The Belgariad 5: Enchanter's End Game by David Eddings

athleticism of the Murgos. They were tall, but did not have the lean, whippetlike frames of the Nadraks. They were obviously strong, but they did not have the thick-waisted brute power of Thulls. There was about them, moreover, a kind of disdainful superiority when they looked at western Angaraks. They spoke to their prisoners in short, barking commands, and when they talked to each other, their dialect was so thick that it was nearly unintelligible. They wore mail shirts covered by coarse-woven red tunics. They did not ride their horses very well, Garion noted, and their curved swords and broad, round shields seemed to get in their way as they attempted to manage their reins.
    Garion carefully kept his head down to hide the fact that his features - even more than Silk's - were distinctly non-Angarak. The guards, however, paid little attention to the conscripts as individuals, but seemed rather to be more interested in them as numbers. They rode continually up and down the sweating column, counting bodies and referring to a document they carried with concerned, even worried expressions. Garion surmised that unpleasant things would happen if the numbers did not match when they reached Yar Nadrak.
    A faint, pale flicker in the underbrush some distance uphill from the trail caught Garion's eye, and he turned his head sharply in that direction. A large, silver-gray wolf was ghosting along just at the edge of the trees, his pace exactly matching theirs. Garion quickly lowered his head again, pretended to stumble, and fell heavily against Silk. "Grandfather's out there," he whispered.
    "Did you only just notice him?" Silk sounded surprised. "I've been watching him for the last hour or more."
    When the trail turned away from the river and entered the trees, Garion felt the tension building up in him. He could not be sure what Belgarath was going to do, but he knew that the concealment offered by the forest provided the opportunity for which his grandfather had doubtless been waiting. He tried to hide his growing nervousness as he walked along behind Silk, but the slightest sound in the woods around them made him start uncontrollably.
    The trail dipped down into a fair-sized clearing, surrounded on all sides by tall ferns, and the Mallorean guards halted the column to allow their prisoners to rest. Garion sank gratefully to the springy turf beside Silk. The effort of walking with one leg shackled to the long chain which bound the conscripts together was considerable, and he found that he was sweating profusely. "What's he waiting for?" he whispered to Silk.
    The rat-faced little man shrugged. "It's still a few hours until dark," he replied softly. "Maybe he wants to wait for that."
    Then, some distance up the trail, they heard the sound of singing. The song was ribald and badly out of tune, but the singer was quite obviously enjoying himself, and the slurring of the words as he drew closer indicated that he was more than a little drunk.
    The Malloreans grinned at each other. "Another patriot, perhaps," one of them smirked, "coming to enlist. Spread out, and we'll gather him up as soon as he comes into the clearing."
    The singing Nadrak rode into view on a large roan horse. He wore the usual dark, stained leather clothing, and a fur cap perched precariously on one side of his head. He had a scraggly black beard, and he carried a wineskin in one hand. He seemed to be swaying in his saddle as he rode, but something about his eyes showed him not to be quite so drunk as he appeared. Garion stared at him openly as he rode into the clearing with a string of mules behind him. It was Yarblek, the Nadrak merchant they had encountered on the South Caravan Route in Cthol Murgos.
    "Ho, there!" Yarblek greeted the Malloreans in a loud voice. "I see you've had good hunting. That's a healthy-looking bunch of recruits you've got there."
    "The hunting just got easier." One of the Malloreans grinned at him, pulling his horse across the trail to block