Enchanter's End Game

your friends."
    Ce'Nedra gaped at her, her face suddenly very pale.
    "Why do you think we built these fortifications to begin with, Ce'Nedra? It was to provide us with some measure of protection."
    "I didn't know there were Murgos out there," the princess wailed.
    "Did you bother to find out?"
    The entire implication of what she had done quite suddenly came crashing in on Ce'Nedra. She began to tremble violently, and her shaking hand went to her mouth. It was her fault! No matter how she might twist and turn and try to evade the responsibility, her foolishness had nearly killed one of her dearest friends. Adara had almost paid with her life for a bit of childish thoughtlessness. Ce'Nedra buried her face in her hands in a sudden storm of weeping.
    Polgara let her cry for several moments, giving her ample time to accept her guilt; and when she finally spoke, there was no hint of forgiveness in her voice. "Tears won't wash out blood, Ce'Nedra," she said. "I thought I could at least begin to trust your judgment, but it appears that I was wrong. You may leave now. I don't believe I have anything more to say to you this evening."
    Sobbing, the princess fled.

Chapter Fourteen
    "IS THIS PLACE all like this?" King Anheg asked as the army trudged through one of the flat, gravel-strewn valleys with the bare, sun-baked mountains around it dancing in the shimmering heat. "I haven't seen a tree since we left the forts."
    "The country changes about twenty leagues out, your Majesty," Hettar replied quietly, lounging in his saddle as they rode in the blazing sunlight. "We start to hit trees when we begin coming down out of the uplands. They're a kind of low, scraggly spruce, but they break up the monotony a bit."
    The column behind them stretched out for miles, dwarfed into a thin line by the enormous emptiness and marked more by the cloud of yellow dust raised by thousands of feet than by the presence of men and horses. The Cherek ships, covered with canvas, jolted along over the rocky ground on their low, wheeled cradles, and the dust hung over them in the stifling heat like a gritty blanket.
    "I'd pay a lot for a breeze right now," Anheg said wistfully, wiping his face.
    "Just leave things the way they are, Anheg," Barak advised him. "It wouldn't take much to start a dust storm."
    "How much farther is it to the river?" King Rhodar asked plaintively, looking at the unchanging landscape. The heat was having a brutal effect on the corpulent monarch. His face was beet red, and he was soaked and dripping with sweat.
    "Still about forty leagues," Hettar replied.
    General Varana, mounted on a roan stallion, cantered back from the vanguard of the column. The general wore a short leather kilt and a plain breastplate and helmet bearing no marks of his rank. "The Mimbrate knights just flushed out another pocket of Murgos," he reported.
    "How many?" King Rhodar asked.
    "Twenty or so. Three or four got away, but the Algars are chasing them."
    "Shouldn't our patrols be farther out?" King Anheg fretted, mopping his face again. "Those ships don't look that much like wagons. I'd rather not have to fight my way down the River Mardu-if we ever get there."
    "I've got people moving around out there, Anheg," King Cho-Hag assured him.
    "Has anyone run across any Malloreans yet?" Anheg asked.
    "Not so far," Cho-Hag replied. "All we've seen so far are Thulls and Murgos."
    "It looks as if 'Zakath is holding firm at Thull Zelik," Varana added.
    "I wish I knew more about him," Rhodar said.
    "The Emperor's emissaries report that he's a very civilized man," Varana said. "Cultured, urbane, very polite."
    "I'm sure there's another side to him," Rhodar disagreed. "The Nadraks are terrified of him, and it takes a lot to frighten a Nadrak."
    "As long as he stays at Thull Zelik, I don't care what kind of man he is," Anheg declared.
    Colonel Brendig rode forward from the toiling column of infantry and wagons stretched out behind them. "King Fulrach asks that we halt the column for a rest period," he reported.
    "Again?" Anheg demanded irritably.
    "We've marched for two hours, your Majesty," Brendig pointed out. "Marching in all this heat and dust is very exhausting for infantry. The men won't be much good in a fight if they're all wrung out from walking."
    "Halt the column, Colonel," Polgara told the Sendarian baronet. "We can rely on Fulrach's judgment in these matters." She turned to the King of Cherek. "Stop being so peevish, Anheg," she chided him.
    "I'm being