King of The Murgos

asked Silk.
    "You don't want to know, my brother. You really don't want to know."
    The moon touched the grass waving in the night breeze with silvery light. The scents of the grassland around them came sharply to Garion's nostrils as his ten-fold heightened sense of smell tasted the odors of the night. He loped easily at the side of the great silvery wolf while the snowy owl ghosted through the moonlight above them. It was good again to run tirelessly with the wind ruffling his fur and his toenails digging into the damp turf as he and his grandfather wolf ranged out across the moon-silvered grass in the ancient rite of the hunt.
    They started a herd of deerlike creatures from their matted grass beds some leagues east of their camp and pursued them hard for miles across the rolling hills. Then, as the terrified animals plunged across a rain-swollen creek, an old buck, pushed to exhaustion, missed his footing, tumbled end over end, throwing up a great spray of water, and came to rest against the far bank, his antlers dug into the shore and his grotesquely twisted head proclaiming that his fall had snapped his neck.
    Without thinking, Garion leaped from the bank into the swollen creek, drove himself rapidly across, and caught the dead buck by the foreleg with his powerful jaws. Straining, he dragged the still-warm carcass up onto the bank before the rushing creek could sweep it away.
    Belgarath and Polgara, who had once again resumed their natural forms, came sauntering up the gravel bank as calmly as if they were on an evening stroll. "He's very good, isn't he?" Polgara observed.
    "Not bad," Belgarath admitted. Then he drew his knife from his belt and tested its edge with his thumb. "We'll dress the deer out," he said to her. "Why don't you go back and get Durnik and a pack horse?"
    "All right, father," she agreed, shimmered in the moonlight, and swooped away on silent wings.
    "You're going to need your hands, Garion," the old man said pointedly.
    "Oh," Garion said in the manner of wolves and rose from his haunches. "Sorry, Grandfather. I forgot." He changed back into his own form a little regretfully.
    There were some queer looks the following morning when Polgara served up steaks instead of porridge, but no one chose to say anything about the sudden change of diet.
    They rode on for the next two days, with the last wrack and tatter of the dying storm flowing overhead. About noon, they crested a long hill and saw before them the broad blue expanse of a great body of water.
    "Lake Cthaka," Urgit said. "Once we circle that, we're only two days from Rak Cthaka itself."
    "Sadi," Belgarath said, "have you got your map?"
    "Right here, Ancient One," the eunuch replied, reaching inside his robe.
    "Let's have a look." The old sorcerer swung down from his horse, took the parchment map from Sadi, and opened it. The wind coming off the lake rattled and fluttered it, threatening to tear it from his grasp. "Oh, stop that," he snapped irritably. Then he stared at the map for several long moments. "I think we're going to have to get off the road," he said finally. "The storm and the wreck delayed us, and we can't be absolutely certain how far the Malloreans have marched since we left Rak Urga. I don't want an army catching us with the lake at our backs. The Malloreans don't have any reason to be on the south side of the lake, so we'll go that way instead." He pointed at a large area on the map covered with a representation of trees. "We'll find out what the situation is in Rak Cthaka," he said, "and if we need to, we'll be able to get into the Great Southern Forest."
    "Belgarath," Durnik said urgently, pointing toward the north, "what's that?"
    A low smudge of black smoke was streaming low to the horizon in the stiff breeze.
    "Grass fire perhaps?" Sadi suggested.
    Belgarath began to swear. "No," he said shortly, "it's not the right color." He pulled the map open again. "There are some villages up there," he said. "I think it's one of them."
    "Malloreans!" Urgit gasped.
    "How could they have gotten this far west?" Silk asked.
    "Wait a minute," Garion said as a sudden thought came to him. He looked at Urgit. "Who wins when you fight the Malloreans in the mountains?" he asked.
    "We do, of course. We know how to use the mountains to our advantage."
    "But when you fight them on the plains, who wins?"
    "They do. They've got more people."
    "Then your armies are safe only as long as they stay in the mountains?"
    "I already said that,