storm, closed up shop, and retreated across the lone remaining bridge.
As you might expect, Wildantor stood his ground at the east end of the bridge until all his men were safely across. His hands seemed almost to blur as he loosed arrow after arrow into the faces of the advancing Murgos. Then he ran out of arrows, turned, and started across the bridge.
The Mimbrate knights had weakened the bridge timbers to the point that a good healthy sneeze would have made the whole thing collapse, and somewhere up in the mountains to the northeast, Garion’s friend sneezed. A cloudburst, one of the last gasps of that quarter-century-long rainstorm, had filled every ravine and gully with rushing water; it all came down that tributary in a ten-foot wave.
The bridge dissolved under Wildantor’s feet.
I rushed to the west bank, drawing in my Will.
‘Stay out of it, father!’ Pol snapped at me.
‘But -’
‘It’s already been taken care of.’
The Baron of Vo Mandor set his spurs to his horse’s flanks, galloped down to the next bridge, and rolled out of his saddle with a vast clanking of armor. He ran out on the shattered remnants of that wrecked bridge to its very teetering end, knelt and stretched his arm down toward the seething water. ‘Wildantor!’ he bellowed in a voice they probably heard in Vo Mimbre, ‘to me!’
The red-haired Asturian was being carried down-river at a ferocious speed, but he angled across the current and reached up his arm as he was swept past the splintered end of the ruined bridge. The hands of the two men came together with a resounding smack, and the Mimbrate leaned back, literally jerking the Asturian up out of the current. Then, he caught hold of the back of Wildantor’s tunic and swung him up to safety.
Wildantor lay face down for a minute or two, spluttering, coughing and spitting out a quart or so of muddy water. Then he raised his face with a broad grin. ‘You’ve got a nice firm grip there, Mandor,’ he said. ‘You could probably break rocks without using a hammer.’ He sat up, massaged the hand the Mimbrate had nearly crushed, and looked around. ‘I guess I’d better get my bowmen in place,’ he said as if nothing had happened. ‘We’ll hold off the Murgos while you and your knights go tear down some more bridges.’
‘Right,’ Mandor said. He rose, clanking, pulled Wildantor to his feet, and went back to his horse.
Neither of them ever spoke of the incident again, but the sound of that resounding smack when their hands met still seemed to echo in my mind, and it somehow gave me hope for the future.
We continued our slow withdrawal, but after that fifth tributary, where Wildantor’s archers took a dreadful toll on the advancing Murgos, King Ad Rak Cthoros of Murgodom found something very pressing for his soldiers to do elsewhere, and the Thulls were given the chore of rebuilding bridges. Somehow it always seems to work out that way in Angarak society.
All right, our little exercise wasn’t really very creative, but it slowed Kal Torak’s advance for the requisite five days. Always look for the simplest solution to any problem. It’s when you start getting exotic that things begin to go wrong.
The clouds began to blow off during the afternoon of the day when the Thulls finished repairing the bridges crossing the last remaining tributary of the River Arend. Pol and I decided that there wasn’t much point in wasting lives trying to hold back the advancing Angaraks any more. We’d achieved the delay we needed, so we took our forces inside the walls of Vo Mimbre and closed the gates behind us.
The sunset that evening was glorious, and it promised that we’d have clear, sunny skies for the first day of the Battle of Vo Mimbre.
Chapter 40
The southern wall of the city of Vo Mimbre rises out of the River Arend, and the seemingly endless rains of the past quarter-century had filled the river to overflowing. That made an attack from that quarter highly unlikely, so we only had three sides to defend.
I’m sure it wasn’t really necessary, but I went along the top of the golden walls as dusk gathered over Vo Mimbre to check the defenses before I settled in for the night. I’m sure the Mimbrates knew what they were doing, but it never hurts to make sure, particularly when you’re dealing with Arends. I found my two barons, Mandor and Wildantor, standing on the parapet over the main gate looking out gravely at the gradually darkening plain. ‘Is One-eye moving at all?’ I asked them.
