Garion laughed again. "Yes, I suppose we did. All right, let's drop impossible. Would you accept extremely difficult instead?"
"Nothing that's really worthwhile should be easy, Belgarion. If it's easy, we don't value it; but I'm certain we'll be able to find an answer." He said it with such shining confidence in his face that for a moment Garion actually believed that the wild notion might indeed be feasible.
Then he looked out at the ugly columns of smoke again, and the hope died. "I suppose we should go back and let the others know what's happening out there," he said.
It was about noon when Beldin returned. "There's another detachment of troops about a mile ahead," he told Belgarath. "A dozen or so."
"Are they going toward that battle to the north?"
"No, I'd say this particular group is running away from it. They look as if they were fairly well mauled recently.''
"Could you tell which side they're on?"
"That doesn't really matter, Belgarath. A man gives up his allegiances when he deserts."
"Sometimes you're so clever you make me sick."
"Why don't you have Pol mix you up something to cure it?"
"How long has that been going on?" Velvet asked Polgara.
"Which was that, dear?"
"That constant wrangling between those two?"
Polgara closed her eyes and sighed. "You wouldn't believe it, Liselle. Sometimes I think it started at about the beginning of time.''
The soldiers they encountered were wary, even frightened. They stood their ground, however, with their hands on their weapons. Silk made a quick motion to Garion, and the two of them rode forward at an unthreatening walk.
"Good day, gentlemen," Silk greeted them conversationally. "What in the world is happening around here?’’
"You mean you haven't heard?" a wiry fellow with a bloody bandage around his head asked.
"I haven't found anybody to tell me," Silk replied. "What happened to all the people who used to live in this part of Peldane? We haven't seen a soul in the last four days."
"They all fled," the bandaged man told him. "The ones who were still alive did, at any rate."
"What were they fleeing from?"
"Zandramas," the fellow replied with a shudder. "Her army marched into Peldane about a month ago. We tried to stop them, but they had Grolims with them, and ordinary troops can't do much against Grolims."
"That's the truth, certainly. What's all that smoke up to the north?"
"There's a big battle going on." The soldier sat down on the ground and began to unwind the bloodstained bandage from around his head.
"It's not like any battle I've ever seen," another soldier supplied. His left arm was in a sling, and he looked as if he had just spent several days lying in the mud.
"I've been in a few wars, but nothing like this. When you're a soldier, you takes your chances—swords and arrows and spears and the like, y'know—but when they starts throwing horrors at me, I begins to feel it's time to find another line of work."
"Horrors?" Silk asked him.
"They's got demons with 'em, friend—both sides of 'em has—monstrous big demons with snaky arms and fangs and claws and suchlike."
"You're not serious!"
"I seen 'em with my own eyes. You ever seen a man get et alive? Makes your hair stand on end, it does."
"I don't quite follow this," Silk confessed. "Who's involved in this battle? I mean, ordinary armies don't keep tame demons with them to help with the fighting."
"That's the honest truth," the muddy man agreed. "A ordinary soldier's likely to leave the service if they expect him to march alongside something that looks at him as if he was something to eat. I never did get the straight of it, though." He looked at the man with the wounded head. "Did you ever find out who was fighting, Corporal?"
The corporal was wrapping a clean bandage around his head. "The captain told us before he got killed," he said.
"Maybe you'd better start at the beginning," Silk said. "I’m a little confused about this."
"Like I told you," the corporal said, "about a month ago the Darshivans and their Grolims invaded Peldane. Me and my men are in the Royal Army of Peldane, so we tried to hold them back. We slowed them some on the east bank of the Magan, but then the Grolims come at us, and we had to retreat. Then we heard that there was another army coming down out of the north—Karands and soldiers in armor and more Grolims. We figured that we was really in for it at that point, but as it turns out, this new army isn't connected with the Darshivans. It seems that it's working for some High Grolim from way off to the west. Well, this Grolim, he sets up along the coast and don't come inland at all. It's like he's waiting for something. We had our hands full with the Darshivans, so we wasn't too interested in what it was he was waiting for. We was doing a lot of what our officers called 'maneuvering'—which is officer talk for running away.''
"I take it that the Grolim finally decided to come inland after all," Silk observed.
"He surely did, friend. He surely did. It was just a few days ago when he struck inland just as straight as a tight string. Either he knew exactly where he was going or he was following something, I don't know exactly which. Anyway, the Darshivans, they stopped chasing us and rushed in to try to block his way, and that's when he called in the demons Vurk here was talking about. At first, the demons charged right through the Darshivans, but then their Grolims—or maybe it was Zandramas herself—they conjured up their demons, and that's when the big fight commenced. The demons, they went at each other for all they was worth and they trampled over anybody unlucky enough to get in the way. There we was, caught right in the middle of it all and getting trampled on by first one set of demons and then the other.
That's when me and Vurk and these others put our heads together and decided to find out what the weather's like in Gandahar."
"Hot this time of year," Silk told him.
"Not near as hot as it is north of here, friend. You ever see a demon breathe fire? I seen one of them armored soldiers get roasted alive right inside his chain mail. Then the demon picked him out of his armor piece by piece and ate him while he was still smoking." The corporal knotted the ends of his fresh bandage. "That ought to hold it," he said, rising to his feet again. He looked up into the noon sky, squinting slightly. "We can make some more miles before the sun goes down, Vurk," he said to his muddy friend. "Get the men ready to march. If that battle starts to spread out, we could get caught in the middle of it again, and none of us want that."