King of The Murgos

her.
    "Fairly routine." She shrugged, carefully coiling up her garrote.
    "You seem to be taking it quite calmly."
    "There's no particular reason to get excited, Kheldar. It's part of what we were trained to do, after all."
    He looked as if he were about to reply, but her matter-of-fact tone obviously baffled him.
    "Yes?" she asked.
    "Nothing."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    "Stop that!" Durnik said in disgust to Sadi, who was moving about the clearing casually sticking his small, poisoned dagger into each of the bodies littering the ground.
    "Just making sure, Goodman," Sadi replied coolly. "It's not prudent to leave an enemy behind you who might be feigning death." He moved over to the black-robed man whom Silk had felled. "What's this?" he said with some surprise. "This one's still alive." He reached down to push the dying man's hood aside to look at his face, then pulled back his hand with a sharp intake of his breath. "You'd better have a look at this one, Belgarath," he said.
    Belgarath crossed the clearing to the eunuch's side.
    "Doesn't that purple lining on the inside of his hood mean that he's a Grolim?" Sadi asked.
    Belgarath nodded bleakly. He bent and lightly touched the hilt of Silk's dagger that still protruded from the robed man's stomach. "He doesn't have much time left," he said. "Can you get him conscious enough to answer a few questions?"
    "I can try," Sadi told him. He went to his horse and took a vial of yellow liquid from his red case. "Could you get me a cup of water, Goodman?" he asked Durnik.
    The smith's face was disapproving, but he fetched a tin cup from one of the packs and filled it from one of their water bags.
    Sadi carefully measured a few drops of the yellow liquid into the cup, then swirled it around a few times. He knelt beside the dying man and almost tenderly lifted his head. "Here," he said gently, "drink this. It might make you feel better." He supported the Grolim's head on his arm and held the cup to his lips. Weakly, the stricken man drank, then lay back. After a moment, a serene smile came to his ashen face.
    "There, isn't that better?"
    "Much better," the dying man croaked.
    "That was quite a skirmish, wasn't it?"
    "We thought to surprise you," the Grolim admitted, "but we were the ones who got the surprise."
    "Your Master—what was his name again? I'm terrible at names."
    "Morgat," the Grolim supplied with a bemused look on his face, "Hierarch of Rak Cthan."
    "Oh, yes, now I remember. Anyway, Morgat should have given you more men to help you."
    "I hired the men myself—at Rak Cthaka. They told me that they were professionals, but—" He began to cough weakly.
    "Don't tire yourself," Sadi said. He paused. "What's Morgat's interest in us?" he asked.
    "He's acting on the instructions of Agachak," the Grolim replied, his voice little more than a whisper. "Agachak is not one to take chances, and some very serious accusations were made back at Rak Urga, I understand. Agachak has ordered that every Grolim priest of the purple seek you out."
    Sadi sighed. "It's more or less what I'd expected," he said mournfully. "People always seem to distrust me. Tell me, how did you ever manage to find us?"
    "It was Cthrag Yaska," the Grolim replied, his breathing growing even more labored. "Its accursed song rings across Cthol Murgos like a beacon, drawing every Grolim of the purple directly to you." The dying man drew in a deep breath, and his unfocused eyes suddenly became alert. "What was in that cup?" he demanded sharply. He pushed Sadi's arm away and tried to rise to a sitting position. A great gush of blood spurted from his mouth, and his eyes went blank. He shuddered once with a long, gurgling groan. Then he fell limply back.
    "Dead," Sadi noted clinically. "That's the problem with oret. It's a little hard on the heart, and this fellow wasn't in very good shape to begin with. I'm sorry, Belgarath, but it was the best I could do."
    "It was enough, Sadi," the old man replied bleakly. "Come with me, Garion," he said. "Let's go someplace quiet. You and I are going to have to have a long talk with the Orb."
    "Do you suppose that you could hold off on that, Belgarath?" Sadi asked, looking around nervously. "I think we want to get as far away from here as we can—almost immediately."
    "I hardly expect those fellows to come back, Sadi," Silk drawled.
    "That's not what concerns me, Kheldar. It's not prudent to remain in the vicinity of so many dead bodies in this forest, and we've lingered much too