"Durnik," Polgara said quite calmly, "would you deal with it, please?"
"All right, Pol." The smith's face creased into an expression of extreme concentration, and he muttered a single word. The Ravener flickered and popped momentarily out of sight. When it reappeared, it was twenty yards away, beside a large tree. It struggled to lurch forward at them again, but seemed for some reason unable to move.
"That should hold it," Durnik said.
"What did you do?" Silk asked, peering at the struggling creature.
"I stuck its arm into that tree," Durnik replied. "If it wants to attack again, it's either going to have to bring the tree along or leave the arm behind. I didn't really hurt it, but it's going to take it a day or so to get its arm loose."
"Have you got a good hold on our shield, Pol?" Belgarath asked over his shoulder.
"Yes, father."
"Let's pick up the pace a trifle then. A bit of momentum won't hurt."
They moved, first at a trot and then at a loping canter. The shield Belgarath was projecting to the front ran ahead of them like a battering-ram, hurling the rag-clothed Raveners from their path.
"Where do they get those clothes?" Silk asked as he rode.
Toth made a kind of digging motion with one hand.
"He says that they take them off the bodies of the dead that they dig up," Durnik translated.
Silk shuddered. "That would explain the smell, then."
The next few days began to blur in Garion's mind. It was necessary to relieve Polgara and Belgarath every four hours or so, and the weight of the shield he and Durnik erected seemed to grow with each passing mile. The fog continued, making it impossible to see more than a hundred yards in any direction, and the twisted trees, with their semblance of human faces, emerged with a shocking suddenness out of that obscuring mist. Shapes, gray and emaciated, moved through that fog, and the mindless moaning came from all around them as they plunged through the ghoul-haunted wood.
Night was a time of dreadful terror as the Raveners gathered around the shield, clawing at it and moaning their hideous longing. Exhausted by his efforts of the day, Garion was forced to use every ounce of his will—not merely to hold the shield in place when his turn came to maintain it, but also to ward off sleep. Even more than the Raveners, sleep was the enemy. He forced himself to walk up and down. He pinched himself. He even went so far as to put a large pebble in his left boot in hopes that the discomfort would help to keep him awake. Once, all his devices failed, and his head began to sag slowly forward as sleep finally overcame him.
It was the putrid smell that jerked him awake. There, directly before him as his head came up, stood a Ravener. Its eyes were empty of all thought, its gaping mouth revealed broken, rotting teeth, and its black-nailed hands groped out—reaching for him. With a startled cry, he unleashed a heavy blow with his will, hurling the creature backward. Trembling violently, he re-established the barrier that had begun to falter.
Then, at last, they reached the southernmost fringe of the dreadful forest and rode out from under the twisted trees onto a fog-shrouded heath.
"Will they keep up the chase?" Durnik asked his giant friend. The smith's voice dropped from his lips with a great weariness.
Toth made a number of obscure gestures.
"What did he say?" Garion asked.
Durnik's face was bleak. "He says that for as long as the fog lasts, they probably won't give up. They don't like the sun, but the fog's hiding it, so—" He shrugged.
"We have to keep the shield up then, don't we?"
"I'm afraid so."
The heath across which they rode was a blasted, ugly place, covered with low thorn bushes and dotted with shallow tarns filled with rusty-looking water. The fog eddied and billowed, and always at the farthest edge of vision lurked the shadowy forms of the Raveners.
They rode on. Polgara and Belgarath took the burden of the shield, and Garion slumped in his saddle, trembling with exhaustion.
Then, very faintly, he caught the smell of salt brine.
"The sea!" Durnik exulted. "We've reached the sea."
"Now all we need is a boat," Silk reminded him.
Toth, however, pointed ahead confidently and made a curious gesture.
"He says that there's a ship waiting for us," Durnik told them.
"There is?" Silk seemed astonished. "How did he manage that?"
"I really don't know," Durnik replied. "He didn't say."
"Durnik," Silk said, "exactly how do you know what he's saying? Those gestures of his don't make much sense to me at all."
Durnik frowned. "I really don't know," he admitted. "I hadn't even thought about it. I just seem to know what he wants to say."
"Are you using sorcery?"
"No. Maybe it's because we've worked with each other a few times. That always seems to bring men closer together."
"I'll take your word for it."
They crested a moundlike hill to look down at a gravel beach where long rollers came in off the foggy sea to crash against the rounded pebbles and then slide back with a mournful hissing sound as the foam-flecked water slithered down the strand, only to pause and then crash back up again.
"I don't see your ship, Toth," Silk said almost accusingly. "Where is it?"
Toth pointed out into the fog.
"Really?" Silk's voice was skeptical.
The mute nodded.
The Raveners trailing behind grew more agitated as the company started down toward the beach. Their moans became more urgent, and they began to run back and forth along the crest of the hill, reaching out their clawed hands with a kind of desperate longing. They did not, however, pursue any farther.
"Is it my imagination, or does it seem that they're afraid of something?" Velvet suggested.
"They aren't coming down the hill," Durnik agreed. He turned to Toth. "Are they afraid?" he asked.
Toth nodded.
"I wonder what it is," Velvet said.
The giant made a motion with both hands.
"He says that it has to do with something being even more hungry than they are," Durnik said. "They're afraid of it."
"Sharks, maybe?" Silk suggested.
"No. It's the sea itself."
When they reached the gravel strand, they dismounted and stood in a weary little group at the water's edge. "Are you all right, father?" Polgara asked the old man, who was leaning against his saddle, staring out into the fog that lay thick and pale on the dark water.