Demon Lord of Karanda

a few less we'll have to kill."
    "Suit yourself, but expecting rationality from Karands is irrational all by itself."
    Garion quickly surveyed the clearing. The wooden temple was constructed of half-rotten logs, sagging badly at one end and surmounted along its ridgepole by a line of mossy skulls staring out vacantly. The ground before the building was hard-packed dirt, and there was a smoky firepit not far from the drummers.
    "Try not to get into that smoke," Silk cautioned in a whisper. "You might start to see all sorts of peculiar things if you inhale too much of it."
    Garion nodded and looked around. "Are we all ready?" he asked in a low voice.
    They nodded.
    "All right then." He spurred Chretienne into the clearing. "Throw down your weapons!" he shouted at the startled Karands.
    Instead of obeying, they dropped their clubs and seized up a variety of axes, spears, and swords, shrieking their defiance.
    "You see?" Silk said.
    Garion clenched his teeth and charged, brandishing his sword. Even as he thundered toward the fur-clad men, he saw four others come bursting out of the temple. Even with these reinforcements, however, the men on foot were no match for Garion and his mounted companions. Two of the howling Karands fell beneath Iron-grip's sword on Garion's first charge, and the one who tried to thrust at his back with a broad-bladed spear fell in a heap as Durnik brained him with his axe. Sadi caught a sword thrust with a flick of his cloak and then, with an almost delicate motion, dipped his poisoned dagger into the swordsman's throat. Using his heavy staff like a club, Toth battered two men to the ground, the sound of his blows punctuated by the snapping of bones. Their howls of frenzy turned to groans of pain as they fell. Silk launched himself from his saddle, rolled with the skill of an acrobat, and neatly ripped open one fanatic with one of his daggers while simultaneously plunging the other into the chest of a fat man who was clumsily trying to wield an axe. Chretienne whirled so quickly that Garion was almost thrown from his saddle as the big stallion trampled a Karand into the earth with his steel-shod hooves.
    The lone remaining fanatic stood in the doorway of the crude temple. He was much older than his companions, and his face had been tattooed into a grotesque mask. His only weapon was a skull-surmounted staff, and he was brandishing it at them even as he shrieked an incantation. His words broke off suddenly, however, as Velvet hurled one of her knives at him with a smooth underhand cast. The wizard gaped down in amazement at the hilt of her knife protruding from his chest. Then he slowly toppled over backward.
    There was a brief silence, punctuated only by the groans of the two men Toth had crippled. And then a harsh scream came from the temple -a woman's scream.
    Garion jumped from his saddle, stepped over the body in the doorway, and looked into the large, smoky room.
    A half-naked woman lay on the crude altar against the far wall. She had been bound to it in a spread-eagle position and she was partially covered by a filthy blanket. Her features were distorted, and her belly grossly, impossibly distended. She screamed again and then spoke in gasps.
    "Nahaz! Magrash Klat Grichak ! Nahaz!"
    "I'll deal with this, Garion," Polgara said firmly from behind him. "Wait outside with the others."
    "Were there any others in there?" Silk asked him as he came out.
    "Just the woman. Aunt Pol's with her." Garion suddenly realized that he was shaking violently.
    "What was that language she was speaking?" Sadi asked, carefully cleaning his poisoned dagger.
    "The language of the demons," Belgarath replied."She was calling out to the father of her baby."
    "Nahaz?" Garion asked, his voice startled.
    "She thinks it was Nahaz," the old man said. "She could be wrong -or maybe not."
    From inside the temple the woman screamed again.
    "Is anybody hurt?" Durnik asked.
    "They are," Silk replied, pointing at the fallen Karands. Then he squatted and repeatedly plunged his daggers into the dirt to cleanse the blood off them.
    "Kheldar," Velvet said in a strangely weak voice," would you get my knife for me?"
    Garion looked at her and saw that her face was pale and that her hands were trembling slightly. He realized then that this self-possessed young woman was perhaps not quite so ruthless as he had thought.
    "Of course, Liselle," Silk replied in a neutral tone. The little man quite obviously also understood the cause of her