Enchanter's End Game

if we can get into a big enough patch of water."
    They moved on down the slope toward the bottom of the valley. The odor of standing water grew steadily stronger as they rode.
    "Just ahead." Garion pointed toward a patch of brown water intermittently visible among the white tree trunks.
    The swamp was quite extensive, a broad patch of reeking, oily water trapped in the bottom of a thickly grown basin. Dead trees thrust up out of the water, their leafless branches seeming almost tike clawed hands reaching up in mute supplication to the indifferent sky.
    Silk wrinkled his nose. "It stinks bad enough to hide our scent from almost anything," he said.
    "We'll see," Belgarath replied. "This would probably throw off an ordinary dog, but don't forget that the Hounds are really Grolims. They have the ability to reason, so they won't be relying on scent alone."
    They pushed their reluctant horses into the murky water and began to splash along, changing direction frequently, weaving in and out among the dead tree trunks. Their horses' hoofs stirred up rotting vegetation from the bottom, filling the air with an even more powerful stench.
    The sound of the baying Hounds drew closer, filled now with an excitement and a terrible hunger.
    "I think they've hit the edge of the swamp," Silk said, cocking his head to listen.
    There was a momentary bafflement in the baying behind them.
    "Grandfather!" Garion cried, reining in sharply.
    Directly before them, knee-deep in the brown water stood a slavering black dog-shape. It was enormous - fully as large as a horse, and its eyes actually burned with a malevolent green fire. Its front shoulders and chest were massive, and the fangs protruding from its mouth were at least a foot long, curving down cruelly and dripping foam.
    "We have you now," it growled, seeming almost to chew on the words as it twisted its muzzle into speech. The voice issuing from its mouth was a rasping, tearing sound.
    Silk's hand instantly flashed toward one of his hidden daggers.
    "Never mind," Belgarath told him. "It's only a projection - a shadow."
    "It can do that?" Silk's tone was startled.
    "I told you that they're Grolims."
    "We hunger," the fiery-eyed Hound rumbled. "I will return soon with my pack-mates, and we will feed on man-meat." Then the shape flickered and vanished.
    "They know where we are now." Silk's voice was alarmed. "You'd better do something, Belgarath. Can't you use sorcery?"
    "That would just pinpoint our location. There are other things out there as well as the Hounds."
    "I'd say we'll have to chance it. Let's worry about one thing at a time. Did you see those teeth?"
    "They're coming," Garion said tensely. From far back in the sway he could clearly hear the sound of splashing.
    "Do something, Belgarath!"
    The sky overhead had grown darker, and the air seemed suddenly oppressively heavy. From far off there was an angry mutter of thunder. A vast sigh seemed to pass through the forest.
    "Keep going," Belgarath said, and they splashed off through the slimy brown water toward the far side of the swamp. The aspen trees on the solid ground ahead of them quite suddenly turned the silvery undersides of their leaves upward, and it was almost as if a great, pale wave had shuddered through the forest.
    The Hounds were very close now, and their baying was triumphant as they plunged through the oily, reeking swamp.
    And then there was a brilliant blue-white flash, and a shattering clap of thunder. The sky ripped open above them. With a sound nearly as loud as the thunder, they were engulfed in a sudden deluge. The wind howled, ripping away the aspen leaves in great sheets and whirling them through the air. The rain drove horizontally before the sudden gale, churning the swamp to froth and obliterating everything more than a few feet away.
    "Did you do this?" Silk shouted at Belgarath.
    But Belgarath's stunned face clearly said that the storm was as much a surprise to him as to Silk. They both turned to look at Garion.
    "Did you do it?" Belgarath demanded.
    "He didn't. I did." The voice which came from Garion's mouth was not his. "I've labored too long at this to be thwarted by a pack of dogs."
    "I didn't hear a thing," Belgarath marveled, wiping at his streaming face. "Not even a whisper."
    "You were listening at the wrong time," the voice of Garion's inner companion replied. "I set it in motion early last spring. It's just now getting here."
    "You knew we'd need it?"
    "Obviously. Turn east. The Hounds