The Sendars who participated in the battle were a part of the force
under the leadership of Brand, the Rivan Warder. That force, consisting
of Rivans, Sendars and Asturian Arends, assaulted the Angarak rear after
the left had been engaged by Algars, Drasnians and Ulgos; the right by
Tolnedrans and Chereks; and the front by the legendary charge of the
Mimbrate Arends. For hours the battle had raged until, in the center of
the field, Brand had met in a single combat with Kal Torak himself. Upon
that duel had hinged the outcome of the battle.
Although twenty generations had passed since that titanic encounter,
it was still as fresh in the memory of the Sendarian farmers who worked
on Faldor's farm as if it had happened only yesterday. Each blow was
described, and each feint and parry. At the final moment, when it seemed
that he must inevitably be overthrown, Brand had removed the covering
from his shield, and Kal Torak, taken aback by some momentary confusion,
had lowered his guard and had been instantly struck down.
For Rundorig, the description of the battle was enough to set his
Arendish blood seething. Garion, however, found that certain questions
had been left unanswered by the stories.
"Why was Brand's shield covered?" he asked Cralto, one of the older hands.
Cralto shrugged. "It just was," he said. "Everyone I've ever talked with about it agrees on that."
"Was it a magic shield?" Garion persisted.
"It may have been," Cralto said, "but I've never heard anyone say so.
All I know is that when Brand uncovered his shield, Kal Torak dropped
his own shield, and Brand stabbed his sword into Kal Torak's head
through the eye, or so I am told."
Garion shook his head stubbornly. "I don't understand," he said. "How would something like that have made Kal Torak afraid?"
"I can't say," Cralto told him. "I've never heard anyone explain it."
Despite his dissatisfaction with the story, Garion quite quickly
agreed to Rundorig's rather simple plan to re-enact the duel. After a
day or so of posturing and banging at each other with sticks to simulate
swords, Garion decided that they needed some equipment to make the game
more enjoyable. Two kettles and two large pot lids mysteriously
disappeared from Aunt Pol's kitchen; and Garion and Rundorig, now with
helmets and shields, repaired to a quiet place to do war upon each
other.
It was all going quite splendidly until Rundorig, who was older,
taller and stronger, struck Garion a resounding whack on the head with
his wooden sword. The rim of the kettle cut into Garion's eyebrow, and
the blood began to flow. There was a sudden ringing in Garion's ears,
and a kind of boiling exaltation surged up in his veins as he rose to
his feet from the ground.
He never knew afterward quite what happened. He had only sketchy
memories of shouting defiance at Kal Torak in words which sprang to his
lips and which even he did not understand. Rundorig's familiar and
somewhat foolish face was no longer the face before him but rather was
replaced by something hideously maimed and ugly. In a fury Garion struck
at that face again and again with fire seething in his brain.
And then it was over. Poor Rundorig lay at his feet, beaten senseless
by the enraged attack. Garion was horrified at what he had done, but at
the same time there was the fiery taste of victory in his mouth.
Later, in the kitchen, where all injuries on the farm were routinely
taken, Aunt Pol tended their wounds with only minimal comments about
them. Rundorig seemed not to be seriously hurt, though his face had
begun to swell and turn purple in several places and he had difficulty
focusing his eyes at first. A few cold cloths on his head and one of
Aunt Pol's potions quickly restored him.
The cut on Garion's brow, however, required a bit more attention. She
had Durnik hold the boy down and then she took needle and thread and
sewed up the cut as calmly as she would have repaired a rip in a sleeve,
all the while ignoring the howls from her patient. All in all, she
seemed much more concerned about the dented kettles and battered pot
lids than about the war wounds of the two boys.
When it was over, Garion had a headache and was taken up to bed.
"At least I beat Kal Torak," he told Aunt Pol somewhat drowsily.
She looked at him sharply.
"Where did you hear about Torak?" she demanded.
"It's Kal Torak, Aunt Pol," Garion explained patiently.
"Answer me."
"The farmers were telling stories-old Cralto and the others-about
Brand and Vo Mimbre and Kal Torak and all the rest. That's what Rundorig
and I were playing. I was Brand and he was Kal Torak. I didn't get to
uncover my shield, though. Rundorig hit me on the head before we got
that far."
"I want you to listen to me, Garion," Aunt Pol said, "and I want you
to listen carefully. You are never to speak the name of Torak again."
"It's Kal Torak, Aunt Pol," Garion explained again, "not just Torak."
Then she hit him - which she had never done before. The slap across
his mouth surprised him more than it hurt, for she did not hit very
hard.
"You will never speak the name of Torak again. Neverl" she said.
"This is important, Garion. Your safety depends on it. I want your
promise."
"You don't have to get so angry about it," he said in an injured tone.
"Promise."
"All right, I promise. It was only a game."
"A very foolish one," Aunt Pol said. "You might have killed Rundorig."
"What about me?" Garion protested.
"You were never in any danger," she told him. "Now go to sleep."
And as he dozed fitfully, his head light from his injury and the
strange, bitter drink his aunt had given him, he seemed to hear her
deep, rich voice saying, "Garion, my Garion, you're too young yet." And
later, rising from deep sleep as a fish rises toward the silvery surface
of the water, he seemed to hear her call, "Father, I need you." Then he
plunged again into a troubled sleep, haunted by a dark figure of a man
on a black horse who watched his every movement with a cold animosity
and something that hovered very near the edge of fear; and behind that
dark figure he had always known to be there but had never overtly
acknowledged, even to Aunt Pol, the maimed and ugly face he had briefly
seen or imagined in the fight with Rundorig loomed darkly, like the
hideous fruit of an unspeakable evil tree.
Part one sendaria Chapter Two
NOT LONG AFTER in the endless noon of Garion's boyhood, the
storyteller appeared once again at the gate of Faldor's farm. The
storyteller, who seemed not to have a proper name as other men do, was a
thoroughly disreputable oid man. The knees of his hose were patched and
his mismatched shoes were out at the toes. His long-sleeved woolen
tunic was belted about the waist with a piece of rope, and his hood, a
curious garment not normally worn in that part of Sendaria and one which
Garion thought quite fine with its loosely fitting yoke covering
shoulders, back and chest, was spotted and soiled with spilled food and
drink. Only his full cloak seemed relatively new. The old storyteller's
white hair was cropped quite close, as was his beard. His face was
strong, with a kind of angularity to it, and his features provided no
clue to his background. He did not resemble Arend nor Cherek, Algar nor
Drasnian, Rivan nor Tolnedran, but seemed rather to derive from some
racial stock long since forgotten. His eyes were a deep and merry blue,
forever young and forever full of mischief.The storyteller appeared from
time to time at Faldor's farm and was always welcome. He was in truth a
rootless vagabond who made his way in the world by telling stories. His
stories were not always new, but there was in his telling of them a
special kind of magic. His voice could roll like thunder or hush down
into a zepherlike whisper. He could imitate the voices of a dozen men at
once; whistle so like a bird that the birds themselves would come to
him to hear what he had to say; and when he imitated the howl of a wolf,
the sound could raise the hair on the backs of his listeners' necks and
strike a chill into their hearts like the depths of a Drasnian winter.
He could make the sound of rain and of wind and even, most miraculously,
the sound of snow falling. His stories were filled with sounds that
made them come alive, and through the sounds and the words with which he
wove the tales, sight and smell and the very feel of strange times and
places seemed also to come to life for his spellbound listeners.