Pawn of Prophecy

we?"
    "Will my Lord require my aid in arming himself for the hunt?" Lady Merel asked in the stilted and insulting manner she always assumed with Barak.
    "That won't be necessary, Merel," Barak said.
    "I would not neglect any of my duties," she said.
    "Leave it alone, Merel," Barak said. "You've made your point."
    "Have I my Lord's permission then to withdraw?" she asked.
    "You have," he said shortly.
    "Perhaps you ladies would like to join me," Queen Islena said. "We'll cast auguries and see if we can predict the outcome of the hunt."
    Queen Porenn, who stood somewhat behind the Queen of Cherek, rolled her eyes upward in resignation.
    Queen Silar smiled at her.
    "Let's go then," Barak said. "The boars are waiting."
    "Sharpening their tusks, no doubt," Silk said.
    Barak led them down to the red door of the armory where they were joined by a grizzled man with enormously broad shoulders who wore a bullhide shirt with metal plates sewn on it.
    "This is Torvik," Barak introduced the grizzled man, "Anheg's chief huntsman. He knows every boar in the forest by his first name."
    "My Lord Barak is overkind," Torvik said, bowing.
    "How does one go about this hunting of boars, friend Torvik?" Durnik asked politely. "I've never done it before."
    "It's a simple thing," Torvik explained. "I take my huntsmen into the forest and we drive the beasts with noise and shouting. You and the other hunters wait for them with these." He gestured at a rack of stout, broad-headed boar spears. "When the boar sees you standing in his way, he charges you and tries to kill you with his tusks, but instead you kill him with your spear."
    "I see," Durnik said somewhat doubtfully. "It doesn't sound very complicated."
    "We wear mail shirts, Durnik," Barak said. "Our hunters are hardly ever injured seriously."
    " `Hardly ever' has an uncomfortable ring of frequency to it, Barak," Silk said, fingering a mail shirt hanging on a peg by the door.
    "No sport is very entertaining without a certain element of risk." Barak shrugged, hefting a boar spear.
    "Have you ever thought of throwing dice instead?" Silk asked.
    "Not with your dice, my friend." Barak laughed.
    They began pulling on mail shirts while Torvik's huntsmen carried several armloads of boar spears out to the sleighs waiting in the snowy courtyard of the palace.
    Garion found the mail shirt heavy and more than a little uncomfortable. The steel rings dug at his skin even through his heavy clothes, and every time he tried to shift his posture to relieve the pressure of one of them, a half dozen others bit at him. The air was very cold as they climbed into the sleighs, and the usual fur robes seemed hardly adequate.
    They drove through the narrow, twisting streets of Val Alorn toward the great west gate on the opposite side of the city from the harbor. The breath of the horses steamed in the icy air as they rode.
    The ragged old blind woman from the temple stepped from a doorway as they passed in the bright morning sun. "Hail, Lord Barak," she croaked. "Thy Doom is at hand. Thou shalt taste of it before this day's sun finds its bed."
    Without a word Barak rose in his sleigh, took up a boar spear and cast it with deadly accuracy full at the old woman.
    With surprising speed, the witch-woman swung her staff and knocked the spear aside in midair. "It will avail thee not to try to kill old Martje." She laughed scornfully. "Thy spear shall not find her, neither shall thy sword. Go thou, Barak. Thy Doom awaits thee." And then she turned toward the sleigh in which Garion sat beside the startled Durnik. "Hail, Lord of Lords," she intoned. "Thy peril this day shall be great, but thou shall survive it. And it is thy peril which shall reveal the mark of the beast which is the Doom of thy friend Barak." And then she bowed and scampered away before Barak could lay his hands on another spear.
    "What was that about, Garion?" Durnik asked, his eyes still surprised.
    "Barak says she's a crazy old blind woman," Garion said. "She stopped us when we arrived in Val Alorn after you and the others had already passed."
    "What was all that talk about Doom?" Durnik asked with a shudder.
    "I don't know," Garion said. "Barak wouldn't explain it."
    "It's a bad omen so early in the day," Durnik said. "These Chereks are a strange people."
    Garion nodded in agreement.
    Beyond the west gate of the city were open fields, sparkling white in the full glare of the morning sun. They crossed the fields toward the dark edge of the forest two