‘A few advance parties is all,’ the green-tuniced Wildantor replied. ‘He’ll probably wait until after dark to take up his positions. If we get a decent moon tonight, my archers can make camping right under our wall very expensive for him.’
‘Save your arrows,’ I told him. ‘There’ll be plenty of targets when the sun comes up.’
‘We’ve got lots of arrows, Belgarath. Mandor here’s got Mimbrate fletchers turning them out for us by the barrel-full.’
‘I did note that Asturian arrows are much longer than ours by reason of the extreme length of the Asturian bow,’ Mandor noted, shifting his armor. ‘Since we are temporarily allies, it seemèd me provident to give our friends an ample supply.’
‘Isn’t he a nice boy?’ Wildantor said outrageously, flashing his friend that infectious grin of his.
Mandor laughed. The impudent young red-head seemed to charm him to the point that he was willing to lay aside two eons of hereditary enmity. I approved of that. Their friendship was a good sign of things to come. ‘You gentlemen might as well get some sleep,’ I told them. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.’ Then I left them and went on down to my room.
Polgara was sitting by the fire waiting for me. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked me.
I shrugged. ‘Having a look at the defenses.’
‘The Mimbrates have been preparing for a siege of this city for over two thousand years, father. They know what they’re doing. I’m going to be gone for a while.’
‘Be careful out there.’
‘Of course. Are you going to bed?’
‘Why bother? I’m not going to be able to sleep. I want to talk with Beldin anyway. Don’t be out all night.’ How many fathers have ever said that?
She nodded a bit distantly, and then she left.
‘Beldin,’ I sent out the thought, ‘are you making any progress?’
‘We’re at Tol Honeth,’ he replied. ‘We’ll start down-river in the morning. How are things going there?’
‘We managed to delay Torak. We’re inside the city now. I expect he’ll try to pay us a call first thing in the morning. Are you going to make it in time?’
‘It shouldn’t be any problem. It’s only forty leagues down the river and another forty to Tol Vordue. We should reach the mouth of the River Arend sometime day after tomorrow.’
‘You won’t be able to count on a following wind when you start up the river, you know.’
‘Then we’ll row. That’s why oars were invented. Do me a favor and keep Torak out of Vo Mimbre. We’re working on a tight schedule, so I won’t have time to take the city back from him. Don’t pester me any more, Belgarath. I’m busy.’
I grunted and wandered down the hall to talk with the twins. I didn’t really have anything important to say to them, but I was feeling edgy, and I needed some company.
It was well past midnight when Polgara returned. ‘He’s bringing up his siege-engines,’ she informed us.
‘Do you think the walls’ll hold?’ Beltira asked me.
‘Probably,’ I replied. ‘Vo Mimbre’s not quite as impregnable as the Algarian Stronghold, but it comes fairly close. I think it’s secure - as long as Torak doesn’t start getting exotic. He could knock down a mountain if he really wanted to.’
‘That’s forbidden,’ Belkira assured me. ‘The Necessities have agreed on that point.’
‘I think we’re relatively safe on that score, father,’ Pol said. ‘If Torak were going to knock down mountains, he’d have knocked down the Stronghold. He hasn’t once been out of that iron pavilion since his army crossed the land-bridge.’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked her.
‘He and Zedar were talking about it this evening, and I was eavesdropping.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I definitely wouldn’t want to be in Urvon’s shoes - or Ctuchik’s. Torak’s really put out with both of them. He was really counting on Urvon’s second army. Zedar seems fairly smug, though. Now that Urvon and Ctuchik are in disfavor, he’s the c**k of the walk.’ She paused reflectively. ‘I think we’ll have to keep an eye on Zedar, father. Torak might abide by the prohibition, but Zedar might not. If things start going badly, Zedar’s probably going to break a few rules.’