Enchanter's End Game

replied.
    "I think we could all drink to that." The Nadrak lifted his ale cup. "You find anything worth digging for up there in the mountains?"
    Silk shook his head. "A few traces is all. We've been working the streambeds for free gold. We don't have the equipment to drive shafts back into the rock."
    "You'll never get rich squatting beside a creek and sifting gravel."
    "We get by." Silk shrugged. "Someday maybe we'll hit a good pocket and we'll be able to pick up enough to buy some equipment."
    "And someday maybe it will rain beer, too."
    Silk laughed.
    "You ever thought about taking in another partner?"
    Silk squinted at the unshaven Nadrak. "Have you been up there before?" he asked.
    The Nadrak nodded. "Often enough to know that I don't like it - but I think I'd like a stint in the army a lot less."
    "Let's have another drink and talk about it," Silk suggested.
    Garion leaned back, putting his shoulders against the rough log wall. Nadraks didn't seem to be so bad, once you got past the crudity of their nature, They were a blunt-spoken people and a bit sour-faced, but they did not seem to have that icy animosity toward outsiders he had noted among the Murgos.
    He let his mind drift back to what the Nadrak had said about a queen. He quickly dismissed the notion that any of the queens staying at Riva might, under any circumstances, have assumed such authority. That left only Aunt Pol. The Nadrak's information could have been garbled a bit; but in Belgarath's absence, Aunt Pol might have taken charge of things - although that was not like her, at all. What could possibly have happened back there to force her to go to such extremes?
    As the afternoon wore on, more and more of the men in the tavern grew reeling drunk, and occasional fights broke out - although the fights usually consisted of shoving matches, since few in the room were sober enough to aim a good blow. Their companion drank steadily and eventually laid his head down on his arms and began to snore.
    "I think we've got just about everything we can use here," Belgarath suggested quietly. "Let's drift on out. From what our friend here says, I don't think it'd be a good idea to sleep in town."
    Silk nodded his agreement, and the three of them rose from the table and made their way through the crowd to the side door.
    "Did you want to pick up any supplies?" the little man asked.
    Belgarath shook his head. "I have a feeling that we want to get out of here as soon as possible."
    Silk gave him a quick look, and the three of them untied their horses, mounted and rode back out into the red dirt street. They moved at a walk to avoid arousing suspicion, but Garion could feel a sort of tense urgency to put this raw, mud-smeared village behind them. There was something threatening in the air, and the golden late afternoon sun seemed somehow shadowed, as if by an unseen cloud. As they were passing the last rickety house on the downhill edge of the village, they heard an alarmed shout from somewhere back near the center of town. Garion turned quickly and saw a party of perhaps twenty mounted men in red tunics plunging at a full gallop toward the tavern the three of them had just left. With a practiced skill, the scarlet-clad strangers swung down from their horses and immediately covered all the doors to cut off an escape for those inside.
    "Malloreans!" Belgarath snapped. "Make for the trees!" And he drove his heels into his horse's flanks.
    They galloped across the weedy, stump-cluttered clearing that surrounded the village, toward the edge of the forest and safety, but there was no outcry or pursuit. The tavern appeared to contain enough fish to fill the Mallorean net. From a safe vantage point beneath spreading tree limbs, Garion, Silk, and Belgarath watched as a disconsolate-looking string of Nadraks, chained together at the ankle, were led out of the tavern into the red dust of the street to stand under the watchful eyes of the Mallorean recruiters.
    "It looks like our friend has joined the army, after all," Silk observed.
    "Better him than us," Belgarath replied. "We might be just a little out of place in the middle of an Angarak horde." He squinted at the ruddy disk of the setting sun. "Let's move out. We've got a few hours before dark. It looks as if military service might be contagious in this vicinity, and I wouldn't want to catch it."

Chapter Three
    THE FOREST OF Nadrak was unlike the Arendish forest lying far to the south. The differences were subtle, and it